Asexuality: Rethinking Romantic Orientation and Attraction Types As "Required" Identifiers
About a year ago I felt that the romantic orientation ”heteroromantic” for my sexual orientation “asexual" seemed like the most accurate descriptor for me. And sure, as a Black woman, anti-Blackness and misogynoir are going to impact any sexual label I ascribe to; it then becomes a matter of how violence impacts that label, depending on if that label is ultimately heterosexual, lesbian, queer, pansexual, bisexual or asexual etc. And of course the latter directly connects to how such labels are privileged or oppressed ones. (I previously alluded to this when I wrote Black Womanhood, Asexuality and Agency.)
One of the reasons I thought heteroromantic or even gray-A was appropriate was honestly not based on how I think and operate and feel now after many years of a lot of internal work and decolonization and unlearning shame as a knee jerk response to sexuality itself, but seemed appropriate because my few romantic relationships long ago were with cis men who are hetero (though one was like me, ace, but performing heterosexuality prior to challenging internal issues). But this doesn’t really mean that my romantic orientation was rigidly heteroromantic. I mean, it’s obviously false that existing relationship statuses rigidly define sexual orientation (this should be obvious to most people I would hope; i.e. a heterosexual woman or lesbian does not become “asexual” once she stops having sex/dating a partner; her sexual orientation itself is not about behavior), let alone define romantic orientation for asexuals who are not aromantic. Further, the aforementioned relationships in fact predate a lot of this personal internal work anyway. This internal work has meant moving beyond going through motions of performing heterosexuality—as taught and as indoctrinated via church as a kid (though I don’t identify as a theist now), via family, via general socialization throughout college etc.—despite most (thought not all) of the time feeling everything from discomfort to lack of total desire to be in those aforementioned relationships.
I experience literally no sensual or sexual attraction to anyone anymore. What I thought was prevailing romantic attraction to cis men/masculine presenting persons is almost nonexistent a year later. While “aromantic” does not quite describe me and my aesthetic attractions are in fact panromantic, not solely heteroromantic, I am kinda tired of all of these boxes. Even the divisions of the types of attraction tire me. Romantic orientation and attraction types seem fluctuating for me. What hasn’t changed during the latter fluctuations? Sexual orientation. It’s been asexual. Still. Even when socialized to perform heterosexuality, even when I incorrectly claimed the latter label for most of my adulthood out of lack of information, shame, and/or fear, things that I no longer experience as my predominate feelings about sexuality or sexual politics.
Another thing that I find stressful is the conflation of romantic orientations with sexual orientation in a way that causes erasure of asexuality. For example, to keep people who are “asexual” from identifying as “queer” (I don’t use the latter label; honestly it’s safer for me from having to deal with White violence over their perceived ownership of queerness as well as dealing with even more hostile notions of “sex positivity”), many non-asexual people have taken it upon themselves to decide that heteroromantic and aromantic aces are “straight” and homoromantic/biromantic/panromantic aces are “queer.” In response to this particular hobby of erasure by non-asexual people, Laura of ace-muslim wrote the following in Why I No Longer Engage The “Are Aces Queer?” Question:
Whenever the question, ‘Are aces queer?’ comes up on Tumblr, it quickly gets narrowed to, ‘Are heteroromantic and aromantic aces queer?’ In most cases, homoromantic and bi/panromantic aces are accepted as queer because they have some degree of attraction to the same sex or gender. The first problem comes in when there’s an implicit assumption (and I believe there is in most cases) that ‘not queer’ = straight. To me, this is emphasized by treating heteroromantic* and aromantic aces as a unit (by the way, we’re not the same thing). The result of this is that I end up feeling that, ‘Are aces queer?’ is really asking, ‘Are aromantic aces straight?’
I also like that she mentioned this:
Homoromantic and bi/panromantic aces, do me a solid and the next time you’re asked this question, disrupt the framing. Don’t accept your fellow aces being imputed as straight by default. In fact, I believe that heteroromantic aces are not straight; they’re asexual.
When people decide that I am somehow still “heterosexual” if I tell them I am asexual, then they’re engaging in erasure. This especially happens to me because I am a femme cis Black woman. See, the Jezebel controlling image requires compulsory heterosexuality in order to function. There is no room for queerness or asexuality in this dehumanizing controlling image because its juxtaposition is needed for the “purity” of (cishet) White womanhood. Further, this controlling image is ableist in that it presents Black women’s sexuality as compulsorily heterosexual, “out of control” and “pathological.” A patriarchal interpretation of femme presentation also means that anything that I do with my body is deemed “for the male gaze.” My own reasons are deemed irrelevant. This is especially the case since my own personal agency is denied as a Black woman since my humanity itself is already denied as a Black person.
For those who forcefully deem me heterosexual, it’s necessary to also suggest that my presentation, if femme, is solely to capture men’s attention for sexual purposes. This is another aspect of erasure in asexuality. Where honestly, my romantic orientation and attractions types are not even factored in when my sexual orientation itself is denied. And both White people (who want to deny the word “queer” from any queer Black people whatsoever, as well as asexuals across the board; some engage me as if I am actually the Jezebel controlling image) and Black people (hetero Black men who think I must be hetero and desire them or hetero and desire White men solely to spite Black men; queer Black men who want to mask their own male privilege and/or misogynoir by suggesting any cis Black woman, especially a femme one, must be heterosexual and thereby homophobic against those same queer Black men; Black women who try to engage me with “corrective” heterosexual content without my consent) actively engage me from an angle of erasure on asexuality.
I fully understand that being cis, if I decide to be with a cis man, there is privilege assigned to that particular relationship, regardless of our actual sexual orientations. To be clear, I don’t want “extra” access to queer spaces that don’t want me there anyway; trust. I simply also don’t want to be called anything that I feel does not fit who I am. And in many ways, romantic orientation and attraction types don’t seem to nuance asexuality but are often used as tools to erase asexuality altogether. I totally accept that romantic orientation and attraction type delineation are very helpful for many asexual people. I simply don’t find them as helpful anymore. Anything someone wants to know about me in regards to sexuality and labeling, “asexual” is enough of a label for it.
