A Manifesto for Asexual Feminism

2 APRIL 2019

We, the asexual community, declare our intention here to challenge the compulsory nature of sex and sexuality in our society. We hope to reimagine feminism and the value system we have built around sexual relations that continue to exclude us.

We have been underrepresented by the underrepresented: intersectional feminists from queer communities and people of color alike most often misunderstand or completely leave out of the conversation the unique experiences of the asexual community. Though we are shifting away from heteronormativity and opening up to different gender identities and sexualities, nearly every feminist dialogue – from day-to-day conversations, to mainstream media, to institutions – holds notions of compulsory sex and sexuality: it assumes some form of sexuality and grants benefits to sexual individuals that we cannot enjoy.

We are told sexual exploration is a coming-of-age prerequisite to adulthood. Then we are told sex is essential to enjoying our adulthood to the fullest, and that those who abstain or do not engage in sexual relations are not fully human and in need of healing or correction.

We have not been scarred to hate sex, nor are we practicing abstinence. Take Cerankowski and Mills’s words on asexuality:

The asexual community thus may push the feminist movement to recognize and avoid creating hierarchies of sexual practices while also urging us to look carefully at the ways in which words such as ‘repressed’ or ‘dysfunctional’ are used rhetorically to justify erotic chauvinism (Cerankowski & Mills, p. 657).

Our sexuality is not a sexual drive that has been “repressed”; nor are we “dysfunctional”. We are a group of individuals who do not feel sexual attraction towards others and to retain the compulsory nature of sex and sexuality in our society as feminists is to impose a way of life that feels unnatural and forced to us.

And so we present a vision for a society without conceptions of “normal”. Love, companionship, attraction, affection, and stability must all be reimagined to recognize and include asexuality as a form of sexuality, not the lack thereof or as an outlier group away from the spectrum of sexual orientations. Existing forms of feminism grounded in compulsory sexuality see the spectrum of sexual orientations with homosexuality on one end and heterosexuality and the other, exactly because so much of contemporary feminism is about women and queer individuals embracing their bodies as sexual beings. Take the anti-porn, radical feminist versus pro-sex feminist debate, for instance: radical feminism “combated the repression of female sexuality by the patriarchy” while pro-sex feminism saw “repression as produced by heterosexism and ‘sex negativity’” (Cerankowski & Mills, p. 656). Their respective movements still presented a pro- vs. anti-sex dichotomy assuming all humans as sexual beings, othering our community as an “abnormal” category.

Asexuality challenges many existing assumptions about gender and sexuality, for much of gender theories evolve from sexual politics and is informed by sexuality. Our understanding of gendered identities and relationships also hinge upon some object of sexual desire. But what if there is no object of sexual desire at all? Can we separate gender from sexuality? These are only a few questions we have asked ourselves in our struggle to understand our sexual orientation and attempt to fit ourselves into a fixed mold. In the documentary (A)sexual (2011), founder of AVEN David Jay shares his realization from his long, albeit ultimately fruitless, search for a partner to share his life with as an asexual man: “I think sex makes people take relationships more seriously.” We, however, recognize that sex does not have to be (and should not be) the sole shorthand signifier for abstract concepts such as intimacy, connection, and commitment in relationships. We must understand, rather, that our sex-obsessed Western culture constructed such sex-centric value systems of marriage, monogamy, friendship, and kinship.

In fact, even marriage as a state-sanctioned expression of monogamous love is not transhistorical, but rather a very contemporary and Western concept (Warner). Sex acts and sexual desires are made to seem “natural” through repetition and emphasis on both the day-to-day and institutional grounds. Culturally contingent notions such as marriage and monogamy fail to acknowledge that what appears to be immoral, criminal, and pathological may just be a difference and a variation; asexuality is just another one of those variations that invoke concepts unfamiliar to contemporary society, such as polyamory or romantic attraction without sexual attraction. We must then expand our conversations, intersectional feminist efforts, and education topics to include the full spectrum of sexualities so that we can continue to embrace sex positivity and non-conforming identities while simultaneously acknowledging that individuals may not feel any sexual attraction towards others. Furthermore, we must strive to spread the notion not only that asexual experiences are unique even within the community, but also that asexuality does not equate the inability to feel love, affection, or other forms of attraction.

We are equally human, equally feminists, capable of love, happiness, affection, and kinship in which our relationship ties lie. We ask to be seen, understood, and included in the coming dialogues of feminism. Ultimately, our manifesto will likely bring more questions than answers. Embrace this confusion and curiosity, and take it further: we ask you to question the origins of our value system and the existing forms of feminism and aspire towards true feminism that fully includes all identities.

NOTE: This manifesto for asexual feminism was written in the “first person” of members of an asexual community solely for the persuasive purpose of this assignment. I would like to note, explicitly, that there are likely shortcomings as a piece written by a non-asexual individual and that this is an imagined experience only according to my knowledge from readings, discussions, and films.