Kinky? You May Be On The Asexual Spectrum.

This is not the first time I have written about this, nor do I expect it to be the last. This time the trigger was participating in a podcast about sexuality and realizing that though I had written about the kink/asexual spectrum connection a bunch, I haven’t really explained why the two are complimentary in a rigorous enough sense. I also wanted to do some sort of typed up summary of another phenomena, where after talking about asexuality or how it works I find a lot of folks, kinksters in particular, find the definition surprisingly resonates with them.

Needless to say, this got long.

Explaining asexuality always is posited on needing to explain how sex works in a broader, global sense. As I have written in other blog posts, most folks tend to define asexuality in a very rigid binary, imagining a person with no erotic desire or inclination. This can be part of being asexual, but it really isn’t the only part.

Attraction (that’s inspired erotic desire for another person) is not the same thing as arousal. The core of asexual identity presumes not so much whether or not you are capable of arousal, but how you experience attraction.

The problem with telling people this is that asexuality hides in plain sight. For example, homosexuality tends to stand out because the behavior associated: attempting to get into relationships or have sex with people in a way that breaks normative social barriers, not having sex is the baseline human state. Likewise, being immersed in stuff that could or could not be interpreted sexually (e.g. artistic nudes, music about really, really wanting someone else in a body responsive way) is the background radiation of human cultural existence. And, having sex with people you are in no way attracted to is so common as to not be considered remarkable. It’s generally regarded as unfortunate, but some of the most conservative societies can be very into compulsory sex done out of a sense of duty rather than inherent horniness.

So, if you go around not being into what your society (or subculture) generally identifies as ok to be sexy, as long as you are willing to perform the behaviors associated with your social role your internal thoughts on the matter are going to be treated as trivial or specific to you. The folks who absolutely won’t or can’t cooperate with the expected behaviours are treated like a pitiable minority, either eccentrics, shirkers or people with a medical issue, be it physical or psychological.

You, reader, who is probably a more sensitive soul, almost certainly adopts the position that nobody should be compelled to fuck anyone. You probably feel incredibly sympathetic – someone should help those poor people not do sex! And, you are generally able to accept these people fit the label of Asexual. Otherwise, if you think about this at all, you generally only do so in the context of biology, where some living things clone themselves.

Here’s the current assumptions around how the typical way people are sexually wired work: 

Humans are expected to default to being attracted to a fair number of whatever the gender(s) they are into. They are expected to be this way sans anything other than that person existing and them being aware of that fact, or maybe getting a good look at certain bits of them or the whole body. That’s being allosexual, the opposite of asexual. 

Then there’s anyone who fits the following: they experience attraction like this not at all, sporadically or require some additional factor. These people are all on the asexual spectrum.

Allosexual	Attracted to people reliably without other modifiers other than being whatever gender(s) matter to you and some influence of taste.
Asexual	Attraction to others is absent, sporadic, rare or requires some other factor, such as an intimate connection.

When you say that, a large number of people cross their eyes and look bewildered. 

For example, the label of demisexual, where you require romantic love or an intimate knowledge of the other person to have attraction to them, seems like idealized traditional monogamy, right? And maybe that’s just a social influence for folks who have it! More often than you would expect, this person will say they experience attraction just like this and they never thought about this as being anything other than normal human variation.

Where people get things wrong is that they expect human sexual diversity to be a fringe thing.  Much as we conflate behavior (e.g. out/open lesbians and bi women) with the sum total of existing (e.g. all women who are capable of attraction to other women), we expect asexuality to be a tiny little pocket. In practice, a lot of women attracted to women also go through life not recognizing the feelings they have as being applicable to that experience. A lot of LGB folk not only grapple with compulsory heterosexuality, but also lacking vocabulary to describe their experience. For example it’s normal for unaware lesbian or bi women to think female friendships are just more warm and intimate, or all women are just inherently more sexy and men are just inherently less attractive.

If you don’t have the vocabulary or context to understand your attraction, whether you are allosexual or not, it’s perfectly possible not to realize your identity or that your experience can be both more common than you think, but also less universal.

And then there’s all these asexual people going around wanting to have sex still, or if not sex with others, being aroused and masturbating. This tends to go back  to the problem of conflating attraction with arousal. This also tends ot frustrate people trying to understand asexuality, both trying to grapple with why asexual people may experience marginalization if some of them fuck, or why they even still want to bother. 

Unfortunately, to explain the difference I need a verbose explanation of arousal

Every human is a little different in their responsiveness and wiring. Even in folks capable of arousal, everyone has two different ways it can occur: physiological arousal, a sensory response (friction, touching, etc…) and psychological arousal, a response to perceived stimuli or fantasies. These two modes have the capacity to function on a feedback loop, e.g. you see or think of a sexy idea (or sense memory, etc…)  and touch yourself to enhance what’s already there or you get physiological arousal from touching (on purpose or accidental), but both may be entirely independent. Some folks can orgasm just by thinking about it and some folks can orgasm purely from pressure or touching in the right way. The right kind of spinal injury can uncouple this capacity too, but thanks to how your nerves are laid out, 

People, regardless of physiology, are remarkably similar in practice. Any nerve rich area may or may not induce arousal. Inversely, much like irritating your salivary duct enough can make it squirt regardless of the presence of hunger, many folks can get the physical motor running without any enthusiastic input from their brain. Similarly some folks just get ambient physical arousal, no context needed.

Sex labs measure arousal via blood flow to your genitals, and orgasm by an anal probe that measures the pressure and rate of anal contractions. You can even find a sex toy that reverses the process, using an inflatable anal plug to measure when someone is probably close to coming and cutting the power to a vibe. A whole other essay might point out some of the problems in how we measure sexuality with science inherently involves itself in the process, but suffice to say, all these mechanics can exist, regardless of the experience of attraction. 

But what does that have to do with me, a kinky person?

I am going to assume if you are asking this you are a kinky person who experiences arousal. If you are a kinky person who experiences nothing at all erotic in your kink life but is happily experiencing allosexual arousal outside of this interest (or not at all), you probably have this all figured out already, and that’s valid too.

However, here’s some things that may indicate you, an arousable kinky person, is asexual:

• If you need the presence of kink in order to get or sustain attraction to someone, that is a brokering factor and textbook asexual spectrum. 
• If your arousal is built on needing whatever fetishes you happen to have to get to orgasm easily or at all, same. 
• If you find yourself, during vanilla sex, bringing in fantasies of kink to make it flow better even if your own private head… SAME. 
• If you can fall in love with a vanilla person, but sans kink your bedroom life dies. SAME.
• If kink forms the basis of private gratification. SAME.
• If you find you can go through with vanilla sex sans kink, but it is disappointing or more of an act of love/means of manual stimulation. SAME

Much of kink identity is already posited on this being non-negotiable for many of us. Classic books like “Screw The Roses, Give Me The Thorns” emphasize how alienating the assumption of everyone wanting vanilla can feel. Similarly kink as a community has a long history of pat little articles talking about the difference between a kink and a fetish (now linguistically irrelevant, but practically traditional for sex blogs in the past). We already get the jist of the idea that kink is a gating factor for enough people it matters. Long story short, if you are in the BDSM community, you have a better than average chance of meeting the definition of asexual.

Why would I want to bother with a label, I feel fine?

Once people stop being bewildered, but realize the definition of asexual might include them, it’s quite common to still hesitate about adopting it for yourself. The simple answer is, whatever helps you is the best label. If all this icks or repels you, I am not going to follow you around trying to force the label down your throat. Please absolutely don’t engage with this if it’s making you feel uncomfortable. It’s also normal to take your time with any new identity that catches your attention. A lot of queer folks spent time self identifying as allies before determining a best fit.

I definitely didn’t leap straight to identifying as asexual either. This blog is a real time record of when it occurred to me it might be applicable. And, I have memories of much younger me being bewildered bordering on scoffing when other asexuals explained the spectrum part. These days I’m actually pretty grateful they did, and see this as doing my part to pay it forward.

The utility of the label is not because, as some people rather rudely suggest, you want some sort of extra badge of deviance. You are already kinky, and it’s asinine to suggest there’s some sort of privilege in further self definition. It might feel like alt culture folks of all kinds can get a little too into trying to find the perfect label to define everything too, but relax. Asexuality is an umbrella. Because it has a spectrum this is less about a pigeon hole and more, to brutally extend a metaphor, to define a dovecote.  

If you are anxious people will laugh at you or see this as some sort of stolen valor or a cry for attention, relax. In the first place, people who think label fluidity or the exploration of the same are bad are both jerks. The larger asexual community is actually pretty open to diversity in one’s experience of this. Likewise, the flag reflects this mindset, centering the spectrum and making a place for a broad range of folks. While I don’t disagree there’s some people who jealously guard any label, these will always be the minority. At worst  you can treat them like overly ridgid, anxious dorks. Most people will understand you are allowed to explore.

That being said, there’s good reason to be open to considering self describing as asexual if your experience is how I described earlier.

The reasons why are threefold: self affirmation, solidarity and (unfortunately), safety. 

For self affirmation, the label of asexuality, (if any of what I said prior) resonates can be helpful to both explain your needs and preferences to potential partners and release a lot of internalized self condemnation. One of the roles of a label is to help you go from thinking you are completely alone in your experience to finding common ground. Understanding the asexual spectrum can also be a useful tool to help you navigate having only the sort of sexual experience you want. A lot of asexual people struggle with guilt that they are inconsiderate partners or not trying hard enough to make allosexuality work as it is depicted for others. It can really help with the feeling that prioritizing your needs is actually a good thing.

As far as solidarity, I don’t think my blog is the final word if you want to determine if you may be asexual. By opening yourself up to the potential of being asexual you will need a broader understanding of the experience of other asexual people, and you should look for other sources. Likewise, you have to change nothing about your existing behavior. This isn’t a  manipulative suggestion that you just haven’t met the right asexual person yet. Rather, most people, asexuals included, exist in a state of profound innocence about what is possible within asexuality. Exploring your identity can be an act of affirmation to others, in so much that at worst you get a better understanding of a group you share common space with. And, if asexual does fit you, it can be really helpful to other people on the same self discovery journey to know someone else figured (or figuring!) it out.

Safety is the least talked about reason, but arguably the most important.The last reason you should consider the label is because labels do not exist just as a marker of group identity or self exploration, but also, particularly the ones people consider queer, as a centralized point of mutual protection. Asexual folks, despite being largely invisible, experience all the issues the other queer folk do. We are subject to stigma, if we do not consummate our marriages they may be legally annulled, corrective rape is used to try to cure us, not to mention asexuality is generally seen as a defect to stamp out. Indeed, while some more forward thinking countries have gone as far as banning gay conversion therapy, no such protection exists for asexual folk.

As a kinky person, it’s likely the kink community alone meets a big measure of most of those three needs. However, as much as I feel fairly at home here it would be wrong to say that there wasn’t further value in exploring beyond that for me, and I think you will have the same experience. 

I also  recognize that identifying with having a problem can be one of the hardest sells for most people. Admitting you experience even the most mild of issues can be deeply uncomfortable in itself. Take your time with the concept, but if what I said seemed to resonate, don’t rule it out. 

TL;DR

Asexuality is a spectrum, not a hard binary of sex repulsed people who never experience arousal. While that can be some folks, for many kinky people, the non-negotiable need for it to experience attraction to others (or to sustain or obtain arousal) means a lot of us are textbook ace. Is that you?