Reviews with content warning for Rape - Ace: What Asexuality Reveals about Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex

Reviews tagging 'Rape'

Ace: What Asexuality Reveals about Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex by Angela Chen

76 reviews

nad_books623's review against another edition

challenging informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

5.0

Wow this book was amazing! Made me rethink my own experiences and social scripts. This book reaffirmed my past experiences and helped me affirm that sex isn't everything. Especially, being a college student in a hookup culture. This book is an important read for asexuals, allosexuals and people inbetween.

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zackarinareads's review against another edition

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informative inspiring reflective

5.0

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angela_p's review against another edition

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informative medium-paced

4.5

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melodyseestrees's review against another edition

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hopeful informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

4.5

This has plenty of information about asexuality and it best serves as a starting point to learning. There is some nuance within conversations about asexuality and differing experiences under the same label. I wish there was a bit more exploration into those people who are entirely sex-repulsed or sex-negative. It feels like a lot of detail went into sex-positive and sex-neutral before going "eh some people just hate sex."
The writing style was just okay. It isn't the most grabbing but there are moments that resonated with me. I managed to enjoy the read despite a few organizational quirks.

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abitofcourage's review against another edition

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emotional informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

4.0

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zgreyz's review against another edition

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challenging informative reflective medium-paced

4.5

i loved this read.
love that it talks about so many different experiences of asexuality and deconstructed so much around it. found a lot of it very affirming and helpful for sure

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giest's review against another edition

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informative reflective medium-paced

5.0

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_alias_ali's review against another edition

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challenging informative inspiring medium-paced

3.75

overall i'm glad i read this book. i learned a bunch of new things about asexuality, aces, and myself (i'm allo). i especially liked the chapter about sex-positivity in contemporary feminism. her perspective on feeling like a 'real feminist' needing to be very sexual (ly liberated) was new and important to me. i also appreciated the look at the intersectionality of asexuality.
some things i stumbled upon/found problematic were:
- the author reproducing harmful virginity narratives and not once questioning them while she questions so many other sexual narratives in this book about questioning societal sexual narratives??
- her very badly chosen examples of _passionate non-sexual relationships_ that had some unnecessary connection to MURDER?? very unlucky choices and one didn't even have anything to do with asexuality. (especially since she does criticize the harmful typecasting of aces as heartless sociopaths but then partakes in it as well tho implicitly?)
-the book imtroduces many many names of people and i got them mixed up easily. their experiences are thrown in at random places in the text when i had already forgotten about their introduction

anyway, i still really did enjoy this read and took a lot away from it, and be it the need for further exploration and discussion of socially constructed narratives of sexuality and relationships.

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hellavaral's review against another edition

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challenging informative reflective medium-paced

4.0

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pandemonicbaby's review against another edition

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informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

5.0

I really enjoyed this book! I thought it was a very interesting read on sexuality in general and how asexuality brings a new perspective to our understanding of society (and social expectations) and intimacy, both on a broader and on an individual level.
It presented and described many different ace experiences, which just goes to show how no one community is homogenous, and how people are able to find different ways of finding love and happiness in their own existence.
This book also helped me reevaluate my own relationship with sexuality, and reflect upon how much of it has been molded by societal expectations and fear. This read has made me maybe a little bit less scared of maybe not conforming to what society expects of me, and of looking for intimacy in relationships in the way *i* want to have intimacy in relationships; not in the way societal expectations have told me to.

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