Asexuality and Compulsory Sexuality

Transporting the Burden of Justification: The Unethicality of Transgender Conversion Practices

“…82 Historically, asexuality and aromanticism were predominantly seen as symptoms of hormonal or psychological disorders. 83 Over the last few decades, however, asexual and aromantic communities have developed and disseminated understandings of asexuality and aromanticism as sexual and romantic orientations that are desirable parts of human diversity, resisting the suggestion that they should be “cured.” 84 Asexuality and aromanticism are now commonly included in the umbrella of 2SLGBTQIA — no, the “A” does not stand for “allies.” 85 Although the DSM-5 controversially retains diagnoses predicated on lack of sexual interest or arousal, these diagnoses can no longer be given to individuals who identify as asexual. 86 The remaining diagnoses are in many ways comparable to the obsolete diagnosis of ego-dystonic sexual orientation, which applied to individuals who expressed distress at their sexual orientation and wished to change it, a diagnosis that was not only used to justify interventions aimed at self-acceptance but oftentimes conversion practices.…”

Understanding asexuality: A sociological review

“…Asexuality studies also pushes scholars to treat not just aromanticism and asexuality as distinct, but also romantic and sexual orientations as potentially distinct (Tessler, 2023a;Tessler & Winer, 2023). Asexuality studies has also produced concepts like compulsory sexuality 4 of 14 -WINER (Emens, 2014;Gupta, 2015;Przybylo, 2019), highlighting that the idea that all humans do and should experience sexual attraction is a ubiquitous-but under-acknowledged-building block of sexual normativity and sexual regulation. Moreover, given that compulsory sexuality can marginalize asexual individuals both in heteronormative (Vares, 2022) and queer spaces, asexuality studies also can help scholars examine how sexual normativity and regulation can operate in queer spaces as well as heteronormative ones.…”

“…A range of scholars have argued that asexuality is usefully examined through queer and feminist frameworks-and that the study of asexuality makes important contributions to those frameworks (e.g. Cerankowski & Milks, 2010;Cuthbert, 2022;Fahs, 2010;Milks & Cerankowski, 2014;Przybylo, 2019;Winer, 2023). Moreover, humanities scholarship comprises a large portion of asexuality studies, often treating asexuality as a kind of 'text' rather than an empirical sexual orientation, as is typical in sociology.…”