The common thread all asexual people have is that they don’t get sexually attracted to (or sexually inclined toward) other people. There are further subdivisions that describe the asexual experience in different ways, and sometimes they seem confusing outside asexual circles. All too often, asexual people hear “You can’t be asexual if you masturbate!” or “You can’t be asexual if you have a boyfriend!” or “What’s the point of saying you’re asexual if you have sex?” So this section should clarify how different types of asexual folks fit under the big asexual umbrella.
One distinction between types of asexual people is whether they are romantically attracted to others or desire romantic relationships. Asexual people who are romantically attracted to others are called, predictably, romantic asexual people.
Relationships do not have to include sex or sexual attraction to be categorized as romantic. Some asexual people do have the desire for partnered relationships that cannot be described as “just friendship,” though it’s a common misconception that all asexual people lack the capacity for romantic love. The opposite situation—sex or sexual attraction between people who are not in love—is universally acknowledged. Sex can even be great between people who aren’t in love! But love without sex (or the desire for it) is frequently called out as impossible, or at least unequal to “real” love.
“My romantic partner is also my best friend. I can’t point out any specific thing that makes our relationship romantic, but it definitely is.”
—REBECCA
We all understand, conceptually, that a positive emotion we call love can exist without sex or sexual attraction—familial love, friendly love, the deep and burning love for a good plate of mashed potatoes. But sometimes, when a person describes a romantic relationship existing without the sexual element, suddenly that person’s love is judged as puppy love, immature love, fairytale love, or something dysfunctional. People who love romantically without sexual attraction are often considered unqualified to describe their own feelings properly . . . as if the majority gets to be the authority on the minority’s emotions. But desire for sex does not define desire for romance, any more than love’s presence or absence defines whether sex happens.
Some asexual people, despite not feeling sexual attraction to their partners, nevertheless do want to have satisfying romantic relationships in which the partners can fulfill each other’s needs. People outside this equation do not get to say what feelings are possible for asexual people, nor do they define what needs must be mutually satisfied for the relationship to “count.” People who do experience sexual attraction can help spread understanding by acknowledging that no one is qualified to grant or deny legitimacy for another person’s relationship. Asexual and non-asexual people can coexist and respect each other’s way of life without making claims of exclusivity over whose relationships count.
Except for asexual people’s lack of sexual attraction to those they love, all their other feelings can be as varied and intense as those of anyone else. Love and sex do happen to be intertwined for a great many people, and since these experiences bounce off one another to enhance and affect the overall experience, it’s popularly believed that one is necessary for the other to work properly. This is not the case for everyone. Sex can and does happen without love and it is “real” sex, so why would love require sex to be desired or performed before it can be considered “real?”
“For some asexual people, the thought ‘I would like to have sex with that person’ could seem as random and unexpected as ‘I would like to paint that person blue, cover them with twigs, and dance around them in a circle all night.’”
—TOM, ASEXUALITY ARCHIVE
For many asexual people, expressing feelings of love and closeness through sex just doesn’t naturally occur to them, or sex doesn’t seem like it is intrinsically attached to love. They may seem like separate experiences. Many romantic asexual people have a difficult time realizing they are asexual if they have romantic interests. They may think they can’t be asexual because they still like people romantically, but don’t think of their crushes in a sexual manner. It can be alienating when crushes don’t follow the popular formula; many asexual adolescents even lie to their peers about finding people sexually attractive just to make their crushes sound more like their friends’.
For asexual people who experience it, romantic attraction is an independent experience from sexual attraction, which may look odd from an outside perspective. If it’s real and intense and compelling, then why doesn’t it inspire the feelings most people expect when they feel it themselves? Believing the love isn’t fully there unless sex is desired too is like believing a tailless dog is never happy based on the notion that all dogs wag their tails if they’re happy. For asexual people, sexual attraction is just not in the equation; like the tailless dog, it’s just not there to wag. Romantic attraction without sexual attraction is the way a romantic asexual person operates. And it’s every bit as compelling—and satisfying—when it happens.
Asexual people are the best judges of whether their relationships are romantic. Most would say a relationship becomes romantic when its participants cross a certain threshold of intimacy and access to each other’s lives. That threshold doesn’t have to be sexual. People in romantic relationships include their partners in exclusive experiences and offer each other private knowledge, and that comfort and trust does not become possible only between people who are also being intimate sexually.
“We receive messages everywhere that tell us sex and romance go hand in hand, and I’m sure they do for some people. However, this becomes problematic when this experience is perceived as ‘correct’ or ‘normal.’”
—AUDACIOUS ACE, ASEXUALITY UNABASHED
If relationship participants are having sex and they say they’re in love, a knee-jerk response of “no you’re not!” would be very rare indeed, not to mention rude. For relationship participants involving one or more asexual people, that same knee-jerk response is standard, and many people wouldn’t consider it rude. Asexual people hear this type of invalidation all the time; they are frequently expected to defend their relationships’ legitimacy and are regularly told their minds and hearts must not work right if their genitals don’t get involved.
Sexual attraction is not the only drive that motivates partner selection. Some assume that if an asexual person has no sexual attraction to potential partners, that person would be able to be romantically attracted to any person regardless of sex, gender, gender expression, personality, aesthetic, or physical trait. That doesn’t happen to be true. Aesthetic attraction exists, and some who experience no sexual attraction will still prefer partners they think are physically attractive. Many heterosexual people have a “type” of cross-gender partner they’re attracted to; even if a heterosexual man would normally say he’s attracted to “women,” it might be true that he is primarily attracted to only a subsection of women. Asexual people often have a type as well, which is sometimes dependent on gender or gender presentation.[1]
| Common Romantic Orientations | |
| Heteroromantic | Romantically attracted to cross-sex or cross-gender people |
| Homoromantic | Romantically attracted to same-sex or same-gender people |
| Biromantic or ambiromantic | Romantically attracted to more than one sex or gender. |
| Polyromantic | Romantically attracted to multiple sexes or genders but not all sexes and genders (note: this is not the same as being polyamorous) |
| Panromantic | Romantically attracted to people of all sexes and genders |
For example, an asexual heteroromantic woman is not sexually attracted to anyone, but is romantically attracted to men. An asexual polyromantic man is not sexually attracted to anyone, but may be romantically attracted to women, agender people, and non-binary people, but not men (for example).
Also, some may see gender as more of a personality trait than a physical aesthetic, so attraction experiences can be less inclusive than “I’m attracted to X gender.” Some may be attracted to those with a certain manifestation of femininity, masculinity, or androgyny or may prefer those who display a particular attitude when it appears within one gender but not within another (e.g., they may like aggressive women but not aggressive men or find graceful movements to be attractive in a man but have no reaction to similar gracefulness in a woman). Attraction is sometimes dependent on far more than a person’s body or physical aesthetic.
Some people are also unsure, or questioning, or fluid in their romantic orientation. These romantic orientations are not restricted to asexual people; people who experience sexual attraction also have romantic orientations, and their romantic orientations may or may not correspond to their sexual attractions.
Asexual folks may use broader terms like gay, straight, or queer instead of heteroromantic and the like; you might encounter people identifying as lesbian asexual or other terms that are traditionally associated with assumedly sexual relationships. They are often referring to romantic orientation when they do this, though sometimes they’re defining themselves as such based on the gender of a non-romantic partner (Non-romantic partner relationships will be discussed shortly.).
However, romantic attraction is not always simple considering there are more than two genders. Many people identify as non-binary genders; they don’t fit in male or female boxes. They may identify as a mixture of both, or as shifting between genders, having no gender, or having a neutral gender. Those who don’t identify as women or as men may use terms like agender, gender neutral, neutrois, bigender, androgynous, non-binary, genderqueer, gender variant, gender fluid, gender questioning, without gender, or third gender (These will not be discussed in detail in this book, but it should be noted that some asexual people also have one of these non-binary gender identities.). As you might imagine, non-binary people may find the above romantic orientation terms especially unhelpful or inaccurate.
Instead of describing romantic attraction in terms of whether the desired partner is the same or different from one’s own gender, some folks find it more useful to choose a term that describes their desired partner without describing themselves. While the more typical romantic orientations in the chart on the previous page are the ones you’ll hear most in asexual communities, you may also see these (especially among non-binary or non-cisgender populations) to describe romantic attraction:
| Additional Romantic Orientations | |
| Androromantic | Attracted to masculinity, men, or male-identifying/presenting people |
| Gyneromantic | Attracted to femininity, women, or female-identifying/presenting people |
| Skolioromantic or ambiromantic | Attracted to androgyny, non-binary, or androgynous-identifying/presenting people |
| Pomoromantic | Attracted to people, but do not consider it important to label or categorize their attractions (pomo—comes from postmodern) |
| Lithromantic | Attracted to people, but do not want that attraction reciprocated |
| Sapioromantic | Attracted to people based on intelligence |
To be clear, people identifying as androromantic may be expressing that they are attracted to cis men and trans men and/or to masculinity and those who are masculine, while people identifying as gyneromantic may be expressing that they are attracted to cis women and trans women and/or to femininity and those who are feminine. And some might use these terms combined to express more specific attractions or broader attractions.
There is also a term for being attracted to transgender people, and that is transromantic. However, it is not a term that is to be used by cisgender people who are attracted to transgender people; only trans people who find themselves primarily attracted to other trans people may use this term. However, even within trans spaces, it’s often considered problematic; it suggests an inability to feel attraction to someone unless they’re trans, and while some trans people would rather only date someone else who’s trans, that’s not the same thing as who one finds attractive. Binary trans people generally expect and definitely deserve to be regarded as the gender they identify as, not an alternate version of that gender—meaning if someone is attracted to trans women, there’s no need to specify beyond saying they’re attracted to women. The term transromantic is very rarely used, but it does exist.
And finally, some asexual people are romantically attracted to one or more genders but do not pursue relationships because they believe the sexual needs are likely to be too mismatched and they don’t believe it’s worth the time and trouble to make it work.
But what about people who aren’t attracted to anyone romantically?
People who are not romantically attracted to others are called aromantic. They may stay single or pursue non-romantic partnerships of some kind; romantic partnerships aren’t the only kind of committed relationship.
Aromantic folks are fairly common in asexual communities. While some romantic asexual people describe the interest in romance as a drive in and of itself—like a sex drive, a romantic drive can cause unattached people to wish for romantic partners and they may be romantically attracted to others—aromantic people don’t experience this. People who identify as aromantic might describe themselves in one of the following ways:
Asexual people aren’t the only orientation that can be aromantic; any sexual orientation might be romantically attracted to no one, and those who do pursue sexual relationships without romantic attraction are often shamed for it, so non-asexual aromantic folks face invisibility as well. Some people with perspectives along aromantic lines may prefer to identify as one of the gray areas of romantic orientation (discussed later in this chapter).
Many aromantic people grow up completely perplexed by what they are supposed to feel when their peers ask them, “So who do you like?” They may have been confused about how a crush was different from liking someone as a friend or may have felt compelled to make up crushes to avoid being left out, but just couldn’t imagine what they’d want with a significant other. And as adults, they find that these partnerships are central to their peers’ lives, and they may feel confused about how to pursue their futures without being constantly expected to want a mate. They may assume they want a romantic relationship because everyone suggests it’s part of being happy, but then try dating and find they have nothing other than friendly feelings for their partners, leaving them in the dark as to what romance is supposed to feel like.
Some aromantic folks get all the social and emotional satisfaction they want from family and friendly relationships. Some simply have very little need for social or emotional interaction and would prefer to be alone most of the time. And then some have very close partnerships that seem closer than ordinary friendships, and they may include some aspects of physical and emotional intimacy and/or commitment, but there are differences in how they describe their partners if they have them. Aromantic relationships can include the following:
“When it comes to platonic relationships, we have . . . ‘friendship.’ And that’s really pretty much it. Sure, you can modify it: ‘best friends,’ ‘childhood friends,’ etc., but we still expect that one word to cover a huge spectrum of relationships. A ‘friend’ can refer to anything from someone you like to chat with a bit at lunch to someone you would like to spend the rest of your life with, would trust with your life.”
—MARY KAME GINOZA, NEXT STEP: CAKE
This does not imply that an aromantic partnership is necessarily less intense or less important than a romantic partnership—only that it is not what the members of the partnership define as romantic. What makes a relationship romantic is sometimes a heated discussion, but it becomes even more complicated when the prospects of sexual attraction and/or sexual encounters are removed from consideration.
“I don’t particularly care who else someone I’m close friends with spends time with or whether they’re dating someone. Exclusivity and monogamy are things I do not understand very well in a gut sense, and I don’t really want either of them in any relationship for myself. That said—I recently walked away from a friendship with a person I cared very much about (and continue to care a lot about) because my emotional needs were not being met, largely because she didn’t seem to think my company was worth seeking out. I do need to feel like a relationship has a similar level of affection on both ends to feel comfortable.”
—SCIATRIX, WRITING FROM FACTOR X
Plenty of nonsexual and non-romantic types of attraction exist, including aesthetic, sensual, intellectual, and various kinds of emotional attraction. These can crop up independently of each other or in association with other kinds of attraction, and these elements can be intense, deep, and multifaceted. The prevailing cultural narrative tends to define all loving relationships as either sexual/romantic relationships, familial relationships, or friendships, but these distinctions are grossly oversimplified.
Friendships are often assumed less serious, less involved, and less important than any relationship that involves sex and/or romance. The word just appears in front of friends for that very reason. If people didn’t believe sexual relationships automatically rank higher than nonsexual ones, the phrase more than friends wouldn’t be so common. People wouldn’t refer to friendships as arrangements in which “there’s nothing between us.” In reality, friendships can be among the deepest relationships people have—and that goes for everyone, not just aromantic people.
Some aromantic folks date—and that might sound like a contradiction, but romance isn’t the only type of serious and committed relationship a person might want to form. Some seek devoted companions of a non-romantic type and may even want to raise children or cohabitate with a platonic partner. And many aromantic people don’t have a partner even though they may have very close friendships. Some are perpetually single and happy that way.
The relationship descriptor queerplatonic gets a lot of mileage among aromantic asexual people, though anyone of any sexual or romantic orientation could have a queerplatonic relationship. Queerplatonic relationships are those that consist of dedicated, long-term partnership between the participants. The feelings between the partners are not romantic, but are still very powerful, and different in strength or type from what is usually reserved to describe typical friends.
The word queerplatonic is sometimes controversial because some say there is nothing “queer” about essentially having a best friend, but people in queerplatonic relationships may not feel comfortable describing their partnership as friendship, and their lifestyle is often mistaken for romantic from the outside. It is a platonic relationship, but it is “queered” in some way—not friends, not romantic partners, but something else. Sometimes these partnerships focus on the partners’ shared goals or compatibility in areas of their lives not related to emotional attraction. A relationship shouldn’t be assigned a romantic status if the participants say it is not romantic, even if it looks indistinguishable from romance when outside the equation.
Queerplatonic relationships tend to be misinterpreted as evidence of heterosexuality if they happen between cross-gender partners, and they tend to be misinterpreted as evidence of homosexuality if they happen between same-gender partners. But even if participants in a queerplatonic relationship want to live together permanently and even raise children or run a business or complete a goal together, that does not mean they are in a romantic relationship. It also does not tend to happen between most best-friend partnerships in Western society. It may be difficult for people who don’t have close non-romantic relationships to understand if they happen to be content with the labels friend and best friend for their important non-familial/non-romantic relationships, but many people do feel this label describes something they previously did not have words for.
But is it possible to be somewhere in the middle here?
“I tend to see the kinds of emotions I have as combining traits from both friendship and romantic models, which is why I usually use queerplatonic relationship and related terminology. I have listened to people describe relationships with similar levels of feeling to mine as either friendships or romantic relationships, and I really have a hard time figuring out where the distinction is. I also have a hard time figuring out where attraction comes into it, because for me it’s a matter of strength of feeling, not type of feeling.”
—SCIATRIX, WRITING FROM FACTOR X
Gray areas of romantic experience exist, and there is terminology for those folks if they decide they want to label it. Some people describe themselves as grayromantic—they’re between romantic and aromantic. They experience romantic attraction much less often, to a lower degree, or under different circumstances than most people, having much in common with aromantic asexual people except that romantic attraction does happen for them once in a while. They may describe their grayromantic identity along with another one of the previously mentioned descriptors, such as gray-panromantic or gray-androromantic.
There are also demiromantic people. Demiromantic refers to a person who sometimes develops romantic attraction toward someone after becoming familiar with and emotionally fond of that person. Though some say that’s how romance works for everyone, demiromantic people don’t get crushes on strangers or people they don’t know well—or they may describe it as never experiencing romantic attraction based on immediately apparent aspects of a person—and they may identify as demiromantic if it’s very rare that they find someone romantically attractive.
These gray areas are not a uniquely asexual experience; grayromantic and demiromantic people may or may not experience sexual attraction in normative ways, but find their romantic experiences to be somewhere between aromantic and romantic. It’s up to the gray-area folks to determine whether these terms are appropriate or useful for their relationships.
| In a survey of 3,436 self-identified asexual-spectrum people administered on the Internet in September–October 2011, respondents answered “What is your romantic orientation?” in the following ways:[2] | |
| I am romantically attracted to men | 43.8% |
| I am romantically attracted to women | 32.2% |
| I am romantically attracted to non-binary gender identified people | 21.1% |
| My romantic orientation is fluid | 20.7% |
| I am unsure at this time | 20.2% |
| I am romantically attracted to no one (aromantic) | 18.2% |
| I am demi-romantic | 12.1% |
| I am gray-romantic | 10.6% |
| Other | 6.8% |
| There is no difference between romantic and non romantic attraction to me | 6.2% |
* Participants were allowed to choose more than one answer.
Some people aren’t sure how to describe their romantic orientation, or they reject the idea of specifically defining their attraction patterns, don’t find any of the existing definitions useful in describing their feelings, or don’t know whether they have a preferred gender or set of genders. A variety of creative ways exist to express this ambiguity. Terms that have been seen in asexual, aromantic, and questioning circles include WTFromantic, quoiromantic, ambiguously romantic, and Schromantic (describing romanticism in terms of Schrödinger’s cat[3] as having the possibility of being romantic and aromantic at the same time).
To sum up, many asexual people experience nonsexual forms of attraction toward others. Asexual folks of all stripes should be able to use the phrase significant other without being told that their relationships are, for all intents and purposes, not significant enough. Aromantic asexual people should not be assumed to be single and looking or assumed resigned to single life due to failure to find a partner; many really enjoy being single and wouldn’t have it any other way. Sexual orientation and romantic orientation are two different concepts.
Most openly asexual people are frequently asked to disclose explicit information about self-stimulation, often by strangers. Whether asexual people masturbate is a topic of much concern and curiosity.
The answer is that some asexual people do and some don’t. Some have a sex drive and some don’t. Some use toys and some don’t. Some might even fantasize about certain experiences, while some don’t.
If this sounds confusing, the main issue to remember is that sexual arousal, sex drive, and sexual attraction are different things.[4] Sexual arousal suggests a physiological response; sex drive suggests a desire to respond to arousal or a desire to pursue sex; and sexual attraction suggests an experience of finding someone sexually appealing.
Asexual people are defined as asexual because other people aren’t sexually attractive in their minds (or the possibility of sex with other people isn’t particularly compelling). That does not mean that their genitals must be incapable of arousal; it does not mean they’re necessarily unable to enjoy genital stimulation; it does not mean sex could not be physically pleasurable to them if they consented to have it. Plenty of asexual people do consider any kind of genital stimulation to be “sexual,” but some asexual people make no such connection, and some understand it as a type of sexual behavior despite its being partnerless.
The same way a gay man might in some cases enjoy a sexual favor from a woman without therefore being attracted to that woman, an asexual person might enjoy a masturbatory or sexual experience—provided other factors do not repulse the person. Some asexual people enjoy the stimulation. Enjoying genital stimulation is not connected to partnered sex in everyone’s mind. People of all orientations, genders, and ages may enjoy those experiences regardless of how they feel about sex.
In fact, a person doesn’t even have to know what sex is to enjoy masturbation; three-year-olds who masturbate are unlikely to be imagining naked partners when they touch themselves, yet many young children go through a self-stimulation phase once they’re out of diapers.[5] A child just knows they like how it feels. An adult will have much more context for what they’re doing and will have a more complicated set of reasons for doing it, but “because it feels good” is a very simple and completely valid reason to masturbate independently of any relationship with sex.
So the presence of a sex drive, or a libido, or a desire to self-stimulate, does not disqualify someone from being asexual.[6] People do not become a certain sexual orientation based on whether they’re masturbating, nor do detractors get to assign them an orientation because of misconceptions about what their behavior means. Some people who wonder whether they’re asexual may think the term doesn’t fit them if they desire masturbation or enjoy genital stimulation, but self-stimulation doesn’t “disqualify” them.
Many asexual people describe their masturbation differently from the way other people do, though; some think of it as part of a routine to relieve stress, or they do it during a certain time of the month or day when their arousability is high, or they do it because they like the endorphins. Some may feel a building need to masturbate if they don’t do it for a long time, while others do it when they feel like it but don’t process it as a need that has to be satisfied. Anyone may masturbate for these reasons as well.
Many asexual people who self-stimulate don’t feel that masturbation is related to sex. Some argue that masturbation by definition indicates a wish to have sex, but that’s not the case for everyone. Since asexual people aren’t generally inspired to masturbate by attraction to other people, the connection isn’t the same. Non-asexual people who masturbate may do so for some of the same reasons asexual people do, but they generally also still desire partnered sex; in other words, masturbation is separate from sex, and most people who do both wouldn’t stop doing one if they got “enough” of the other.
“I understand that many people think of masturbation as a ‘place holder’ for sex, but I also know people who enjoy having sex and also enjoy masturbating just because it is an enjoyable activity in its own right and not because they just don’t have sex readily available. Some asexual people fantasize while masturbating and others think about totally non-erotic things. Some people associate masturbating as a sex-drive-related release (and as an erotic behavior even though they aren’t sexually attracted to others) and others think of it more as an itch to be scratched without any particular positive or negative feelings about the act. Whether or not a person masturbates doesn’t change if they are sexually attracted to others or not.”
—DALLAS BRYSON, THE ASEXUAL SEXOLOGIST
And while some asexual people report having fantasies that assist their masturbation or enjoy using visual aids, many say they imagine situations they would not be comfortable with in real life or that they aren’t imagining the fantasy happening to themselves. They may fantasize about a physical sensation or a sensual act, and none of this necessarily indicates that they’re sexually attracted to people.
Many asexual people do describe having a low or nonexistent sex drive, though, and many don’t relate to the idea of needing release through orgasm or enjoying stimulation whatsoever. The ones who have an average or even high sex drive generally still don’t find themselves aroused because of attraction to someone else. Relatedly, genital reactions and arousal experiences are very common for the general population in explicitly nonsexual situations; for example, some people are embarrassed if they get an erection during a proctologist exam or when they’re nervous or for no reason at all, and they will assure you that no feeling of attraction inspired that reaction in them. It’s the same for asexual people who experience arousal; they may see or feel something that inspires the arousal, but the arousal does not indicate sexual attraction.
Some will argue that an asexual person who masturbates isn’t asexual because the proper term would be self-sexual or autosexual; it’s up to the individual what label is most appropriate, but autosexual generally describes behavior (referring to a person who prefers masturbation to partnered sex), which means an autosexual person could be any orientation. Again, behavior does not determine orientation.
“When it comes to having sex with a partner, I’m largely indifferent. I don’t actively seek it out. I’ve done it before and wasn’t all that impressed, but I wouldn’t necessarily be against doing it again in the right situation.”
—TOM, ASEXUALITY ARCHIVE
Some asexual people enjoy sexual activity. Some are indifferent or ambivalent toward sex. And some are repulsed by sex. Whether an asexual person likes sex or is willing to have sex varies quite a bit and asexual people who have sex are not less legitimately asexual.
Some asexual people who enjoy sexual activity are willing to engage in sex. And some asexual people who are indifferent or ambivalent toward sex are also willing to engage in it. Asexual people who are not repulsed by being in sexual situations often describe sex as a take-it-or-leave-it activity—one that is not necessary for intimacy. And even those who enjoy the actual act will often say their motivation for doing it is primarily or partially for the benefit of the partner(s) who may consider it necessary or compelling.[7] Satisfying a partner’s desire is far from the only reason an asexual person might have sex, but in many situations, sexual activity is largely influenced by the desires of an asexual person’s partner(s).
So when it comes to those asexual people who are willing to have sex, why do they bother calling themselves asexual? If they’re having partnered sex, what makes them still want to describe themselves with a label that supposedly implies otherwise?
Again, orientation is not the same thing as behavior. There are asexual people who have lots of sex and asexual people who have no sex and asexual people in between, but they don’t become more or less asexual through their sexual experiences any more than a heterosexual person has to start identifying as bisexual or homosexual if they have a same-sex sexual experience.
The labels we choose tend to have various reasons behind them, but asexual people aren’t the only types of people who are sometimes willing to have sex without sexual attraction. Some asexual people simply enjoy giving their partners something they like or they may appreciate that it’s an expression of intimacy. They may value the closeness sex brings to their relationship or they may be curious about the experience and aren’t so put off by it that they’re unwilling to try. They may also enjoy the physical act itself in a sensual way, or they may want to have sex for procreation. Plenty of people who aren’t asexual might relate to having sex for these reasons too.
All that said, it’s much more common for an asexual person to be totally unwilling or reluctant to have sex. Relationships can still succeed even if a person can’t or won’t have sex; after all, plenty of people who aren’t asexual have reasons they can’t or won’t have sex (disability or health conditions that prevent it, for instance). Though it is sometimes a hurdle, there is no hard and fast rule that relationships must include sex to become long term or to sustain sufficient intimacy.
For the majority of repulsed or reluctant asexual people, it’s only the idea or experience of personally being in a sexual situation that seems unappealing; some of this group will be sickened by images of sex like pornography, love scenes, or explicit public displays of affection, but nearly all are supportive of others’ wish to have sex as long as they themselves do not have to be involved. In other words, being a repulsed asexual person is not defined as thinking sex is a disgusting concept in general, and it’s not about thinking sex is evil, wrong, or destructive (This response exists too, but it is not definitive of sex-repulsed asexuality.).
| In a survey of 3,436 self-identified asexual-spectrum people administered on the Internet in September–October 2011, respondents offered the following attitudes toward the idea or experience of having sex:[8] | |
| I am completely repulsed by the idea of (myself) having sex | 17.0% |
| I am somewhat repulsed by the idea of (myself) having sex | 40.1% |
| I am indifferent to the idea of (myself) having sex | 35.7% |
| I would not be willing to have sex | 26.0% |
| I would be willing to compromise and have occasional sex (in a relationship) | 35.9% |
| I would be willing to compromise and have regular sex (in a relationship) | 17.0% |
| I enjoy having sex | 6.9% |
* Participants were allowed to choose more than one answer.
So why won’t a self-described repulsed asexual person be “open-minded” enough to just try sex?
Many non-asexual people aren’t willing to try sex with someone they’re not at all attracted to, and this is usually considered reasonable. And yet, suddenly when it’s asexual people in question, they are often considered unreasonable for saying no for the same reason. Asexual people shouldn’t be expected to experiment with sex “just to make sure,” because asexuality only means they are not sexually attracted to others. Calling oneself asexual does not mean they know without trying that it’s impossible for them to enjoy a sex act, but enjoying a sex act would not make them stop being asexual.
Imagine the case of a heterosexual man who is not attracted to other men in the least. He can know he has no attraction to men without trying to have sex with them because his feelings of disinterest or repulsion are very likely to prevent him from enjoying the experience. He does not feel he needs to have sex with a man to prove he is not attracted to men or to be sure that he wouldn’t enjoy it. He is trusted, without trying it, to understand, express, and live according to his own feelings. And he is not accused of being close-minded due to unwillingness to try sex with a man, nor is he frequently told by mainstream voices what great gay sex he is missing.
Repulsed asexual people should be similarly respected. It’s not helpful to teach them they should be indifferent enough to ignore their own feelings. Asexual people aren’t a special category of people who will benefit from being badgered into trying sex against their inclinations. Some people are repulsed at the idea of having sex with someone who isn’t attractive to them, and when a person is asexual, no one is sexually attractive. It’s just the way they are.
“I like touching people. Platonically, mostly. I like holding hands, and I like hugging, and I like cuddling, and I like sitting back-to-back, and I like sitting next to people so that our knees touch, and lots and lots of other things. I call the inclination to touch people ‘sensual attraction’ even though there are bunches of other senses, because ‘physical attraction’ tends to make people think of lust. And it is a lust! Just not a sex-related one, which is the connotation most people have with lust when not given context.”
—ANONYMOUS, ASEXUAL TUMBLR USER
Moving away from specifically sexual activity: what about cuddling, spooning, kissing, or sensual touch? As previously stated, asexual people are as varied as the rest of the population in their answers to whether they will accept and enjoy these experiences. Many people who may not enjoy or desire sex still like physical closeness; they may experience sensual attraction to others and enjoy touching, but that experience does not inspire sexual attraction (For non-asexual people, sensual enjoyment and sensual attraction can of course be experienced in addition to sexual attraction, but it can happen independently of it too, just like romantic attraction can.).
People who like intimate closeness may like to snuggle, hug, lie together, or give/get massages or other kinds of nonsexual touch, and some asexual people enjoy those activities. Also, what constitutes “sexual” is not always the same from partnership to partnership. There are plenty of asexual people who enjoy kissing and feel satisfied with the sensual aspect of it but don’t experience a sexual attraction toward the partner they’re kissing. It can be confusing and frustrating when partners who have different needs may believe “one thing leads to another,” but it’s just not true in all cases. It should be noted that an asexual person is not being a tease through the act of enjoying kissing or sensual touch but not wanting to include sex.
Sometimes asexual people are comfortable as members of polyamorous groups and other non-monogamies. There are many reasons why an asexual person might find a non-monogamous relationship more comfortable than having a single monogamous partner:
These situations are not without challenges, though; communication can clear up most misconceptions, but some polyamorous or non-monogamous asexual people may find themselves less included or regarded as outsiders if they don’t participate in sex, sexual activities, or sexual discussions; they may also face misconceptions from outside if they or their partner(s) are interpreted as “cheating.” Negotiating non-monogamies can be difficult in a culture that expects relationships to be primarily built around sex and exclusive pair-bonding, but sometimes opening a relationship to include additional people or allowing partners to pursue connections outside the relationship can solve problems for the right people.
Can asexual people have kinks? Enjoy fetish play? Engage in BDSM (Bondage/Discipline, Dominance/submission, Sadism/masochism)? Yes, they can. These practices and proclivities are often explicitly associated with sex, but they can still be enjoyed by asexual people in ways that do not require sexual attraction or sexual activity. Sometimes a focus on sex—perceived or actual—in BDSM spaces discourages some kinky asexual people from exploring or continuing to engage, but there are also plenty of opportunities that are safe and satisfying for asexual people, even if they’re sex-repulsed.
In fact, many non-asexual people who engage in BDSM derive at least some of their pleasure from experiences that don’t depend on sexual attraction to any partner(s). Asexual people can enjoy kinky experiences or have fetishes independently of attraction, and in some cases independently of sexual arousal or interest, though what constitutes “sexual” in these contexts is sometimes not as clear-cut as one might expect.
For instance, in Dominance/submission, the thrill of Dominance or being submissive doesn’t necessarily depend on any genital contact, and it is not necessarily a sexual experience or sexual reward. So much of BDSM and fetish play depends on the psychological stimulation participants enjoy through consensual roleplay acts; sex or sexual attraction doesn’t necessarily even have to be a part of the experience to be satisfying. When an object or body part or roleplay experience is focused upon in a fetish situation, sometimes sexual attraction to the partner(s) is absent or unnecessary—and sometimes these experiences can be partnerless.
Even people who are not asexual can sometimes prefer or enjoy BDSM that is carried out with a partner they are not sexually attracted to, and it’s relatively common for a session to be carried out completely focused on an experience other than sex, especially in the case of some professional BDSM practitioners who choose not to have sex with clients. Giving or receiving pain, bondage, or service in these consensual situations is sometimes described as an endorphin rush that kinky folks enjoy on a level that can be comparable to sex, and some rewards are delivered verbally through interactive scenes, consensually invoked verbal punishment, or spoken praise/positive reinforcement.
In some relationships that involve kink, far more than just a couple of partners are involved. Sometimes groups are formed around an activity or group of activities that all the members enjoy, carry out, and play together, and this is enjoyable even between members of the group who are not sexually attracted to or involved with each other. An asexual kinkster might participate in this sort of atmosphere and be quite satisfied. Despite what some people think, BDSM and kink communities are famously respectful of consensual and respectful interaction (even if the practices and scenes themselves might involve punishment and pain). If an asexual person wants a kinky experience without sexual contact, they will usually be able to find something satisfying for them.
Asexual people with kinks and fetishes are a minority, but acknowledging them is important, and their interests don’t invalidate other aspects of their identities. One of the most well-known fetish communities online—fetlife.com—has some sections devoted to asexual folks (“Asexual & Kinky”[9]; “Ace BDSM Support Group”[10]), and an asexuality-specific fetish organization exists.[11]
For some people, sexual identity is very simple. It fits easily into well-defined boxes and is uncomplicated to describe. It’s not confusing to experience because it’s common and well represented in culture and media; it’s easy to know what to look for in a partner; the sorts of sexual experiences the relationship might lead to are predictable.
But gray areas exist in all orientations. Let’s use heterosexuality for an example: say there’s a person who identifies as heterosexual. This person spends most of their life only attracted to cross-gender partners . . . but once or twice has feelings for a member of the same gender. Depending on that person’s related feelings about homosexuality and availability of potential partners, they may or may not experiment. Are they therefore considered bisexual from then on?
No, a person in this situation does not have to identify as bisexual—not unless they think that’s an important label to use. If those people find it useful to say “I lean hetero, but am technically bi,” great. If they find that “straight” fits their attraction experiences more accurately, they should be able to identify as straight without argument. Sexual orientation is a continuum, and the labels people choose are useful only to the extent that they communicate what we want them to.
So, just like with our heterosexual person who has had one or two same-sex attractions, it stands to reason that some people fall very close to asexual but occasionally do experience sexual attraction. Some might say those people are “just picky.” Some might say they “just have low sex drive” (even though some people on the asexual spectrum have average or high sex drives). But feeling attracted to others isn’t something a person chooses, and many people in this middle-ground situation have a lot more in common with asexual people than with non-asexual people because they expect their relationships to not involve sexual attraction, don’t see their relationships in terms of sexual attraction, or very rarely experience sexual attraction.
Some people who have this in-between experience call themselves graysexual, gray-asexual, gray-A, gray ace, or grace, short for the gray area of sexuality. It’s a useful term for those who primarily live with an asexual experience of the world, but can experience or have experienced sexual attraction and wish to acknowledge it in their label. This is not the same as “grayromantic”; this refers to one’s sexual orientation, not one’s romantic orientation.
“Because I am gray-A, I am between orientations. That does not necessarily mean that I am fluidly switching back and forth between allosexual and asexual. It’s not like I’m asexual for most of the year, but the local ace meetup group has to avoid scheduling on full moons. No, I feel sort-of-not-really-attracted to people on a daily basis.”
—TRISTAN MILLER, THE ASEXUAL AGENDA
Just like with grayromanticism, graysexuality can be combined with another orientation descriptor. Some examples:
A graysexual heteroromantic person: Is rarely/occasionally sexually attracted to others and experiences cross-gender romantic attraction more typically.
An asexual grayromantic person: Is not sexually attracted to anyone but has an occasional/rare experience of being romantically attracted to others.
A graysexual homoromantic person: Is rarely/occasionally sexually attracted to others and is romantically attracted to others of the same gender.
A gray-pansexual aromantic person: Is rarely/occasionally sexually attracted to people of all genders but is never romantically attracted to anyone.
A gynesexual gray-biromantic person: Is sexually attracted to women and/or feminine-presenting people, and occasionally/rarely experiences romantic attraction toward more than one gender.
It can seem a little confusing with all the mix-and-match, but most people who use very specific terms like this are trying to talk about their attraction experiences in detail and figure out/discuss a pattern. People may use these words in academic or advanced-level sexuality contexts, but in casual conversation it’s more likely that a pansexual gray-homoromantic woman’s description of herself will sound more like “I think all genders are sexy, but I only seem to fall in love with other women, and it’s rare.” Most people in asexual communities don’t feel the need to be this specific about the “rules” of their attraction experiences, but the words are there for the people who want to have detailed discussions.
Graysexuality is an umbrella term. It can refer to many situations wherein a person is experiencing something that isn’t as consistent, as strong, as predictable, or as prevalent as most other people experience it. Graysexual folks won’t all describe their feelings the same way. Here are some descriptions graysexual people might use:
All of these are not-exactly-asexual ways of viewing other people, but are outside the widely accepted norms of non-asexual people.
Not everyone who is somewhere in the gray area feels like it needs a term; they may be fine with calling themselves picky or saying their sexual attraction is too weak for them to care much or that the kind of people they’re attracted to aren’t plentiful. But some may feel comfortable using the label as a way to explain the difference between what they’re feeling and how most others describe their attraction experience.
An anonymous gray-asexual panromantic person’s perspective on the gray areas:
“Imagine full sexuality as a glass of soda and asexuality as a glass of water. To the person with the water, it tastes like plain water, and they’re happy with that as long as soda-drinkers don’t insist they should like soda. Likewise, the people with various flavors of soda will be happy with them and be able to identify them as soda, even though some of them might be ‘mixed flavors’ of varying percentages that are hard to pick out. Some may even have some ice melted in them, but as long as it’s not much, well, it’s still a soda. But my case is like having a glass of water with a little bit of soda poured into it. When I taste it, I can’t really tell what’s off about it. It doesn’t seem like just water, but it’s definitely not a cup of soda. I might not even be able to identify the off taste as soda. Maybe it’s not! Sometimes I think I taste it more than others. But I’m not sure I like the taste of it. It’s confusing, and it might be easier if I just had a glass of plain water, but I don’t really have any control over that. But overall, I still feel like what I have is much more like water than soda, especially since I can’t always even identify the added ingredient as soda. So I’ll call it water. Just not plain water.”
We all know it’s possible for some people to be immediately sexually attracted to other people based on information gathered with one’s physical senses—without knowing anything about their personalities. It can be based on looks or voice or chemistry or charisma, and it’s known as a primary sexual attraction reaction. That person seems like a good sex partner, and there’s a physical and/or mental sexual reaction. It doesn’t mean one is necessarily realistically interested in sex with that person or is ready to run into the nearest closet for a quickie. It just means there is a reaction that is sexual—that a person can be seen in a sexual context even as a stranger.
Secondary sexual attraction is more gradual, though not inherently a “different kind” of sexual attraction—it just happens under different circumstances. A partner starts to seem sexually appealing only after an emotional bond develops (not necessarily love), based on qualities that can’t be perceived through immediate observation of the subject without interaction. This can happen in conjunction with primary sexual attraction, combining with it, enhancing it. But some people only experience that slow, less reactionary rise of interest—they never experience primary or immediate sexual attraction and can’t feel attraction to strangers or celebrities they don’t know. Some people who only experience sexual attraction after developing a bond with someone find it useful to call themselves demisexual.
As with graysexuality and grayromanticism, demisexual is not the same thing as demiromantic; demisexual people are experiencing sexual attraction under these circumstances, and demiromantic folks are experiencing romantic attraction. A person can be both demisexual and demiromantic, but every combination exists: heterosexual/demiromantic; demisexual/aromantic; homosexual/demi-biromantic—the list goes on. Any mixture of sexual orientation and romantic orientation can exist, though asexual communities are probably the places you’ll see it the most because they tend to be one of the major groups that almost always needs to separate their sexual orientation from their romantic orientation to make sense of it.
The notion of primary versus secondary sexual attraction is hotly debated by some people who think acknowledging demisexuality is a way of shaming people who experience and express their sexuality more normatively. Most of the time this is based on a misconception that secondary sexual attraction is being billed as “meaningful” or “authentic” while primary sexual attraction is “animalistic” or “shallow.” However, in reality, neither type is being defined as more valuable or meaningful or more “real”; most people experience both types, meaning they might have an initial (primary) sexual attraction to a person but develop an additional (secondary) type of sexual attraction because of who that person is—developing from familiarity, specific turn-ons, past memories, et cetera.
Some also think that demisexuality isn’t a meaningful term because some people—especially women—are rewarded with social approval for having sex only after the emotional bond develops. Since they’re supposedly expected to do this, some critics say demisexual people must think most sexual relationships aren’t meaningful or don’t require emotion, while their own are and do.
But demisexuality isn’t about willingness to have sex. It’s about capacity to experience sexual attraction. Some demisexual people do have sex without the emotional connection just like anyone in the larger population might. A demisexual label doesn’t describe whether a person has sex, nor does it suggest a person embraces any particular ideology regarding sex. It just means the person sometimes has the capacity to develop sexual attraction if and only if other bonds develop first. Whether these folks have sex is a choice, but whether they experience sexual attraction is not a choice. Their orientation is not about sex moralism.
| In a survey of 3,436 self-identified asexual-spectrum people administered on the Internet in September–October 2011, respondents offered the following answers when asked “How do you identify on the asexual spectrum?”[12] | |
| Asexual | 65.2% |
| Demisexual | 20.6% |
| Gray-asexual | 26.3% |
| Other | 5.3% |
* Participants were allowed to choose more than one answer.
When demisexual people only experience sexual attraction to those with whom they’ve developed a bond, they may be experiencing the world in a primarily asexual way, so they are usually considered to be on the asexual spectrum. But demisexual people often hear others say there’s nothing asexual about demisexuality because their experience is actually the way sexual attraction works for the majority.
“Your friends will only accept so many ‘I like him as a friend’s before you give up and claim to ‘like like’ someone at random. As if that weren’t awkward enough, you then have to justify your ‘like like’ in what amounts to a foreign language—‘I really like . . . his . . . nose? No? No, of course I don’t like his nose. I like his . . . Star Wars t-shirt? No, obviously not. His . . . book report about Huck Finn?’”
—REBECCA
Those on the asexual spectrum tend to disagree. They see their peers finding movie stars and cute strangers hot and don’t relate to it at all, because they don’t experience it. Getting excited over a sexy celebrity may seem nonsensical and baffling to a demisexual person, and those who acknowledge that sexual attraction to strangers is very common can’t turn around and say “most people aren’t ever attracted to strangers.” Some detractors don’t understand why “I’m attracted to others, but only with an emotional connection” needs its own sexual orientation.
To understand demisexuality, one just needs to realize that demisexual people aren’t identifying that way to shame anyone or separate themselves from a “lower” form of sexual interest. They’re describing how sexual attraction works for them, and observing that it’s different from the way it works for most because they have no concept of “do you think that person’s hot?” just based on how someone looks, sounds, smells, or moves (Many asexual people have this bewildering experience in adolescence—being asked by friends to state whether someone is attractive and having no idea what they’re supposed to feel, perhaps hiding their confusion by pretending to be attracted to whoever everyone else calls hot. Demisexual people experience this too.).
It’s also inaccurate to say demisexual people are claiming not to be aroused by the physical. They certainly can be. They can feel sexually attracted to the physical attributes of a person they have an emotional connection with, but they will never feel sexual attraction to a stranger even if they have those same physical attributes. The distinction is sometimes difficult for others to grasp, but demisexual people feel it is there, and they aren’t doing it to put their sexual attraction experience on a pedestal. Whether to call oneself “demisexual” is ultimately up to the person in question, dependent upon whether it is useful.
As mentioned previously, some asexual people want committed relationships.
Most people assume that if an asexual person wants a relationship, the course of action that makes the most sense is to find another asexual person and have a sexless relationship. However, finding an asexual partner isn’t as simple a solution as it sounds.
First of all, asexuality is relatively uncommon, and as of this writing, so is awareness about it. Most asexual folks don’t know using the asexual label is an option for much of their lives, which limits their ability to find others. Even if they choose to come out and discuss it publicly, they are often the only asexual person in their social group. Asexual people can meet each other serendipitously in ordinary social interactions, but more often, if they want to meet others, they have to do it deliberately. Possible partners can be found on the Internet, but the issues involved in relationships that are likely to be long distance tend to make a happy outcome less likely to occur. Asexual people are just not anywhere near as likely to run into each other, and there’s no Asexual Night at the club.
So asexual people have a small and scattered asexual partner pool to begin with, and then on top of that they have all the same compatibility issues that anyone else looking for a relationship has. Asexual folks want to find partners who complement them, and finding partners with the right traits and common interests is sometimes more important to them than compatibility in the bedroom. Sexual compatibility is not always the first thing on a person’s mind in partner searches. An asexual/asexual relationship is not automatically an ideal situation just because they’re more likely to be compatible sexually, any more than any two same-gender people are perfect for each other if they’re both gay. In short, it just isn’t practical for all partner-seeking asexual people to specify that their partners must also be asexual.
In addition, not all relationships become romantic partnerships deliberately; sometimes asexual people and non-asexual people fall in love or partner up even though they weren’t looking to do so (possibly before the asexual people know they’re asexual), and while they obviously weren’t trying to create a complicated situation, they now have to figure out how they’re going to handle it.
Obviously—like any relationship—these relationships require compromise. Sometimes people of any orientation will make compromises that are unrelated to sex, such as deciding to move to a new place to be close to a long-distance significant other or putting up with other incompatibilities because they value a different aspect of the relationship more. But with asexual people, the question of how they’ll handle sex and intimacy in relationships is often at the forefront of everyone’s mind.
If the sexual needs in a relationship are mismatched, many will assign the blame for the mismatch to the asexual partner(s) in any relationship.[13] Some see this couple or this group as problematic because “the asexual person doesn’t want sex enough,” not because “the sexual needs here are mismatched.” To begin to understand these compatibility issues, it must first be acknowledged that every arrangement is different and the ultimate purpose should never be “how can we change the asexual person?”
Some people protest that non-asexual people should not have to share any of the responsibility for the incompatibility because sex is expected in a normal relationship. It is owed to them; it is understood to be part of the package deal. If someone feels they cannot be in a relationship in which their partner(s) might not consider sex a must, they should not date an asexual person who’s reluctant toward or repulsed by sex. Asexual people are regularly subjected to expectations for sex they may not want to fulfill, and sometimes their possible insecurity over this sensitive issue is exploited.
Asexual people in relationships—especially women—face coercion and are at higher risk for sexual assault, which is often overlooked because outside observers may believe the aggressor deserves sex or that people who are in relationships are in a constant state of consent and therefore are not capable of sexually assaulting each other. Anyone who has relationships with asexual people should try to be particularly aware of the way societal expectations may translate to internal relationship expectations in ways that can damage and abuse any partner who doesn’t desire sex or isn’t willing to engage in it.
Be aware that there is nothing wrong with considering sex necessary in your relationship. That’s fine—it’s your right to specify what the boundaries and deal-breakers of your relationship are and what expressions of intimacy you’re looking for. But relationship-seeking people should try to express their desires as “their preferences,” not as “the way things are supposed to be” (therefore attempting to justify demands that only asexual partners be required to compromise).
If an asexual person wants a relationship with someone who does want to make sex part of the relationship, compromise is in order. Here are some ways that couples or groups with different sexual needs involving at least one asexual person have handled their relationships.
If a compromise can’t be reached or someone is unhappy with the compromises after trying them out, it’s okay to acknowledge that some partnerships can’t work. Breakups can of course involve frustration and bitterness, and sometimes the ex-partners will carry guilt regarding their inability to make their partner(s) happy, but any partnership needs to take an honest look at the partners’ needs and recognize if they are ill-equipped to meet them. The decision to go your separate ways for each of your own good can be a self-affirming and healthy experience and shouldn’t necessarily be seen as a failure or “proof” that these types of relationships never work.
Even if partners must end a relationship that turns out to be incompatible, they can still treasure the time they had together and consider it a growing experience. Every relationship will involve big issues to work out—sex is only one of them—and partnerships might just as likely involve compromise or breakups if the partners had different opinions on having children or sharing their living space.
Asexual people do often feel guilty if they don’t satisfy their partners in a way that seems so fundamental and important to them. This happens even without inordinate pressure from the partners or society. No one likes to be a disappointment, and asexual people are (sadly) pretty used to being treated like they are not good enough for a partner because of this “flaw.” They may be tempted to stay in less-than-healthy relationships because they believe they will never find anyone else who will tolerate their peculiarities or because they know how rare it is to find potential partners who share or respect their desires (or lack thereof).
Those who do feel sexual attraction or interest and find themselves in a relationship (or potential relationship) with asexual people should try to understand that their asexual partners aren’t trying to make them unhappy. If there’s something the asexual partners can give that they’re willing to do and it does not violate terms any partner holds dear, it can still be a satisfying relationship. Communication is key, and non-asexual people should attempt to understand that asexual people are frequently led to believe they are undesirable and unworthy of love. They may need some extra reassurance if their asexuality or level of sexual willingness is not a deal-breaker; they may secretly fear their non-asexual partners will eventually leave them over this.
Considering it’s common in relationships to have different sexual appetites, quirks, desires, kinks, and preferences, all relationships contain this element of compromise to some degree. A relationship with an asexual person is not necessarily all or nothing. More help for asexual people on relationships with non-asexual people can be found in Part Four of this book. Help for non-asexual people who want to be good partners to asexual people and find happiness themselves can be found in Part Five.
Some asexual people do get married or have long-term relationships. It’s not impossible, and it’s not ridiculous. They may or may not want children. They may or may not want a monogamous relationship. They may or may not want their relationships to involve emotional attraction. They may or may not like physical intimacy, and they should be trusted to navigate these avenues themselves even though it can be difficult.
Sometimes asexual people get married and tolerate sex they may not desire because they’ve been taught they’re supposed to want it, believing it’s just part of being a good spouse. There have been incidents in asexual communities of married asexual people finding out about asexuality and realizing “Hey, lots of people have felt the way I feel,” and it may lead them to negotiate their relationship differently. Unfortunately this does sometimes lead to marital strife and subsequent breakups, but this is generally only in the case of people who insist their (newly discovered) asexual partner must continue to have sex against their will or as part of a perceived “duty” in the marriage.
If a previously happy marriage dissolves over this, of course it’s sad, but an asexual person who feels newly empowered to refuse unwanted sex shouldn’t be attacked for “ruining the relationship.” After all, if an asexual person was having regular sex because they felt they were obligated to and that they had no power to refuse, this relationship was dependent upon exploiting a lopsided power dynamic, and that calls into question whether the consent was valid and whether the relationship was appropriate in the first place. If a critic argues that the relationship was “happy” when the asexual person felt required to hide and be ashamed of their lack of desire, that critic is suggesting that only one person—the non-asexual person—actually has desires that matter in the relationship.
Chances are the asexual person will still want other needs met and will desire other forms of intimacy, and some of those may be physical; the partners should discuss how they’d like to move forward, this time with an asexual partner’s boundaries and desires given just as much priority as a non-asexual partner’s.
Sometimes relationship therapy does help. However, partnered people should be aware that not all sex therapists or relationship therapists recognize asexuality as an orientation, and it’s possible they may approach less willing partners as the only “problem children.” If someone’s relationship therapy focuses entirely on how to help an asexual person tolerate or initiate sex more often to satisfy someone with a larger sexual appetite, it is not balanced therapy. Pushing someone into unwanted sex and telling them they should like it is abuse. Unless the asexual person has expressed a wish to cultivate an interest in or a tolerance for sexual activity, this is not appropriate and they should find another therapist.
Society, Discrimination, and Queer Communities
Some asexual people feel comfortable allying with or joining communities dedicated to supporting people of marginalized sexualities, romantic orientations, and genders. Many LGBTQ communities open their arms to any non-heteronormative[15] individual or group in need of a place to belong. Some asexual-spectrum people and their allies feel asexuality is inherently queer, while some believe the term is inaccurate or don’t personally identify with it.
Asexual people allying with queer communities are learning about inclusivity, fellowship, organization of marginalized groups, and visibility, and they are also offering valuable insights to queer organizations, regardless of whether any individual thinks asexual people should be recognized as members.
Because of asexual people’s rarity, it’s not always practical for them to expect thriving local communities just based on asexuality, though meetup groups have worked in some places. As of this writing, there aren’t whole physical organizations dedicated to asexual support; there’s no Asexual Night at local clubs; there are no Asexual Studies courses at colleges (though once in a while it gets touched on in a curriculum[16]). This is part of the reason why some asexual people feel comfortable joining or working with local LGBTQ chapters or Gay/Straight Alliances (GSAs); people who are non-normative in sexuality, romantic orientation, or gender tend to have some of the same problems and experiences asexual people do and might be able to understand other forms of discrimination and alienation more readily.
However, it should be noted that even though non-asexual-spectrum queer individuals can be marginalized because of their sexual orientation, they do share with heterosexual people the experience of sexual attraction and may not necessarily understand why asexual people would belong (or want to belong) in their spaces. As mentioned, many do support asexuality, just like many asexual people are allies of LGBTQ folks and support their rights. But some members of these groups do argue that asexuality is not inherently queer and that the only asexual people who would belong in an LGBTQ group are LGBT asexual people. Heteroromantic and aromantic cisgender asexual people are sometimes unwelcome.[17]
There are two sides to this story, and each organization and each person will have to come to an individual conclusion.
On asexual people having a space in queer groups, regardless of whether asexuality is inherently queer:
Asexual people are not the same as heterosexual people who aren’t having sex, which is what some misunderstand them as. There is a difference between an abstinent heterosexual person and an asexual person: abstinence is a practice (a choice), while asexuality is an orientation (not a choice—a familiar distinction for LGBTQ folks). Asexual people don’t face the same oppression (unless they are asexual and some form of LGBT), but even heteroromantic asexual people are not having “the heterosexual experience” either. Just like many LGBTQ people, asexual people still have to deal with fighting society’s expectations and developing pride and confidence in their orientation.
Active persecution of asexual people is usually fairly invisible to the outside observer—with the exception of specific educational efforts that attract uninformed, superficial hatred and an influx of dismissive, invalidating strangers purporting to be motivated by “concern” for asexual people’s happiness [Author’s note: large-scale attacks have happened to me at least a dozen times as an asexual activist, though only two of the stalking/harassing attempts were serious enough that I had to pursue legal action.]. And as with most articles featuring LGBTQ topics, one only needs to read the comments section on an asexuality article to see the overwhelming ignorance and hatred people are willing to spew on the subject of asexual people and their perceived “brokenness.”
By and large, the message asexual people get from society is that they do not exist and/or that they should get help to change themselves; if they do not try every possible avenue to become another sexual orientation, they deserve what they get. When the overarching master narrative of society dictates that “being fully human” or “being a complete person” is dependent on experiencing sexual attraction, there are specialized situations in which asexual people can be actively persecuted/disliked for being asexual,[18] and that is rarely taken into account by those who want to exclude them from queer spaces.
Though asexual people are treated similarly to LGBTQ people in certain situations if their orientation is known, for most asexual folks it’s not an experience of outward oppression so much as it’s an experience of omission—of being left out and unable to participate in something that’s supposedly central to life.
Some say an asexual person would have to disclose their orientation to receive any kind of negative reaction, but that isn’t true since the heteronormative assumption encourages most people to perceive them as non-participating, flawed, or repressed heterosexual people. Aromantic asexual people go through life with people of all orientations making certain assumptions about their failure to find romantic partners, and romantic asexual people are repeatedly sent messages about how dysfunctional their relationships must be if sex isn’t involved or desired. The damaging messages might even come from asexual people’s partner(s), and they tend to have far worse effects than most outside the experience imagine—especially if those affected do not have resources and support.
Some will say that enduring invisibility isn’t the same as “oppression”—and they’re right, though what happens as a result of systematic erasure, verbal abuse, and misunderstanding can be oppressive. LGBTQ people do experience oppression in the forms of fearing and/or experiencing hate crimes, being denied certain rights that are afforded to cisgender heterosexual people, being discriminated against, and being openly mocked. Asexual people are less likely to experience these specific forms of oppression on the basis of their orientation—except for mocking, and the mocking sounds different—though in certain situations asexual people can be uniquely discriminated against (This will be discussed shortly.).
Asexual people aren’t saying they have an identical or worse experience when compared to LGBTQ people. Asexual people are saying they often feel omitted, erased, and excluded and that they move through life facing consistent challenges to their sexual orientation.
“The first time I saw the bit about asexuals passing for straight so easily, I was a bit flabbergasted. Because I don’t pass as straight for any length of time. My experience throughout high school always came back to carefully guarded questions and tentative attempts to get me to come out. And those were the polite ones.”
—SCIATRIX, WRITING FROM FACTOR X
Asexual people usually don’t appreciate being told their experience is analogous to a heterosexual person’s experience. Non-asexual people don’t know what it’s like to be asexual. They may not know what it’s like to be honest about one’s orientation only to be told such a thing isn’t real, isn’t happening, isn’t possible. While well-known physical organizations dedicated to supporting LGBTQ communities exist, with loads of resources and information, asexual people usually aren’t included in the outreach or represented in the queer library materials. Asexual people have fewer places to turn for information or community or support, and the absence of organizations to foster their health and happiness helps contribute to the message that they do not exist. It is an insidious form of exclusion and it can be damaging.
LGBTQ people are regularly subjected to cruel messages, of course—which can result in a person defaulting to self-hate or self-doubt because of the abundant messages from outside—so they may share plenty of common ground with asexual people. They can all have coming-out experiences and sometimes receive misguided messages that they need therapy, haven’t met the right partner, or are going against/failing to fulfill an obligation in their religion.
So, it’s important to remember that “not-LGB” does not equal “heterosexual.” Asexual people are subjected to many assumptions about their sexuality that can easily wear down their self-esteem and force them to question whether they can trust their own feelings, and—this is key—they are much rarer than LGB people, so it is vital that every effort be made to respect asexual people’s desire to access community.
It is damaging and erasing to tell asexual people that being assumed heterosexual and experiencing heterosexual privilege is really the same as being heterosexual (and therefore they shouldn’t expect and shouldn’t get help or understanding and are stepping on toes by hoping to access support). This is especially true considering there are plenty of gay folks who aren’t readily recognized as gay (but they’re not less deserving of support) and plenty of trans folks who are not read as trans (but don’t stop needing community support if they are usually mistaken for cisgender).
Having most people assume you’re heterosexual means being treated like you’re heterosexual when you’re not, and while being treated heterosexual and “normal” does bring certain privileges, it is also alienating and erasing when it doesn’t fit one’s comfort level and participation with heterosexual culture and identity.
If an asexual person is saying “I’m queer,” they may be using the broad definition of queer, meaning “I’m not heteronormative in my sexual orientation and/or gender.” If an LGBTQ person has a stricter definition of what queer means, they may be hesitant to open the arms of their queer community to a person who isn’t LGBT, but if they attempt to understand each asexual person’s reason for identifying as queer, they may conclude that some or all of them belong under the umbrella.
“I find it painfully ironic that in queer spaces I am still told that my sexual orientation is just a disorder, either physical or psychological, that I ‘just haven’t met the right person yet,’ that I’m going through a phase, that I can be cured. I hardly consider a space where people feel comfortable saying those things to another person a ‘safe space’ for anyone (and yes, they say those things to me as a polypan ace [. . .] and those same things are said to trans* aces and homoromantic aces and biromantic aces, too).”
—DALLAS BRYSON, THE ASEXUAL SEXOLOGIST
Some may say asexual people don’t have problems (or the right problems, or enough problems), and therefore they should just go ally with heterosexual people, but this ignores the fact that heteronormative attitudes influence the heterosexual world to also exclude asexual people. If “not LGB” is understood to mean “heterosexual” in queer spaces, those who say so are processing heterosexual as the default, which is an attitude that also hurts them. Even aromantic asexual people, who are less likely to be assumed heterosexual because they are unlikely to have romantic partners, are sometimes told “you don’t belong here because you’re just straight.” Perceived blank spaces being interpreted as heterosexual by default is a heteronormative assumption.
If any asexual person who participates in an LGBTQ community or one of its organizations ends up behaving problematically, that can be addressed on an individual level—just like it would be if any other person was dominating the discussion or making others feel unsafe. All queer communities have the capacity to have problematic members, and some individuals with more relative privilege may make the space feel unsafe for other individuals even if they “qualify” with a letter in the acronym. Evaluating on a case-by-case basis often works better than denying access to all heteroromantic or aromantic asexual people as a rule (especially if the queer group in question accepts allies in its meetings and membership).
“The real question is, are there spaces that asexuals and LGBT people can share? Should there be? Does this particular configuration help people? Language has an effect on this question. If asexuals think of themselves as just allies, they will be less likely to participate or share their own experiences. Is that what we want? If an asexual acts homophobic, or an LGBT person hates on aces, do we want to treat it as an attack from the outside, or as ignorance from the inside?”
—TRISTAN MILLER, SKEPTIC’S PLAY
After all, not all LGBTQ people are equally oppressed; one must take into consideration how LGBTQ-friendly their families are, what their socioeconomic status is, what their local culture is like, whether they are a subsection of the LGBTQ that is sometimes misread as straight (bisexual people in cross-gender relationships and non-binary people in relationships that are read as heterosexual, for instance), and whether they have experienced other intersectional prejudices (due to race, national origin, disability, or religion, for instance). LGBTQ people aren’t generally given oppression scores at queer group meetings to judge whether they’ve suffered enough to need support. Chances are, if they’re seeking out community support, they have some personal reason for doing so. The same goes for asexual people who might feel a connection with queer communities.
And finally, when asexual people want to participate in queer spaces, they are not there entirely to use those communities for resources and support. They can also provide them. Asexual people bring insight into romantic identity and breakdowns of different types of intimacy that aren’t commonly discussed, especially if a queer space is very sex-focused. Many non-asexual queer people who have engaged with asexual communities have learned about sophisticated models of attraction that were useful to them in their own non-normative relationships, and some are surprised to learn how much asexual people can contribute to queer discussion and moral support when given the chance.
Asexual people can provide insight on how to have relationships with asexual partners, and they can enrich the discussion with specialized, nuanced vocabulary that may be useful to queer folks too. And since many queer groups are becoming more asexual-friendly, many individual non-asexual queer folks welcome the chance to access informed understandings of how to be good asexual allies and how to support asexual people in their organizations.
On queer people limiting access to their space for LGBT issues only:
Regardless of whether they identify with queerness, asexual people do need to recognize that if they are heteroromantic or aromantic, they may be seen as a reminder of straightness; when queer people create their own space, they sometimes don’t like to feel that someone they count as straight (or benefits from heterosexual privilege) is in it.
There is much evidence of a need for a “safe space,” and people who don’t identify as LGBT are far more likely to be coming from a position of ignorance and may behave/speak/dominate in ways that heterosexual people tend to do. In short, LGBT people want to have a space where what they hear from the heterosexual world all the time is not going to come up when they’re in this supportive atmosphere. Some LGBT folks feel unsafe discussing their issues in the presence of people who haven’t experienced them or couldn’t experience them.
Heteroromantic and aromantic asexual people must recognize that many of them are afforded some modicum of heterosexual privilege—an argument that also comes up often when gay people discuss bisexual, polysexual,[19] and pansexual[20] people, who might be seen as straight by society part of the time depending on whether their relationships happen to be cross-gender (or perceived that way) at the time. A heteroromantic or aromantic asexual person—or pretty much anyone who passes as straight—could be seen as a reminder of the people who have attacked the queer people looking for relief. Regardless of whether a heteroromantic or aromantic asexual person feels queer, the outside world often sorts them into the straight box (however uncomfortably), and not being sorted into the straight box comes with loss of safety, loss of comfort, and loss of privileges.
And like many privileged people, most people experiencing heterosexual privilege have to be trained before they notice what it’s done for them. Some LGBTQ people who more regularly experience oppression because of their orientation or gender presentation may bristle at the thought of people who have (presumably) never been attacked over their relationships choosing to identify as queer, especially if there is a perception that certain asexual people can belong with queer OR non-queer populations depending on their choice.
Some queer people may find asexual people particularly hard to be around because some mainstream narratives tell gay, lesbian, bisexual, polysexual, pansexual, transgender, non-binary, and gender-nonconforming people they should be celibate or not embrace their identity as a way to “save” themselves. It can be hard for a person who’s been through conditioning to change or ignore their desires and identity to turn around and accept a person who does not have those desires (even though asexual people are often asked to go against their desires too).
There is a lingering pain that comes with some people’s LGBT identity, especially in a society that has shamed their desires and forced them to fight for an opportunity to declare pride. Some of this shame can be deeply internalized, even if it’s overcome in practice (and mostly so in attitude). LGBT people may believe the asexual people who want their support have never fought this type of shame and may not accept that “your orientation doesn’t exist” can be as damaging as “your orientation means you’re bad.” Asexual people are usually perceived as sexually conservative or sexually abstinent, and LGBT people may have been attacked for the sex they may desire, so it could be very difficult for them to accept that someone who embodies a supposedly “ideal state” they’ve been pressured to emulate could possibly have comparable problems in Western society.
Most heteronormative cultures look at people as though they are straight until proven gay, and even asexual people (as long as they’re in a hetero relationship or in no relationship) aren’t likely to get stuck with the stigma many people with same-sex or same-gender partners have to deal with unless they choose to share the details. And while most queer people do not define the experience of queerness primarily around the amount or type of oppression they experience, it is undeniable that a certain alienation, instilled shame, and institutionalized persecution is often part of the LGBT package deal. In a world in which queer can be used as a slur, people who are electing to embrace it when it seems like they’ve never had it branded on their foreheads may be believed to want community and “specialness” without the hard knocks that go with it.
If someone is asexual and does not have these experiences but still wants the fellowship and community of queer folks, they should not be surprised if some insiders may automatically see them as interlopers. As asexual people, they have their own difficulties, but LGBT people who do not support asexual inclusion often believe that asexual people’s difficulties aren’t their difficulties (unless they also have a same-sex-oriented and/or trans identity).
So, if asexual people encounter resistance when asking queer people to acknowledge them, they should try to realize that queer folks may feel the asexual people are not respecting their identity. Asexual people should acknowledge that they haven’t been through what LGBT people have been through (unless they have, as a person with another LGBTQ identity in addition to asexuality). They should be aware that their experience, while possibly also oppressive, probably also prejudicial, and definitely sometimes uncomfortable, isn’t the same, and LGBT people may feel queer communities are only for those who do have those specific experiences (or have the capacity to).
Non-LGBT asexual people who want to network with and be included in LGBTQ groups may be more readily accepted if they demonstrate what they can give to their queer community instead of emphasizing what they need or want from it. They can learn to be listeners and apologize when they get it wrong. They can educate themselves on queer issues and support LGBT causes vocally and through action. They can make an effort to expose themselves to queer media (movies, television, and books with LGBT themes) and participate with LGBT friends at queer-centered social events, fundraisers, and pride demonstrations. They can follow their queer peers’ lead in activist matters to the extent that they are welcome. And they can call out homophobia and transphobia in their own communities. Belonging may or may not come in time, but if a non-LGBT asexual person truly wants to ally with queer communities, they’ll support them even if they aren’t explicitly rewarded and included.
When in doubt, asexual people shouldn’t accept that LGBT people are the gatekeepers on who can feel “queer,” but they shouldn’t attack LGBT people’s desire to control access to their spaces. That’s where their needs may be perceived as overstepping boundaries, and they shouldn’t make everything about their issues unless their thoughts are welcome. If unsure, an asexual person who does not want to risk intruding or making anyone uncomfortable may at first choose to attend only those groups and events that are also open to allies and request inclusion in other queer events and spaces if everyone involved is comfortable.
On queerness itself:
Queer is pretty subjective—both for the people dictating who can be recognized as queer and for those identifying that way. Queer is usually considered an umbrella term. In its broadest sense, queer is said to be any form of gender identity/expression or sexual identity that is outside the norm. Some of the following might—but not necessarily do—identify as queer: those who are not heterosexual; those who are agender, between-gender, bigender, non-binary, third-gender, neutrois, or gender-shifting; those who are transgender;[21] and those who are kinky or polyamorous.
And though queer can be a controversial term because it’s also used as an insult sometimes, most queer people of various stripes feel it is a positive word since its reclamation. But since it’s so broad, meaning different things to different people, it’s difficult to define “what is queer.” Therefore, there is no dependable litmus test by which to determine what isn’t. The queer movement itself stands for rejection of overly strict definitions that limit people’s options in life, so some say it’s counterintuitive to draw lines that exclude only certain types of less typical sexual, romantic, and gender identities and orientations.
Labels are tools we use to communicate with each other. Deciding whether to identify with the word queer—or whether to agree with someone else’s identification as queer—may really be more about deciding whether queer necessitates homosexuality or non-cis gender, or whether it can also mean “not heteronormative.” Most people recognize they should respect another person’s labels and methods of self-identifying regardless of their personal definitions.
Some asexual people don’t feel they are queer and prefer to specifically identify as the asexual-spectrum label that describes them. Some just don’t find it useful to be vaguer by saying “queer.” But those who don’t identify as queer might still be interested in allying with LGBTQ communities, and these communities may benefit from including information about and support for asexual people in their materials and events. More resources that can be incorporated into queer libraries and organizations are available in Part Six, the resources section of this book.
“I do not think of myself as straight and will correct the impression when appropriate, but it describes well enough the way I’m treated by society, so I can’t logically claim to understand what it’s like to have all my social interactions—including family, to whom I haven’t even needed to come out—colored by my orientation. While ‘straight’ does not describe me, neither does ‘queer,’ and I would assume most people who claim that label have their reasons for it.”
—REBECCA
Reported in one survey of self-identified asexual-spectrum people collected on the Internet September–October 2011[22]
“Asexual” isn’t another name for a heterosexual person who hates or avoids sex. Asexual people are also fighting for recognition and tolerance, just like LGBT people are, and some feel a sense of belonging because of their experiences fighting the same or analogous battles. But ultimately, it’s important for people who use the term to understand why they’re using it and to be aware above all that it doesn’t mean the same thing to everyone.
Some critics of the asexual awareness movement have opined that asexual people should not suggest they experience discrimination and should not present themselves as experiencing oppression. This opinion comes from heteronormative and queer populations alike, but seems especially vitriolic from some who feel their oppression is “real” while asexual people’s is not. And sometimes, if an asexual person brings up something oppressive or discriminatory that has happened to them as a result of being asexual, they will often be told their unfortunate experience was not due to them being asexual. For example:
An aromantic asexual person gets misinterpreted as gay because he never couples up and gets beat up after school: “That wasn’t anti-asexual violence. That was motivated by gay hatred, not asexual hatred.”
A man sexually harasses an asexual woman and claims he can “fix” her, and eventually sexually assaults her because he thinks he’s going to “wake up” her sleeping sexual appetite: “That wasn’t anti-asexual violence. That was motivated by misogyny, not asexual hatred.”
Asexual people may become withdrawn from communicating with co-workers because they were alienated by pressure to disclose sexual exploits at work, and eventually they are fired for not being a team player: “That wasn’t anti-asexual prejudice. That was motivated by their failure to fit in the culture, not asexual discrimination.”
Et cetera.
Even if terrible things happen to asexual people directly because of their asexuality, their experience is often pawned off on another “real” cause, suggesting that asexual people’s reports of problematic reactions to their asexuality are exaggerated or nonexistent, and if they happened at all, they’re “anecdotal” and probably not worth considering as a consistent problem.
The consistency with which this happens is good evidence that a concerted effort to silence asexual voices is happening. Asexual people’s orientation is almost always considered the least relevant aspect of their identity, and therefore, it is rarely accepted as the cause of their negative experiences. For instance, it is impossible to separate a gay woman’s lesbianism from her being a woman, because she is both. If someone hates a gay woman for being a gay woman, you can’t isolate those aspects of her and say she only receives that hate because of one or the other. Prejudice against asexual people does exist, and it does manifest in nasty ways, but it should always be understood in the context of the whole person. Aspects of identity are inextricably intersectional. There is no practical purpose in separating them and calculating which ones “deserve” more attention.
Eradicating misogyny and homophobia before even considering asexual-specific issues on the agenda is ridiculous—especially since the attitudes that perpetuate harassment against LGBTQ populations often sprout from the same heteronormative root and can often be fought through the same educational efforts (and sometimes through the same organizations).
The tools used to measure prejudice and discrimination cannot be molded to detect LGBTQ oppression and then get applied unchanged to detect it in asexual populations. The asexual population’s disadvantages will not look the same on the outside. It would be like expecting asexual people to get “asexual-bashed” coming out of the asexual bar while ignoring that there are no asexual bars. Sometimes asexual people hear objections like “how dare you say you have significant problems—I don’t see your marriage getting rejected” or “the worst thing you deal with is someone calling you frigid, while I can’t legally adopt a child with my partner.” These perspectives suggest asexual people aren’t suffering if they don’t suffer the same way, but anti-asexual prejudice doesn’t deny them the same things in all cases. This would be like saying a person of any oppressed group isn’t really suffering if they have enough to eat.
While institutional discrimination against asexual people is not as visible and not as common as the types of institutional discrimination gay, bisexual, polysexual, pansexual, non-binary, and trans people experience, asexual people do have the capacity to experience it, and it has been documented. Below is a short (and non-exhaustive) list of laws, situations, attitudes, and issues that can and do specifically target and negatively affect asexual people, followed by discussion of each: