“Men run faster than women.” “Hence rape.” Or, Reddit in a nutshell.

I must still want to get married and have children (not in this lifetime) despite the fact I don’t want to have sex (women never want to have sex, it’s an obligation to marriage, herp derp)

Ugh, SUCH a damaging cultural narrative. No one benefits (no, not even the husbands of these women, because how can it be a benefit to sleep with an unenthusiastic partner?!)

So…what about asexuality makes its deviance different from what you think are queer relationships? What norms do you view an asexual identity breaking as opposed to other queer identities?

Ah, a question that properly requires a book length answer, but I’ll try to give one in brief using Beatrice Green’s “Homosexual Signification” as a loose outline of major themes of homophobia historically and culturally (this is a great article, I highly recommend it, it tries out creating a “taxonomy of homophobia” Green, Beatrice C. “Homosexual Signification.” Journal of Homosexuality, 49: 2, 119 — 134)

1. Pollution-Contagion. Leviticus explicitly locates sexualities between people assigned the same sex at birth as unclean and an abomination (Deuteronomy also calls dressing in the clothes of the unassigned sex as an abomination, and considers male assigned at birth people who have lost their penis or testes as unfit to participate in religious consecrations). The polluted body is seen as both contaminated and contagious, including in some cases as a literal bringer of plague and destruction (this is historically extremely common in a literal sense, and still common in both a literal and figurative sense). In contrast to clean and pure bodies, these bodies are viewed as a constant threat barring purifiction or removal. Desires to do these things are desires to become unclean and endanger the community.

2. Sinful-Wrongful Behavior. This involves the view that same sex assigned at birth sex are seen as sins, as disobedience to God, and desires as desires to sin. Related to this is the nominally secular notion that this type of sex is a form of liscentiousness and is “out of control”, and that allowing it will encourage those that already do it to do it and those that don’t to start.

3. Penetration-Emasculation. This is the fear that penetration womanizes a man (we see certain types of sex as gendering, being penetrated is gendered as feminine).
Thoguh Green does not argue such, I believe that sex roles in gender presentation of female assigned at birth people’s sex roles as well. There exists a ninth century canon that says this: “If women who choose chastity in the cause of religion either take on the clothes of a man or cut their hair, in order to appear false to others, we resolve that they should be admonished and criticized, because we consider that they err through a great ignorance rather than zeal.” This is in stark contrast to female assigned at birth who presented as male and engaged in sex with women. These people were often accused of witchcraft and executed if caught, and there was a common claim that witches could change sex that increased in the later middle ages. I do believe there is more than a little ground to argue that female assigned at birth/female sexual activity with women is seen as masculinizing in many cases as well.

4. Queer-Androgyny. Her terms, I’m not trying to circularly define here, she defines it as a term“used to respond to the transgressive threat that is seen to be posed by gay men who blend masculine and feminine characteristics”. So, she’s defining queer in terms of androgyny, or gender stereotype non-conformance. Fear of androgyny comes from fear of maintence of cisnorms (my terms there, not hers) and “a fear for the de-centering of heterosexuality, of (white) male privilege”

5. Against Nature-Contra-naturum. “The fear in each of these arguments comes from a reproductionist perspective that holds that the only legitimate reason to engage in sexual acts is for the purpose of procreation.”

6.Liscense-Debauchery. This is sex negativity in general and the signification of certain types of sexual acts and desires as being “oversexed”, “wild”, etc.

6. Generativity–Sterility. This involves seeing acts and desires as contradictory to reproduction within a stimatized minority group that has been subject to attempts at elimination.

7. Stigma-Gay History. This is these identities, bodies, acts, desires, etc. being seen as “spoiled identities”.

It can quickly be observed that there are massive grounds for overlap with trans issues on all of these, sometimes the idealogies underlying homophobia are based on cisnormativity or on gender binary notions that in practice are heavily cisnormative.

However, these do not largely apply to cis non-homo or non-bi romantic asexuals. Insofar as asexuals are less likely to reproduce, they could invoke fear of non-reproduction under number 6 if they are of another marginalized group, but it isn’t clear that they would do so more than a cis hetero who elected to not have children. The ways that cis non-homo or non-bi romantic asexuals might problematize normative sexual roles or normative gender roles is not very similar to LGB, etc., trans, or similar identities and practices. There have actually been virtually no claims to similarities of cis non-homo and non-bi romantic experiences, histories, and norm deviations on this thread, but rather a facial assertion that any type of norm deviation in terms of sexual practice is enough to make claims on identiteis that derive from the former.

Sidenote: “I understand the problem with appropriation (by anyone), but I’m not convinced that policing other’s identities is an effective way to deal with the threat of appropriation.” On this thread, telling people that an identity is not theirs and they are appropriating has been treated as identity policing per se, so how do you think people may defend themselves against/call out appropriation without telling people they are appropriating and don’t have a right to use an identity?

1) Deuteronomy … considers male assigned at birth people who have lost their penis or testes as unfit to participate in religious consecrations

So losing your genitals made you less of a person, but I’m sure everyone would totally look kindly on a person who did not intend to use their still-present genitals. They would not at all get treated as less-than based on this essentially sex-less identity. Asexuals, for example.

3) This is the fear that penetration womanizes a man (we see certain types of sex as gendering, being penetrated is gendered as feminine).

So sexual activity is used to identify and gender a person appropriately, for example it is properly “feminine” of a woman to be sexually penetrated. Somehow I doubt that men who did not wish to sexually penetrate, or women who did not wish to be sexually penetrated (asexuals, for example) were seen as complete men or women regardless.

4) Fear of androgyny comes from fear of maintence of cisnorms (my terms there, not hers) and “a fear for the de-centering of heterosexuality, of (white) male privilege”

I imagine that an identity that de-centered heterosexuality as part of de-centering (or not participating in) sexual activity would not be exactly welcomed by heterosexual privilege, then. An identity like asexuality, for example.

5) Generativity–Sterility. This involves seeing acts and desires as contradictory to reproduction within a stimatized minority group that has been subject to attempts at elimination.

If sex for the purpose of procreation is a good and necessary thing, then people who are not interested in having sex (asexuals, for example) would not fit well into this privileged goal of reproduction.

7) Stigma-Gay History. This is these identities, bodies, acts, desires, etc. being seen as “spoiled identities”.

Well, people have already listed some of these, but I’ll bet you can imagine if you think real hard ways in which an identity sans sexual desire, a body not inclined to engage in sex or reproduction, and an act as unnatural or “spoiled” as celibacy (ASEXUALS, for example) might get some flak over the millennia.

…So, what’s the score? Do we only need to match at least half of the listed criteria to count as queer? You listed 8 and I hit 5 of ’em, so will you respect my right to self-identify yet?

Because I don’t see “queer” as directly analogous to LGBT and because I agree with Bagelsan that asexuals hit a lot of “the buttons, I’m just going to say that I have some problem with “non-homo-or-bi-romantic” cis asexuals and “the label” – But that I am not an expert on asexuality, and I don’t know how precisely, we can interrogate an asexual person’s feelings to find whether they are or are not “too hetero” for the label. I think that we should respect people’s self identification, and we should address our issues about appropriation, which is incredibly important, not to asexual individuals claiming the label, but in general terms. Any given asexual identifying as queer – I dont know how or why to find out if they “should” claim it, and I don’t think I should…

So, I suppose, I come down on “Accept Asexuals as Queer” but I don’t think the conversation shouldn’t be had. And I am so, SO not anywhere nearly an expert on asexuals and their issues.

Bagelsan, I love you.

If you and I homoplatonically love each other, then that totally counts as queer, right? 😀

Wow I missed a lot! I consider myself queer. Over the past year or so that I have discover the asexual community and ideitfiyed as asexual… Well I really realized I only went along with the very few sexual relationships with men I have had because it was the thing to do. Now after a lot of reflection I have the same capacity (and maybe more) for feelings for women and trans folk. I am still sort of with a male SO as in we live together and have a family. We do really well family side but are totally romanticly and sexually incompatible. So it probably just a matter of time. I have told him he is free to seek other sex but he is very mono. In the distant future once my kids are more grown up I see myself in a poly or asexual relationship. So if I had sexual attraction and desire I would consider my self pansexual. But I don’t and I am really not very romantics either I will just stick with asexual and queer.

And you have no ground to deny asexuals the queer label other than your own self-imposed standards. I don’t care what sources you use to back it up.

(Sorry if I’m getting snippy, DSC, but freaking let it go already. Kicking a small number of marginalized people out of the group isn’t saving it from appropriation, it’s just being a jerk to people who have to face “maybe you haven’t met the right one yet! have you tried therapy?” even from people who would never say that to a gay person.)

This. A thousand times this.

I’m not sure why you’re making this the hill that you’ll die on, DSC, but you’re not convincing anyone of anything (except maybe to lower their opinion of you) and all you’re doing is making yourself look bigoted.

We have to wash our sheets more too. The burdens just keep piling up.

Oh lawd! What did I start?

I do think darksidecat has a point here– “queer” is by and large the name for those people who violate a specific set of gender/sex norms. While I typically don’t begrudge asexuals who ID as queer, I have seen some internet spaces designed for LGBT folk be co-opted by heteroromantic asexuals or hetero demisexuals. I have not seen this happen offline and I think for the most part asexuals are usually fine in queer spaces. But if you are asexual and consider yourself queer due to being asexual (rather than being trans or homo/bi oriented) I think you have to be very aware of what sort of spaces you’re entering and why. And be aware of the history of the identity, and in how you’re expanding the identity by choosing it as your label.

That said I do think homo/bisexuals have a great deal in common with asexuals, all being minority sexual orientations. While LGBs and Ts have a certain set of things in common (the stuff DSC was talking about), LGBs and As have a different set of things in common with each other, and it’s often extremely useful for them to get together for alliance purposes. That’s why I usually prefer “sexual minorities” or “sexual and gender minorities” for the great big lump of everyone together.

I’m not sure how I feel about “queer” personally because the idea of identity is very weird for me– obviously I don’t want to police anyone’s identity, because that’s not a good thing to do, but also I am not comfortable with the idea of “saying it makes it so”. Because as far as I can tell, one of the purposes of “identifying” is political, it’s to ally yourself with a group and gain personal power by confirming something about yourself publicly and guiding your life accordingly. This seems to indicate to me that there has to be some sort of boundary involved, lest the political power get broken up etc. But you also don’t want to be wielding that power against other disadvantaged groups– for example, you don’t want your definition of woman to be so restrictive that you’re doing crotch checks at your women’s festival. I really don’t want to hurt or disadvantage any asexual people out there like Lauralot or Bagelsan by trying to keep a space for LGBT-esque people. The “queer” fights end up tearing me up so much that I mostly choose not to do the identity politics thing altogether.

The asexual/sexual thing I have always found weird because I don’t think I am personally clearly either. I have looked at the whole “demisexual”/”grey-A” stuff as well and neither seems to fit the way I experience sexuality/romance/whatever. I actually find it very hard to understand distinctions between friendship/romance/sexuality. For instance sometimes I can’t tell if I am in love with all my friends or if I’m not in love with any of them. I often feel like my ideal relationship would be something like a Boston marriage or something. I don’t think I am asexual because I do clearly have a high libido (I am pretty content to handle it myself) and I am occasionally sexually attracted to people. There isn’t really any pattern though to who I’m attracted to– I know what I don’t like, but I’m not sure what constitutes my “type” other than people who are unusually gentle/sensitive, and I find androgyny especially compelling. Apart from that I don’t know, and I am pretty much functionally asexual in daily life (attraction and sexuality don’t play that big of a part day-to-day).

I never, ever said asexuals had the same experiences as everyone else. I stand by my words to DSC, and don’t put words in my mouth.