preoccupiedpepper:

vaspider:

holybikinisbatman:

lestermygaard:

excessively-english-little-b:

I just… wanna remind people that asexuality was classed as a mental disorder by the DSM all the way up until 2013…. Because I feel like people don’t know this or like to ignore it because it doesn’t fit into their “asexual people don’t face discrimination” rhetoric.

Asexuality was only removed from the DSM in 2013. Please, know this and remember it.

asexuality is STILL in the DSM they still have a disorder that’s literally the definition of asexuality called “hypoactive sexual desire disorder” which is what they’ve always classified asexuality as. they just added a clause that said “if the patient IDs as ace it’s fine” but it’s not like the general population knows what asexuality is and people want to complain about how visibility is such a high priority for us jesus christ

thats a very good point. i knew about that distinction, but it bears repeating for people that see this post and arent aware of it

And that’s why we need the queer community to be like ‘no really we exist and it isn’t hurtful it’s quite fine they belong here with us, the other queers, who were just de-pathologized.’ 

*bang gavel*

I was going to college and grad school when the fight over this diagnosis being included in the DSM-V was going on. 

If I remember correctly, the big push to keep it in the DSM came from the pharmaceutical companies who need this diagnosis to exist so that they can market a drug they are currently working on to treat “female sexual interest/arousal disorder”. 

This diagnosis is so fucked up. It not only pathologizes Asexuals, it also pathologizes non-asexual women for having less interest in sex than men. This disorder literally used to be called “Frigidity” and feminist psychologists had to fight like hell to get the DSM to clarify that simply having a lower sex drive than one’s husband was not sufficient for a diagnosis. 

The APA throws in that little disclaimer about being a “self-identified asexual” and the diagnostic criteria of distress, but they did the same thing before they removed homosexuality from the DSM. 

A lot of people think that psychologists stopped considering homosexuality a disorder in the 1970s, but that’s not entirely true. They kept it in the DSM with a slightly changed name and a criteria that the person experience distress about being gay. This was used to justify “reparative therapy” for decades. 

This diagnosis is just one part of the APA’s long history of pathologizing human sexuality, especially women’s sexuality. Women who deviate even slightly from the prescribed amount of sexual interest will find themselves labeled as either borderline or frigid.