Thursday, December 27, 2012

Rape Culture and Asexuality


In response to a fairly recent submission on About Male Privilege (I'm one of the moderators there) regarding Asexuality, I felt I needed to take a moment to say a few things.

One of the least talked about issues with Asexuality is the rape culture that is unearthed in people being against/disturbed by the idea of Asexuality.  

When talking about sex and relationships, there are often some blanket assumptions made about how a sexual/romantic relationship works:

  • If you are in a romantic relationship with someone, sex is expected
  • If you are dating someone, your obligation to provide them with sex increases exponentially with each date 
  • If you decide you do not want to be in a romantic/sexual relationship with someone, you are ‘friendzoning’ them
  • If you decide you do not want to be in a romantic or sexual relationship with someone after any number of dates, you are a cocktease 
  • If you flirt, you are a cocktease
  • If you do not have sex with everyone who wants to have sex with you, you are frigid, unfeeling, etc.
  • Relationships are only valid and worthwhile if consummated by penetrative intercourse
  • People who are Asexual (sex averse or not) are broken, and something is inherently wrong with them

Here is the above list, fixed:

  • Sex is something to be decided upon by involved parties and should be consensual and without coercion.  You should never feel pressured to have sex.  Being in a relationship of any kind does not mean you owe anyone sex. Ever.  If this is an expectation for anyone, you should sit down and have a talk.  If a sexual relationship is a desire/requirement, this should be expressed without trying to coerce anyone else toward a decision to have or not to have sex.
  • You never owe anyone sex.  If you have had sex for 10 years with the same person and you say no at any time, the answer is no.
  • If you decide you do not want to be in a romantic/sexual relationship with someone, they should respect your wishes and not treat the rejection as some sort of victimization. 
  • If you decide you do not want to be in a romantic or sexual relationship with someone after any number of dates, you have decided you do not want to be in a romantic or sexual relationship with that person.  The dates were there to determine that. 
  • If you flirt, you like to flirt.  
  • If you do not have sex with everyone who wants to have sex with you, it is likely that you are making your own decisions or something. What a novel concept.
  • Relationships are only valid and worthwhile if you feel they are/ they make you happy/ they feed your soul
  • People who are Asexual do not experience primary sexual attraction