“Disrespect also can take the form of idealizing you and putting you on a pedestal as a perfect woman or goddess, perhaps treating you like a piece of fine china. The man who worships you in this way is not seeing you; he is seeing his fantasy, and when you fail to live up to that image he may turn nasty. So there may not be much difference between the man who talks down to you and the one who elevates you; both are displaying a failure to respect you as a real human being and bode ill.”

— Lundy Bancroft, Why Does He Do That?: Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men (via a-witches-brew)

You will die your father's son is now part of my vocabulary

This is a really good post, so I wanna start by saying that before continuing. I think a lot of women do confuse themselves for being 'frigid' or 'asexual' when they really are just in bad situations, put themselves through sex they don't really want, aren't in touch with their desires (possibly closeted!).

So, my question is... what if you haven't experienced any of these, have healthy hormonal levels, and still rarely experience sexual arousal? Like... what if you actually are frigid?

Most information about this ends up being one of a few things:

1. your hormones are out of whack
2. your boyfriend needs to do the dishes
3. you're a lesbian and you don't know it yet
4. stop being depressed
5. go to therapy to deal with sexual trauma
6. you need to improve your bodily self-image

And none of these really apply to me.

I've been trying to find resources for people like me, who don't have trauma around sex, who nevertheless find it really difficult to get aroused by anything. People who can enjoy masturbation, and do, but don't ever feel horny enough to be driven to masturbate. The few times I've been able to be aroused, the arousal goes away relatively quickly, regardless of whether I'm looking at arousing material or not. I have found basically no articles or research on this phenomenon.

I think there's just... not enough research on the variations of female sexuality, either. And it's very embarrassing to discuss problems like this, even pseudonymously like I'm doing here, let alone in detail to researchers. There's a difficult time finding language for these sorts of situations, because it all gets flattened under "oh, you just have a low libido!"

And that's not even taking into account rare scenarios, like the fact that SSRIs can apparently permanently decrease your sex drive. Or the intersection between autism in women and sexuality.

I think a lot of women with 'abnormal' sexual response like I have end up in the asexual community because it's relatively welcoming and open to discussing these aspects of sexuality or lack thereof. A lot of it is just virgin teens or closeted gay people. But a lot is also adult women, especially autistic women, trying to make sense of what they're like and how to accept themselves in a world where you get one of those stock 6 responses.

It ends up going off the rails a lot of time with concepts like the romantic/sexual split. But we really do need more research on healthy and 'unusual' female sexuality, especially at the margins. Want to end by thanking OP again, sorry for this derail.

Thanks for this contribution so true that female sexuality as a whole is very under-researched. Clearly, there's also a need for specialist therapy for women experiencing unique sexualities. Hope you're able to get guidance and insight

"I've been trying to find resources for people like me, who don't have trauma around sex"

I would argue that almost every woman (99%+) has some level of trauma around sex. Maybe a woman wasn't physically, herself, traumatized. But just the way that society treats teen girls is traumatising. The way that teen girls see adult women (and other teen girls tbh) over sexualized in an objectifying way in media, seeing that every day is traumatising. Hearing how teen boys talk about their female peers in highschool is traumatizing. Men cat calling you at 13 is traumatizing. Encountering religion as a teen girl is traumatizing. Being told not to walk around at night, not talk to strangers, cover up, and all other "self protection" strategies, suddenly learning that You Are At Risk, is traumatizing. Seeing teen boys allowed to come to school basically shirtless while you are villainized by all the adults around you for wearing a tank top is traumatizing.

Being forced out of your childhood and into "pseudo adulthood" at the age of 10 when you get a training bra will fuck you up.

Instead of going through natural sexual development, young girls are THRUST into viewing themselves and their peers as sexual beings at 15 while trying to finish a math test.

Even if someone thinks they're not traumatized, there's no way that a teen girl was exposed to NONE of these situations. Even if she doesn't directly remember it. These things being seen in the formative teenage years stick in DEEP.

There is a reason why women, on average, have a "lower libido" than men, and I do NOT believe it's "just biology." Not when we know that women can orgasm multiple times while men need downtime in between sessions. Sexual trauma is an EPIDEMIC among women.

Even if we try to study female sexuality, the results will be skewed because of this widespread trauma. There is not enough research on female sexuality, I agree. But there's also not enough research on just how fucking TRAUMATIZING it is to grow up as a teen girl under all of these misogynistic influences.

(To be clear I'm not trying to be rude to spiderfreedom or go "uhm AKCHUALLY" but just.. thoughts)