It may be relevant that asexuals started coming out after homosexuals did.
I don’t think asexuals were really in the closet until relatively recently. After all, many denominations of Christianity provide people with reasonably high status positions that require that the person abstain from sex. Even the denominations that don’t have monastic traditions wouldn’t look down on someone who abstains from sex. It wasn’t until the sexual liberation movement promulgated the idea that anyone who isn’t interested enough in sex is a prude and probably repressed that asexuality became something unacceptable.
I think it used to be more complicated than that, especially for men. My impression is that men who weren’t interested in sex were admired by some but considered abnormal by more people. Still, that’s just an impression.
The value of abstaining from sex in priestly situations is signalling of willpower and piety, one must be actively resisting temptation. As such someone with no sex drive wouldn’t get the same cache.
I don’t think asexuals were really in the closet until relatively recently. After all, many denominations of Christianity provide people with reasonably high status positions that require that the person abstain from sex. Even the denominations that don’t have monastic traditions wouldn’t look down on someone who abstains from sex. It wasn’t until the sexual liberation movement promulgated the idea that anyone who isn’t interested enough in sex is a prude and probably repressed that asexuality became something unacceptable.
I think it used to be more complicated than that, especially for men. My impression is that men who weren’t interested in sex were admired by some but considered abnormal by more people. Still, that’s just an impression.
The value of abstaining from sex in priestly situations is signalling of willpower and piety, one must be actively resisting temptation. As such someone with no sex drive wouldn’t get the same cache.
Not really, since outside observers can’t tell the two cases apart.