My Interview with YouTuber Rowan Ellis

We revisit the perennial question: is asexuality queer?

If you’ve been following my research, you know that I’m often exploring asexuality’s relationship with queerness more broadly.

To boil it down, my view is that asexuality (at least as a concept) is queer. It’s queer because queerness is defined by an oppositional relationship to normativity. In a society that assumes everyone does—and should—experience and pursue sexual attraction, it’s queer to say that you don’t. In other words, asexuality upends the normative assumption of compulsory sexuality; that makes asexuality queer. I’ve written about this topic both on Substack and Twitter if you want to read more.

Saying asexuality is queer is, however, not a universally shared viewpoint. It feels like every few weeks the internet erupts in a new debate over whether asexuality is queer or not. Even some asexual people don’t feel that asexuality (or at least their asexuality) is queer.

I recently talked about this topic with Rowan Ellis, who runs a popular YouTube channel featuring video essays about queer pop culture, representation, and history.

Rowan Ellis discusses the debate of whether asexual people are queer.

Rowan interviewed a number of asexual activists, including Yasmin Benoit, Cody Daigle Owens (of Ace Dada Advice), and Marshall John Blount (aka Gentle Giant Ace). I was one of three academics Rowan interviewed (along with Megan Carroll and Brittney Miles, who I collaborated with recently on a research paper about the relationships between bi/pansexuality and asexuality).

My chat with Rowan was a relatively small part of Rowan’s video essay (you can catch me at around the 47:30 and 1:15:00 minute marks). But the entire video is great, and very thought provoking. I highly recommend giving it a watch here.

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