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A review by _alias_ali
Ace: What Asexuality Reveals about Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex by Angela Chen
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.
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.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Acephobia/Arophobia
Moderate: Murder, Ableism, Rape, Sexism, and Sexual violence