Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex

by Angela Chen

Asexuality truly does feel like baggage when all the other parts of our identity are treated as such, when we feel crushed by the stereotype layered on stereotype. If I had not internalized that racism and misogyny, being ace would not have felt like some kind of additional burden on top of being Asian and female.

An inherent irony is present in this prescription. This book is partly an attempt to explain asexuality to allos, and many aces have thanked me and said that it’s necessary. I hope that the explanation will reach its audience.

Nobody, Cara tells me, thinks that a disabled woman in a wheelchair could be interested in having sex.

people who don’t want sex are sick, and people who are sick—that is, mentally or physically disabled or different in some way—don’t want sex.

The disabled community has spent a long time fighting the idea that disabled people are, or should be, asexual. The ace community has struggled for as long as it has existed to prove that asexuality has nothing to do with disability.

Doctors in the West have been worried about the “problem” of low sexual desire since at least the thirteenth century, when Pope Gregory IX wrote about the issue of frigiditas.

Because there is no biological marker for HSDD, the basic criteria sound quite similar to what they might have been when people were worrying about frigidity centuries ago: persistent lack of sexual fantasies and sexual interest.3 It sounds like asexuality.

it’s no wonder that asexuality is widely considered a sickness to be cured.

the pharmaceutical companies would love to sell us a cure.

the message that sex is necessary for a healthy life6 and that being healthy is an individual moral duty7—and

Procter & Gamble created a testosterone patch to treat low sexual desire in women, but the US Food and Drug Administration rejected it due to safety concerns.

the researchers were changing focus from a woman’s genitals because the brain was the crucial sexual organ in women.

Vyleesi doesn’t have as many restrictions as Addyi, but it does require women to give themselves a shot in the stomach or thigh forty-five minutes before they think they want to have sex. It also causes nausea and it is once again unclear whether the drug works well.

Despite demand for a libido-boosting drug and despite desperation on the part of pharmaceutical companies to create this drug, no safe and widely effective libido booster exists. When there is, everyone will know, believe me. Pharmaceutical companies will make sure of that.

Gay people and trans people generally have worse mental health than straight cis people20—not because being gay or trans is a sickness, but because bigotry causes distress and takes a toll on mental health.

If she can be made straight, we’ll do that, but if she can’t be turned straight, we’ll help her accept that she is gay?

Fifty years ago, a man who wanted to have sex with other men would have been classified as mentally disordered,

The changing racial demographics of this era stoked the fear of the wealthy whites in charge. Eugenics, or the idea that society could be improved if the unfit were banned from reproducting,” appeared to be a perfectly rational solution to the perceived threat of a world overrun by the unworthy.

There was only one dissenting opinion, so Carrie was sterilized. The case was cited by the Nazis as they developed their own eugenics program.28 The ruling has never been overturned.

groups that are already perceived as less than “normal”—like older people, people who are autistic, Asian men, the racist stereotype of the mammy, or disabled people—are desexualized, considered sexually unattractive to others, and assumed to have no lust of their own.

Beautiful abled women may be told to remain virginal and shamed into chastity, but their bodies are still considered objects of desire,

The bodies of those with physical disabilities, however, are seen as deviant and ugly—and

her sexuality so dangerous that she needed to be sterilized, or asexual.

Many abled people assume that physical disabilities take away sexual desire,

Those who are intellectually disabled or autistic are desexualized too,

disabled kids are frequently excluded from sexual education due to a reflexive belief that it won’t be relevant to them,

people with disabilities often start dating later than ...

The bodies of disabled people are treated like objects

The group Yes, We Fuck! has created a documentary focusing on disability and sexuality.

disability scholars Maureen Milligan and Aldred Neufeldt claim that asexuality among the disabled is largely a myth,

“Physical and mental impairments may significantly alter functioning, but do not eliminate basic drives or the desire for love, affection, and intimacy,”

while people with disabilities might have fewer opportunities to have sex, that doesn’t mean the desire itself is absent.

“You can have sex or you can watch Netflix and I’m going to pick Netflix.”

Not all aces have been welcoming of people like Cara. Members of the ace community, especially in early years, rejected disabled aces completely, insisting that they would delegitimize asexuality and make it impossible to prove that asexuality is not related to (or caused by) disability and sickness.

Cara can also feel like she’s a “bad disabled person” because she doesn’t want to fuck.

‘Of course the girl in the wheelchair doesn’t want to have sex because who’d want to have sex with her?’”

There exists a vision of the perfect ace person, one who never needs to ask themselves these questions. The gold-star asexual, also called the unassailable asexual, has no doubt at all about their identity. (The term, coined by the blogger Sciatrix in 2010,41 is similar to the term gold-star lesbian, meaning a lesbian who has never had sex with a man.)

The gold-star ace is healthy in all ways, between the ages of twenty and forty (since elderly people are assumed to be asexual anyway), and cis, as well as sex positive and popular,

The gold-star ace is beautiful so as to deflect accusations of being a bitter incel. They can’t be religious because that would mean they’re just repressed. They do not masturbate and have no history of sexual problems. Maybe they have tried sex before but, after that, never, ever changed their mind about being ace or felt the slightest bit of sexual curiosity. (Bonus points if they’ve been in committed relationships before.)

Compulsory sexuality makes asexuality prone to double standards.

Straight people can start identifying differently without their straightness being called “just a phase,” yet aces—and all others who aren’t straight—have less room to be fluid.

Straight people are rarely treated like they’re close-minded for knowing their sexual orientation, but aces are assumed to be unsure and always on the brink of finding the person who will change everything.

The gold-star asexual is a fantasy and a false promise.

What is the influence of patriarchy or the influence of shyness or of being sheltered? What is the result of stereotypes or shame and what is not?

when are we allowed to stop questioning?

questioning can be exhausting and futile.

the power of the ace movement does not depend on purity of origin.

Lack of sexuality means being dried up and tired.

Just as saying woman doctor implies that a doctor by default is male,

Nonsexual romantic love sounds like an oxymoron.