Let me first say that I am LOVING the experience of reading Ace by Angela Chen. I am finished with the first two parts of the book and honestly have nothing but good things to say about it. I adore the topics that she covers and how she treats them, and what topics she combines with what.
In particular I adored the second chapter. This chapter is primarily about language and the power of words. She starts the chapter by discussing how language shapes the way we interpret the world and our experiences. Things and sensations that we have words for become more apparent, while those we do not stay invisible. And this is the struggle with asexuality, where because it is defined by a lack of attraction, it is initially invisible to those who don’t know what to look for.
In this situation, the internet has become a great distributor of knowledge and way to introduce people to asexuality. Which is so very true, many aces I know found out about the term through the internet and sites like this exact one. But as a result it is seen as some recent phenomena, when in reality aces have existed forever. It just is only recently that we have disseminated the knowledge of asexuality to many people. Words are powerful, and in this case they can shape the community and what it looks like.
I love what she has to say about labels though. Asexuals get made fun of for all their microlabels, how they categorize all these different forms of attraction. (Of course, these distinctions affect allos as well, they just never have to grapple with the contradictions within themselves and therefore to them the differences don’t exist.) Chen makes the point that these labels ideally should function more as descriptors rather than categories of people. This is so great to me, that way you can try on different labels without worrying about it, and it would be so easy to change between them. Too frequently we fall into thinking about them as permanent categories, rather than the much more transient adjectives they should be.
The chapter closes with the idea that sexuality is fluid and constantly changing. Identity as a whole is like this, but particularly sexual orientation. Our sexuality is shaped by our culture and background, as well as our mental health, and age and how we grow. It is not a constant but an ever-shifting variable. Our language can and should reflect this as well. Another point towards seeing labels as descriptors.
Additionally, to go off on a personal note, the fluidity of sexuality means that there will never be a genetic basis of sexuality. For some reason, scientists really like to hypothesize about the existence of a gay gene. Since I’m a genetics researcher, sometimes people ask me about this as well. I don’t want there to EVER be a gay gene or an ace gene. First of all, sexuality is much more complicated than that. It changes based on what you know about sexuality, the environment you are raised in, your mood. It changes based on just what label you find useful at the time. Something that complicated will never be determined by a single gene. And even if there was one, once we have a gay gene we can diagnose being gay. And that means we can determine definitively who is queer and who is not. Hello gatekeeping. Anyone can pick up any label at any given time, for any reason. It is not anyone’s place to determine who gets to identify as what. Definitely not on the basis of genes.
I am surprised though that she hasn’t talked about how a lot of asexuals feel “broken” yet. This doesn’t come up in her chapter on compulsory sexuality, or the chapter on disability and sickness. Maybe it’ll come up in a later chapter, but this experience is like an undercurrent through all of these chapters. It’s definitely there, just not overtly discussed.
When you’re saturated with content saying that you must be sexual in order to function, and when you live in a society that medicalizes disinterest in sex, it is extremely easy to feel as though there is something wrong with you. There are statements from people that Chen talked to saying that they ordered blood tests to make sure there wasn’t anything wrong. But none of them say that they felt broken until finding out about asexuality and accepting themselves as they are. Sure we get there via different means, Chen still discusses the benefits of identifying as ace and accepting yourself, but this specific path isn’t present.
It seems odd to me that such a common experience doesn’t have a place in this book. So many aces I know of have used that exact term and described more or less this exact thought process. Not everyone goes through this, absolutely, but it is pretty common. Tackling it head on would be the most intuitive way to debunk this idea.
Maybe it just didn’t fit into the stories that Chen wanted to tell, I don’t know. Maybe this idea isn’t that important to anyone else. But it’s important to me. I feel as though a part of the experience of growing up ace is missing from the book without it.
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