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A review by podanotherjessi
Refusing Compulsory Sexuality: A Black Asexual Lens on Our Sex-Obsessed Culture by Sherronda J. Brown
informative
medium-paced
This book falls into an expectations versus reality situation, some of which was my fault and some of which are ways I think it actually fell short.
I was expecting there to be a lot more focus on the intersectionality between asexuality and blackness, but that really only took up about half of the book. Much of the focus was on the ways in which asexuals are disenfranchised and discriminated against - sometimes with a borderline defensive tone - without the focus on specific ways black asexuals uniquely experience that discrimination. In retrospect, this makes sense as necessary to set the groundwork. This is meant for a more introductory text than I was anticipating.
But there were times where the book was nearly exclusionary of non-white experiences. An example that stands out was the chapter "Histories." This was meant as a timeline of the presence of asexuality, even when the same words weren't used. I love this in theory. But this timeline starts in the 19th century (there is some information about earlier times in a separate chapter) and only includes works from Europe and America. Brown excuses herself at the end of this chapter by saying she's not an historian, but then why attempt a history? The lack of any examples not from the global north in this timeline felt like a glaring omission.
That said, as an introductory work, I think this is a fairly good resource. It outlines a lot of the biases in American culture and does highlight the particular contradiction and dehumanization that black asexuals face. Overall, it's not a book I would recommend in place of other books on the topic of asexuality, but as a companion to.
I was expecting there to be a lot more focus on the intersectionality between asexuality and blackness, but that really only took up about half of the book. Much of the focus was on the ways in which asexuals are disenfranchised and discriminated against - sometimes with a borderline defensive tone - without the focus on specific ways black asexuals uniquely experience that discrimination. In retrospect, this makes sense as necessary to set the groundwork. This is meant for a more introductory text than I was anticipating.
But there were times where the book was nearly exclusionary of non-white experiences. An example that stands out was the chapter "Histories." This was meant as a timeline of the presence of asexuality, even when the same words weren't used. I love this in theory. But this timeline starts in the 19th century (there is some information about earlier times in a separate chapter) and only includes works from Europe and America. Brown excuses herself at the end of this chapter by saying she's not an historian, but then why attempt a history? The lack of any examples not from the global north in this timeline felt like a glaring omission.
That said, as an introductory work, I think this is a fairly good resource. It outlines a lot of the biases in American culture and does highlight the particular contradiction and dehumanization that black asexuals face. Overall, it's not a book I would recommend in place of other books on the topic of asexuality, but as a companion to.