Episode 72: Refusing Compulsory Sexuality (with Sherronda J. Brown)
Are you trying to be someone you're sexually not? In this one, Ev'Yan speaks with asexual storyteller and author of 'Refusing Compulsory Sexuality: A Black Asexual Lens on Our Sex-Obsessed Culture' Sherronda J Brown about the ways compulsory sexuality has shaped and harmed our sexualities. Sherronda talks about how compulsory sexuality shows up in our world, its links to systemic oppression (like ableism, racism, and fatphobia), and how we can see asexuality as a queer identity to radically reject it. Ev'Yan also shares a practice to help you uncover your sexual authenticity outside of stories of "should".
The full transcript of this episode is below.
Links/mentions:
Get Sherronda’s book: Refusing Compulsory Sexuality
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Sherronda J. Brown (she/they) is a Southern-grown essayist, editor, and storyteller with a focus on media analysis and cultural critique. They have devoted much of their work to writing and thinking about asexuality, hoping to push conversations beyond what is familiar and comfortable in order to make new interventions about a topic and identity that has been long misunderstood.
Episode Transcription:
A special note: Before we get into today's episode, I wanted to let y'all know that one of my favorite educators in the sexuality space has started her own podcast and I wanted to tell you all about it, educator and best-selling author Dr. Emily Nagoski (you might have heard of her) answers questions about sex with the latest science on her new podcast Come As You Are. Get a modern guide to sexual awakening backed by groundbreaking research about desire, anatomy, orgasm, and much more. In conversation with her producer, Emily debunks cultural myths and flips the script on everything you thought you knew about sex and sexuality. Listen to Come As You Are wherever you get podcasts, and unlock your most pleasurable life in the bedroom and beyond. I know I'll be tuning in, and I hope you will, too.
Okay, let's get into the episode.
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Hey, welcome to Sensual Self. I'm Ev'Yan Whitney and this is a space for you to slow down, tune in, heal and feel the sensations and pleasures of your sensual body. Thank you for being here.
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I've been on a journey of sexual liberation and sensual self-discovery for a minute. And as I've worked to uncover who I am within these realms of sexuality, identity, and pleasure, and outside of narratives of shame, trauma, and fear. I've experimented with all kinds of ways of being a sexual person. And that experimentation is important. It helps us try on different ways of being, it helps us find our pace and place within identities that we've been told are not ours to fold ourselves into, that we're not allowed to express ourselves within. For example, after exploring certain kinks for myself, I realized rather quickly that, much to my dismay, I am not a kinky person. Which, you know, is a little bit sad for me because being kinky seems so fun. I mean, I have a lot of kinky friends who get their entire lives exploring their kink identities. But through experimentation, kink doesn't do anything for me. And I've learned to be okay with that. Which isn't to say that I'm a boring bitch in bed because listen, I can rock your world. But that's neither here nor there, I digress.
Anyway, something I haven't been able to stop thinking about, is how a lot of the experimentation I've done within my sexual self, didn't always come from a place of authentic curiosity. It came from a pressure to be a certain kind of sexual person, with a certain kind of sexual desire that our culture has told me is the ideal way of being. It came from this place of me feeling like in order to be a true sexual being, in order to be fully sexually liberated, I had to be someone I'm not. And for me, that showed up as faking it till I make it with things that just didn't do it for me. But I felt like I needed to keep trying and persuade myself into liking it. This feeling this impulse, really, of needing to be someone I'm sexually not, doesn't come from me. I mean, it comes through in my own voice. But it didn't originate from me, this voice isn't of me. It's a voice of cultural should. It's a voice of societal shame. It's a voice of compulsory sexuality.
Compulsory sexuality, if you've never heard of it before, is the assumption that everybody is sexual. That not only is sex a universal experience for all but that being sexual is a biological imperative. And that everyone is meant to desire and habit in the same or similar ways. And our society is steeped in compulsory sexuality. Underneath the influence of compulsory sexuality are enforced sexual norms, ideals, and social attitudes that say that we're supposed to both want and have sex frequently, that our bodies are supposed to experience a sexual desire and attraction in a specific kind of way. And that if we deviate from this "norm"—and I'm putting norm in bunny ears—there is something wrong with us and we need to be fixed. I have felt the weight of compulsory sexuality throughout my entire life. It's one of the biggest reasons I felt pressure to be someone I wasn't sexually, to even go so far as to seek medical intervention to fix my low libido, to essentially run from the true experience I have as an asexual person. Compulsory sexuality has had a big influence on my life. And I imagine it has had a big influence on your life as well.
As I'm in this place of reflection about the ways I've experimented and the identities I've landed on, I've been having some big thinks about what it means to refuse compulsory sexuality and find authentic expression and my own sexual and sensual self, even if it goes against the “norm”. And this is where I'd like to introduce you to today's guest. Sherronda J. Brown is a southern grown, essayist, editor, storyteller, and author of the book Refusing Compulsory Sexuality: A Black Asexual Lens On Our Sex Obsessed Culture. And in this conversation, they speak to us about the many ways compulsory sexuality shows up in our world, and how it's connected to every single system of oppression, trying to dissociate us today- from ableism, and racism to the gender binary and capitalism. Y
ou're going to hear me gush all about Sherronda's book in a moment, but I'll just share now that this book, changed my life. It helped facilitate some very important dialogues with myself about the ways my sexuality and the pursuit of my sexual freedom has been usurped by compulsory sexuality. It also helps remind me of the inherent power of my asexuality, not just as a queer identity. But as a refusal of being someone I've been told I'm not supposed to be. Throughout her book, Sherronda helped me find deeper pride in my ace identity, and to see it as an act of resistance against all the voices and forces that tell me, I'm not good enough as I am. And this conversation in particular helped surface a declaration that I'm moving through, that my asexuality, me being ace is an example of how I am decolonizing my sexuality in real time, and I am forever grateful for that.
So let's dive into this episode. Let's get into the muck of compulsory sexuality, and dream up new ways we can actively refuse the harm and pressure of what has been deemed normal.
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Sherronda, welcome to sensual sell.
Sherronda J. Brown
Hi, thank you for inviting me.
Ev'Yan Whitney
I'm so happy to have you here. Thank you for being on the show. I am so jazzed that we're about to have this conversation about your book, Refusing Compulsory Sexuality. It was such a beautiful gift for me to read, as I am continuing to understand and embrace my own ace identity. And I just wanted to take this moment to like, say thank you to you for writing it. For the labor of love and power that you weaved within the book. I wish you could see a picture or video of it. It is like-- I'm like writing in the margins. I just opened one page and it's like, in the margins, I wrote "Bitch, go off." Like-- I was having so much fun reading this book and also just getting my life, getting affirmation. What you've written here is medicine. And I'm just so appreciative of the labor that it took of the time and the intention that you made to create it. So thank you. Thank you.
Sherronda J. Brown
Well, thank you for saying that. I'm just-- I'm glad that it's doing what it was meant to do. Because sometimes when you create things you never know how it's going to be received. And so far, it seems like people are, are getting things out of it, which is what I want it. So I'm grateful for that.
Ev'Yan Whitney
Yeah, it feels like, I don't know, maybe it's just where I'm at, and where we're at within this conversation around asexuality but it feels like books like these about the ace identity are just like, I don't know, I when I talk to people about this book, when I talk to people about Angela Chen's book, Ace, they have similar feelings as I have like, not like, 'Oh, this was a good read', but more like 'This book changed my life.' And I don't know, I wonder if you could speak to what you're noticing around these conversations about asexuality that are coming more to the forefront, you know, that there are these really incredible comprehensive books that are being written like yours that are helping to demystify and destigmatize asexuality. And it just feels like a really, I don't know, it feels like a really exciting time.
Sherronda J. Brown
Yeah, I have talked Angela Chen about this, we have done a bit together. And we both have expressed this sort of exasperation with what we would call asexuality 101, which is like a very basic introduction to what the asexuality spectrum is, and what folks on the spectrum might desire or not desire. And we just wanted more. We want to go beyond the 101 conversation and get into the things that are complicated and nuanced and uncover things that people didn't even know were there. I'm excited to see what happens after this. Because I know that my book is just like a beginning in itself. Even though it's not asexuality 101, it's still just the beginning of something. And I'm interested to see what people will-- What type of work will come from what people use my book as a stepping stone to. As a catapult to something else. I'm ready to see where we're gonna go from here. But yeah, I do think we are in an interesting moment and an exciting moment. But it's also an uncomfortable moment. Because a lot of people have gotten really comfortable and complacent with asexuality 101, they only want to talk about the things that feel safe to talk about. And oftentimes when people like myself and Angela Chen, and other ace-identified people, especially people of color- when we talk about things that ask people to dig deeper, they get uncomfortable, they get resistant to it. So it's an interesting moment to exist in to see that there are people who want more, and also people who are scared to ask for more, for fear of what sort of sort of repercussions it might mean for us.
Ev'Yan Whitney
Yeah, this is reminding me of a quote, in your book. You say, "Asexual consciousness recognizes that none of the things we know to be true about sex are movable. And they are always influenced by societal expectations, permissions or other environmental factors." And I mean, God, there's so many, there's so many instances in this book where I was reading, and it was really let me take a step back. So you're speaking about asexual 101. And I feel that even in the career that I've had as a sex educator, I am still understanding what it means to be an ace person, both for myself and also for other people. And what I loved about your book was that it moves past this conversation of "this is what ace people are, and this is how ace people have relationships." And you're really giving us a very critical look at the ways that our world views us as sexual beings and the way that this world pushes sex upon us as many different things or for many different reasons. And yeah, I really appreciate that. I think that a lot of the things that I've read about ace identity is within that 101 space, or is very, like a, you know, personal memoir or personal experience. And so I loved the way that you weaved asexuality as a queer identity and as a radical identity that is pushing back against compulsory sexuality.
Sherronda J. Brown
Yeah, and that's not to say that asexuality 101 conversations are not valuable. They absolutely are. If we didn't have them, we wouldn't be where we are now. They are still needed for people who are just discovering asexuality either as an identity for themselves or someone they love, or just in general, they're still needed. I just wrote the book for people who are beyond that. Because we need to be able to grow as well, we need to be able to have space to have those conversations that we need, while also holding space for the people who still are working through that asexuality 101 conversations.
Ev'Yan Whitney
Hmm. Well, speaking of asexuality 101, I wondered if you could define compulsory sexuality for us and also speak to how it shows up in the world.
Sherronda J. Brown
Sure, I very loosely define it in the book in this way. So basically, I think of compulsory sexuality, as a system of beliefs that are founded on the idea that sex is compulsory. As in, sexual engagement is conceived of both interpersonally and institutionally as a requirement for human existence. So basically, it is the idea that everyone desires sex, and those who say they don't desire it are either lying or sick. And this shows up in our world in many places from the virgin shaming of younger folks by their peers, to our marital laws, which position nonsexual marriages as less legitimate and less binding because they haven't been consummated. And I interrogate, in one of the chapters in my book, the fact that there have been multiple attempts in the past few years to raise this sort of public anxiety around a so-called sex recession in the US, because younger generations are reporting having less sex than older generations did at our age. And this is being talked about as a bad thing.
Ev'Yan Whitney
Yeah, I remember the hullabaloo, like, people were like, “What?! The children aren't having sex??” And I'm like, bro, calm down.
Sherronda J. Brown
Right, like why? Right. So I remember that too, like, in the moment as it was happening. And as it was happening, I was asking myself the question, why does it matter? Um, and that's how I got to writing an entire book about it, because I was, there's a reason that it matters, right? Um, there's a reason that it's been talked about as a bad thing. And it's because people see sex as something that we're all obligated to participate in for one reason or another. And so when it seems to be a phenomenon that fewer people are doing it, those who are invested in the status quo are going to start to panic because it signifies a shift in cultural consciousness and in the ways that we engage with sex. And anytime there's a big cultural shift, those who are invested in the dominant systems are going to have anxiety about that shift and about what that shift means. Even if those who are participating in this shift conceive of themselves as something positive. The dominant culture is going to perceive it as negative because they don't want to shift at all. And that, of course, is why compulsory sexuality also shows up in the ways that people seek to invalidate the lived experience of those women asexuality spectrum, and the knowledge that we have about ourselves by accusing us of lying by dehumanizing us and by committing sexual violence against us in attempts to fix what they perceive as being wrong with us. Because they cannot conceive of the fact that there are some people in this world who significantly deprioritize or completely divest from sex altogether. It is so far outside of their normal that they respond to it with violence.
Ev'Yan Whitney
Yeah. In my experience with talking about asexuality and learning about it in the various small ways that I've learned about it in my career in the past, it's always been with this sort of like, "Yeah, asexual—it exists, but they're like less than 1% of the population." And I even find that to be very minimizing like this idea that like less than 1%. It doesn't-- the sense that I got from it is like, just because it's less than 1%, and which I believe that that number is actually a lot higher, particularly as we are beginning to unpack like the nuances of sexuality and desire and attraction. But this idea that, because it is less than 1%, it's not something that we should be paying that much attention to, or it's something that we should be educating ourselves about, or even considering that we might hold some of the characteristics of being ace, because it's just so rare. And it's so inconceivable that a lot of people would experience this,
Sherronda J. Brown
Right. I mean, first of all, when I was doing research for my book, I found studies that cited anywhere from 1% to 5% of the population, depending on how asexuality was defined in the research study. But I also think there's a vested interest in keeping this idea that asexual people are less than 1% of the population, because of what you said, it means that if the number is so small, then it's not actually important. And it's not something to be valued or explored or interrogated at all. But I think that, just like you, I believe that the number is a lot higher than we know. Because there are a lot of people who don't realize that asexuality is something that could be at home for them.
Ev'Yan Whitney
Right. Yes, yes. I would love to have you talk a little bit about the ways in which compulsory sexuality intertwines with all of the isms, you know, capitalism, racism, homophobe, homophobia, transphobia. I even got some stuff in there around like ableism as well.
Sherronda J. Brown
Yeah. First of all, that's a big question. I know. I don't think I even have time to answer it on this podcast. But um, so as I mentioned, just a few moments ago, there's been talk of a so-called Sex recession in recent years. And there have also been direct lines drawn from that recession to a literal economic recession because when Americans have less sex several industries begin to be impacted by the loss of our business because we're having less sex. Including the condom industry, and the apparel industry, and real estate industry, I think were specifically cited in some of the literature I read.
Ev'Yan Whitney
Hmm. Interesting about real estate. I get the apparel and the condoms, but the real estate I'm like, how? How does that affect it?
Sherronda J. Brown
If people are-- the logic goes, if people are having less sex, there are also fewer pregnancies, fewer children born and fewer nuclear families developed and fewer houses bought.
Ev'Yan Whitney
Hhmmm okay.
Sherronda J. Brown
Yeah, so I mean, it's all connected. So and also fewer babies born means fewer laborers for the empire, which is one reason why we are currently seeing so much pushback against reproductive rights. And at the same time, we're also seeing this massive campaign aimed specifically at straight women, trying to convince them that being a stay-at-home mom, and taking on the sole responsibility of all domestic labor and being completely reliant on their husbands for financial security is where their true freedom lies and not in the political movements that seek to disrupt gender inequities. It's very interesting that this has been somewhat successful campaign, because I see a lot of straight women- well, presumably straight women, women in relationships with men- popping up recently online to say that they want to go back to a time where they could be in domestic bliss, in their words, and be completely financially reliant on the man and not have to worry about working. And it's just so interesting to watch people say that because they're not applying a racial lens to it because there was never a time where Black women specifically, were not working outside of the home. Yeah, that that ideal for a nuclear family where the woman stays home all day and takes care of the house and all the children and the man works, and it's a one-income household. First of all, that's not not doable for most people in our current economy. But also that is a white ideal. That is something that upper-class, like, wealthy people were able to do.
Ev'Yan Whitney
That's right.
Sherronda J. Brown
And so And what's also interesting to me is that while all of this is happening, we're also seeing this explosion of male supremacists and podcasts. Like, they all just bought podcast mics, and decided to sit in their cars, or at home and popularized these old misogynistic talking points. And many of them seems to be angry about what they perceive as women surpassing men professionally and financially, which we know is not true, because there are still a huge gender wage gap. But because the very basis of misogyny is to believe that men are supposed to have total social power and control over the rest of us, any amount of progress that women make, is seen as too much progress. And meanwhile, these men, these male supremacists, are still expecting straight women to be in romantic and sexual relationships with them. And under patriarchy, to be in a relationship with a man is to be in sexual and domestic service to them. And as all these things wrapped up together, people are calling for this return to this very neat, patriarchal nuclear family structure that requires women are those who are assumed to be women to be in total service to and control of men.
Ev'Yan Whitney
Hmm.
Sherronda J. Brown
And it's just it's about investment in heteropatriarchy, and heteropatriarchy is always linked with capitalism and how capitalism operates. And now, this is a culture that has always been invested in I'm holding the gender binary and the nuclear family as the most legitimate and the most moral weights exist, like this is nothing new, obviously. Our culture has always demonize the other. But I believe that the moment we're living it right now, it makes it more apparent than ever, for those who are paying attention. Because we're living through a pandemic, which the powers that be want us to pretend that the pandemic is over, but we know that it isn't. We have just witnessed over a million people die. And hundreds of 1000s of people have become disabled people have lost their jobs, people have become homeless. 1000s people are still dying every day from COVID. And all the time, monetary profit has been held above human life this entire time. And they still been preaching to us that in the midst of all this, we are still expected to labor for them. We're, we're still expected to produce for them. We are all still supposed to be working towards creating that nuclear family ideal. Get married, buy a house have kids, even though most of us couldn't afford to do that even if we wanted to. So that is how compulsory sexuality shows up in that realm, and we haven't even touched on transphobia, ableism, race. There's still so much more to be said. But it's important to-- and what I tried to do in my book is to highlight how all of these things are connected to compulsory sexuality in one way or another.
Ev'Yan Whitney
And you do such a good job of that. I was reading your book and just feeling as though doors are being opened and space was being created, to allow me to see the ways in which sex is in everything, and also this idea, this idea of how we are meant to be sexual and how we are meant to be in relationship with other people and for the sole purpose of, of labor, and kids and all of these things, like how it's so enmeshed. And it was, it was eye-opening, to read your book, it was sobering to read your book. And it was also I was, I was kind of taken aback like, wow, how did I not see-- How did I not connect these dots? It just it, it makes so much sense the way that you sort of laid that ground that groundwork, the foundation of like how all of this is connected to everything, how compulsory sexuality is connected to everything. It's made me move through the world in a different way. I've been I've been noticing things, and my third eye is open.
Sherronda J. Brown
Well, you're welcome. And also, I'm sorry, because once you start to notice things, it's hard to not notice them.
Ev'Yan Whitney
Yeah. I mean, what I will say though, is that I felt I felt kind of relieved, actually, because I feel like the world that we live in is constantly gaslighting us. And I, myself have felt very gaslit about these topics of sex and sexuality. You know, there's this conversation that we're having around sexual liberation, and you can be whoever you want sexually, where I've often felt like, only to a certain extent, you know. And so it was, it was a relief. I mean, there are many other things that was a relief for me, but it was a relief to like finally feel like someone is just telling me straight, that there's no gaslighting that there's no like, trying to make me see something that isn't there, or you know, this whole, like, positivity around sexual liberation, like it just I felt really just affirmed to read your book and to have it be like, No, this is the way it is like there's nothing wrong with you. I think that's sort of what I walked away from your book with was that there's nothing wrong with me, the society is fucked up and the way that society has impressed upon me, who I should be as a sexual being how I should be as a sexual being in service of these systems of oppression. It was I was like, thank you. Because I have felt that maybe I haven't been able to articulate it in that way. But it is all it's, I have sensed it, you know, I've sensed it.
Sherronda J. Brown
Okay, well, um good.
Ev'Yan Whitney
But no, you're right. You're You're right. Like it was really overwhelming. It was really overwhelming to see like this through line of compulsory sexuality within so many areas. I mean, even thinking about race and thinking about queer identity, you know, something that I wanted to ask you about, is, you know, people with a quickness can read out the LGBTQIA plus acronym, you know, like, I think a lot of folks know that by heart. But I'm also recognizing that a lot of people don't really know what those last two letters are, you know, intersex and asexual. And that's been really frustrating for me to witness. It's like, you know, these I'm having conversations with people about, you know, queer identity. And I think folks forget that asexuality is a queer identity. And so I wondered if you could speak a little bit to that, because the way that you spoke to it so beautifully in the book, it really resonated with me.
Sherronda J. Brown
Oh, sure. Well, I mean, first of all, asexuality has always been present. There have always been iterations of what we now understand as asexuality spectrum. It's been there in scholarship in medical journals, in marriage pamphlets. Like asexual people are discussed right alongside people with nonheterosexual desires in nonnormative gender expression. We are othered right alongside them, demonized, pathologized and theorized about in order to uphold heterosexuality and cisgender identity as the only way to be considered normal and therefore healthy, which is where the ableism comes in as we mentioned earlier. It's considered unhealthy to be anything other than heterosexual and cisgender. And looking at how iterations of asexuality or nonsexuality have been treated in the field of psychiatry specifically is a perfect example of this because many people, first of all, people within the medical industry still consider asexuality to be a medical or psychological condition, as I discuss in my book,
Ev'Yan Whitney
yep.
Sherronda J. Brown
So they think is a form of mental illness for other than its own sexual identity. And that has also been true of pretty much any sexuality outside of heterosexuality. Queer people have had been identified as mentally ill and literally been committed to mental institutions for not being cis or heterosexual. And those other forms of nonsexuality have thankfully, finally been removed from the DSM. But forms of nonheterosexuality have not. There are literal descriptions of asexuality in the DSM being identified as a form of mental illness. But even if none of that were true, asexuality will still be a form of queerness because to be asexual is to exist outside of social expectations of heterosexual performance. And that means that asexuality is seen as a threat to the dominant social systems, because all forms of nonheterosexuality are a threat to those systems. And also, asexual folks are more likely to be single or unmarried, we're less likely to reproduce, which means that we are less likely to participate in the making of the heteropatriarchal nuclear family. And we are more likely to prioritize other types of love and family, which places us squarely in a box outside of heterosexuality. But queerness is also a politic, right, which is important to name. And many asexual people, just like other queer people are politically invested in challenging the dominant systems that oppress nonheterosexual and not cisgender identities.
Ev'Yan Whitney
Yeah, I cracked open your book to something that I highlighted on this topic. This is in the chapter 'Gatekeeping'. And I wanted to read it. "So I ask, what exactly is the connective tissue between the experiences of those who call ourselves queer? What is the distinct criteria that supposedly disqualifies asexuals from being able to claim queerness? Or even exist in LGBTQIA+ spaces, despite the presence of the A in the acronym? Is it discrimination and validation and violence based on their sexual or gender/sex variant identities? Is it failing to perform heterosexual or sis normative social script and being ostracized for it? Is it institutional mandates and unwritten rules that don't take their sexuality or gender/sex into consideration? Or are specifically designed to other people like them? Is it having their very existence and the validity of that existence up for constant debate? Is it feeling invisible alized in mainstream media and cultural artifacts, because the relationships or gender/sexes depicted there in rarely, if ever reflect their own experience with these things? Is it feeling largely isolated and distinctly barred from being able to relate in social settings where the conversations operate on the assumption that everyone involved has a universal experience with sexuality or gender/sex, and that experience is typically a cis heteronormative one?" And you, at the end say, "the asexuality spectrum is filled with people who experience these things." Ah, I loved that stream of questioning. I loved that.
Sherronda J. Brown
Oh, thank you. Um, you know, I don't know if other people have this. But I often forget about the things that I have written. People were mad at me and I was like, damn, I wrote that.
Ev'Yan Whitney
Yes, you did. Yes, you did. And it's like, I also experienced that too. But yes, my friend you did write that and I am so grateful that you did. And I just—I felt that that stream of questioning was a beautiful rebuke of the people who dare to question whether or not asexual people are queer and deserve to be within these conversations of queer identities. I really loved that.
Sherronda J. Brown
The first two chapters are dedicated to some well, also a bit of the introduction, some of that was asexuality 101, but more so it's like a reminder of just in case you forgot, here's some information. And also especially in the in the gatekeeping, in acephobia chapters, I was thinking about specifically what are all the invalidating and gaslighting things and talking points, one of the things that I have heard and witnessed being used against other asexual folks like what are all those questions that I have been asked? And how can I go ahead and sort of ask and answer those in the beginning of the book before we really get into the nitty-gritty, where I start to talk about, you know, more heady theories and stuff. So that was a sort of a way to get ahead of what I predicted might be pushed back in that chapter.
Ev'Yan Whitney
Yeah, yeah. I, I wanted to ask you about... I don't know. Do I want to ask this question? Yeah, I do. Actually, I have, I have two questions. And I don't know if you'll be able to answer this because I don't think that there is an answer to this. But for folks who are listening, and maybe wondering if they are on the ace spectrum, how might they know that they might be ace in your own understanding? And like, you know, what do you tell people who come up to you that are like, I don't know, how do I know if I'm ace?
Sherronda J. Brown
I haven't had anyone come up to me asked me, thankfully.
Ev'Yan Whitney
Okay. Okay.
Sherronda J. Brown
But, I mean, just, for me, it was just about asking questions, all the time. But that's just who I am as a person. I've been told several times that I asked too many questions. And I'm fine and okay with that. Um, but I was just, I came to the realization that I am on the asexuality spectrum as a result of just constantly interrogating everything that was ever taught to me about sex and gender, and sexuality. And also just considering what my personal experiences with those things had been, and how they made me feel. Like one thing that was really eye opening for me was learning that sometimes when you think you feel attraction, what you actually feel is anxiety. Because anxiety manifests itself physically, in the same way that attraction can manifest itself physically. So when I really sat and thought about that, like, what was I actually feeling- After a lot of thought, I realized, oh, what I was feeling was actually anxiety and nervousness, it was not an attraction to people. What I thought was attraction, and what I thought was me enjoying certain things was actually just me wanting to be accepted and loved and desired and wanting to experience, you know, closeness and intimacy with people. But having been conditioned to believe that the only way for me to experience those things was to offer myself up as a romantic or sexual prospect to people, even when I didn't necessarily want to. So, what was also involved in my personal realization was also some hard truths, some taking inventory of past experiences, and past beliefs in realizing that I was wrong. And also realizing that me being wrong was not necessarily my fault because of the messages I had received. But also that it had led me into some compromising situations that would amount to trauma for a lot of people. And in some cases for me it did amount to trauma. So it's hard for people to look back and say, Oh, that situation was actually traumatic. If they're not ready to deal with the fact that this situation was actually traumatic. And you talked about this a little bit in my interview with you. I refer to it in my head is your chapter.
Ev'Yan Whitney
Can I just say how surreal it was? Because when we did this interview, I had completely forgotten that you and I had had a conversation about me being in your book. And I was reading the book and I was like, "Ev'Yan, oh, my God, that's me!" And I had this very, like, out-of-body experience of like, whoa, I'm a part of this. And then I also just felt really like giddy because I'm like, God, I love this book so much, and I felt so honored to be a part of it.
Sherronda J. Brown
That's amazing. I'm so glad you had that experience.
Ev'Yan Whitney
But I didn't mean to interject, please, please keep going.
Sherronda J. Brown
Um, but yeah, in your chapter, you say specifically that like your asexuality is wrapped up with all these other things like it includes also sexual trauma.
Ev'Yan Whitney
Yeah.
Sherronda J. Brown
and that was that's an important point, because a lot of people will say that. That's also like a talking point against asexuality. Right? Like, that it's only people who are sexually traumatized identify as asexual, and my question to that is like- so fucking what? If sexual trauma is what leads you to identify with asexuality, it's okay. Because a label is not permanent. Like, if you decide tomorrow, that it doesn't work for you, that's perfectly okay. But people come to identify as asexual through a lot of different things. And sometimes it includes sexual trauma. Sometimes it's about gender identity and expectations of gender performance. Sometimes it has to do with mental illness, sometimes it just has to do with, you've always known. But for some people, they haven't always noticed that's also fine. Like, it's, it's really important to understand that you are not going to come to the same conclusion that somebody else came to, and you also are not going to get there the same way somebody else did. So, me telling you how I got there may or may not be helpful for you.
Ev'Yan Whitney
Right.
Sherronda J. Brown
It's really about what speaks to you. And what you can identify with as you are reading and listening to other people's testimonies about how they arrived at their understanding of themselves as an asexual person.
Ev'Yan Whitney
Mm hmm. Yeah, I get that question a lot of like, "how do I know that I'm Ace, I don't know, maybe I could be" and you know, I'm never prescriptive about it. I mean, there are certain characteristics and tendencies of aces that you can kind of look to, but I'm also just like, listen to ace people talk about their ace identities, like, listen to ace stories, read books about ace sexual experiences from ace people, because that was what really helped me understand and also like, reflect to me like, oh, wow, I, I see myself in this. And I, I know that that's frustrating, because I think we live in a culture that we want to just like know. We want somebody to tell us who we are. Because we have been conditioned that society tells us who we are and who we're allowed to be. But what I love about being ace and what I love about the conversations that I have with folks like you and Yasmin, and Angela, is that like asexuality is so open ended. It's fluid, and there's no right or wrong way to be ace. You don't have to identify as ace if you don't want to, you know, because that's another thing I've heard like people say like, oh, this ace conversation that you're having, or you know, the ace people are talking about their experiences. They're just trying to get people to be ace like them. And it's like, no, actually, we're just trying to live. We're just trying to survive. We're just trying to thrive and yeah, I want for people to experience that.
Sherronda J. Brown
But also, what if we want to recruit a bunch of people like who cares?
Ev'Yan Whitney
Listen, I see, okay, thank you for saying that because I'm also like, bro, it is so fun over here on the a spectrum side. Like, I feel like asexual people have gotten or just asexuality in general has gotten such a fucking bad rap that we are boring. We are incapable of love, like just so much harm and violence and just yuck energy when it comes to asexuality. And that's why I'm so happy about books like yours, because it really, it really like shrugs off all of that conditioning, all of these narratives that are false and rooted in stigma and dogma and shame. And I feel like, knowing that I'm Ace has been one of the beautiful and most like biggest blessings that I found out about myself. Because it's now that I know this about myself, I'm able to access intimacy, pleasure relationships with my body and other people's bodies in different ways, like with more nuance and more presence, you know, so, yeah, let's get let's recruit some people. Like, there's plenty of room over here.
Sherronda J. Brown
I mean, I'm not saying I'm actively trying to recruit people, but like,
Ev'Yan Whitney
I am. I'm saying that. No, I'm kidding.
Sherronda J. Brown
I mean, and that's fine. But like, what is the harm in people learning that about themselves? It's really interesting that this exact same talking points that I hear about people self-diagnosing as neurodivergent. It was just like, well, everybody just wants to be special and cool. And I'm just like, first of all, do you think I feel cool? Experiencing constant ableism and discrimination because neurotypical people think that differences is a deficit? It does not make me feel cool. Um, but like, also it is-- Like you said, it's a very expansive experience, right, there are other things that we are able to highlight and see available to us in the world, when we let go of this pressure to be something that we are not.
Ev'Yan Whitney
Yes.
Sherronda J. Brown
That is what I'm trying to recruit people into, not necessarily in naming themselves as asexual. I don't-- I can curse on this podcast, right.
Ev'Yan Whitney
Of course, girl!
Sherronda J. Brown
Okay. To be quite honest, I don't give a single fuck what we call ourselves, like, the language that we currently have is asexuality. But I don't care about that at all. I care about naming the experience. And, and helping people free themselves from the burden of trying to force themselves into a box they don't belong into. That's what I care about.
Ev'Yan Whitney
Yes. Yes. That part, that part. Before we close, I wanted to just mention, you know, so much of the book, I feel is an uplifting of Black folks. And an uplifting of Blackness and Black queerness and Black identity. Or at least that's how I read it. I mean, I don't know. That's how my experience was.
Sherronda J. Brown
Okay, good.
Ev'Yan Whitney
So that was right?
Sherronda J. Brown
Yeah.
Ev'Yan Whitney
Okay, good.
Sherronda J. Brown
I write for Black people.
Ev'Yan Whitney
Yeah, I figured, but you know, other people might not have that experience. But for me, this book read Black as fuck, and I felt very seen and affirmed by that by you in this book. And yeah, I wondered if, if you have any words of encouragement, words of affirmation, for Black folks, Black aces who are listening right now.
Sherronda J. Brown
Okay, well, as we like to say, in the south, we ain't gonna do nothing but stay Black and die. I don't know if that's a saying anywhere else but in the south.
Ev'Yan Whitney
I have never heard that. But I love it. great.
Sherronda J. Brown
Yeah, um, we ain't gotta do nothin' but stay Black and die. And I'll add to that and say, we also don't have to prove a damn thing to anybody. And we don't owe anybody our bodies. And we don't have to live up to or live down to any of the expectations placed on us and on our Blackness. And also, I often get called a, a pessimist or negative person for saying this, but it's just the truth. We live in an anti-Black world.
Ev'Yan Whitney
Yep.
Sherronda J. Brown
And people are going to hate us regardless. So we might as well just do whatever the hell we want, as long as it's safe and ethical, of course. But you know, the malleability-- anti-Blackness is malleable, right. It's easy to shape and reshape. And that means that it can be shaped and reshaped to be used against us in order to meet whatever the needs of white supremacy are. And so because Black asexual folks are rendered as impossible under white supremacy, as I name in my book, we might as well lead into the impossibility.
Ev'Yan Whitney
Hmm,
Sherronda J. Brown
That's how I feel.
Ev'Yan Whitney
Hmm. I love that. I love that, Sherronda. Thank you.
Sherronda J. Brown
You're welcome.
Ev'Yan Whitney
And thank you for writing this book. I know I've said it a million trillion times, but I'm gonna keep saying it. This book is medicine, it was medicine for me. Anytime I think that I have understood myself more fully as an ace person, I read a book like yours. And I'm just like, the bottom falls out. And I go deeper and deeper and deeper into the more of who I am, you know, this, this freedom, this liberation, and this taking up space in who I am. And I'm just so grateful for this book, I want to encourage everybody to get this book. Not even just people who are A's or people who think that they are ace, but just people like everybody gets fucked underneath compulsory sexuality. And I think that your book does a really great job of examining the ways that compulsory sexuality affects us all. And also offers a framework, a liberation, a, you know, call to action about how we can refuse it. So thank you.
Sherronda J. Brown
You're welcome.
Ev'Yan Whitney
Please tell everybody where they can get your book also, where they can find you how they can support you.
Sherronda J. Brown
I mean, I'm not a person who wants to be found.
Ev'Yan Whitney
Facts, okay, like by respect to that, but Okay, so tell us where people can find your book.
Sherronda J. Brown
Sure. I mean, I think you can get the book pretty much wherever books are sold. I don't support Amazon. But if you gotta go there, that's fine. Barnes and Noble, wherever. Bookshop also has it. You can request it to be at your local library or at bookstores, and is also available as an ebook. It is an audiobook. I don't know where exactly to tell you to find it. Just Google it, it's there. And if you for whatever reason, absolutely want to find me, you can find me on Twitter, @SherrondaJBrown. But I probably won't follow you back. I'm sorry.
Ev'Yan Whitney
I love that I'm in a space myself, where I'm trying to divest a little bit from social media. So I love like this declaration of you saying I don't really want to be found. And I'm like, wow, there's freedom in that even. So, thank you for offering that here.
. . .
Big shout out to Sherronda for coming on the show and conjuring up new ways of seeing ourselves as sexual beings. And if you haven't already, get her book, Refusing Compulsory Sexuality, wherever you find books. It's amazing.
As we move into the practice portion of the show, I want to pause and invite you to check in with yourself. How did that conversation land for you? What are you noticing coming up in your mind and body as you digest Sherronda’s words? What thoughts or memories or emotions are surfacing as you think about the ways that you've perhaps been shaped by compulsory sexuality?
Something that Sherronda writes in her book is that "entire sexual lives are imposed on us and written onto our bodies without our consent." And I was just wondering what's been imposed upon your body, about sex and sexuality? And in what ways has that imposition been racialized, gendered, and classed, among many other things?
I ask these questions because these are the ones I'm sitting with, as I take really honest and difficult looks at the way my sexuality hasn't been, and in some cases still isn't, mine. And I think that line of questioning, while a bit confronting, can help carve a pathway toward authentic sexual expression of sexuality that is all yours. That's intentional in its actualization. And that that sexuality or absence of one, if you so choose, can create spaces of possibility for different ways of being in the world, you know. And this isn't about steering you in a direction of claiming an ace identity for yourself. I know I joked in my conversation with Sherronda that I'm actively trying to recruit people over to this side, which, that isn't my ministry, y'all. But if it was, you know, hypothetically, there's plenty of space over here in ace land. Come on down.
No, honestly, the reason I want you to be thinking about these questions, is because so often we are moving through the world without realizing that a lot of what we've been taught and a lot of what we know about things, in this case, sex, comes from a very specific template that's been used to control us or quash our lovely little nuances. And I want us all to question the ways we've been indoctrinated into acting out social scripts, so that we can come to a full understanding of who we are without them. Or also, who we are with them. Because you know, what, you may find in your line of questioning that the social norms that have been imposed upon you about your sexuality and desire are a-okay with you. You may find that you actually feel aligned within those norms. And truly, that is, okay. Like, I really want you to know that it's okay, if the norms that we were speaking about today, fit you better than the alternative. I just want for you to have choice. I want you to remember your agency and autonomy, I want you to remember that you are allowed to be and feel who and how you are as long as you are an active participant in that, because so many of us aren't.
And if you're walking away from this conversation, feeling like no, actually, I'm good over here. Beautiful. It's just that so many of us weren't given a choice. Most of us weren't even made aware that we had other options to choose from. And I love conversations like these, because my hope is that they can remind you of the birthright that is your messy self-actualization, especially if it goes outside of what you've been taught to be standard. And if this line of questioning, if this whole damn episode really, is destabilizing you, if it's making you question yourself and your sexuality in some uncomfortable, existential ways and giving you some feelings of, wow, this really landed for me, and that's freaking me the fuck out- I just want to say two things: 1.) been there, done that, and 2.) welcome to the sexual revolution!
I also want to point you in the direction of other conversations we've had on the show about this kind of stuff. So you can check out episode 56 with Angela Chen, where we talk about asexuality and sexual liberation. Also check out her book Ace, it's another fantastic read. Listen to Episode 65 With Yasmin Benoit, about similar things having to do with aceness and blackness. I'm also going to plug episode 59 with Dayna Lynn Nuckolls that will jack you up in the best way about gender norms. And I'll put links to all of those episodes in the show notes so that you can click and listen with ease.
All right, y'all. I'm going to head out. Thank you for listening. Take super good care of yourself. And we'll talk soon.
. . .
Sensual Self is created and hosted by me, Ev’Yan Whitney. It is edited by myself and Tribble. Music is by Melodiesinfonie from his song called ‘Just Healing.’
For show notes, transcripts, and resources for your sensuality, go to evyanwhitney.com/podcast. You can also follow the show on Instagram @sensual.self.
As for me, I’m on Instagram at @evyan.whitney, and you can check out evyanwhitney.com to find out more about me and my work.
Also check out my book Sensual Self: Prompts and Practices For Getting in Touch With Your Body. You can find that wherever you find books.
Thanks so much for being here and I’ll see you in the next one.