(no subject)

 So I have started up an RSS feed in a vain attempt to get a handle on keeping up with the blogs I follow. Yes, I am desperately uncool and behind the times. As usual, I have been trying and failing to avoid change. Go me. 

There was recently a new asexuality paper posted on mandrewliter's site. I have to say, it did not impress me. There were some serious methodological problems with their categorization, including the fact that a study ostensibly specifically designed to collect data on asexual people chose to employ measures of asexuality which completely failed to provide actual asexual options. For example, when collecting data on a "desire-based" scale of identifying asexual people, the authors chose to use a national survey which did not provide an option for asexual people (that is, there was no "I do not experience attraction to men or women" option) they used people who chose "not sure" and put them in the asexual category.

In fact, all of their measures of asexuality on this survey were overinclusive with respect to asexuality, which raises serious problems with their data. I understand that pre-existing national surveys are cheaper and easier to access for data on huge numbers of people, but when the questions on this survey give no meaningful measurement of the number of asexual people (which is not the same as the number of people who fall off the hetero/homo/bi spectrum), you need to work with a smaller sample and create your own survey which actually asks people relevant questions to determining sexuality. I'm not even going to go into discussing how asexuals with mismatched affectional orientations will often answer according to their affectional orientations on these things, because when there's no answer to fit you and you know exactly why, picking the closest answer is a bit better than "not sure." I'd argue that "Equally attracted to the same and opposite sex" is absolutely as "asexual" an answer as "not sure" is, and I've answered that way myself on similar surveys--I know very well what my attractional patterns, so saying that I am equally attracted to both makes a lot more sense to me than saying "not sure," especially when it's absolutely correct. I am equally sexually attracted to both sexes: not at all! 

When you don't offer answers that are correct on a survey to people, they will try to pick the closest possible thing. You cannot assume in this situation that "not sure" means anything even remotely close to "asexual." This is the big downside of mailed-in surveys with fixed answers: if you haven't asked the right questions, you're not going to get anything close to accurate data. And this entire paper is suffering from a great big case of wrong, wrong questions. 

Also not that impressed by "behavioral asexuality," which is functionally indistinguishable from celibacy and doesn't actually get at asexuality in any meaningful way (especially when you conflate, for example, asexual celibate people with involuntarily celibate people). There's too much crossover between sexually active asexual people and nonasexual celibate people for celibacy to be a useful measure of asexuality, IMO. Or sexual orientation in general. 

My own work is going okay, except that yesterday I managed an amazingly klutzy trip and flung my established crosses across the incubation room. Luckily it's a wee little room and only two of my six existing crosses broke, but I may just throw the remaining four out of my sample and focus on the crosses I will be setting up on Monday. Sigh. I really want the stocks for my other two populations so I can set them up and make them happy this coming week. 

Also, my boss just reminded me I could totally do Rally Obedience with Oliver. This might just be the thing to stave off my puppy cravings...