Introducing Asexuality, Unthinking Sex (original) (raw)
Related papers
Asexuality and Compulsory Sexuality
The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Sexuality Education, 2022
In her groundbreaking and educational popular nonfiction book ACE: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex, Angela Chen (2020) reflects on the importance of creating asexual representations and stories for asexual (ace) people by ace people. While on the one hand, she acknowledges the importance of educating allosexual (or non-asexual) people on asexuality, on the other, she anticipates the day when that will no longer be necessary, and when as aces “we will move closer to not feeling that any explanation is necessary” and “when aces reject the gaze that evaluates our identities so narrowly” (p. 84). The goal of this piece is to help bridge the gap between those two positions by moving closer toward that “feeling” of not needing “any explanation” for asexuality that Chen refers to. First, I examine in this entry definitions central to the lexicology of ace identities, paying particular attention to both ace and aromantic (aro) identities as well as to the significance of rethinking attraction. Next, I explore who asexuals are, drawing on prevalence rates and community composition. Finally, I explore the significance of compulsory sexuality and amatonormativity as conceptual frameworks. Knowledge of asexuality and aromanticism as well as compulsory sexuality, amatonormativity, and the dynamic possibilities of attraction are vital to sexuality education, which often neglects to include ace and aro related content both in schol- arship and pedagogical practice.
Understanding asexuality: A sociological review
Sociology Compass, 2024
Asexuality, a sexual identity that refers to those who experience low/no sexual attraction, has garnered increasing attention in recent years, yet its sociological exploration remains relatively nascent. This review article examines the burgeoning interdisciplinary field of asexuality studies through a sociological lens, examining asexual studies' conceptualizations, theoretical frameworks, and empirical contributions. First, I review how asexuality is defined and conceptualized in existing literature, highlighting diverse understandings and complexities surrounding this sexual orientation. I analyze the various conceptualizations of asexuality, ranging from the absence of sexual attraction to conceptualizations that emphasize the fluidity and spectrum of asexual identities. Next, I identify the subfields in sociology where asexuality studies is making or has the potential to make theoretical and empirical interventions. I examine how asexuality intersects with broader sociological themes such as gender, sexuality, identity, the family, intimacy, relationships, stigma, and community. Drawing on existing research, I examine how asexuality challenges normative assumptions about sexuality and how it contributes to ongoing conversations within sociology. Finally, I offer recommendations for how sociologists can approach the study of asexuality. I advocate for interdisciplinary collaboration, methodological pluralism, and intersectional analyses to capture the complexity and diversity of asexual experiences. Moreover, I emphasize the importance of centering asexual voices and perspectives in research, while also acknowledging the ethical considerations and challenges inherent in studying a marginalized and often misunderstood sexual orientation. Overall, this review provides a scoping overview of the sociology of asexuality, offering insights into its conceptualizations, theoretical implications, and avenues for future research.
Asexualities: Feminist and Queer Perspectives
In 1984, Gayle Rubin famously wrote, "The time has come to think about sex." 1 Indeed, that time has come, and it seems to have never left. Rubin was responding to the feminist sex wars and what she identifi ed as an incapacity of feminist theory and politics to adequately understand and challenge sexual oppression. Since-and partially in reaction to-the publication of this essay, feminist and queer scholars and activists have thought a great deal about sex, so much that whole fi elds have emerged (e.g., sexuality studies, lesbian and gay studies, and queer theory). These fi elds have produced expansive and expanding bodies of knowledge on sex, sexuality, and the intersections of both with multiple political and identity categoriesconversations that are robust and ongoing. To think about sex remains undoubtedly important. But now the time has come, we suggest, to also think about asexuality.
New Orientations: Asexuality and Its Implications for Theory and Practice
F e m i n i s t s t u d i e s , women's studies, gender studies, sexuality studies, gay and lesbian studies, queer studies, transgender studies . . . asexuality studies? Although asexuality may not necessarily belong to its own field of study (yet), and may not make an easy fit with any preexisting field of study, the emergence and proliferation of the asexual community pose interesting questions at the intersections of these fields that interrogate and analyze gender and sexuality. As we know, these fields are neither independent of one another nor are they easily conflated; and they are ever shifting, revising, expanding, subdividing, and branching off. Where, then, might we place the study of a "new," or at least newly enunciated, sexuality? How do we begin to analyze and contextualize a sexuality that by its very definition undermines perhaps the most fundamental assumption about human sexuality: that all people experience, or should experience, sexual desire?
Is Sex Dead? Towards a Radical Understanding of Asexuality
2021
Asexuality has been largely absent from sexual studies and theory up until now. Building upon queer negativity and psychoanalytic frameworks, this article aims to trace asexuality back to the earliest studies on sex, acknowledging sexuality's linearity and dependence on social and cultural factors. Exploring current debates around 'peak libido' and 'the decline in sexuality', I argue that asexuality can be understood as the next step in sexuality's unfolding. Such an understanding of asexuality not only enables us to rethink how we perceive relationships and intimacy today, but also to rewrite the definition of the word 'queer'.
This article explores the relationship between contemporary asexual lives and compulsory sexuality, or the privileging of sexuality and the marginalizing of nonsexuality. Drawing on 30 in-depth interviews, I identify four ways the asexually identified individuals in this study saw themselves as affected by compulsory sexuality: pathologization, isolation, unwanted sex and relationship conflict, and the denial of epistemic authority. I also identify five ways these asexually identified individuals disrupted compulsory sexuality: adopting a language of difference and a capacity to describe asexuality; deemphasizing the importance of sexuality in human life; developing new types of nonsexual relationships; constituting asexuality as a sexual orientation or identity; and engaging in community building and outreach. I argue that some of these practices offer only a limited disruption of compulsory sexuality, but some of these practices pose a radical challenge to sexual norms by calling into question the widespread assumption that sexuality is a necessary part of human flourishing.
Asexuality: From pathology to identity and beyond
Psychology and Sexuality, 2013
This article draws attention to the constitutive mechanisms of asexual identity. It identifies a shift in expert discourse: a move away from pathology towards recognition of asexual identity. While this discursive shift, propelled by recent research in psychology and sexology, could pave the way for the inclusion of asexuals in public culture, it also reaffirms dominant terms and formations pertaining to sexuality and intimacy. The article argues that the discursive formation of a new asexual identity takes place through a process of objectification and subjectification/subjection at the interface between expert disciplines and activism. The recognition of identity is constitutive of subjects that are particularly suitable for self-regulation within the parameters of (neo)liberal citizenship. Yet, at the same time, the discursive shift also makes room for critical intervention akin to queer critique of naturalised gender and sexuality norms. The recognition of asexual identity could serve to destabilise the sexual regime (of truth) that privileges sexual relationships against other affiliations and grants sexual-biological relationships a status as primary in the formation of family and kinship relations. The article concludes that asexual identity encourages us to imagine other pathways of affiliation and other concepts of personhood, beyond the tenets of liberal humanism – gesturing instead towards new configurations of the human and new meanings of sexual citizenship.
Some Thoughts on Asexuality as an Interdisciplinary Method
Psychology & Sexuality, 2013
In this short afterword, Ela Przybylo reflects on prevailing trends within asexuality studies, suggesting that consistent features are emerging within an otherwise diverse interdisciplinary field. It is increasingly possible to construe asexuality studies as what Bogaert (2012) calls ‘a new lens’, with important theoretical and methodological implications, which will be of potential utility to researchers working on a broad ar ray of issues relating to sexuality and society.
UNDOING THE BODY: ASEXUALITY AS A SUBVERSIVE MEANS TO RETHINK SEXUALITY
UNDOING THE BODY: ASEXUALITY AS A SUBVERSIVE MEANS TO RETHINK SEXUALITY, 2012
This study examines asexuality with its linguistic, philosophical, and social aspects. If one takes into consideration that sexual freedom movements have come a long way until now, one could easily notice that the acknowledgement and the social, academic consideration of asexuality is recent and has therefore occurred quite late in time. This study focuses on this delayed acceptance, and aims to provide a discussion about the construction of the sexual body through the asexual body. In my view, asexuality, with regard to Aristotle’s concept of negative potentiality, could set up a new viewpoint on the freedom of not-doing. In this regard, asexuality offers to linguistic, philosophy and social movements a chance to rethink negativity.