Asexuality Top Ten
It's possible that I might have a hormonally related less-than-average sex drive, sure. I am one of the type of asexual people who doesn't recognize having a sex drive, though asexuals with libidos are just as common. But even people who have low sex drives are sometimes attracted to people, and just not really feeling like having sex isn't the same thing as being asexual. I probably *do* physically produce fewer "go get sex" hormones (though I don't consider it a "problem"), since I've gathered it's a little odd to pass your teens and twenties without having at least some sort of remote sexual interest. But I don't pretend to know the actual reason for my lack of interest in sex; all I know is that no physical exam I've ever had suggests I am sick because of any abnormal levels. Most people will agree when I say that sexual attraction is tied intimately with the human body's most important sexual organ: the mind.
When I see other people, I just don't experience any kind of sex-related attraction toward them. I've never met anyone who makes me want to get physically close with them, start a romance, or have sex. I like people based on how they interact with me and what we have in common, et cetera; I couldn't care less about what they look like. This does not mean I can't tell if someone is aesthetically pleasing; my eyes like some people more than others. But I honestly can't answer the question of whether someone is "hot" or not.
Some people suggest maybe I'm just a "late bloomer" and my hormones will eventually start making me think that way about people I like. Listen, I've been saying that I feel this way about other people since I was in high school, and if you'd like to do a little math to figure out how long it's been, I graduated from high school in 1996. I haven't made some kind of decision to never feel attraction, but when you notice patterns in how you feel, that's when you pick a label. Straight people don't have to "try out" sex with their own gender to make sure "straight" is the right label; I'm using "asexual" because it describes how I've always felt and how I feel now. If that changes--due to hormones or not--I'll change what I call myself. If it doesn't, I expect people to respect the current state of affairs and trust me that I don't get attracted to people.
It honestly doesn't mean that I'm sick, and asexuality is not about hormones, even if having a low sex drive can sometimes contribute to how a person deals with it. But many people like to treat this as a disease worthy of immediate hospitalization. "Oh God, you don't want sex? . . . get this girl an ambulance." Funny, another common response to "No, I don't get horny" is "are you human??" I guess if that's your criteria for humanity, I'm an alien.
In the asexual community, a very small minority is also intersex. Some intersex folks do produce hormones differently or don't produce certain hormones at all, and some could be said to have a "hormone disorder." However, this is a medical issue that most intersex folks who know their condition are already addressing however they and their medical professionals think appropriate. Obviously, different hormonal levels can affect people's interest in sex. However, it would be wrong to tell an asexual intersex person that the asexuality is only a "symptom" of the intersex variation. Everyone's likes and dislikes come about from some combination of biology/psychology and experience; it's not your job--or your right--to invalidate someone's sexual orientation because you prefer to write it off as a medical condition that should be fixed.
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