Sign in with Facebook
Jessica's Reviews > Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex
Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex
by
by
Jessica's review
bookshelves: favorites
Oct 17, 2020
bookshelves: favorites
Read 2 times. Last read February 3, 2023 to February 5, 2023.
2/5/2023
4.5 stars. I planned to skim this again in preparation for book club, but instead I ended up rereading the whole thing in two days. There are so many parts of this book that have stayed with me since reading this two and a half years ago, and I reference this book in nearly every conversation I have about asexuality. Off the top of my head, some of the most impactful passages:
- The analogy about a horny gay man in a room full of women. This alone has helped it finally click for so many people that sexual attraction is not the same as libido (something that Chen unfortunately blurs the lines on later in the book, as described in my original review).
- The concept of willing vs. enthusiastic consent, which on this reread I realized actually comes from Come as You Are. The distinctions between enthusiastic, willing, unwilling, and coerced are incredibly important for a holistic understanding of consent.
- The profile of an ace person who likes dressing up in an attractive way and posting pictures of herself online because she likes the attention, and it has zero relationship to wanting to have sex with anyone.
I appreciate that Chen is willing to dig into the messiness in this book, especially as it relates to consent. It's validating to hear other people talking about the idea of hermeneutic injustice, or as it relates to this specific situation, "I said yes, but if I'd known about asexuality I would have said no," and the acknowledgement that you can be traumatized by having sex you don't want to have without it being your partner's fault or your fault.
I think Chen does an excellent job making the case that the societal changes needed for ace (and aro) people to feel totally free and accepted would have benefits for everyone, which is one reason I recommend this book to everyone, not just other aces (though I recommend it most strongly to aces!). This book is well-researched without being academically dry, and the stories of real people profiled in every chapter make it even more engaging. I'm really hoping the necessary proofreading was done for the paperback version (I read it on Kindle again, so I'm not sure) because the frequency of typographical errors makes an otherwise excellent book feel unpolished. I do still have a few nitpicks about the way that Chen conflates terms, but I think the overall message still shines through and is incredibly important. On behalf of us aces, and for the sake of all your relationships, please pick this one up.
--
10/17/2020
4.5 stars. This is the first nonfiction work I've seen that provides a comprehensive look at asexuality for a non-academic audience. Chen not only explores the personal experiences of those who identify as ace, but also shows how the same cultural forces that make asexuality misunderstood and stigmatized limit the possibilities for all people in all kinds of relationships (in Western culture). Chen also shares her own personal experiences: her past relationships, her realization of her asexuality, and her continued insecurities in her current relationship. It's accessible, thorough, and up to date.
I have a few caveats to this recommendation, the first being that the proofreading on this book is pretty abysmal in places, to the point that I found it distracting. Chen also fluctuates a bit on her definition of asexuality; for the most part, she uses the standard definition of "a lack of sexual attraction" � which, she says, can accompany any level of general desire for sex � but at times she uses "asexual" to mean "low desire," like when she talks about a clinical diagnosis for "lack of sexual interest" and says, "It sounds like asexuality." She cites a media depiction of a relationship that, to me, sounded like a queerplatonic relationship, not a romantic one, but she uses it as an example of what romance without sex looks like, which I found a little confusing (although the point of that chapter is to interrogate what we mean by things like "romance" or "friendship" so maybe I'm being too picky). And finally, Chen (who is Asian) seems to only mention people's race when they are not white, which I found a bit annoying when she is explicitly trying in the book to push back against defaults like assuming everyone is allosexual (or like assuming people are white unless otherwise mentioned).
This is a great book for any asexual person who wants to feel validated and any allosexual person who wants to better understand asexuality. I definitely recommend picking it up.
4.5 stars. I planned to skim this again in preparation for book club, but instead I ended up rereading the whole thing in two days. There are so many parts of this book that have stayed with me since reading this two and a half years ago, and I reference this book in nearly every conversation I have about asexuality. Off the top of my head, some of the most impactful passages:
- The analogy about a horny gay man in a room full of women. This alone has helped it finally click for so many people that sexual attraction is not the same as libido (something that Chen unfortunately blurs the lines on later in the book, as described in my original review).
- The concept of willing vs. enthusiastic consent, which on this reread I realized actually comes from Come as You Are. The distinctions between enthusiastic, willing, unwilling, and coerced are incredibly important for a holistic understanding of consent.
- The profile of an ace person who likes dressing up in an attractive way and posting pictures of herself online because she likes the attention, and it has zero relationship to wanting to have sex with anyone.
I appreciate that Chen is willing to dig into the messiness in this book, especially as it relates to consent. It's validating to hear other people talking about the idea of hermeneutic injustice, or as it relates to this specific situation, "I said yes, but if I'd known about asexuality I would have said no," and the acknowledgement that you can be traumatized by having sex you don't want to have without it being your partner's fault or your fault.
I think Chen does an excellent job making the case that the societal changes needed for ace (and aro) people to feel totally free and accepted would have benefits for everyone, which is one reason I recommend this book to everyone, not just other aces (though I recommend it most strongly to aces!). This book is well-researched without being academically dry, and the stories of real people profiled in every chapter make it even more engaging. I'm really hoping the necessary proofreading was done for the paperback version (I read it on Kindle again, so I'm not sure) because the frequency of typographical errors makes an otherwise excellent book feel unpolished. I do still have a few nitpicks about the way that Chen conflates terms, but I think the overall message still shines through and is incredibly important. On behalf of us aces, and for the sake of all your relationships, please pick this one up.
--
10/17/2020
4.5 stars. This is the first nonfiction work I've seen that provides a comprehensive look at asexuality for a non-academic audience. Chen not only explores the personal experiences of those who identify as ace, but also shows how the same cultural forces that make asexuality misunderstood and stigmatized limit the possibilities for all people in all kinds of relationships (in Western culture). Chen also shares her own personal experiences: her past relationships, her realization of her asexuality, and her continued insecurities in her current relationship. It's accessible, thorough, and up to date.
I have a few caveats to this recommendation, the first being that the proofreading on this book is pretty abysmal in places, to the point that I found it distracting. Chen also fluctuates a bit on her definition of asexuality; for the most part, she uses the standard definition of "a lack of sexual attraction" � which, she says, can accompany any level of general desire for sex � but at times she uses "asexual" to mean "low desire," like when she talks about a clinical diagnosis for "lack of sexual interest" and says, "It sounds like asexuality." She cites a media depiction of a relationship that, to me, sounded like a queerplatonic relationship, not a romantic one, but she uses it as an example of what romance without sex looks like, which I found a little confusing (although the point of that chapter is to interrogate what we mean by things like "romance" or "friendship" so maybe I'm being too picky). And finally, Chen (who is Asian) seems to only mention people's race when they are not white, which I found a bit annoying when she is explicitly trying in the book to push back against defaults like assuming everyone is allosexual (or like assuming people are white unless otherwise mentioned).
This is a great book for any asexual person who wants to feel validated and any allosexual person who wants to better understand asexuality. I definitely recommend picking it up.
Sign into Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ to see if any of your friends have read
Ace.
Sign In »
Quotes Jessica Liked
“An undirected sex drive isn’t a quirk of ace experience; it’s another way of saying “being horny,â€� which can afflict anyone because horniness does not need to include sexual attraction. Imagine a gay man with a high sex drive surrounded by women. It is possible for him to feel horny and want to get laid even if he’s not interested in anyone around him.
Sexual attraction, then, is horniness toward or caused by a specific person. It is the desire to be sexual with that partner—libido with a target. To use a food metaphor: a person can feel physiological hunger, which would be like sex drive, without craving a specific dish, which would be more like sexual attraction.”
― Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex
Sexual attraction, then, is horniness toward or caused by a specific person. It is the desire to be sexual with that partner—libido with a target. To use a food metaphor: a person can feel physiological hunger, which would be like sex drive, without craving a specific dish, which would be more like sexual attraction.”
― Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex
“The ace world is not an obligation. Nobody needs to identify, nobody is trapped, nobody needs to stay forever and pledge allegiance. The words are gifts. If you know which terms to search, you know how to find others who might have something to teach.”
― Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex
― Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex
“I still don’t have any idea what this energy is. This may be the unifying ace call, one I have heard again and again from aces, whether they are sex-favorable or sex-replused, irrespective of their romantic orientation and aesthetic types. Regardless of whether we have sex, we don’t relate to sexuality the way that, seemingly, allos do. We do not center sexuality in our lives.
And, so, aces spend an inordinate amount of time wondering about this energy that other people are detecting, and experiencing, and expressing, that we are not. People think about sex even if they don’t want to? What makes one person sexually attractive on that visceral level and not another? Allos can even be sexually attracted to people they find ugly? What? Like anthropologists after a day of fieldwork, we commiserate about the mysteries of the local culture, even though it is actually the culture that we were born into—just one that, for a long time, had no room for us and our way of being. There is room now.”
― Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex
And, so, aces spend an inordinate amount of time wondering about this energy that other people are detecting, and experiencing, and expressing, that we are not. People think about sex even if they don’t want to? What makes one person sexually attractive on that visceral level and not another? Allos can even be sexually attracted to people they find ugly? What? Like anthropologists after a day of fieldwork, we commiserate about the mysteries of the local culture, even though it is actually the culture that we were born into—just one that, for a long time, had no room for us and our way of being. There is room now.”
― Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex
“Compulsory sexuality is a set of assumptions and behaviors that support the idea that every normal person is sexual, that not wanting (socially approved) sex is unnatural and wrong, and that people who don’t care about sexuality are missing out on an utterly necessary experience.”
― Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex
― Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex
“The label of asexual should be value neutral. It should indicate little more than sexual orientation. Instead, asexual implies a slew of other, negative associations: passionless, uptight, boring, robotic, cold, prude, frigid, lacking, broken. These, especially broken, are the words aces use again and again to describe how we are perceived and made to feel.”
― Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex
― Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex
“Performing sexuality provides access to formative friendships and respect; it can be more social than personal. The lack of the right kind of sexual behavior is a barrier to connection, so men’s talk and behavior can be less about wanting sex than it is about wanting friends.”
― Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex
― Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex
“Ace men tell me that people of all genders assume that they are secret incels who hide behind a made-up identity. Such is the trap: Even when a man doesn’t want sex, he can be lumped in with the men who will kill in their desire to have it. Men cannot be simply uninterested; there must always be something else at work.”
― Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex
― Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex
“As Julie Sondra Decker, author of The Invisible Orientation: An Introduction to Asexuality, tells me, “We’re whole people who just lack that ‘driving forceâ€� and it’s understandable in the same way that it’s understandable that someone doesn’t have ‘craftsâ€� as their driving force.â€� (Or in the way that people don’t have “not wearing sock-monkey hatsâ€� as their driving force.) “I’m not a ‘non-crafterâ€�; I’m only asexual because there’s a word for it and because people have an objection to me not wanting to have sex. If they didn’t, my life would not have involved very much of talking about it,â€� she says.”
― Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex
― Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex
“It seems that the message is ‘we have liberated our sexuality, therefore we must now celebrate it and have as much sex as we want,’â€� says Jo, an ace policy worker in Australia. “Except ‘as much sex as we wantâ€� is always lots of sex and not no sex, because then we are oppressed, or possibly repressed, and we’re either not being our true authentic selves, or we haven’t discovered this crucial side of ourselves that is our sexuality in relation to other people, or we haven’t grown up properly or awakened yet.”
― Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex
― Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex
“The charmed circle illustrates the existence of a hierarchy of sex acts. Inside the charmed circle is everything that is socially acceptable, which traditionally means monogamous, married, vanilla, heterosexual sex in private. Outside these borders would be, for example, promiscuous sex, group sex, and so on. The charmed circle represented the conservative, rigid status quo.
Instead of realizing that the problem is the very existence of the charmed circle, liberals simply reversed it. Now, much of what was on the outside has become charmed and elevated.”
― Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex
Instead of realizing that the problem is the very existence of the charmed circle, liberals simply reversed it. Now, much of what was on the outside has become charmed and elevated.”
― Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex
“Finally, as this vision of sexual liberation dominated the feminist platform, not having sex—or only wanting vanilla sex or only having sex within the confines of monogamous, heterosexual relationships—becomes a sign that someone is allied with backward, conservative political beliefs. Sexuality, which is already a maturity narrative where sex leads to adulthood, then becomes a political maturity narrative as well, an evolution in thought and practice. An imaginary line runs from “immature,â€� both sexually and politically, to “fully realized.”
― Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex
― Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex
“The truth of the gender inequality in sexual freedom, and the importance of teaching women to honor their sexual desires, has distorted into the belief that female sexual liberation only looks like one thing—and that’s the opposite of what women’s lives looked like before. Overcorrection doesn’t solve the problem. It only redistributes the shame and the stigma.”
― Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex
― Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex
“It is true that many women are inhibited and perhaps do not yet know it. It is not true that inside everyone unwilling to try a threesome is a freak desperate to let her flag fly. Perhaps there is no flag.”
― Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex
― Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex
“Liberated sexuality—that is, sexuality free from social shaming—can look like promiscuity or it can look like celibacy.”
― Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex
― Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex
“I’m X but Yâ€� always throws someone under the bus. “I’m a girl, but one of those cool girlsâ€� emphasizes the default view that girls are not cool. “I’m ace, but I’m kinky and not celibateâ€� is an insult to those who are vanilla or celibate. “I’m ace, but not ace in the boring way that you’re thinkingâ€� is still a dart, a subtle reinforcement of all the lessons taught about what it means to be frigid. Celibacy can be eroticized because the supposed restraint implies a rich appetite underneath. After all, Eve was the woman who took a bite out of the apple. It can be interesting to be a lusty broad with a hearty appetite that she is denying. It is not interesting to have no appetite at all. That’s just nothingness.”
― Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex
― Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex
“Someone shouldn’t be feted either because their sex acts are very kinky or because their number of partners is very low. It is cause for celebration whenever anyone is, to the best of their ability, making their own choices free from pressure—and also working to change the social and political structures that will let everyone else have that same sexual freedom, and freedom of other kinds, too.”
― Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex
― Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex
“Control of sexuality is a classic tool of domination, used by men against women, by white people against people of color, by the abled against the disabled—or, to cut a long list short, by the powerful against the less powerful. It can be expressed in many ways, like rape as a form of political conquest or slave owners marrying off their slaves and splitting families apart. It can look like enforcing purity rules only for women, perpetuating racist sexual stereotypes, or assuming that some groups have no sexual desires at all.”
― Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex
― Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex
“Picture whiteness as a neutral backdrop, a white wall. It is easier to paint a white wall light blue than it is to paint a dark green wall light blue. The dominant media is filled with images of many types of white people; white people, for the most part, have the freedom to be anything they like. People of color need to scrub away the dark green—racial stereotypes and expectations—before determining whether we are really ace.”
― Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex
― Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex
“I like it when people give me attention! I like being interesting! And these are all things that our societal narrative attaches to sex,â€� Selena says. For allos, sex is so natural an explanation for behavior that other reasons, such as wanting to dress creatively for its own sake and wanting to be seen just to be seen, can be hard to fathom. “I’m like ‘I want you to stare at me, but I don’t want you to fuck me, and they have nothing to do with each other,’â€� Selena continues. “And then allos are so funny because they just insist that those have everything to do with each other.”
― Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex
― Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex
“In the desire to be respected, people become ableist and prejudiced, straining to present ourselves as happy and healthy when it should be fine to be ace and unhappy and unhealthy, like all the unhappy and unhealthy straight people out there.”
― Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex
― Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex
“It is already taken for granted that sexual desire doesn’t need to include infatuation or caring. One-night stands and fuck-buddy arrangements are all explicitly sexual and explicitly non-romantic. The opposite conclusion—that for some, infatuation never included and never turns into sexual desire—is harder for people to accept, at least in the West.”
― Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex
― Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex
“Instead of letting labels like romantic and platonic (or friend versus partner) guide actions and expectations, it is possible for the desires themselves to guide actions and expectations. More effective than relying on labels to provide instruction is skipping directly to asking for what we want—around time, touch, commitment, and so on as David Jay wrote—regardless of whether those desires confuse hardline ideas of what these two categories are supposed to look like. When the desires don’t fit the labels, it is often the labels that should be adjusted or discarded, not the desires. If everyone is behaving ethically, it doesn’t matter if a relationship doesn’t fit into a preconceived social role, if it feels neither platonic nor romantic or if it feels like both at the same time.”
― Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex
― Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex
“Guilt and shame and anger: Shame at saying yes, anger at not knowing you didn’t have to say yes, shame at not standing your ground and saying no, anger at partners for not telling you to say no, guilt at being angry because no one knew better. And in so many cases, the same conclusion, one that ace blogger StarchyThoughts summed up beautifully:
― Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex
I blamed my ex for a while—why did he push it when I said no so many times before? why did he enjoy it when I was clearly disinterested?—but that didn’t feel quite right. I said yes multiple times, and people can’t read minds. So then I was back to blaming myself. Perhaps if I truly felt so strongly that I didn’t want to have sex, I would have said no every time. But that doesn’t encapsulate the pressure and feeling of brokenness that I felt—the unspoken social norm that because I didn’t have a “goodâ€� reason to “denyâ€� him, saying yes was a given. The problem is that I was left with no way to explain my hurt. On the surface, it shouldn’t have been a big deal: he said yes, I said yes, therefore everything was consensual. The problem is, had I known about asexuality, I would have said no. It felt like a wrong had occurred, even though there was no one to blame. And that is hermeneutical injustice.”
― Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex
“Within relationships, the desire to have sex and the desire not to have sex are so often treated unequally because of the common belief that entering a relationship requires giving up a measure of consent.”
― Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex
― Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex
“Every no is good enough, and that goes for every person. If we believe that people shouldn’t have unwanted sex with strangers and that strangers are not entitled to sex, we should believe that people shouldn’t have unwanted sex with partners and that partners, no matter how loving or good, are not entitled to sex either. As long as people don’t know about asexuality—hell, forget about the label, so long as they don’t know that saying no forever and for any reason and in any context is okay—sex education, sex therapy, and popular depictions of sex are incomplete and people don’t have the relevant information to fully consent.”
― Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex
― Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex
“A simple platitude, “Rape is not sexâ€� cannot take into account all these subtleties and instead leads people to wonder how to process a consensual, negative experience and how they’re allowed to feel afterward. It doesn’t provide a way to think about how much force (physical, cultural, or emotional) is necessary for the designation of rape and how to think about the meaning of coerced sex that falls just shy of that mark. If you said yes but your body language didn’t seem particularly enthusiastic, then is it not rape but sex, which is good? Then why didn’t you feel good? Did you forfeit your right to have regrets and your rights to feel bad and to claim harm?”
― Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex
― Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex
“Harmful, consensual sex happens and people should be allowed to speak freely using those terms. Those who have been harmed by sex deserve support regardless of whether they consented. Everyone should acknowledge the other side too, that we can hurt someone even if we did not mean to and even if we checked in and tried to do due diligence.”
― Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex
― Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex
“For those who have sex, these ideas—breaking the binary of yes and no, norms that encourage discussion—must be combined with always checking in. Checking in doesn’t mean stopping for a five-minute discussion in legalese. It requires paying attention to—and wanting to pay attention to—all forms of information. Nonverbal communication in particular is important because social pressures can make it hard for some to speak up and verbally say no. “I’m autistic and people are always telling me that 95 percent of communication is nonverbal and tell me it’s important to make efforts to understand that,â€� says Lola Phoenix, a writer in London. “And then when it comes to consent it’s suddenly like, ‘Why didn’t they say something? No one is a mind reader!â€� That’s really hypocritical.”
― Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex
― Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex
“Society teaches what sex is, how to have sex, how much sex to have, how to feel about that sex, and what a good sex life is. It provides sexual scripts and rules to follow. Sex advice books, which frequently push the narrative of sex as a primal act, socialize us too. They teach what sex means for relationship health and what types of sex are good and bad—and in doing so, amusingly, disprove their own claim about sex as an immutable drive. If sex is completely natural and biological, why does anyone need this industry of sex experts at all? Why are there sex manuals dating back centuries? Why do we need Cosmopolitan to tell us how to do it, when we far more rarely see guidebooks for how to digest and how to breathe?”
― Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex
― Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex
“Normal is often treated as a moral judgment, when it is often simply a statistical matter. The question of what everyone else is doing is less important than the question of what works for the two people in the actual relationship. It matters that everyone’s needs are carefully considered and respected, not that everyone is doing the same thing.”
― Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex
― Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex
“Relationships should always be a game of mix and match, not a puzzle that you have to perfectly snap into, or a Jenga tower that will collapse as soon as you try to wiggle one block out of place. Customizability is the best part, yet most people try so hard to make their relationship stick to its premade form, a one-size-fits-all shape. Many people don’t take advantage of their own freedom.”
― Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex
― Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex
“Well-meaning guides usually point out that sexual norms are too rigid and that everyone would be happier if we stopped worrying about having sex exactly like everyone else. However, almost no books go on to say that it’s okay if someone doesn’t want to have sex at all. Constrictions need to be loosened, but not too much. The underlying assumption is that sex in relationships is imperative and everything else—the amount of sex, the number of partners, the positions, the toys—follows from that axiom.”
― Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex
― Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex
“Others think that the bases track neatly onto emotions so that holding hands is a little bit intimate and kissing more intimate and having sex the most intimate thing of all. Reality is rarely this neat or linear. Sex can be boring and impersonal, while a brush of the hand can be thrilling. One person can feel close to another from far away and the same person can have penetrative intercourse and not feel much of anything. Touch doesn’t have to be a hierarchy, and sex doesn’t have to be the only, or even the best, way of achieving intimacy.”
― Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex
― Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex
“I know people are suspicious of emotional desire for sex because they like to ask me whether it feels good when non-repulsed aces have sex. The question stems from curiosity, but also from worry that the lack of sexual attraction means that all sex is automatic pity sex, endured instead of enjoyed.
The answer to the question of whether sex feels good for aces is sometimes yes and sometimes no, just like with allos. Many people, ace and allo alike, don’t feel a spontaneous desire for sex, but they start to feel that mental wanting once (consensual) physical touch is initiated and their body becomes aroused. This process, called responsive desire, is a slow warming-up, an “I know I’ll get into it once I start.â€� It’s common and often at the core of willing consent.”
― Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex
The answer to the question of whether sex feels good for aces is sometimes yes and sometimes no, just like with allos. Many people, ace and allo alike, don’t feel a spontaneous desire for sex, but they start to feel that mental wanting once (consensual) physical touch is initiated and their body becomes aroused. This process, called responsive desire, is a slow warming-up, an “I know I’ll get into it once I start.â€� It’s common and often at the core of willing consent.”
― Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex
“It’s easy to say that sex is important and it’s harder to be vulnerable enough to say that sex is important because a lack of sex creates fear and insecurity.”
― Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex
― Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex
“Difference can be a gift. Being ace can mean less interpersonal drama and more freedom from social norms around relationships. It is an opportunity to focus more on other passions, to be less distracted by sexuality, to break the scripts, to choose your own adventure and your own values.”
― Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex
― Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex
“The goal of ace liberation is simply the goal of true sexual and romantic freedom for everyone. A society that is welcoming to aces can never be compatible with rape culture; with misogyny, racism, ableism, homophobia, and transphobia; with current hierarchies of romance and friendship; and with contractual notions of consent. It is a society that respects choice and highlights the pleasure that can be found everywhere in our lives. I believe that all this is possible.”
― Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex
― Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex
