By Olly Bootle
At 21, Andy Holland is happy, easy-going and interested in the same things as most university students. With one notable exception: Holland is not attracted to women, or to men.
In fact, he has no desire to have sex. And in this, he is not as unusual as we might assume.
The first crush that Tessa Barratt had was on a Transformers toy called Rat Trap. "He was my first heart throb," she says. The shelves in her bedroom are lined with models of Transformers. Playing with them now, laughs as she admits, "I don't know how I fell in love with a rat."
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'It's part of society's rich tapestry of life' Barratt is now 22. But she's not that much closer to having what most people would consider a normal, loving relationship: she's still a virgin.
"It's hard to imagine what would push me to having sex. I'm not afraid of sex, it's just not something I want to do. That's probably why I delve into the world of science fiction and Transformers, where sex isn't an issue at all."
Barratt calls herself "asexual", and says she's very different to the many people who decide to abstain from sex for religious or moral reasons. "Celibacy is a choice, asexuality is an orientation. It's not something you choose to be, it's something you're born as."
It's not easy to understand someone who claims to feel no sexual attraction towards other people. For most of us, sex is part of what makes us tick and sexuality informs so many of our decisions.
As Barratt recognises: "Some people find the concept of asexuality incredibly difficult to grasp. They don't understand how you can be human and not want sex."
'I get told I'm repressed' And it all gets even harder to understand when you get on to the subject of masturbation. While filming a documentary for the BBC about asexuality, the first question I would be asked by "normal" people was: do asexuals masturbate? A lot of asexuals are annoyed by this apparently unnecessary intrusion into their private habits.
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