Asexuality
Definition
Asexuality is a designation or self-designation for people who lack feelings of sexual attraction and/or sexual desire. There is debate as to whether this is a sexual dysfunction or an actual sexual orientation; furthermore, there is disagreement over the exact definition of the word. The term is also sometimes used as a gender identity by those who believe their lack of sexual attraction places them outside the standard definitions of gender. There has been little research done on asexuality, but those studies that have been conducted suggest that, if it is a sexual orientation, it is among the least common. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asexuality [Feb 2006]]
Sherlock Holmes and asexuality in fiction
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes is often regarded as another quintessentially asexual character. While his friend Doctor Watson is portrayed as charming and very much attracted to and, in the manner of a stereotypical Victorian gentleman, gallant towards various female characters, and indeed marries at least once, the detective dismisses dealings with women outside of his specific business as 'Your department, Watson' and even once sneeringly tells the doctor that 'the most winning woman' he ever knew committed infanticide for the insurance money. The story A Scandal in Bohemia (first published in the Strand Magazine in July 1891), however, introduces a female character whom Holmes admires excessively (she outwits him), and it opens with a frank explanation of the character's asexuality as it is seen by the narrator – as (almost) always, Doctor John Watson:
"To Sherlock Holmes she is always the woman. I have seldom heard him mention her under any other name. In his eyes she eclipses and predominates the whole of her sex. It was not that he felt any emotion akin to love for Irene Adler. All emotions, and that one particularly, were abhorrent to his cold, precise but admirably balanced mind. He was, I take it, the most perfect reasoning and observing machine that the world has seen, but as a lover he would have placed himself in a false position. He never spoke of the softer passions, save with a gibe and a sneer. They were admirable things for the observer – excellent for drawing the veil from men's motives and actions. But for the trained reasoner to admit such intrusions into his own delicate and finely adjusted temperament was to introduce a distracting factor which might throw a doubt upon all his mental results. Grit in a sensitive instrument, or a crack in one of his own high-power lenses, would not be more disturbing than a strong emotion in a nature such as his." --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asexuality#Asexuality_in_fiction [Aug 2006]
See also: Conan Doyle - fiction - literature - asexuality
Je suis frigide... pourquoi?/I Am Frigid...Why? (1972) - Max Pécas
Je suis frigide... pourquoi?/I Am Frigid...Why? (1972)
After Doris, the 18-year-old daughter of the gardener on the luxurious Chambon Estate, is raped by the Chambons 20-year-old son Eric, she is sent away to a boarding school to hush up the ensuing scandal. Although Doris enjoys a fling with a female classmate and falls for a young actor during her first visit to Paris, she is still unable to forget the traumatic event of her past. Soon she befriends an older woman who runs a high-end prostitution ring, and before long Doris is satisfying her kinky customers, one of whom turns out to be Eric's father, Monsieur Chambon, A confrontation with Eric is inevitable.
See also: Sandra Julien - Max Pécas
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