Refusing Compulsory Sexuality: A Black Asexual Lens on Our Sex-Obsessed Culture

by Sherronda J. Brown

“Asexual,” as we use it, does not mean “without sex” but “relating sexually to no one.” This does not of course exclude masturbation but implies that if one has sexual feelings, they do not require another person for their expression. Asexuality is, simply, self-contained sexuality.

We have to acknowledge the damage that is done when we don’t admit that our society views sex as compulsory, as an inescapable obligation, largely because it is viewed as something owed to men.

Bloop

Stekel declares, “To be roused by a man means acknowledging oneself as conquered,” then, at the conclusion of sex when she can take no more, she should acknowledge herself “defeated, subdued, in the game of love” by the man who has dominated her.37 Moreover, he declares that “sexual frigidity enables woman to domineer, to triumph over man. [Frigidity], therefore, is to be interpreted as a phase in woman’s struggle for equal rights; it is distinctly a social manifestation.”

Whew calm down my guy

Black people socialized as women—lesbian, asexual, and otherwise—ultimately fail at womanhood because “uncivilized” Black people on the whole already fail at white supremacist interpretations of gender altogether.

Bloooooop

Abraham Maslow’s theory of hierarchy of basic human needs (which he misappropriated from Native Americans).

Say what

White supremacy and its agents—and even white people who believe themselves to be progressive—continually use sex to uphold racist ideology.

Whew this entire section though