Being Asexual 'For a Time'

Asexuality can be temporary

I recently saw a tweet that stopped me in my tracks. I’ll let you read it yourself:

At first glance, the tweet seems commonsense. People often confuse asexuality and celibacy—and that confusion can lead to the erasure of asexuality as a legitimate sexual identity.

But I want to focus on this idea that you can’t be asexual “for a time.” (To be clear, this isn’t a dig at Sonia—her tweet just happens to activate an idea that’s worth discussing.)

I already tweeted some thoughts about this, but I want to dig in a bit more here.

You Can Be Asexual ‘For a Time‘

Sexualities are fluid. People can move in and out of them. This is true for all sexualities, including asexuality.

Many asexual people feel they’ve always been and always will be asexual. That’s valid, but it’s not universal.

Something I’ve noticed as an asexuality studies researcher is that there’s an overcorrection that can happen in reaction to the pathologization of asexuality (aka framing asexuality as a medical condition). In a nutshell, that overcorrection involves insisting that asexuality is never related to health, disability, or trauma.

This overcorrection is understandable. Medicalization is a major tool of asexual erasure. It’s important to push against that.

But some people’s asexuality is related to their health.

For example, I just spoke with an asexual woman who told me that she essentially became asexual post menopause when she, in her own words, “lost all interest in sex.” There’s a temptation to say “that’s actually different from asexuality.” I think we should resist that temptation.

(I’ll write more about my conversation with this woman who started identifying as asexual after menopause in the future… stay tuned.)

Not All Asexual People Are ‘Born This Way’

Two truths can exist at once: 1) The idea that asexuality is impermanent/health related is often used to harm asexual people. 2) Asexuality can be acquired/temporary for some people. It can also be linked to a health for some people. Those experiences exist.

The intersection of disability and asexuality is important to think about in this context.

The idea that asexual people must be disabled is harmful. The idea that asexuality is never linked with disability is also harmful. Disabled asexual folks exist. For some, their disability may be linked with their asexuality. (You can read more of my thoughts on the intersection of disability and asexuality here.)

To be clear: saying someone’s asexuality is linked with their health does not mean they should seek medical treatment to “cure” their asexuality. Asexuality is not a disease.

But we really need to talk about the how the hegemony of the “Born This Way” framework of queerness is a problem.

It’s valid to feel like your own queerness has always been there. It’s harmful to assume that’s everyone’s experience.

The idea that sexuality is unchanging, unchangeable, and an intrinsic part of who we have always been has become a mainstream idea in LGBT politics. It has been effective in some ways, but it’s also deeply limited. Queerness is valid even if it’s something we acquire or choose.

As an allosexual (aka non-asexual) queer person who studies asexuality, one of the things I admire most about the broader asexual community is that it tends to be remarkably open to internal differences, complexities, and flexible/porous definitions. I think that’s a strength of the asexual community.

By buying into the ‘born this way’ framework, there’s a risk of marginalizing certain asexual experiences. For some people, disability, health, and trauma are linked with their experience of asexuality. We shouldn’t erase those experiences simply because they complicate tidy narratives.

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