Asexuality, disorders and psychology
I’ve seen people question whether asexuality is a disorder (I’ve seen interest/arousal disorder and hypoactive sexual desire disorder commonly suggested) and I thought I’d debunk such claims using the DSM V itself and the American Psychiatric Association as well as bring up some problems in the psychological and psychiatric field with asexuality.
For those who may not know, the DSM V (The Diagnostic and Statistics Manual 5) is what is currently used to diagnose disorders. It is the newest and most up to date diagnostic manual.
First, let’s start with the definition of a Psychological Disorder, also called a Mental Disorder. It is defined as as:
“A mental disorder is a syndrome characterized by clinically significant disturbance in an individual’s cognition, emotion regulation, or behavior that reflects a dysfunction in the psychological, biological, or developmental processes underlying mental functioning. Mental disorders are usually associated with significant distress or disability in social, occupational, or other important activities. An expectable or culturally approved response to a common stressor or loss, such as the death of a loved one, is not a mental disorder. Socially deviant behavior (e.g., political, religious, or sexual) and conflicts that are primarily between the individual and society are not mental disorders unless the deviance or conflict results from a dysfunction in the individual, as described above” (American Psychiatric Association, 2013).
tl;dr the takeaway from this in relation to asexuality is that asexuality (or any sexuality) cannot be classified as a disorder without marked distress or disability.
Marked distress being present is the basis for many diagnoses.
But what about the disorders mentioned above?
As a matter of fact, these also require marked distress or disability. However, only one mentions asexuality. Let’s look at Female Sexual Interest/Arousal Disorder.
“For a diagnosis of female sexual interest/arousal disorder to be made, clinically significant distress must accompany symptoms in Criterion A. Distress may be experienced as a result of the lack of sexual interest/arousal or as a result of significant interference in a women’s life and well-being. If a lifelong lack of sexual desire is better explained by one’s self-identification as ‘asexual,’ then a diagnosis of female sexual interest/arousal disorder would not be made” (American Psychiatric Association, 2013).
It’s important to note that the diagnosis involves interest and arousal, but not attraction.
However, in Male Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder, asexuality isn’t mentioned at all. Does this mean they aren’t asexual or that it’s really a disorder? No, of course not. There is, of course, the need for marked distress and dysfunction.
But there’s still a problem with this. In western societies, men are often described as and are expected to be sexual and desire sex. For asexual men, this can obviously cause some marked distress if they don’t fit the definition of what society says they should be. A clinician not familiar with asexuality could make the mistake of diagnosing them with a disorder, creating a false positive.
To state that asexual women should not be diagnosed as with a disorder and ignore asexual men is unfair and rooted in faulty biases and prejudice.
When we say that asexuals face discrimination, this is part of it.
So here’s the tl;dr.
Is asexuality a disorder? No, it doesn’t fit the criteria. However, that doesn’t mean there aren’t problems to be addressed.
As for the impact that SSRIs have on sexual attraction, I’ve had many psychiatrists tell me that while they can lower libido they are not the cause of asexuality. If there are any psychiatrists or people studying psychiatry out there, I’d love your input on that.
