Refusing Compulsory Sexuality Quotes

May we move toward an understanding of ace- and aro- spectrum queerness itself as an avowal of the right to exist as enigma, as refusal—to persist in illegibility, to be unknown and unknowable.

Labels don't put us in a box. Ideas do.

Asexual queerness is always transgressive of normative sexuality […].

Black asexuals add to the collective? We could say that our existence is a reminder to each other that there are parts of ourselves that get to exist outside of the chattel chain reaction to be evoked. We also could say that we don’t have to be duty-bound to be useful.

What is true of whiteness in every space, even in “progressive” and “inclusive” spaces, is that it will always work to create some form of exclusivity as a means to reassert white superiority. Therefore, white asexuals often claim asexual queerness as a property, just as whiteness itself is claimed as a property, as a space that others are barred from entering into.

[…] asexuality is defined by a relationship to sex that is atypical to what has been decided on by society at large to be normative, and that atypical nature is marked by varying degrees of sexual attraction and desire. Asexual experiences stand outside what has been accepted and approved of as “normal” sexual experiences for both the queer and the heterosexual communities.

[…] many allosexuals perceive us [asexuals] to be lacking because asexual relationships to sex do not align with theirs, with what we have always been told is “normal” and right and required. In their eyes, seeing the world through the prism of compulsory sexuality, asexuals must be lacking in joy and satisfaction, intimacy and connection, emotional intelligence, maturity, sanity, morality, and humanity.

Discourse and educational resources about asexuality often work to reassure readers that some asexuals still engage in “normal” amounts of sex for an array of reasons, regardless of their actual relationship with sexual attraction and desire, and many of those reasons are not about the asexual’s needs but their sexual partner’s gratification and comfort. […] I find them often to be more harmful than helpful, especially when these reassurances are presented as a means to make asexuality more palatable—or at least more tolerable—and more legible to allosexuals.

Under compulsory sexuality, the desires of those with normative sexual urges are prioritized. It’s a belief system that eschews consent and preaches instant gratification for people who want sex, but cares not for the safety, comfort, health, or autonomy of people who do not. It doesn’t just ask us to comply. It makes way for others to demand, manipulate, coerce, and force us into situations in which we are expected to disregard our own well-being for the sake of “normality.” It keeps far too many people tethered to an existence wherein having sex when they would rather not or enduring sex they do not enjoy is a common and normalized occurrence.

I came out at 32. Married my college sweetheart. Stay-at-home mama to 2 small children. Small town preacher's daughter living in a bubble of privilege she had no idea existed. Playgroups & sippy cups & easy predictability. An eternal restless, seeking edge telling me there was something more. There was that life. It was good. Safe. Stable. Then it was gone. “How did you not know you were queer?” My kids asked me this over the years. Their life in a sex-positive, queer-friendly, liberal utopian bubble made my lack of self-awareness utterly perplexing. It is hard to know a thing when you are given no context for it. You know there is a misfit, something not entirely right. But without options beyond compulsory heterosexuality & with a deep desire for approval, one does what one sees. At least, that is what one does until one no longer can. Being queer was like holding the golden ticket to a club nobody wanted to go to. I had no idea that once I blasted down those closet doors, with their bouncers of fear & religion & internal bias, the club would be lit. The way a party can be when everyone inside finally knows what it means to come home. My queerness is a Tupperware container (thank god) that nobody will ever find a lid for. A box that cannot be closed. The reclamation of wholeness over goodness, transforming the perpetual misfit into one holy hell of a celebration. Owning my queerness was like learning the desert floor was once the bottom of the ocean, meaning the towering 200-year-old saguaro watching over me was somehow born underwater. It is the dogged insistence on coloring outside of every single line. It is the refusal to accept a singular definition that makes the word witch at me finally feel at home in the spaces where words are left behind. My queerness rests its foundation on a ground named freedom. I speak it loudly because I have the freedom to do so without fear of reprisal or harm. I claim this life of mine under the rainbow & the complexity of the history it has given me fiercely. To love a woman in a world that said I must not will never be anything but a revolution. And when I kiss her, trust me, entire galaxies are mine

Here are just a few things people “know” about sex, attraction, and desire: - Sexual attraction and desire, whether queer or heterosexual, are universal; everyone experiences them and should experience them in the same way. - Sex is a necessary, unavoidable part of life and inherent to human nature. - Everyone is allosexual—experiencing sexual attraction and desire in normative ways. Anyone who does not have sex is merely celibate or abstinent, suppressing their sexual urges for moral, spiritual, or religious reasons, and people who claim not to want sex are disordered or stunted in some way. - Sex occurs because sexual attraction and desire signal that we actively want to have sex with someone. - Desire for sexual contact is sustained, especially within committed romantic relationships. - Partnered sex is more important, more valuable, and more mature than solo sex. - These ideas are immovable and not influenced by societal expectations, permissions, or other environmental factors. […] Asexuality itself […] is already a challenge to these “truths” […]. Asexual consciousness recognizes that none of the things we “know” to be true about sex are immovable, and they are always influenced by societal expectations, permissions, or other environmental factors.

When sex is compulsory, it fosters the sense that we are each duty-bound to consistently engage in a certain arbitrary amount of sexual activity […] rather than an experience that people should engage in only when all involved have the desire and ability to do so, regardless of how frequent or infrequent that may be. Removing it from the center and the pedestal in our relationships—or, in some cases, our mere existence—would better serve everyone, not only asexuals.

[…] asexuality exists as a refusal of compulsory sexuality […].

Ludzie mają tendencję do przypisywania moralności do konkretnych rzeczy. Natychmiast się obrażają, a z kolei przyjmują postawę obronną, ponieważ albo zakładają, że obrażam coś, co przynosi im wielką przyjemność, pocieszenie i radość, albo dlatego, że myślą, że osądzam ich za to, że sobie na to pozwalają.

People tend to attach morality to peculiar things. They instantly take offense, and in turn become defensive, because they either assume that I am insulting something that brings them great pleasure, comfort, and joy or because they think I am judging them for their indulgence in it.

Here are just a few things people “know” about sex, attraction, and desire: - Sexual attraction and desire, whether queer or heterosexual, are universal; everyone experiences them and should experience them in the same way. - Sex is a necessary, unavoidable part of life and inherent to human nature. - Everyone is allosexual—experiencing sexual attraction and desire in normative ways. Anyone who does not have sex is merely celibate or abstinent, suppressing their sexual urges for moral, spiritual, or religious reasons, and people who claim not to want sex are disordered or stunted in some way. - Sex occurs because sexual attraction and desire signal that we actively want to have sex with someone. - Desire for sexual contact is sustained, especially within committed romantic relationships. - Partnered sex is more important, more valuable, and more mature than solo sex. - These ideas are immovable and not influenced by societal expectations, permissions, or other environmental factors.

Compulsory sexuality is the idea that sex is universally desired as a feature of human nature, that we are essentially obligated to participate in sex at some point in life, and that there is something fundamentally wrong with anyone who does not want to—whether it be perceived as a defect of morality, psychology, or physiology.

Purity culture attaches morality to sex to do the same. Beneath it is the assumption that sex will inevitably occur and that everyone desires it. In fact, that assumption is an essential part of purity culture—the idea that we are all “sinners” continually battling sexual urges, and resisting those urges until we are bound in heterosexual marriage “ordained by God” is what makes us pure. It doesn’t seek to hinder people from ever having sex at all; it seeks to control the conditions under which people do have sex.

Here are just a few things people “know” about sex, attraction, and desire: - Sexual attraction and desire, whether queer or heterosexual, are universal; everyone experiences them and should experience them in the same way. - Sex is a necessary, unavoidable part of life and inherent to human nature. - Everyone is allosexual—experiencing sexual attraction and desire in normative ways. Anyone who does not have sex is merely celibate or abstinent, suppressing their sexual urges for moral, spiritual, or religious reasons, and people who claim not to want sex are disordered or stunted in some way. - Sex occurs because sexual attraction and desire signal that we actively want to have sex with someone. - Desire for sexual contact is sustained, especially within committed romantic relationships. - Partnered sex is more important, more valuable, and more mature than solo sex. - These ideas are immovable and not influenced by societal expectations, permissions, or other environmental factors. […] Asexuality itself […] is already a challenge to these “truths” […].

Asexuality […] recognizes that we do not experience sexual attraction and desire universally or uniformly precisely because some of us do not experience them at all. It acknowledges that desire for sexual contact with others will not always be sustained, that it is possible for desire to never even be present, and more importantly, that boundaries should always be honored when desire is not present. The asexual lens reveals that sex can and does occur in the wake of mutual sexual attraction, but that it also occurs for a myriad of other reasons, and there are a whole host of negotiations, rationalities, and compromises that take place— sometimes in a split second—when we decide to have sex. It understands that sex can be technically consensual, but still unwanted.

Compulsory sexuality allows for a tacit refusal or inability to accept the idea that we all have the inherent right to govern our own bodies and make our own decisions about whether or not to engage in sex, and that we can do this based on whatever criteria we deem fit. This right to total sexual autonomy is central to consent, and society’s inability to properly honor consent and interrogate rape culture […].

Compulsory sexuality and rape culture result in people being pressured into sexual situations because of the assumption that they should want to have sex and that there is something wrong, unnatural, and inhuman about not wanting it to the extent that others expect or not wanting it at all. Sex is so often regarded as a property and a “right” owed, as a demand that we are obligated to fulfill, that many people feel entitled to sex […].

Labels don't put us in a box. Ideas do...We have taken hold of the part of our being, or our becoming that has long been nameless, and we have given it a name.