Antisexualism

Antisexualism is a term that describes either,

• the views of someone who is antagonistic towards sexuality;
• or a movement against all forms of sexuality.

People involved in, and proponents of, the movement may be described as "antisexual". In pre-modern times, antisexualism was usually expressed in religious terms, but it now also occurs as a secular social reform agenda. Most antisexual people believe that sexuality is a kind of addiction resulting in both physical and social effects, that it disrupts relationships, and causes people to lie and cheat to achieve the pleasure of sexual gratification. An antisexual person who refuses to have sex is considered to be a celibate or an antisexual celibate, and is not necessarily asexual. Some antisexual people believe sexuality to be the cause of many of the world's problems.

Famous antisexualists

• John Harvey Kellogg, the inventor of cornflakes, was opposed to all forms of sexual activity, especially masturbation.
• Ann Lee, the founder of the Shakers, a radical Protestant sect that opposed procreation and all sexual activity.
• The Skoptzys, a radical sect of the Russian Orthodox church who practiced castration and breast mutilation on females. They opposed procreation for reasons similar to the Protestant Shaker movement.
• Some forms of early ascetic Gnosticism held all matter to be evil, and that unnecessary gratifications of the physical senses were to be avoided. Married couples were encouraged to be celibate (see Book of Thomas the Contender, Acts of Thomas; also Spiritual marriage).
• Origen and Boston Corbett were reported to have castrated themselves.

In fiction

• The Junior Anti-Sex League in George Orwell's dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four was a group of young adult Party members devoted to banning all sexual intercourse, and replacing its procreative functions with the use of artificial insemination (children would be raised in public institutions, rather than in individual families). Though the League was founded and countenanced by the all-powerful totalitarian Party, the Party leadership did not allow it to succeed in its goals. However, the existence of the League served as an important public reminder of the Party's disapproval of all attachments and activities which could diminish exclusive loyalty to the Party, and that everything other than "normal intercourse between man and wife, for the sole purpose of begetting children, and without physical pleasure on the part of the woman" was forbidden sexcrime which could be punished by death.

See also

• Asexuality
• Sexual abstinence
• Celibacy
• Erotophobia
• Erotophilia
• Sex-negativity
• Sex-positive
• Voluntary Human Extinction Movement

External links

• Antisexual Stronghold
  • Antisexual FAQ
• Antisexual Stronghold: Russian Community
  • Russian Antisexual FAQ