Apparently it is asexuality visibility week now, the one week of the year where us ace folks can be perceived. I'm someone who realized they were ace (specifically, sex-favourable and demisexual) at the beginning of the pandemic and since then have been thinking a lot about what asexuality is, what it means to be asexual, and in particular how to best explain it to people. Discourse in the ace community is actually pretty interesting with a lot of relevance to allosexuals as well (people who are not asexual, or allos for a short slang), providing what I've found to be a rich and nuanced discussion and vocabulary about how we relate to each other as human beings. So if you've always been interested in what asexuality is, or maybe you're not asexual but you have ace friends and you want to understand better where they're coming from, hopefully this very casual primer will help!
To situate myself really briefly though, I'm an Asian-American-Canadian who identifies as "boy-ish" and age-wise am closer to 40 than 35. I'm on the older side, it seems, and have sometimes been called an elder ace which honestly sounds and feels weird to me, but if that is the case I take that responsibility pretty seriously. Basically, I've seen some shit, and because of that I tend to be pretty open about terminology. I don't believe any label is fixed and immutable, and I live by the mantra of "a label is only good so much as it is useful for you." If a label doesn't work, ditch it. If you identify with the experience but feel like the label isn't really important to you, don't sweat it. I'm much more interested in giving people the ability to talk about their experiences rather than categorize people in some Great Chain of Sexuality with categories and sub-categories and sub-sub-categories. Life's too short for that.
Also, vocabulary is weird, you know? I don't claim to be some kind of expert or final authority, I'm just sharing my experience. That said, I will try to be as precise as possible with definitions when I can. I'll try to remind as much as possible that the words I define are coming from my own personal standpoint, so if you disagree, let me know; if you think I'm wrong, please tell me! But be polite about it; I promise I am approaching this subject in good faith and I hope the reader will afford me the same grace.
What is asexuality?
Asexuality, in the broadest sense, is a spectrum of human sexuality where people who lie within the spectrum either do not experience sexual attraction at all, experience sexual attraction rarely, or only in particular conditional situations.
Of course, all definitions are culturally contextual. It might actually be easier to define what asexuality is not rather than find a definition of what asexuality is. So, me, being a very loose-y goose-y person when it comes to what "qualifies" as asexual, I tend towards this as a defition of asexuality:
Sherronda J. Brown defines the cis-heteronormative allosexual experience as compulsory sexuality, "the idea that sex is universally desired as a feature of human nature, that we are essentially obligated to participate in sex at some point in life, and that there is something fundamentally wrong with anyone who does not want to - whether it be perceived as a defect of morality, psychology, or physiology."¹ If you experience sexuality outside of this framework of compulsory sexuality, then you might be asexual. Or you've had an asexual experience, and if you have enough of those experiences you might find it useful to work through the possibility of asexuality as part of your personal identity/narrative.
Why do I find this definition of "asexuality is anything that lies outside of the cis-heteronormative allosexual framework of compulsory sexuality" compelling and useful? Because there are "microlabels" within the asexual umbrella or spectrum such as demisexuality (experiencing sexual attraction only after a strong emotional connection is established) or greysexuality (experiencing sexual attraction rarely) that are often dismissed by far too many people both inside and outside of the queer community as "just looking for attention" (oh, the irony when a queer person accuses an ace person of this) or "not ace enough" when the experience of demisexuality or greysexuality absolutely impacts people in ways that alienate them from the broader cis-heteronormative society in negative and sometimes violent ways. Like I said, I am not a purist about labels; I do not think they are some intrinsic, unchangeable aspect of ourselves. I am more concerned with healing and liberation, and people who experience sexuality differently than what is considered "normal" are actively harmed. In my personal opinion, denying people the ability to define their own experiences, to access community, and to start the healing process just because they don't fit our narrow conceptions of sexuality and sexual experiences is priggish and harmful. But anyways, let's move on.
for now, we'll work with the first, more limited definition. It sounds simple enough, but I find a lot of people get tripped up on some of the words because our society which currently subscribes to the notion of compulsory sexuality does not really take the time to think deeply about what some of these words mean. In order for allosexuals to understand what asexuality is, we first need to consider the meaning of the word attraction.
What is attraction?
Listen. I understand that there is a bit of a catch-22 for an asexual to define what sexual attraction is. Believe me, there's plenty of memes circulating among aces trying to decipher it. But I have found that a solid, working definition of what attraction is can help both aces and allos figure out what asexuality (and conversely, allosexuality) is. So let's give it a shot.
In this particular context of asexuality/allosexuality, sexual attraction is an involuntary desire or inclination towards engaging with someone or someones in a sexual way.
Now forgive me for going a little ancient Greek philosopher here for a second. I promise this is important and will make sense.
The fact that sexual attraction is involuntary is important because if it was voluntary, this would imply that people who experience homosexual attraction can, in some way, control it, and that is not true (and believing it is voluntary is supremely harmful for those who experience homosexual attraction in a violently cis-heteronormative world).
This is more of my personal opinion, but I would also extend involuntary to beyond the concept that involuntary desire is something innate, something core to one's very being, indivisible from the person itself from their very moment of existence. Attraction can be fluid. Some people who have experienced sexual trauma find it incredibly difficult to experience sexual attraction even if they did before. Similarly, people may find a dramatic decrease in sexual attraction because of medication or some kind of body change in the hormones. Some people just ebb and flow when it comes to attraction. Does this count as asexuality? In my opinion, it very much does. I tend to go as inclusive as possible, but I know that might ruffle the feathers of some ace purists and to them I say, "well, you know, that's just like uh, your opinion, man." Anyway, moving on.
The fact that sexual attraction is an involuntary desire is important because I think there is such a thing as voluntary desire. Ace folks can voluntarily desire sex for many reasons. For example, an ace person may not necessarily experience an involuntary desire to have sex with a partner, but they may experience a voluntary desire for sex for reasons such as they enjoy the secondary benefits of intimacy with regards to sex, they enjoy pleasing their partner and are willing to engage in sex to do so, sex feels good physiologically, etc. The voluntary desire for sex does not mean the ace person is experiencing sexual attraction which is involuntary; they are experiencing voluntary sexual desire, and it is important to make this distinction between the two because a lot of acephobia conflates these two ideas as one in order to discount ace experiences, gaslight ace people out of defining their own experiences, and even justifying violence and coercion on ace people, a very real and awful thing that happens to many of them.
And finally, it is important that we define sexual attraction as an involuntary desire towards engaging with other people in a sexual way.
Okay, I hear some of you saying, "Duh, of course sexual attraction is about engaging in sex or relating to people in a sexual way. It's in the name." But I highlight this because our cis-heteronormative society of sexual compulsion conflates almost all forms of desire to relate to other people as sexual desire.
Other types of attraction
That's a pretty hot take I just threw out there, huh? And this is something that I think many allosexual people do not think about a lot. Of course we have some idea that there are other kinds of attraction and they are not always sexual, right? Yes, we have some sense that that must be true in some manner in a theoretical or abstract way, but in practice, many people do not believe it. Or, they don't act like it. There are plenty of jokes about a cis-heteronormative monogamous partnership is threatened by the fact that one partner might have friends of the opposite sex: "You versus the person they told you not to worry about." Or the cis-heteronormative belief that two people of the opposite sex can never be friends. Or take the pernicious emotional core that powers the concept of the "friendzone" -- that men befriend women primarily to have sexual relationships with them rather than platonic ones. Or two friends are particularly close so there must be some sexual tension. Two characters glance at each other in one scene in a TV show that launches a thousand slashfics.
All right. We're delving into some murky territory now and this is where I ask for grace from the reader if you've gotten this far. Now, this is not to criticize the desire of queer people to see themselves reflected in some way within the media they consume. I'm certainly not saying slashfics are acephobic. But it can be irritating for ace people to see two people depicted in a loving, emotionally bonded relationship that, in the canonical text, is not sexual, and then see their headcanon representation conflicting with the broader community consensus. Especially when it happens all the time. I'm not saying that slashfics need to stop, or people need to stop shipping people, but there is an underlying assumption in many slashfics and media consumers that if two characters are close, it is inevitable they will end up in a sexual relationship. In a reversal of the "and they were roommates" joke lampooning how many straight historians will bend over backwards to erase a queer relationship found in historical records, I know many ace people who whisper, "Why can't they be just roommates?" but feel like they cannot because of our culture that insists sex is compulsory. What many ace people desire are close emotional and even romantic bonds with others that do not assume there will also be a sexual component, and it can be alienating and depressing to find oneself awash in a world that seemingly tells you that you are childish or a prude or sick or worse for hoping for something otherwise. It can feel hopeless and like there is something about you that is deeply, fundamentally broken, and I hope every queer person, ace or not, can empathize with that feeling.
Again, I'm not saying the solution is for everyone to act asexual; I only ask for understanding from other queer folks when aces express frustration at how almost every close relationship between characters ends up sexualized by their various fandoms and communities. And I bring this up to show how for many, many people, it is considered the norm for people who are emotionally close or intimate in some way to be attracted to or desire a sexual relationship. It's the default. And that's what it means when we say that compulsory sexuality is the normative standard in our society. To not desire this makes you strange or weird or prudish or childish, when really it just means you want something different than the norm. There is no easy solution except for us to understand that all of us in the queer community are starved for representation. We're all in this together.
But let's bring us back to the idea that there are different kinds of attraction, sexual attraction being only one of them, and how there is a tendency in cis-heteronormative compulsory sexuality to conflate all kinds of attraction leading to sexual attraction. Among ace circles, I've noticed ace folks listing many kinds of attraction, such as:
- emotional attraction (the desire to connect with someone on an emotionally intimate level)
- platonic attraction (instead of crushes, ace people call folks they want to be friends with really badly "squishes" which is just fucking adorable)
- romantic attraction (let's put a pin in this one because the concept of romantic attraction is Very Complicated but it is important to separate it out from sexual attraction)
- aesthetic attraction (wow, they just look great!)
- sensual attraction (an involuntary desire to engage sensually and physically in some way, whether it be cuddles or kisses or something else, but not sex)
- intellectual attraction (an involuntary desire to engage intellectually with someone)
And of course there are many more forms of attraction! The idea is that all of these types of attractions are independent of each other, though they can also interact with each other in different ways. Most platonic attraction probably also comes along with an emotional attraction, but not necessarily! Romantic attraction does not have to come with aesthetic attraction (though our cis-heteronormative society insists it must). Intellectual attraction does not necessarily have to come with platonic attraction. And of course, none of these have to come with sexual attraction. Can they? Yes, but it must be understood that these attractions can come independent of any other attraction. Notice how particularly in cis-heteronormative compulsory sexuality, that is purportedly not possible! If you are in a sexually monogamous partnership, your partner experiencing one of these non-sexual attractions is often seen as a first step towards unfaithfulness in a sexual way. And this is what I mean when the framework of compulsory sexuality often conflates all forms of attraction as either sexual attraction in disguise or eventually leading to sexual attraction when this is simply not the case. And because of this assumption, cis-heteronormative compulsory sexuality often robs us of many fruitful relationships with other people in our communities as well as putting the undue and unrealistic burden on a single person to provide every single kind of attraction to their partner.
Understanding a more nuanced idea of attraction and desire -- both that (1) attraction and desire are not necessarily the same thing and (2) that there are more kinds of attraction than just sexual attraction -- can be very helpful and productive for allosexuals. Compulsory sexuality flattens so many potential beautiful relationships, and it often causes us to push for things we may not even want or desire which may result in us crossing boundaries we might not even have wanted to cross in the first place.
For example, part of my own experience growing up and being socialized as a man in our society and then discovering that I'm ace is realizing for myself the difference between all these attractions because I had for so long been taught to interpret all of these attractions as always sexual. It was a weird time trying to figure out that my desire to talk with someone for hours didn't mean I necessarily wanted to or was obligated to try to develop a sexual or romantic relationship with that person -- and it alleviated a lot of my anxiety in relating to other people when I stopped interpreting these attractions as just sexual attractions. I didn't even realize I was carrying all of that anxiety because of the fact that I was socialized as a man and therefore taught that I must have sexual desires that are uncontrollable and that the only thing men think about is sex. I assumed any anxiety and discomfort about this on my part was because there was something fundamentally broken in me as a person. I knew that I didn't have to make everything about sex on an intellectual level, but my mind often interpreted these deeply embedded physical signals and experiences as sexual because I had been taught that this was how it should be and punished for deviating from that idea.
It sounds wild and, honestly, it's still very embarrassing to admit this even now, but I want to be vulnerable here for a second to show how deeply fucked up we can become when raised in the framework of compulsory sexuality. The way we depict men in compulsory sexuality is a deeply dehumanizing way to think about oneself, and there is a very deep self-hatred and anxiety when we are forced to do so. It really helped me to understand what bell hooks meant when she wrote that the first victim of violence men are expected to enact under patriarchy is themselves.² Whether men are allosexual or asexual, this is one way that understanding this more nuanced framework of multiple attractions can help heal the wounds inflicted by a deeply oppressive and restricting social framework.
But understanding that our society conflates all of these attractions as sexual attraction is important for ace folks as well. I see too many ace people, especially young aces and those just figuring this out, doubt their own experiences because they experience any kind of attraction. Sure, I don't experience sexual attraction, but I really want to kiss this person, or I really want to be this person's friend, or I really want to be with this person forever and grow old together, or I really love talking with this person and feel so connected when we share ideas or understand each other, or I could stare at this person for hours they're so beautiful! So, am I really ace enough? Sometimes I see ace people online spiral into self-doubt and even self-loathing, and it breaks my heart.
Hopefully after I've written all this out, an ace person who is questioning their asexuality because they experienced some kind of attraction outside of sexual attraction can resoundedly tell themselves, yes, I am still ace. And maybe after I've written all this out, it sounds quite silly. Why would any of those other attractions necessarily lead to sexual attraction? But hopefully I have also laid out a case as to why people get so confused about themselves when growing up in a world built around compulsory sexuality. All of this is so hard to decipher when we are taught that there is only one way to exist as a human.
Finally, it is important to delineate the difference between romantic attraction and sexual attraction because aromantics exist! Aromantics are not the same thing as asexuals, but our society (and even our fellow members of the queer community) often lump the two groups together as "the same" even when they are definitely not and experience sexuality and romance in very different ways. I suspect part of it is because we both start with the letter "A" but it is also absolutely because our cis-heteronormative society insists that sex and romance are the same thing when they are not. Aromantic erasure is a very real thing, us aces are also guilty of it sometimes, and I want to take the time to point out that this is one of those reasons why aromantic erasure happens and that it is absolutely Not Okay.
A Recap
So! I hope this primer to be useful to the curious allosexual on what the heck this asexuality ruckus is! Asexuality is defined as someone who experiences little to no sexual attraction or experiences sexual attraction in limited, conditional situations. Sexual attraction refers to an involuntary desire to engage with another person or persons sexually. There are multiple types of attraction outside of sexual attraction, but our cis-heteronormative society based on a framework of compulsory sexuality often conflates all types of attraction with sexual attraction, and this greatly diminishes and flattens our ability to relate to others around us.
Our society is terrible at talking about how we relate to each other outside of anything within a very strict cis-heteronormative framework that elevates all human desire for intimacy as sexual intimacy, and understanding the asexual experience is key in liberating all of us from suffocating and oppressive frameworks that prevent us from relating to our fellow human beings in a beautiful and fulfilling spectrum of ways.
There is so much more to asexuality that I can talk about, such as the difference between attraction, desire, and libido, or the differences between sex-repulsed, sex-neutral, and sex-favourable aces, and oh my god I could write entire essays about how romance and romantic attraction is weird and hard to define and so culturally contextual it makes my head hurt sometimes, but I feel this a solid introduction to what asexuality is and why understanding asexuality matters, especially for allosexual people who are either curious about asexuality or have asexual friends that they want to try and understand.
If people want to know more, I'd be happy to write more, and if people disagree about something I wrote about, please let me know (and again, I ask for grace as we are all in this trying to figure it out together) but in the meantime I need to go make dinner for my son and finish today's chores. Until then, I wish my fellow aces a happy and safe asexuality awareness week!
References:
¹ Sherronda J. Brown, Refusing Compulsory Sexuality: A Black Asexual Lens on Our Sex-Obsessed Culture (North Atlantic Books, 2022).
² bell hooks, The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love (Washington Square Press, 2004).
I really want to highlight the point here about attraction being hugely multifaceted. It's super important to understanding both ace and aro people. You can be attracted to someone for a huge number of reasons, simultaneously or singularly!
These different kinds of attraction do not always imply others, and this is something that is deeply uncomfortable to a lot of allo people, because of the wrapping of something complex under "sexual attraction" as a label. Not wanting to have sex with someone is seen as insulting them specifically, and it also is seen as implying a lack of other kinds of attraction, which is not the case. I really want allosexual people to read the above post and so some reflection.
