the (in)visible intersection between asexuality and disability

how the presumed connection between asexuality and disability has led to the disregard of those who identify with both

I have talked plentifully on this app about asexuality, primarily surrounding its intersections with gender, so I thought I would go down a different route this time and talk about disability. It seems there has always been an underlying connection between asexuality and disability—or, more accurately, there has been a perceived connection between the two. This is due both to the assumption that asexuality is something in need of medical intervention, and the assumption that disabled bodies cannot be sexual bodies. Of course, neither of these assumptions are true, but in an attempt to dispel them, there has been a sort of overcorrection which in itself has negative consequences on both communities.

Let’s first start with the most common and very simplified definition of asexuality: referring to those who feel ‘little to no sexual attraction’. The very definition of asexuality has been a point of contention throughout asexual research and within the community itself, with many arguing it is next to impossible to condense the whole asexual spectrum, all the different microlabels, and the variety of different asexual experiences into one concise sentence. However, something that is featured throughout much of the literature and in educational materials is that asexuality is a natural, inherent sexual orientation—some people refer to this as the ‘born this way’ narrative, which is already very common in existing discourses on sexual orientations and within queer spaces. This is an attempt to represent asexuality in simple, common, familiar ways so it is more palatable for heteronormative audiences and those who do not know what asexuality is, in an effort to counter certain negative reactions/stereotypes such as: the belief that asexuality is temporary (they will become allosexual when they meet the right person), asexuals are just late bloomers, or asexuals need some sort of medical intervention—known as medicalisation.

Medicalisation refers to the act of treating non-medical behaviours as if they are medical conditions. Within western culture, there is a common idea that a person’s capability and desire for sex reflects their mental and physical health. In addition, there is an allonormative notion that sexual desire is universal and constant in adult lives, hence the absence of this desire is pathologised and seen to cause harm. This means that not feeling sexual attraction has been treated as a biological problem in need of a biological solution (especially for women). This belief can come from the general public but also from medical professionals themselves. Many medical texts throughout the 19th and early 20th century focused on women’s ‘frigidity’, considering it a serious psychological problem if a woman did not desire sex (specifically with her husband). This idea was added to the DSM-III in 1987 under the name Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder (HSDD) which led asexuals to expect and experience frequent dismissal and unwanted medical diagnoses. Although the criteria has now changed to state that asexual people should not be diagnosed with HSDD, the fear of stigmatisation and discrimination is still present for many asexuals.

The consistent medicalisation of asexuality is a major issue for the community and is one of the reasons asexuals can be so insistent on the ‘born this way’ narrative. Another way they attempt to preserve the legitimacy of asexuality as a sexual orientation is to continually separate it from things like celibacy and abstinence, low libido, and an aversion to sex—which can possibly result from things like sexual trauma or neurodivergence. This need to establish asexuality as an independent identity can also stem from the persistent connection between asexuality and disability (as I mentioned at the beginning). In her book ‘Ace: What Asexuality Reveals about Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex.’, Angela Chen states this mistaken belief stems from an “elegant but incorrect statement: people who don’t want sex are sick, and people who are sick—that is, mentally or physically disabled or different in some way—don’t want sex.”

This has been criticised by both communities and leads to a ‘mutual negation’, where asexuals argue their identity is not a product of disability, whilst people with disabilities reject the presumption that they are asexual. As a result, people who are both asexual and disabled are overlooked and marginalised within their own communities. They can feel as though their very existence confirms these negative stereotypes and undermines the efforts made by both communities to combat them. Furthermore, this recurring separation of asexuality from disability, illness, and trauma can result in the creation of a ‘true’ asexual, an acceptable asexual: one who has always been asexual, one who has never suffered sexual trauma, one who does not have any mental health issues or physical conditions, one who is social and outgoing, one who is physically attractive, one who is heterosexual, one who has a typical gender identity… I’m sure you get the idea. This set of criteria is unobtainable for most, and leads people to feel further excluded and marginalised within the asexual community, but it can also hinder people from identifying as asexual at all.

Due to very little information, research, and mainstream representation out there, a lot of asexuals suffer from doubts and fears that they are broken, that there is something wrong with them, and that they are completely alone in these feelings. As a result, figuring out one’s asexuality is complicated enough without being constantly compared to this restrictive figure of what a ‘real’ asexual is. When we involve this figure and we continue to push the ‘born this way’ narrative, we also push people to doubt their own experiences, particularly people whose asexuality is intertwined with disability or trauma or neurodivergence.

For some, sex is accompanied with physical pain and discomfort which can make them feel as though they cannot legitimately claim asexuality as their identity because there is a reason they prefer not to have sex, because they can’t completely extricate the effects of their physical pain from their experiences, and thus, from their identity. For some, chronic illness or disability impacts their energy, their behaviour, and therefore, their sexual attraction. When someone is in pain, having sex is probably the last thing on their mind, meaning their levels of attraction can vary depending on their physical condition. So, even though their asexuality may not be caused by their illness, it is certainly impacted by their embodied experience and, as a result, may not be consistent throughout their whole lives.

For some, sexual trauma can be impossible to disentangle from asexuality, especially in cases where someone’s asexuality has been used as an excuse for sexual assault—as an attempt to ‘cure’ or ‘correct’ their sexual orientation. This can cause trauma, pain, and fears that are linked back to asexuality and lead to a vicious cycle in which it is pretty much impossible to separate cause and effect. There is a common spiral people fall down where they question whether they are really asexual or they’re just traumatised, whether they are really asexual or they’re just afraid of intimacy, whether they are really asexual or they just have PTSD. The use of words like ‘really’ and ‘just’ promote that aforementioned figure of the ‘real’ asexual, whilst disregarding and reducing experiences of trauma to something insignificant and unimportant.

All of these examples prove that the continual push to separate asexuality from disability and trauma is unsustainable for many, and leads to whole groups of people feeling ignored and invisible. It is important to note that defining asexuality as a legitimate sexual orientation has allowed for significant progress to be made in terms of raising awareness of asexuality and encouraging people to come out as asexual. Separating asexuality from disability, trauma, and illness has protected its legitimacy, especially in the face of common misconceptions and stereotypes, however, it has only protected it for those who fit into that constrictive figure of what a ‘real’ asexual looks like, whilst overlooking and dismissing the experiences of those who don’t.

It is a completely ableist notion to see any connection between asexuality and disability and believe it delegitimises asexuality as a sexual orientation. These connections are invaluable to (a)sexuality research, allowing us to further question why we conflate sex and health, and why we consider some of the reasons people don’t have sex to be good and acceptable, while others are bad and problematic and therefore, in need of fixing. We can and should explore these invisible intersections in order to further our understanding of asexuality (which, as I’ve said countless times, is an incredibly understudied area), as well as enriching wider discourses on topics such as the embodiment of sexuality, on the complexities of sexual attraction, and on compulsory sexuality. Maybe we will soon come to the conclusion that there are no bad reasons not to have sex at all.

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