Are You an Allosexual? BIBLIOTHERAPY: ACE: What Asexuality Reveals about Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex
One of the core values of Coriander Living Collective LLC is EXPANSION! To move into feeling alive, space to heal what holds us back, to adventure, to change, and to grow.
A wonderful way to EXPAND is through reading! I am a big fan of non-fiction such as self-help, psychology, and personal development books. I like to share on this blog about books that I have read that I think others may find interesting or useful.
In February 2024, I did an Open Floor Workshop on Libido Fundamentals with Cynthia Kennedy who is a professor. During that training, she shared a few of her favorite books. She named Angela Chen’s, ACE: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex as one of the best books she has ever read on sexuality. So I gave it a read!
Chen is pro-pleasure and pro-sexual-choice, in her book, she challenges the idea of compulsory sexuality that pervades Western culture, the idea that every “normal” person is sexual, sharing historical and cultural support for her argument.
“If sex is completely natural and biological, why does anyone need this industry of sex experts at all? Why are there sex manuals dating back centuries?” She shares how kissing is so typical in Western culture and yet in a 2015 survey of 168 global cultures, less than half practiced some sort of romantic kissing. She cites Rubin as saying “one of the most tenacious ideas about sex” that “there is one best way to do it, and that everyone should do it that way.” Sex serves many purposes. Only partners need to consider and respect what they are engaging in.
She makes the argument that if asexuality was better understood and accepted, in turn it would create sexual and romantic liberation for all. “Anything compulsory is the opposite of freedom.” The Ace Movement challenges the societal obsession with sex and makes room for everyone.
“Ace” by the way she defines is short for asexual, “an asexual person is a person who does not experience sexual attraction, who is sexually attracted to no one.” She states that “Language is a form of power” and there are many terms she defines in her book that I was not familiar with. Here are a select few:
Ace Sub-types = sex-repulsed, sex-indifferent, sex-favorable, gray-asexual/gray-A = catch all phrase, occasionally or not strongly sexual
Allosexual/allo = people who do experience sexual attraction
Sex Drive = libido, desire for sexual release
Sexual Attraction = libido with a target, sexual desire for a specific person
While acknowledging everyone is different, she shares that in the Ace Community, it is common for Aces to speak about sex with disgust, describing how no switch flipped for them during puberty like their peers. Some Aces do engage in sex, have a libido, masturbate, seek out porn, find beauty in human forms, and enter into relationships of all kinds.
I hope you learned something here! To a society that respects choice. To expanding and learning.
