“When We Talk about Gender We Talk about Sex”: (A)sexuality and (A)gendered Subjectivities

Abstract

Gender diversity is seemingly prevalent amongst asexual people. Drawing on qualitative research, and focusing on agender identities in particular (which have received very little sociological or queer scholarly attention), this article explores why this might be the case. I argue that previous explanations which centre 1) biologistic understandings of sexual development, or 2) the liberatory potential of asexuality, or 3) psycho-cognitive conflict, are insufficient. Instead, I offer a sociological perspective in which participants' agender subjectivities can be understood as arising from an embodied meaning-making process where gender was understood to fundamentally be about sexuality. I emphasise the importance of understanding asexuality and agender in the broader structural context, as particular subjectivities were shaped and sometimes necessitated in navigating hetero-patriarchy.However, these entangled understandings of (a)sexuality and (a)gender were sometimes rendered unintelligible within LGBTQ+ discursive communities, where there is often a rigid ontological distinction between gender and sexuality arising from histories of misrecognition and erasure. The article is therefore an attempt to complicate this distinction, as I argue that already-invisible subjectivities may be made even more invisible by this distinction. The article serves as an illustration of the need to empirically explore meanings of the categories 'gender' and 'sexuality', and the relationship between them, rather than siloing them in our methodological and conceptual frameworks.Asexuality, which has been dubbed the "invisible orientation" (Decker 2014) is arguably becoming less so. Not only can we find the existence of some asexual characters in mainstream entertainment (Todd in the Netflix series Bojack Horseman, Liv Flaherty in the UK soap Emmerdale), but these characters are also portrayed as complex and nuanced, rather than one-dimensional stereotypes. The US clothing retailer Hot Topic sell Asexual Pride tshirts (Hot Topic 2019), and asexual terminology such as ace and aromantic were added to the Oxford English Dictionary in 2018 (OED 2018). Asexual is increasingly included in official governmental research (e.g. in the findings from the UK government's NationalLGBT survey in 2018) and there are plans to include asexual in the 2021 UK census (ONS 2018). We may well be seeing an asexual 'tipping point'.There has also been a small but growing body of scholarship on asexuality for a decade and a half, ranging from the positivistic, to textual explorations, to the sociological. Not only is asexuality of interest as a social phenomenon in and of itself (especially given the increased visibility demonstrated above), but those working in asexuality studies have pointed out that should be interested in asexuality because of its potential to inform our understandings about society and social organisation more broadlyfor example, about the compulsory nature of sexuality (Gupta 2015); about the possibilities for conducting relationships ...

Asexuality and epistemic injustice: a gendered perspective

“…The asexual participants had a variety of gender identities and expressions. Around half identified in binary terms as man/male or woman/female, whilst half identified with terms like agender, gender-neutral and genderless (see Cuthbert, 2019). Some of these latter participants saw themselves as trans, but most did not, and many of these participants still retained a connection to binary gender in the sense that they were read by others as a man or a woman, and contextualized their experiences as such.…”

“…Over the past two decades, there has been a growing body of interdisciplinary asexuality scholarship (for example, Bogaert, 2004;Carrigan, 2011;Cerankowski & Milks, 2014;Dawson, Scott, & McDonnell, 2018;Cuthbert, 2019). This is beginning to document the negative reactions faced by asexual people -although of course, asexual people have been communicating these experiences outside academic forums for years now (see for example, Decker, 2014).…”

“…This has been under-explored in previous literature and as I argue in the empirical sections of this article, this is an essential dimension of the injustices being perpetuated. This connects to and seeks to address a general need to 'gender' the asexuality literature (Cuthbert, 2019;Gupta, 2019), as well as consider intersectional experiences of asexuality beyond the figure of 'the asexual' (Cuthbert, 2017;2021a).…”

Researching ‘non-sexualities’ via creative notebooks: epistemology, embodiment and empowerment

“…1 In particular, I was interested in exploring the gendered dimensions of non-sexualities, since sexual activity, agency and desire remain central to our understandings of masculinity and femininity (Gupta, 2018). I wanted to know how not having sex or not experiencing sexual attraction affects how one might ‘do’ gender (West and Zimmerman, 1987; see Cuthbert, 2019 for a substantive discussion).…”

Asexuals negotiate the ‘onslaught of the heteronormative’

“…One focus has been on the experiences of friendship, relationships and intimacy of self-identified asexuals (Dawson et al, 2016(Dawson et al, & 2019Gupta, 2017;Haeffner, 2011;Van Houdenhove et al 2015;Vares, 2019). More recently there has been increasing attention to the intersections of asexuality with gender (Cuthbert, 2019;Gupta, 2019;Przybylo 2014;Vares, 2018) and disability (Cuthbert, 2017). Given the centrality of the internet in the development of the asexual community, there has also been some research on the role of AVEN and other online sites in fostering the growth of this community (Dawson at al., 2018;Gupta, 2017).…”