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A review by gabsalott13
Ace: What Asexuality Reveals about Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex by Angela Chen
hopeful
informative
reflective
medium-paced
4.25
This is such a helpful guide!!! The only reason I didn't fly through this book is because there were so many wonderful quotes I wanted to get down on every single page. There are way too many helpful concepts in here to get into them all, so I'm going to try and summarize the most helpful components from each chapter.
Chapter 1: Arriving at Asexuality
This chapter really helped set the scene for the "multiple qualifying factors" approach of this book, where the author is sharing stories of asexual experiences and concepts, for you to choose which ones fit (instead of use any to say "this doesn't apply to you.") This chapter is also maybe one of the places Angela Chen shares her own experiences in a way that is fully helpful, and not slightly grating—more on this later.
Chapter 2: Explanation via Negativa
In this chapter, Angela Chen separates out the difference between sex drive (basically, your general libido or undirected horniness) and sexual attraction ("a libido with a target.") This was SUCH a helpful delineation, as it helps me to understand why asexual people can still experience the desire to masturbate, or even have partnered sex, but in a very different way than some allosexual people do. This chapter also introduced the "spectrum within the spectrum" of how asexual people can feel about partnered sex at any given moment: sex-repulsed, to sex-indifferent, to sex-favorable. I am already using this range as a helpful way to check in with myself from week to week (and honestly sometimes minute to minute.) One annoying part at the end is a recurring theme throughout the book: while Chen is very adept at interrogating how compulsory sexuality impacts her life choices, there is no similar interrogation of the compulsory HETEROsexuality in some of her statements. For instance, when she talks about how she has a greater "aversion" to sex with cis women than cis men, there are no thoughts about the patriarchal norms that may have impacted this aversion...hmm!!!
Chapter 3: Compulsory Sexuality and (Male) Asexual Existence
Okay, so this is like the concept that changed the game for me!!! Compulsory sexuality is an extension of
Chapter 1: Arriving at Asexuality
This chapter really helped set the scene for the "multiple qualifying factors" approach of this book, where the author is sharing stories of asexual experiences and concepts, for you to choose which ones fit (instead of use any to say "this doesn't apply to you.") This chapter is also maybe one of the places Angela Chen shares her own experiences in a way that is fully helpful, and not slightly grating—more on this later.
Chapter 2: Explanation via Negativa
In this chapter, Angela Chen separates out the difference between sex drive (basically, your general libido or undirected horniness) and sexual attraction ("a libido with a target.") This was SUCH a helpful delineation, as it helps me to understand why asexual people can still experience the desire to masturbate, or even have partnered sex, but in a very different way than some allosexual people do. This chapter also introduced the "spectrum within the spectrum" of how asexual people can feel about partnered sex at any given moment: sex-repulsed, to sex-indifferent, to sex-favorable. I am already using this range as a helpful way to check in with myself from week to week (and honestly sometimes minute to minute.) One annoying part at the end is a recurring theme throughout the book: while Chen is very adept at interrogating how compulsory sexuality impacts her life choices, there is no similar interrogation of the compulsory HETEROsexuality in some of her statements. For instance, when she talks about how she has a greater "aversion" to sex with cis women than cis men, there are no thoughts about the patriarchal norms that may have impacted this aversion...hmm!!!
Chapter 3: Compulsory Sexuality and (Male) Asexual Existence
Okay, so this is like the concept that changed the game for me!!! Compulsory sexuality is an extension of
Adrienne Rich’s concept of compulsory heterosexuality—Chen argues that if “heterosexuality is a political institution that is taught and conditioned and reinforced”, so is allosexuality! The ideas that all "normal people" have sex, that only immature people don't have sex, or that sex is the most passionate or adventurous or ultimate experience of connection you can have with someone you love, are ALL concepts derived from compulsory sexuality. Chen goes a helpful step further by talking about how the institution of allosexuality interacts with other systems in our society, such as capitalism. For instance, a lot of the negative responses to asexuality is because of how this flies in the face of how we commodify sex. If the current set-up is that people are supposed to "buy into" compulsory sexuality in exchange for society's promised return on sexual investment, which includes being a cooler, more cultured person, than asexuality is literally bad for business. I appreciated how open the people surveyed in this chapter were about how it can be embarrassing to identify as asexual, because you feel like you're saying you don't live life to the fullest. Thankfully, my favorite parts in this chapter combat this pretty well. Through her interviews and personal anecdotes, Chen describes the many ways asexual people lead thrilling, passionate, cultured lives that have nothing to do with their sexual endeavors.
Chapter 4: Just Let Me Liberate You
This is, hands down, my favorite chapter of the book, and only 78% for petty reasons. It summarizes the "mutation of feminist values" that makes sexual promiscuity the only expression of a liberated sexuality. Chen explains how this collapsing of sex into an inherently progressive act is troubling for survivors, asexual people, those aspiring to certain politics, people knee deep in "polyagony", and everyone else caught uncomfortably in the middle between sex-negative feminism and sex-positive feminism. Chen's ultimate verdict is that she's decided to be "sex critical", which seems like a really smart place to be. More than anything, I loved how this chapter critiques the maturity narrative that is a key part of compulsory sexuality. When sex becomes seen as the most important, evolved, or intimate way to relate to other people, and also the most “fully realized” expression of certain politics, this can cause a problem for many asexual people. However, Chen shares a reminder I want posted everywhere: "it is also troubling if the focus on personal liberation takes attention away from the true power of political organizing. Having transgressive sex can be individually powerful, but it rarely changes the greater structure of politics, law, and culture that continues to shame alternative lifestyles and sex (and enforce other forms of regressive norms) for everyone else." Basically, only being focused on your individual “freedom to” have sex the way you want, does nothing to help broader groups of people build the “freedom from” systems that use sex to oppress people.
And now, here is my favorite quote from the entire book, where Chen shares a bit of her thoughts and then quotes the piece "Your Sex is Not Radical" by Yasmin Nair. “Sex is not the center of my feminism…Even if I put in the work to make my sex life the envy of all, that would mostly help me alone. Pursuing pleasure can be wonderful, but not having a super-exciting sex life does not make one a political failure, not when there is so much other work to be done, on issues of violence and economics and education and more…as Nair writes, ’The revolution’—the one that helps all of us—‘will not come on the tidal wave of your next multiple orgasm had with your seven partners on the floor of your communal living space. It will only happen if you have an actual plan for destroying systems of oppression and exploitation.’ Sexual diversity of all kinds is important, and one’s personal sexuality does not create the limits of their political activism, in either direction.”
Chapter 4: Just Let Me Liberate You
This is, hands down, my favorite chapter of the book, and only 78% for petty reasons. It summarizes the "mutation of feminist values" that makes sexual promiscuity the only expression of a liberated sexuality. Chen explains how this collapsing of sex into an inherently progressive act is troubling for survivors, asexual people, those aspiring to certain politics, people knee deep in "polyagony", and everyone else caught uncomfortably in the middle between sex-negative feminism and sex-positive feminism. Chen's ultimate verdict is that she's decided to be "sex critical", which seems like a really smart place to be. More than anything, I loved how this chapter critiques the maturity narrative that is a key part of compulsory sexuality. When sex becomes seen as the most important, evolved, or intimate way to relate to other people, and also the most “fully realized” expression of certain politics, this can cause a problem for many asexual people. However, Chen shares a reminder I want posted everywhere: "it is also troubling if the focus on personal liberation takes attention away from the true power of political organizing. Having transgressive sex can be individually powerful, but it rarely changes the greater structure of politics, law, and culture that continues to shame alternative lifestyles and sex (and enforce other forms of regressive norms) for everyone else." Basically, only being focused on your individual “freedom to” have sex the way you want, does nothing to help broader groups of people build the “freedom from” systems that use sex to oppress people.
And now, here is my favorite quote from the entire book, where Chen shares a bit of her thoughts and then quotes the piece "Your Sex is Not Radical" by Yasmin Nair. “Sex is not the center of my feminism…Even if I put in the work to make my sex life the envy of all, that would mostly help me alone. Pursuing pleasure can be wonderful, but not having a super-exciting sex life does not make one a political failure, not when there is so much other work to be done, on issues of violence and economics and education and more…as Nair writes, ’The revolution’—the one that helps all of us—‘will not come on the tidal wave of your next multiple orgasm had with your seven partners on the floor of your communal living space. It will only happen if you have an actual plan for destroying systems of oppression and exploitation.’ Sexual diversity of all kinds is important, and one’s personal sexuality does not create the limits of their political activism, in either direction.”
Chapter 5: Whitewashed
This chapter definitely was lacking, and illustrates more of why I will be waiting for Black asexual authors' thoughts on how our particular culture interacts with asexuality. One helpful component comes from Chen's interview with asexual model Yasmin Benoit, who talks about their embrace of a "desire to be desired."
Chapter 6: In Sickness and In Health
This chapter talks about the overlaps and schisms between disability justice organizing and asexual activism. In short, Chen explains that “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.” Chen includes helpful information about medical acephobia and the capitalist and patriarchal roots of much of the clinical pathologies of people who have low sexual desire. But, she could have gone much further in critique of the ableism, anti-fatness, and anti-Blackness of the health industry (for this, I'd recommend Belly of the Beast by Da'Shaun L. Harrison.) For me, the most useful critique of this chapter was when Chen talked about how diagnoses are the tools of the hierarchical medical systems in our country, that make doctors the ultimate professionals on our bodies. By contrast, asexuality is not about top-down or sterile diagnoses, but instead discovering and exploring and deciding for yourself if this is a spectrum that you may find a helpful place on.
Chen furthers this anti-diagnostic approach by describing the need to abandon "gold star asexual policies", which make people feel like they're invalid asexual people if they’re disabled, or a bad disabled person if they’re asexual, because they fell into stereotypes or weren’t “purely asexual” without the origin of their asexuality being influenced by another identity/set of life experiences. I definitely related to this initial feeling like I couldn’t exactly ascertain where one of my experienced started and the other one began (being a lesbian, asexual, nonbinary, autistic, etc.) By the end of this chapter, I was clear that it didn't matter!!! Chen explains that the “obsession with the origin” of asexuality is compulsory sexuality in itself—when something is seen as “against the standard” or norm, people feel a burden to isolate where this "deviance" came from, in a way that is never expected in reverse. One part that definitely spoke to my identity as a recovering nondenominational Baptist is when she explains that asexual origin hunting is really about “trying to please those who were always going to be naysayers." Part of my religious deconstruction journey has been realizing I have to stop doing this with the hunt for a biblical justification for being gay—even if there isn’t one, it doesn’t matter because it's not my job to change the minds of people who are deadset on being bigoted (even if those "people" literally include the God I was raised to believe in.) In a different but similar context, Chen explains “most of us will never have the luxury of an airtight answer to these questions [about the origin of our asexuality], just as we’ll never know how much any of our other preferences were affected by thousands of other factors. Interactions are too convoluted...questioning can be exhausting and futile. Experiences may change on their own later or they may not—so after a certain amount of effort, this work is no longer helpful and acceptance becomes more important.” This book is certainly helping with my own path to acceptance of many parts of myself!
This chapter definitely was lacking, and illustrates more of why I will be waiting for Black asexual authors' thoughts on how our particular culture interacts with asexuality. One helpful component comes from Chen's interview with asexual model Yasmin Benoit, who talks about their embrace of a "desire to be desired."
Chapter 6: In Sickness and In Health
This chapter talks about the overlaps and schisms between disability justice organizing and asexual activism. In short, Chen explains that “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.” Chen includes helpful information about medical acephobia and the capitalist and patriarchal roots of much of the clinical pathologies of people who have low sexual desire. But, she could have gone much further in critique of the ableism, anti-fatness, and anti-Blackness of the health industry (for this, I'd recommend Belly of the Beast by Da'Shaun L. Harrison.) For me, the most useful critique of this chapter was when Chen talked about how diagnoses are the tools of the hierarchical medical systems in our country, that make doctors the ultimate professionals on our bodies. By contrast, asexuality is not about top-down or sterile diagnoses, but instead discovering and exploring and deciding for yourself if this is a spectrum that you may find a helpful place on.
Chen furthers this anti-diagnostic approach by describing the need to abandon "gold star asexual policies", which make people feel like they're invalid asexual people if they’re disabled, or a bad disabled person if they’re asexual, because they fell into stereotypes or weren’t “purely asexual” without the origin of their asexuality being influenced by another identity/set of life experiences. I definitely related to this initial feeling like I couldn’t exactly ascertain where one of my experienced started and the other one began (being a lesbian, asexual, nonbinary, autistic, etc.) By the end of this chapter, I was clear that it didn't matter!!! Chen explains that the “obsession with the origin” of asexuality is compulsory sexuality in itself—when something is seen as “against the standard” or norm, people feel a burden to isolate where this "deviance" came from, in a way that is never expected in reverse. One part that definitely spoke to my identity as a recovering nondenominational Baptist is when she explains that asexual origin hunting is really about “trying to please those who were always going to be naysayers." Part of my religious deconstruction journey has been realizing I have to stop doing this with the hunt for a biblical justification for being gay—even if there isn’t one, it doesn’t matter because it's not my job to change the minds of people who are deadset on being bigoted (even if those "people" literally include the God I was raised to believe in.) In a different but similar context, Chen explains “most of us will never have the luxury of an airtight answer to these questions [about the origin of our asexuality], just as we’ll never know how much any of our other preferences were affected by thousands of other factors. Interactions are too convoluted...questioning can be exhausting and futile. Experiences may change on their own later or they may not—so after a certain amount of effort, this work is no longer helpful and acceptance becomes more important.” This book is certainly helping with my own path to acceptance of many parts of myself!
Chapter 7: Romance, Reconsidered
This chapter had some very helpful sections about the validity of "nonsexual romantic love", and deconstructing the idea that platonic love is less passionate because only sex can bring passion into a relationship. It also brought up a topic that many of my friends and I regularly discuss, which is that I really wish our society was one were “the marital and sexual bond was not automatically assumed to be the most important emotional relationship” someone can have. Many times, this is getting in the way of A LOT of people’s desire to have really close friends. I am personally trying to work to align my own beliefs in this area with my actions, as it is really easy to fall into social scripts of what Chen calls amatonormativity, or "the underserved elevation and centrality of romantic love." One final note here: I did a buddy read for this book, and my friend Adriana made a great point about a hypocrisy in this chapter. Despite talking at the start about how our society unnecessarily devalues the extent of friendship, Chen's use of the term "queerplatonic partner" seems to do exactly the same thing. If she's saying that there's no limit to how deep or important platonic friendships can be, why do we need a new term to signify a platonic relationship that is "more important" than friendship?!? Make it make sense.
This chapter had some very helpful sections about the validity of "nonsexual romantic love", and deconstructing the idea that platonic love is less passionate because only sex can bring passion into a relationship. It also brought up a topic that many of my friends and I regularly discuss, which is that I really wish our society was one were “the marital and sexual bond was not automatically assumed to be the most important emotional relationship” someone can have. Many times, this is getting in the way of A LOT of people’s desire to have really close friends. I am personally trying to work to align my own beliefs in this area with my actions, as it is really easy to fall into social scripts of what Chen calls amatonormativity, or "the underserved elevation and centrality of romantic love." One final note here: I did a buddy read for this book, and my friend Adriana made a great point about a hypocrisy in this chapter. Despite talking at the start about how our society unnecessarily devalues the extent of friendship, Chen's use of the term "queerplatonic partner" seems to do exactly the same thing. If she's saying that there's no limit to how deep or important platonic friendships can be, why do we need a new term to signify a platonic relationship that is "more important" than friendship?!? Make it make sense.
Chapter 8: The Good-Enough Reason
This chapter was incredibly helpful with unpacking some sexual trauma, as it opens with the concept of hermeneutical injustice, or the life-affirming knowledge that is often inaccessible to oppressed people. A particular hermeneutical injustice that ace people are kept from knowing is that not wanting to have sex is “the good-enough reason” to not have sex with a partner. Because many asexual people often don’t know this, they can experience sexual coercion, consent violations, sexual assault, and other terrible situations, particularly in the concept of partnered relationships. Chen notes this is particularly likely because even most consent-minded people subliminally believe that "sex with strangers is never necessary, but sex in relationships is a requirement." Chen is able to reinforce the good-enough reason, and the nuances of experiences we may have had before we learned about it, by using a framework developed by Emily Nagoski in Come As You Are, my next therapist-recommended read! In this chapter, Chen critiques the imprecise binaries of the "no-means-no" consent model, and uses Nagoski's work to talk about a range of consent: from enthusiastic, willing, unwilling, to coerced consent (“although the last two are consent mostly in the extremely literal sense that someone did not yell out no.”) This model felt incredibly helpful as a foundation to any discussion about asexual relationships, is it gives a lot more room to start, assess, and adjust.
Chapter 9: Playing with Others
This chapter gets into the nitty-gritty of several "mixed-orientation" relationships between asexual and allosexual people. The main "solution" Chen shares is that there is a lot of power in these couples recognizing sexual mismatch as a common part of relationship negotiation, instead of the failure or abnormality of one partner. When you see incompatibility as the issue, instead of asexuality as the issue, there are lots of potential solutions. I do have gripes with Chen presenting nonmonogamy as an easy overnight solution to allo-ace relationships. In my own experience of reading and re-reading this book, I have come to realize that I'm in a double mixed-orientation relationship: I'm asexual and my girlfriend is not, while she is polyamorous and I am not. Realizing these truths has opened possible solutions, for sure, but these come with their own challenges that shouldn't be glossed over. I think this may be partially explained by a helpful admission Chen makes at the end of the chapter, which is about their own experiences of insight fallacy (knowing about the issue, or being able to put a name/term to the issue, doesn't mean the issue goes away!) I appreciated Chen's honesty about how she still has the urge to double down on “not being too ace”, tries to convince herself that her sexual desire will come back at some point, or finds reasons to explain why she hasn't wanted sex for a long period of time. Many readers (including me!) are right there with her in the murky process of moving forward with the knowledge of these life truths.
Concluding Thoughts
I think the last two chapters didn't have many notable takeaways for me, but as you can see, I got a huge amount of helpful information from the first nine. I did want to add that I greatly benefitted from doing a buddy read for this book on my second read. I would highly recommend doing this, or even just talking about it with a friend—so far, pretty much everyone except one person I've discussed it with has found something in these topics they relate to (even if they don't identify as asexual.)
Chen includes a pretty helpful index and further reading list, but for the next points in my asexuality education, I am looking forward to hearing from Black asexual authors, like Sherronda Brown's forthcoming book, Refusing Compulsory Sexuality: A Black Asexual Lens on Our Sex-Obsessed Culture. Until then, I look forward to ruminating on the lessons of this very helpful book! :)
Chen includes a pretty helpful index and further reading list, but for the next points in my asexuality education, I am looking forward to hearing from Black asexual authors, like Sherronda Brown's forthcoming book, Refusing Compulsory Sexuality: A Black Asexual Lens on Our Sex-Obsessed Culture. Until then, I look forward to ruminating on the lessons of this very helpful book! :)