I received a few quick interview questions from someone at The Daily Mail today, mentioning without detail that they were doing “a piece” on me, so I answered the questions briefly. However, most of the article that got published a few hours later did not come from those questions. I had a few problems with the content as well.

You can read the Daily Mail article here:

“Asexual woman on how she never has, and never will, have sex.”

Problems with it:

1. That title: Very poorly written. Take out the appositive phrase “and never will,” and you have a sentence that says “Asexual woman on how she never has have sex.” In the title? Ouch.
2. Also the title: I have never stated that I “will never have sex.” I don’t think I will, because I don’t think I’ll ever be attracted to anyone that way, but I don’t make dogmatic statements like that.
3. Also the title again: On the page, the full title is “‘Men say I need a good raping’: Asexual woman, 35, on how she never has, and never will, have sex.” I’m very put off by their need to put the word “rape” in this title.
4. The photo: Grabbed from my Facebook photos without asking me to provide a photo or asking for the credit. The photo is of me in my bathing suit. It is nine years old. (It was featured on my Facebook because I was writing a novel even while on vacation. I guess they used it to get a good thumbnail for the views?)
5. I’m repeatedly referred to as “the blonde” which sounds weird to me.
6. A bunch of the quotes were mined from the Salon article published about me in 2005, a Huffington Post article, and one of my YouTube videos.
7. It contradicts itself by saying I started calling myself “nonsexual” at 15 (changing to “asexual” later when the community settled on the term), then later saying I called myself “asexual” at 15.
8. The statements about my family are false. My mom joked about how I’m probably a closet lesbian, because I cuddled with my girl friends in high school, and though she asked me to get a personal exam before going to college and asked the doctor about my lack of interest being a sign of pathology, she did not drag me around to doctors trying to see what was wrong with me.
9. I don’t have a degree in psychology. I have a degree in elementary education. I took enough classes in psych to have a minor, though.

Some of the quotes from me are just fine, and overall the article may be a little unfocused but still has some interesting stuff despite its inaccuracies and weird choices. Throughout this week I’ve been finding out I’m in the media without being told by the authors, though. I found this one when someone commented on my YouTube that they’d seen me in The Daily Mail and I had to Google it.