For the majority of people, sex is the most compelling thing in the world, for obvious "perpetuation of the species" reasons. Sex sells. Sex rules. Sex draws the eyes to this paragraph like a tractor beam, because the word "sex" is in it like a million times. But there are people out there with no interest in sex at all. They aren't sick, or drugged, or suffering from any sort of disorder; they're asexual. Cracked sat down with two of these people to learn a little bit more about what life is like when your anaconda don't want none, period.

6 Without Sex, Much of the World is Nonsense

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Even if you aren't having it, sex is a constant presence in most of our lives. You can't make a blockbuster movie without two attractive people at least pre-boning for the camera. And many of the ads we see on a given day use sex appeal to try to convince us their brand of liquor, car, or toilet sanitizer is the one we need. But roughly one percent of the population identifies as "asexual." These people are still capable of getting boners (or, for the ladies, wide-ons), but it's purely a mechanical thing. They don't experience arousal or sexual desire at the sight of other human beings. And as a result, a huge chunk of the human experience is shrieking lunacy for them:

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Julianna: "Yeah, media is weird and confusing. I mean, as I get older, I'm understanding on an intellectual level why advertising works like it does, but I still don't get how just showing a hot lady makes things sell. I think there's still a part of me that doesn't believe that the highly sexual world exists ... sometimes I'll be listening to a rap song and I'll realize oh wait, this isn't a joke or exaggeration, that is legitimately what the rapper wants to do to girls, ew."

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Or to whoever.

Now, asexual people are still perfectly capable of falling in love, so a well-written movie relationship is always compelling. But making a believable relationship requires a lot of time and build up, and that's really hard to do when you've got to fit in a dozen awesome fight scenes as well. It's much easier to simply stick two sexy people together on screen. Hollywood knows our brains will do the rest.

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"Clearly, these two people who barely know each other are destined to bone."

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This makes a lot of movie love stories boring and nonsensical to asexual viewers:

Andy: "I can (and like) watching emotional relationships build up in movies, and it is no problem if two lovers have sex ... However, if they just two sexy people hot for each other, and there is no real relationship behind, I find it very boring."

But the real awkwardness comes from misunderstandings around simple things like hickeys:

Julianna: "I once spent a day following a friend of mine around, telling him that if he needed a safe place to stay my house was open to him, because he had weird red marks on his neck and I thought he was being abused. He had to pull me aside and explain to me, an adult, what a hickey is, just so I would leave him alone."

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"Suddenly, I understood why someone would ever want to wear a turtleneck."

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If all of this is sounding a little crazy to you, well, that's another problem asexual people deal with every day. Sex, and the ability to find something "hot," is so central to most of our lives and worldviews that we can't conceive of another human being lacking that entirely. As a result ...