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Book Club: Ace, Part 2 · Stuff Mom Never Told You

0:05
Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie and Samantha and welcome to Stuff
0:07
Speaker 1: I Never told you production of I High Radio. So
0:18
Speaker 1: we are back, okay, Part two of our book club
0:22
Speaker 1: on Angela Chin's book Ace, What a Sexuality Reveals about desire, society,
0:27
Speaker 1: and the meaning of sex, which came out pretty recently,
0:29
Speaker 1: came out in twenty twenty, and we just got to
0:31
Speaker 1: talking and chatting because we there's a lot of stuff
0:34
Speaker 1: to cover, and so yes, this is a two parter. Yes,
0:37
Speaker 1: and as it says in our title, there's a lot
0:39
Speaker 1: of implications that go beyond just being Ace. But what
0:42
Speaker 1: this reveals for all of society, that's a lot. It is.
0:46
Speaker 1: It is a lot, it's a lot to untangle. If
0:48
Speaker 1: you haven't listened to part one yet, I think you'll
0:51
Speaker 1: be fine to start with this one. But we cover
0:52
Speaker 1: a lot of ground in that one as well, so
0:55
Speaker 1: go back and check it out. For this one, we're
0:57
Speaker 1: really we're really going to hit the ground running because
1:00
Speaker 1: this was something that really stood out to me. We
1:03
Speaker 1: ended part one talking about this is complicated, convoluted mess
1:09
Speaker 1: around women and sex when it comes to feminism and
1:12
Speaker 1: being liberated and being empowered, and how really messy that
1:16
Speaker 1: can get And this next section really relates to that,
1:20
Speaker 1: which is this whole idea that Chen goes into that
1:24
Speaker 1: being a sexual, especially a woman being a sexual is
1:28
Speaker 1: a whole made up idea and it was made up
1:30
Speaker 1: by misogynistic men to sexually repress women, which is interesting
1:37
Speaker 1: given the are very stereotypical and harmful understanding that men
1:42
Speaker 1: always want sex, and I mean, I guess the idea
1:45
Speaker 1: would be you only have sex with them that one man, right,
1:49
Speaker 1: I don't know, but okay, here is a quote. Being
1:53
Speaker 1: asexual means you can't have passion. He'd say, if you
1:56
Speaker 1: don't have passion, you can't write. Therefore, if you don't
1:59
Speaker 1: have sex, you can't be a writer. Identifying as ace
2:01
Speaker 1: means you're brainwashed by the patriarchy and you need to
2:04
Speaker 1: work harder to fight that. Otherwise you can't be a
2:06
Speaker 1: feminist and you certainly can't be an artist. So this
2:10
Speaker 1: was a story. Chan interviews a lot of people for
2:14
Speaker 1: this book, and this was a story someone told her
2:17
Speaker 1: about their experience meeting an older male writer and this
2:22
Speaker 1: person wanted to be a writer as well, and his
2:26
Speaker 1: reaction to their insistence that they were asexual and that
2:31
Speaker 1: they wanted an asexual character in the books that they
2:34
Speaker 1: were writing. Yeah, can I say the section that I
2:36
Speaker 1: almost through everything because immediately I'm like, he's grooming Oh
2:40
Speaker 1: my god, he's grooming her and gaslighting her. What the
2:43
Speaker 1: But also can we also put in that this dude
2:46
Speaker 1: was a friend of her father's. Yeah, that connected her
2:50
Speaker 1: to get a mentor so she can write, So he
2:52
Speaker 1: was doing something nice the father. This dude who was
2:55
Speaker 1: the friend of the father had a wife, had you know, children,
2:58
Speaker 1: and by the way, she was a young teenager and
3:01
Speaker 1: he was saying these things to her because he was
3:03
Speaker 1: grooming her. Super gross, super gross. That was a whole
3:07
Speaker 1: different conversation. I was like, because at the very beginning
3:09
Speaker 1: when you hear the story of her talking about him
3:12
Speaker 1: being like, well, I'll say, oh no, this is about
3:15
Speaker 1: to go real bad. And it did, but it didn't
3:18
Speaker 1: go real bad. But I'm just saying like, I'm like,
3:20
Speaker 1: you know what this is leading to? We know right well,
3:23
Speaker 1: And then when this person turned down his advances, he
3:27
Speaker 1: was like, Okay, that's it. I'm not helping you anymore.
3:29
Speaker 1: And everything you've ever written as trash and go away right,
3:34
Speaker 1: real real class act. But the idea here being yeah,
3:38
Speaker 1: sex with him would liberate you that he wanted to
3:41
Speaker 1: have sex with this young person. And then around in
3:48
Speaker 1: that section as well, there was this idea of the
3:51
Speaker 1: pressure of the one night stand and that it can
3:53
Speaker 1: be very liberating and how a not small amount of
4:00
Speaker 1: sexual people try something like that because they think, oh,
4:03
Speaker 1: if i'd just do it, then maybe I can prove
4:05
Speaker 1: to myself that I do want sex. And I am,
4:08
Speaker 1: you know, in my mind empowered or liberated because that
4:11
Speaker 1: has gotten all mixed up with sex. And I did
4:14
Speaker 1: the same thing, and I remember I was it was
4:18
Speaker 1: like jumping off a cliffers and I'm so scared, and
4:21
Speaker 1: I it was just like, you have to just do it,
4:24
Speaker 1: just do I want to be the type of person
4:25
Speaker 1: that can do this and that will enjoy it. And
4:29
Speaker 1: we like got out, we were, you know, almost all
4:31
Speaker 1: of our clothes and then I just freaked out. I
4:34
Speaker 1: was like, I can't do this and ran and left
4:35
Speaker 1: the room. And I never saw that guy. So, yeah, no,
4:42
Speaker 1: I had a similar experience, except I did have sex.
4:44
Speaker 1: I was super drunk, and it wasn't because I wanted
4:46
Speaker 1: to get it over with. It was I was I
4:48
Speaker 1: wanted because I was like twenty six, twenty four I
4:53
Speaker 1: was older and so and I had leaned so hard
4:56
Speaker 1: into being a virgin because you know, Jesus, and then realizing, wait,
5:01
Speaker 1: what is happening. I don't know if I truly understand
5:03
Speaker 1: any of this. And I did have a lot of
5:04
Speaker 1: sexual desires, being very sexualized at a really young age.
5:09
Speaker 1: I've always been sexual and that's kind of that connotation,
5:12
Speaker 1: and we've not talked about it about those who have
5:15
Speaker 1: been sexually abused being hyper sexualized throughout and I was
5:20
Speaker 1: super high sexualized. But because again trauma and all of that,
5:25
Speaker 1: you know, and then religion, and honestly, I wouldn't say
5:28
Speaker 1: I'm not saying anything negative and that it kept me safe.
5:30
Speaker 1: I think there's a lot of things that could have
5:32
Speaker 1: gone through a lot of heartbreak and or really really
5:35
Speaker 1: dangerous situations. Don't get me wrong, bad things still happen
5:37
Speaker 1: to me, even in those moments, and I did some
5:40
Speaker 1: quoty fingershell in those moments. But at twenty fourteen five,
5:44
Speaker 1: I'm like, I really do want to have sex. This
5:46
Speaker 1: is something that I fantasized, and I like being touched
5:48
Speaker 1: and all these things. I'm also really afraid of relationships
5:51
Speaker 1: in general, because again, sex and romance is not something
5:55
Speaker 1: that's a thing to me at that point in time,
5:58
Speaker 1: because I'm so overly traumatized and I've used religion to
6:01
Speaker 1: heal or cover that band you know, cover it up
6:03
Speaker 1: with that religion band aid, which did not do anything
6:06
Speaker 1: except for excuses for me specifically, And so I went
6:11
Speaker 1: through that like, oh, I'm just I'm just gonna do it.
6:15
Speaker 1: Poor dude, It's all I have to learn about that,
6:17
Speaker 1: because it was sad, short, and I was like, what
6:20
Speaker 1: is this not at all what I'd hoped for? Because
6:23
Speaker 1: again it doesn't meet expectations. You're quite you know, misled
6:29
Speaker 1: by me and you know, me thinking I'm gonna be
6:32
Speaker 1: swept off my feet and it's gonna be the best experience. Yeah,
6:40
Speaker 1: I was just talking to a girlfriend about this. I've
6:43
Speaker 1: said about him than I do me. I will say
6:45
Speaker 1: that in a weird context, like, Okay, he really was trying.
6:52
Speaker 1: He was trying to make it special even though I'd
6:54
Speaker 1: never met him before and that was our first date.
6:57
Speaker 1: It was a one I said. I stopped talking to
6:58
Speaker 1: him immediately after. Yeah, oh oh man, yeah yeah, yeah.
7:03
Speaker 1: That myth of the like perfect virgin sex is very damaging,
7:09
Speaker 1: a lot of a lot of expectations that are way
7:11
Speaker 1: too high and can never possibly be met, and that's
7:13
Speaker 1: not good for either anybody right emotionally for us. Yeah,
7:18
Speaker 1: the comedic versions, which is supposed to be all about laughing,
7:21
Speaker 1: is the truer version forms for many of us. Who
7:25
Speaker 1: has built this up and then you're just like I
7:26
Speaker 1: guess too. Yeah, don't get me wrong. I've had a
7:29
Speaker 1: few friends and like, nah, it was legit. Yeah, a
7:33
Speaker 1: few friends who's like talking about how painful it was.
7:35
Speaker 1: I was like, oh no, yeah, Well I think that
7:38
Speaker 1: I think there's a space for it to be especially
7:41
Speaker 1: if you're with someone that you trust and that you
7:44
Speaker 1: feel something for. I think there's a space for it
7:47
Speaker 1: to not be great sex, but for it to be
7:48
Speaker 1: really sweet and awkward, if that makes sense, because you're
7:51
Speaker 1: both in it. You're both in it together, right, and
7:53
Speaker 1: if you can like kind of you know, be open about,
7:56
Speaker 1: oh this is sort of awkward. I think there's something
7:59
Speaker 1: like that can great, that could be a good story
8:01
Speaker 1: to tell later. Yes, kind of all learning. So here's
8:10
Speaker 1: another group. I am what sexuality scholar Lisa down And
8:14
Speaker 1: calls sex critical aware of both women's personal agency and
8:17
Speaker 1: the continuing inequalities of society. It is possible to encourage
8:20
Speaker 1: others to experiment while trusting them. If they say sex
8:23
Speaker 1: doesn't do anything for them, someone shouldn't be fitted either
8:26
Speaker 1: because their sex acts are very kinky, are because their
8:28
Speaker 1: number of partners is very low. It is cost for
8:31
Speaker 1: celebration whenever anyone is to the best of their ability,
8:34
Speaker 1: making their own choices free from pressure, and also working
8:37
Speaker 1: to change the social and political structures that will let
8:39
Speaker 1: everyone else have that same sexual freedom and freedom of
8:43
Speaker 1: other kinds too, which I like, really, I mean, that's
8:49
Speaker 1: just the level of just trusting that people know themselves
8:51
Speaker 1: and accepting it and not trying to change people's minds.
8:54
Speaker 1: And don't understand that level unless it's a therapeutic level. Yeah, yeah,
9:01
Speaker 1: it is tricky, don't get me wrong. Or I've asked
9:05
Speaker 1: these questions of myself of like, what if it's just
9:07
Speaker 1: because I was raised in a religious environment and that's
9:11
Speaker 1: why I don't like sex, Like I have these questions.
9:13
Speaker 1: But ultimately, but if it still if that is your reason,
9:18
Speaker 1: that's okay, that's true. So that's you know, like it's
9:21
Speaker 1: kind of that's the same thing again. You and I
9:22
Speaker 1: are talking about, especially when we talk about trauma, especially like, yeah,
9:25
Speaker 1: there might be a reason you don't like sex, and
9:27
Speaker 1: it's because trauma and it triggers. If it's not something
9:31
Speaker 1: that you want, if that's not something I want, then
9:34
Speaker 1: why are other people pushing us? Like if we feel
9:37
Speaker 1: completely content and being where we are and understand that
9:41
Speaker 1: some of these things make us uncomfortable because of ABC
9:44
Speaker 1: and D, whether it's religious suppression or whether it's a
9:48
Speaker 1: dramatic background, or whether it's because your body just don't
9:50
Speaker 1: want it, right, then why not just let it be.
9:53
Speaker 1: That's not something that it's not going to kill me
9:55
Speaker 1: not to have sex. It's not going to kill them
9:57
Speaker 1: not to have sex, like it doesn't. And if you
9:59
Speaker 1: don't want children, that's on you as well, And that's fine.
10:02
Speaker 1: If that's not the way you want to have children,
10:03
Speaker 1: If you can't have children that way, it is what
10:06
Speaker 1: it is. There's no reason for us to come in
10:08
Speaker 1: and judge that, right, be empathetic to that and understanding
10:12
Speaker 1: to that. Yes, right, I think that is one of
10:15
Speaker 1: the most One of the things that really impacted me
10:18
Speaker 1: the most reading this book is that very thing of like,
10:21
Speaker 1: you know what, maybe you have been through some trauma,
10:23
Speaker 1: and maybe there are a lot of reasons why you
10:25
Speaker 1: don't want to have sex, But that doesn't mean you
10:28
Speaker 1: can't identify as a sexual and that's fine. Like if
10:30
Speaker 1: you if you don't want to have a sexually, you
10:32
Speaker 1: don't have sex and that's fine. Right again, Yep, I
10:35
Speaker 1: feel like that's just the whole little Let people be
10:37
Speaker 1: if it's not causing you harm, let people be. Yeah. Yeah,
10:44
Speaker 1: that's also kind of going back to what we were
10:46
Speaker 1: saying about how it gets mixed up with feminism because
10:48
Speaker 1: I feel like I should want sex. I feel like,
10:51
Speaker 1: like I that's the thing, So letting go of that
10:54
Speaker 1: aspect of not trying to make myself into something i'm
10:58
Speaker 1: not and not beating myself up up for for not
11:02
Speaker 1: wanting it. But yeah, yeah, I can get people feel
11:08
Speaker 1: like they can just comment on all kinds of things
11:10
Speaker 1: that they really shouldn't. Going back to my Mayo comparison,
11:15
Speaker 1: my parents, my mother did not accept the fact that
11:17
Speaker 1: I didn't like Mayo and try to sneak it in
11:20
Speaker 1: to make me take that I would like Mayo, or
11:22
Speaker 1: to be able to say, see, you're like, it's fine.
11:24
Speaker 1: It was a weird flex, and I was like, why
11:27
Speaker 1: are you doing this? I don't want it. I don't
11:29
Speaker 1: like it. I've told you I don't like it. It
11:32
Speaker 1: takes extra effort to put it on, then it does
11:36
Speaker 1: not put it on. I don't understand. But she really
11:39
Speaker 1: needed to know that she could change my mind about
11:42
Speaker 1: a condiment that I still do not like to this day.
11:44
Speaker 1: Y'all still don't like to this day. I have a
11:46
Speaker 1: very big adversion of Mayo. Anyway, the Mayo podcast. It's
11:54
Speaker 1: truemakes Mayo the podcast. So another quote from the books.
12:00
Speaker 1: You know, it's a sociology book. You can't go out
12:03
Speaker 1: because she's done all the research for us just talking
12:05
Speaker 1: about it. If the phrase compulsory sexuality sounds familiar, that's
12:10
Speaker 1: because it borrows from the poet Adrian, which is concept
12:13
Speaker 1: of compulsory heterosexuality. In her nineteen eighty essay Compulsory Heterosexuality
12:19
Speaker 1: and Lesbian Existence, Rich argued that heterosexuality is not merely
12:24
Speaker 1: a sexual orientation that happens to be the orientation of
12:27
Speaker 1: most people. Heterosexuality is a political institution that is taught
12:32
Speaker 1: in condition and re enforce. Compulsory heterosexuality is not the
12:38
Speaker 1: belief that most people are heterosexual. It is a set
12:41
Speaker 1: of assumptions and behaviors that only heterosexual love is innate,
12:45
Speaker 1: that women need men as a social and economic protectors
12:48
Speaker 1: that support the idea of heterosexuality as the default and
12:52
Speaker 1: only option. It makes people believe that heterosexuality is so
12:57
Speaker 1: widespread only because it is quote not even though as
13:01
Speaker 1: rich rights. The failure to examine heterosexuality as an institution
13:06
Speaker 1: is like failing to admit that the economic system called
13:09
Speaker 1: capitalism or the cast system of racism is maintained by
13:13
Speaker 1: variety of forces, including both physical violence and false consciousness.
13:19
Speaker 1: Building off this idea, compulsory sexuality and ideas central to
13:23
Speaker 1: a discourse is not the belief that most people want
13:27
Speaker 1: sex and have sex and that sex can be pleasurable.
13:30
Speaker 1: Compulsory sexuality is a set of assumptions and behaviors that
13:34
Speaker 1: support the idea that every normal person is sexual, that
13:37
Speaker 1: not wanting socially approved sex is unnatural and wrong, and
13:42
Speaker 1: that people who don't care about sexuality are missing out
13:46
Speaker 1: on an utterly necessary experience. Yeah, so this is kind
13:49
Speaker 1: of going back to that assumption we've been talking about
13:52
Speaker 1: this whole time, of kind of assumption that we see
13:55
Speaker 1: pretty much everywhere in religion and media, in our law
13:59
Speaker 1: that people want sex and they want heterosexual sex, and
14:03
Speaker 1: that's anything that doesn't fit that is abnormal. And it's
14:08
Speaker 1: something that a lot of people that Chin interviewed expressed.
14:12
Speaker 1: And then there's like one in particular where she was
14:14
Speaker 1: talking about the male asexual experience, and we do have
14:19
Speaker 1: this idea that men and even gay men, because she
14:22
Speaker 1: talked to people in that community as well, want a
14:26
Speaker 1: lot of sex and if they don't, then something's wrong
14:30
Speaker 1: with him. Until a lot of people who later figured
14:32
Speaker 1: out that they were asexual, we're trying to fit into
14:36
Speaker 1: that because they assumed it too. This sort of compulsory
14:40
Speaker 1: heterosexuality idea of this is you were raised in that,
14:46
Speaker 1: that's what you see, so you're trying to fit into
14:49
Speaker 1: that as well, which I yeah, it was interesting. I'd
14:53
Speaker 1: never heard of that concept before, but when I read it,
14:56
Speaker 1: I was like, right, it does. And I get where
15:00
Speaker 1: the ace feminists are like, I'm trying to I don't
15:04
Speaker 1: want to bring down feminism and people are saying I
15:07
Speaker 1: need to beat this and this and this. Because when
15:09
Speaker 1: we talked about recently, the narrative that those randoms dudes
15:12
Speaker 1: who were like, women don't like sex, women don't want sex,
15:15
Speaker 1: women can't have an orgasm. That's only a man thing
15:18
Speaker 1: that I can understand. Like that, that feels like you're
15:21
Speaker 1: going into that narrative and you're like no, no, no,
15:23
Speaker 1: but I am. I don't believe that that's just for
15:26
Speaker 1: me personally. And unfortunately we have jerks like that who
15:30
Speaker 1: uses this narrative as a way of saying, see, we
15:33
Speaker 1: were right. All the other women are liars or hose
15:36
Speaker 1: and said like, why why can't it just be? Like
15:40
Speaker 1: can it don't be? Yeah, it's very very frustrating, And
15:45
Speaker 1: I remember she changed in the book uses an example
15:48
Speaker 1: of like a Fox News host guess that was like, oh,
15:52
Speaker 1: that just means she doesn't want to have sex. I
15:54
Speaker 1: guess I'm a sexual two or whatever. It'll like, Okay,
15:58
Speaker 1: they could be and they just don't want to minute
16:00
Speaker 1: It's true. It's yeah, yeah, it is so complicated, right
16:06
Speaker 1: because again I might I'm all for it. I think people,
16:11
Speaker 1: if that's what you want, then I want you to
16:13
Speaker 1: have it, especially in a way that you're not judged.
16:17
Speaker 1: And that's it does get tricky because I feel like
16:19
Speaker 1: when I there's just so many political historically political ideas
16:24
Speaker 1: and repression around women and sex and sexuality that when
16:31
Speaker 1: it feels like everything I say as to come with
16:33
Speaker 1: an asterisk, right, I mean again, it's kind of the
16:36
Speaker 1: same when we talk about societal implications those who are
16:40
Speaker 1: stay at home moms, women who want to stay at
16:42
Speaker 1: home with their children, if they are feminists, I feel
16:45
Speaker 1: like this is fighting against feminism and it doesn't have
16:48
Speaker 1: to be. Again, this is all about the choice, Like
16:50
Speaker 1: I want the right to say what I want point blank.
16:55
Speaker 1: And if that means yes, staying at home and being
16:58
Speaker 1: the wife home and being there for my husband or
17:02
Speaker 1: my partner, great, But if it's also the choice of like, no,
17:05
Speaker 1: I don't want to children, I don't want all of that.
17:08
Speaker 1: I want to do my thing and go out and
17:09
Speaker 1: do my thing, you know, have a job in the
17:11
Speaker 1: career satisfying to me that narrative. Both of those should
17:14
Speaker 1: be welcome because it is that choice as long as
17:17
Speaker 1: one is not being forced into something and or being
17:20
Speaker 1: disproportionately placed in the responsibility level. Again, we've talked about
17:25
Speaker 1: this whole like during the pandemic, especially women's uptick of
17:28
Speaker 1: like so much work that includes you know, maintaining the
17:32
Speaker 1: home and teaching the kids while the husbands are still
17:36
Speaker 1: doing their nine to five and doing their thing. And again,
17:39
Speaker 1: obviously it's a head or norrative relationship, but we saw
17:42
Speaker 1: that as a complaint. It was a thing. They're like,
17:44
Speaker 1: what the hell is happening? How did we backtrack when
17:47
Speaker 1: for so long we finally got to the point of equal.
17:51
Speaker 1: But again, that's the whole other thing that we've talked
17:54
Speaker 1: about many times. But the overall thing is having the
17:58
Speaker 1: ability to make that choice for ourselves. Point blank. Yes, yeah,
18:03
Speaker 1: that's a shiss. Oh okay, here's another quote I wanted
18:19
Speaker 1: to do include. One of the more obvious examples of
18:22
Speaker 1: compulsory sexuality is the fear of a sexless population. It
18:26
Speaker 1: is a great irony that, despite handwringing over loose morals,
18:29
Speaker 1: Americans are having less sex than before. According to the
18:32
Speaker 1: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, forty one percent of
18:35
Speaker 1: high school students and twenty fifteen reported having had sex,
18:38
Speaker 1: down from fifty four percent in nineteen ninety one. As
18:42
Speaker 1: we are, American adults in the twenty tens they had
18:44
Speaker 1: sex about nine fewer times per year than a quarter
18:46
Speaker 1: century earlier. Such findings have prompted cover stories about sex recessions.
18:50
Speaker 1: A recession, naturally is not a good thing, articles about
18:53
Speaker 1: how the sex recession could lead to an economic recession,
18:55
Speaker 1: and handwringing comments over how young people are doing it
18:58
Speaker 1: wrong and are boring now. Economic worries could be to
19:02
Speaker 1: blame or anxiety over unclear dating norms or the popularity
19:05
Speaker 1: of Netflix and social media. Americans, according to some researchers,
19:09
Speaker 1: have traded the pleasures of genital stimulation for the pleasure
19:12
Speaker 1: of likes on social media and binge watching the Great
19:14
Speaker 1: British Baking Show. In one Washington Post article about the
19:18
Speaker 1: decline of sex, an eighteen year old is described as
19:20
Speaker 1: sitting in front of quote, several screens simultaneously, a work project,
19:24
Speaker 1: a YouTube clip, a video game for him. Abandoning this
19:28
Speaker 1: setup for a date night or a one night stand
19:30
Speaker 1: quote seems like a waste. Often implicit in this framing
19:33
Speaker 1: are these questions, isn't it sad that people are having
19:36
Speaker 1: less sex and that a one night stand now seems
19:39
Speaker 1: like a waste? Isn't it pitiful to be playing video
19:41
Speaker 1: games instead of feeling sexual pleasure? Shouldn't we be worried
19:45
Speaker 1: that people don't care about sex anymore. For truly passionate people,
19:48
Speaker 1: sex the pursuit the experience is always better than a movie,
19:51
Speaker 1: a book, a game. The Loser of Today has three
19:53
Speaker 1: computer screens and no sex drive. Yes, so I wanted
19:59
Speaker 1: to put that in there for a lot of reasons.
20:01
Speaker 1: But like, even reading that, I immediately was like, oh no,
20:05
Speaker 1: what's wrong is it? Echo, I, as someone who doesn't
20:08
Speaker 1: want sex, had that like initial people don't want sex anymore?
20:13
Speaker 1: Oh no, why? I mean, I don't know. It's just
20:21
Speaker 1: so ingrained. It's so ingrained that that is what you
20:26
Speaker 1: should want, and that is better than pretty much anything else, right,
20:32
Speaker 1: I guess Again, We've talked about this in several ways
20:35
Speaker 1: because there's a lot of connotations of this type of
20:38
Speaker 1: oh no, what's happening, whether it's oh no, traditional families
20:43
Speaker 1: and traditional relationships are going out the windows, so that
20:45
Speaker 1: means this is disrupting it. So we're more worried about
20:47
Speaker 1: tradition more so than actual sex. And we can look
20:51
Speaker 1: at but like qan on Hold where they are like
20:54
Speaker 1: have children, we need more white children, which was on
20:57
Speaker 1: the pledge, and how that the society and feminism and
21:02
Speaker 1: social media essentially we're trying to kill off children. Yeah,
21:08
Speaker 1: so you know, there's a whole bigger conversation to this, obviously,
21:11
Speaker 1: and we've talked a little bit about it, but there's
21:13
Speaker 1: definitely this weirdness of like, yeah, we should have isn't
21:16
Speaker 1: that better? Just have leusch what Like, we're running out
21:19
Speaker 1: of resources at this point. So yeah, it's just so
21:23
Speaker 1: fascinating to me how we can be like, young people
21:26
Speaker 1: don't have sex, that's bad, and then they were like,
21:29
Speaker 1: oh my god, they're not having ducks. I wonder if
21:30
Speaker 1: these are just boomers who feel guilty of their own
21:33
Speaker 1: past and so they're like, oh, we need to keep
21:35
Speaker 1: it up. You know that's possible. Also, I mean, I
21:41
Speaker 1: don't want to I don't doubt that this is true.
21:45
Speaker 1: I don't doubt that these members are true. But I
21:48
Speaker 1: am curious in any kind of survey like that, there's
21:51
Speaker 1: a part of me that's like, especially if you're asking
21:53
Speaker 1: like high school students, I'm sure some people weren't being
21:57
Speaker 1: entirely honest in either either direction, because you know, I
22:02
Speaker 1: I myself, you know, would have hedged over what I
22:05
Speaker 1: would have said because it seems like such a big
22:07
Speaker 1: deal when you're at that age, right. Well, also you
22:10
Speaker 1: have to remember, like again, social media does make a
22:13
Speaker 1: big difference because a lot of the things that we
22:16
Speaker 1: knew back then before social media. For me, I didn't
22:19
Speaker 1: have a cell phone in high school yet and any
22:21
Speaker 1: of that. We just all hung out, we called each other,
22:24
Speaker 1: went down to uh walmart part of the lot, and
22:28
Speaker 1: drove around not even played that is exactly. And then
22:32
Speaker 1: there apparently because I wasn't one of the cool kids,
22:34
Speaker 1: because I was just told this recently by an old
22:36
Speaker 1: school friend. He was like, you know, remember that so
22:39
Speaker 1: and so place where we would go party out in
22:41
Speaker 1: the woods. And I was like, no, what, Like I existed,
22:49
Speaker 1: That's exactly what happened. I was not cool. But they
22:53
Speaker 1: were like, yeah, yes, so it and they called it
22:55
Speaker 1: so and so farms or so and so land, and
22:57
Speaker 1: you they would have bondfires and I wouldn't hang out
23:00
Speaker 1: Friday and that's what they do. And everybody just showed up.
23:03
Speaker 1: That's what they do. And now with the fact that
23:05
Speaker 1: we have communications and able to like pick and choose
23:08
Speaker 1: our groups instead of just going out and partying, now
23:11
Speaker 1: that I didn't pick it choose obviously what they didn't
23:13
Speaker 1: pick or choose me, but like it makes a difference,
23:17
Speaker 1: and that's kind of like there was a lot of
23:19
Speaker 1: stupid things that would happen on that level. And that's change,
23:24
Speaker 1: of course, not completely because it stupid things still happen now,
23:26
Speaker 1: it's just more public and now on videos, which could
23:29
Speaker 1: also be the other reason. It's like, oh yeah, I
23:31
Speaker 1: don't want to be caught on video. Yeah yeah, I
23:35
Speaker 1: mean I know it's kind of a joke and it's
23:38
Speaker 1: much more complicated than this, but there is some validity
23:41
Speaker 1: to that, right of Like, now if you have a phone,
23:46
Speaker 1: there's just a whole whole world's open to you, right
23:49
Speaker 1: whereas before that if you didn't have maybe a TV
23:54
Speaker 1: or you're like in my family, we had the one
23:56
Speaker 1: TV and only the three channels or four channels, And yeah,
24:00
Speaker 1: you're much more likely to go and hang out with people.
24:06
Speaker 1: And that does lend itself to sex more than you know,
24:11
Speaker 1: staying at home on your phone does, right, which I
24:16
Speaker 1: know that probably a lot of people that need jerk
24:18
Speaker 1: reaction is it is better to hang out with people
24:21
Speaker 1: in person. I personally think it's more complicated than that.
24:26
Speaker 1: I see, you know, people do depend on technology. I
24:30
Speaker 1: really high rate that might not be healthy. But also
24:32
Speaker 1: like it's not necessarily like face value better one or
24:36
Speaker 1: the other. There's more to it than just like this
24:40
Speaker 1: one is obviously the better one, I think, right, Oh,
24:42
Speaker 1: there's definitely trade off, like this is like, oh no,
24:44
Speaker 1: this happened, but this happened. Which would you choose? And
24:47
Speaker 1: of course, looking back, you're like, I don't know which
24:49
Speaker 1: I would choose. For me, I would choose my own thing.
24:51
Speaker 1: And I'm like, yeah, it was much better for me
24:53
Speaker 1: to be isolated with a small group of friends instead
24:57
Speaker 1: of trying to navigate social media where I would like
25:00
Speaker 1: pour my feelings out and regret poor my feelings out.
25:02
Speaker 1: Zengga ah, I'm so sad I can't find that, So
25:10
Speaker 1: here's another quote. The result is that anyone who isn't
25:13
Speaker 1: sexual enough are sexual in the right way, becomes lesser.
25:15
Speaker 1: The label of a sexual should be value neutral. It
25:18
Speaker 1: should indicate a little more than sexual orientation. Instead, asexual
25:22
Speaker 1: implies a slew of other negative associations passionless, uptight, boring, robotic, cold, prude, frigid, lacking. Broken. These,
25:30
Speaker 1: especially broken, are the words aces use again and again
25:32
Speaker 1: to describe how we are perceived and made to feel. Yeah,
25:37
Speaker 1: it is interesting how we have, especially when it comes
25:39
Speaker 1: to women, but for sure women as well. It's just different.
25:42
Speaker 1: We have just all of these ideas and assumptions around,
25:46
Speaker 1: and a lot of them are contradictory around sex and
25:50
Speaker 1: wanting sex and how much sex. But speaking of men,
25:54
Speaker 1: there is a whole chapter on the male ACE experience,
25:57
Speaker 1: so here's a quote about that. Surveys of the ACE
25:59
Speaker 1: communities show that far more women identify as a sexual
26:01
Speaker 1: than men, about sixty three percent verses eleven percent according
26:04
Speaker 1: to the most recent numbers, likely in part because asexuality
26:07
Speaker 1: is a greater challenge to male sexual stereotypes. Men are
26:10
Speaker 1: taught they are not men and therefore not deserving and
26:12
Speaker 1: respect our status unless they can sleep with as many
26:14
Speaker 1: women as possible. Right, And like I said, she does
26:18
Speaker 1: talk about the experience of gay men feeling kind of
26:22
Speaker 1: a similar thing, like you're not really a gay man
26:25
Speaker 1: unless you're having a lot of sex. But also I
26:28
Speaker 1: thought this was interesting because she brought in the idea
26:31
Speaker 1: of insults and entitlement and how a lot of male
26:35
Speaker 1: aces have to be like, but I'm not that are
26:39
Speaker 1: like those assumptions that oh, you're an in cell or
26:40
Speaker 1: oh you're something right, like you're going to be violent
26:44
Speaker 1: or angry, And again coming back to this idea of entitlement,
26:48
Speaker 1: like we talked about marital rape in the last one,
26:50
Speaker 1: with this idea that men and white men generally are
26:56
Speaker 1: entitled to sex with not just women, but like pretty
27:00
Speaker 1: white women, and that it just shows this is another
27:06
Speaker 1: way where this narrative, this idea, this assumption that everyone
27:11
Speaker 1: wants sex and that people are entitled to sex, are
27:14
Speaker 1: certain groups are entitled to sex. It's so damaging and
27:18
Speaker 1: dangerous and violent. And we've talked about that before for sure,
27:20
Speaker 1: the violence that has resulted from that, right, I hadn't
27:24
Speaker 1: really thought about that. I've kind of mail aces having
27:27
Speaker 1: that fend that off, right, I mean, that's definitely the
27:33
Speaker 1: conversation is if you are ace, does that make you
27:37
Speaker 1: effeminate because you're not. Again, if we're looking at sexist power,
27:41
Speaker 1: which is often the conversation, then you have none. So
27:45
Speaker 1: therefore you're not a true man quote unquote. And that's
27:48
Speaker 1: so every you know, red blooded man's right, that's the
27:52
Speaker 1: way their body is that they have no control. We
27:55
Speaker 1: know this narrative, We've heard this narrative. This is the
27:56
Speaker 1: excuse that we get for right for violence, as we
27:59
Speaker 1: talked about before, and what does it look like for
28:01
Speaker 1: a guy to be like, no, really, I don't care,
28:03
Speaker 1: I don't want it, I don't I know it. And
28:05
Speaker 1: I think she did a really great job. And when
28:06
Speaker 1: she brought in the interview with the other man who
28:09
Speaker 1: was talking about the facts that in his marriage, he
28:12
Speaker 1: just did it because it was assumed he needed to
28:14
Speaker 1: do it, and it wasn't because he wanted to, but
28:16
Speaker 1: because it was I'm a man, I'm in a relationship.
28:19
Speaker 1: I got to initiate sex and it was more of
28:21
Speaker 1: a routine more than anything else. And then when his
28:25
Speaker 1: partner was like, no, no no, no, I'm good, he was like, oh, really,
28:29
Speaker 1: me too. I guess oh yeah, I am, I'm good.
28:31
Speaker 1: I'm good, And to really have to retrain himself because
28:35
Speaker 1: for men, as they grow older, as they grow up,
28:38
Speaker 1: they are taught typically all the time, not all men,
28:42
Speaker 1: I know, whatever, but is that this is your duty
28:46
Speaker 1: as a man, this is who you are as a man.
28:49
Speaker 1: And that same narrative of men think about sex more
28:52
Speaker 1: than da da dada, how many times a day, and
28:54
Speaker 1: that's all they think about, and that's all they see
28:56
Speaker 1: in women or their partners sex, sex, sex, success in
28:59
Speaker 1: the store, worry and then if you're not, then you're
29:02
Speaker 1: not normal. You're not a very rile man of the world.
29:05
Speaker 1: And that conversation is how harmful it is. And so
29:08
Speaker 1: many ACE men and this may be the things that
29:11
Speaker 1: they're not. They're not ace, they're just not identifying because
29:15
Speaker 1: they've gotten into a routine to show off their manliness,
29:19
Speaker 1: which is sad and honestly, I had a way back,
29:26
Speaker 1: not my personal situation, where I'm looking at a couple
29:29
Speaker 1: that did not work and she was really really frustrated
29:33
Speaker 1: because she wanted sex and she wanted to have children.
29:35
Speaker 1: He never wanted to touch her, and it got to
29:38
Speaker 1: a point that it got volatile and it just there
29:41
Speaker 1: was so much miscommunication and breakdown. And don't get me wrong,
29:43
Speaker 1: there other things wrong. It's relationship. But my first I
29:46
Speaker 1: was like, he may be a sexual and instead of
29:48
Speaker 1: coming to terms with being that way, he's blaming it
29:52
Speaker 1: on her and getting and lashing out and angry because
29:54
Speaker 1: he can't. He's been told for so long, right, this
29:58
Speaker 1: toxic idea of masculine that not doing so and admitting it,
30:03
Speaker 1: then he is not a man. And therefore he can't
30:06
Speaker 1: be head of household. In Yes, there's a lot of
30:08
Speaker 1: religious stigma to that, and on top of that, because
30:12
Speaker 1: he's so angry and unwilling to talk about it, he's
30:14
Speaker 1: completely lashing out and blaming her for everything else and
30:18
Speaker 1: making it her fault and she's believing it. There's so
30:21
Speaker 1: many things to that, and that's like, oh Jesus, this
30:24
Speaker 1: is what could happen if we're not honest with ourselves.
30:27
Speaker 1: And that's probably a bigger portion of those numbers. I
30:30
Speaker 1: would say, yeah, and that is It's another thing that
30:36
Speaker 1: she talks about in this book that I really connected
30:38
Speaker 1: with because I've also felt like I want to be
30:42
Speaker 1: desired and I want to be like sexually desired, even
30:45
Speaker 1: though I don't want sex, and like I want people
30:48
Speaker 1: will say, like, well, why do you dress so you know,
30:50
Speaker 1: sexily or whatever. I'm not necessarily talking about me in
30:53
Speaker 1: this case, but like that's something that will come up
30:55
Speaker 1: with a sexual people. Why do you do that if
30:56
Speaker 1: you don't have sex? Because it is powerful and like
31:00
Speaker 1: something that you might want, Like it feels good to
31:03
Speaker 1: be sexually desired, but it is also painful. I can
31:07
Speaker 1: totally understand of like if I'm not feeling that way
31:11
Speaker 1: for in a relationship with somebody, and I'm not feeling
31:14
Speaker 1: that way about them, just because I don't generally feel
31:16
Speaker 1: that way, it can be hard not to take that
31:18
Speaker 1: very personally. I'm like, oh, well, then something's wrong with me.
31:21
Speaker 1: I'm not desirable or I'm not physically attractive or something
31:24
Speaker 1: like that, and that you know, it sucks because it's
31:28
Speaker 1: not necessarily the case, but it's just right how it works.
31:35
Speaker 1: For again, you're not dressing for someone and you're not
31:38
Speaker 1: going to hide someone, so it's not and you shouldn't
31:41
Speaker 1: have to. It could be just for you. Point blank.
31:45
Speaker 1: Looking nice and feeling good about yourself is not a
31:48
Speaker 1: bad thing. Wanting to be wanted, it's not a bad thing.
31:50
Speaker 1: I feel like that goes in everything. Once again, for myself,
31:53
Speaker 1: I have this fear that no one likes me and
31:55
Speaker 1: I'm not likable and I'm very much like people just
31:58
Speaker 1: like the outside me, and then getting to know me
32:00
Speaker 1: that really, oh, it's tiresome, and that's understandable to extend
32:04
Speaker 1: to that point that I'm like, yeah, I want to
32:07
Speaker 1: feel included and loved and I don't want to be
32:09
Speaker 1: left out. And there's so much of that because for
32:12
Speaker 1: so long, for my own trauma, and I'm sure I'm
32:15
Speaker 1: going to come to this for an happy hour and
32:17
Speaker 1: or on Monday, Mini, my own trauma meant I was unwanted,
32:21
Speaker 1: point blank. I was just an afterthought and I'm here
32:25
Speaker 1: and people don't actually want me, like that's as an orphan.
32:29
Speaker 1: And I say that in the very open term that
32:31
Speaker 1: I was. That is absolutely I was tossed about. I
32:34
Speaker 1: was seen as unwanted. And then even in my family,
32:37
Speaker 1: as much as they love me, they do, I was
32:39
Speaker 1: always uthered and it is and it is, and it's
32:41
Speaker 1: kind of that I'm forty years old and still dealing
32:45
Speaker 1: with that because of situations like this. But wanting to
32:49
Speaker 1: be truly wanted, if you truly believe it, that is
32:52
Speaker 1: human nature. And unfortunately that's also what society has told us,
32:56
Speaker 1: that if you are avowed, you you will be seen. Yeah,
33:01
Speaker 1: and that's the end of that story, unfortunately. And we
33:04
Speaker 1: have to figure out for ourselves how to change our
33:08
Speaker 1: own interpretation, which sucks, Yes it does. And she keeps
33:16
Speaker 1: writing it is a failure of society. If anyone needs
33:19
Speaker 1: to say I have a partner to turn someone down
33:23
Speaker 1: and it's a failure of society if anyone needs to
33:25
Speaker 1: invoke a sexual orientation to avoid unwanted sex, because saying
33:29
Speaker 1: no doesn't do the job. Yeah. Yeah, And this was
33:35
Speaker 1: kind of a culmination of all of these things we've
33:37
Speaker 1: been talking about of you know, people questioning your sexuality
33:41
Speaker 1: when you say it and being like, oh, that just
33:43
Speaker 1: means you don't want to have sex with me, and
33:44
Speaker 1: taking it really personally or whatever. It is, like we
33:47
Speaker 1: should live at a place, as we've been saying, where
33:49
Speaker 1: for whatever the reason no is, that's it. I don't
33:52
Speaker 1: have to explain it to you. That's just the end.
33:55
Speaker 1: And also again this is that same conversation of hearing
34:00
Speaker 1: and feeling rejected and taking that personally. Yeah, we have
34:04
Speaker 1: to let that go, like this is not a rejection,
34:07
Speaker 1: it's just where I am today, And if I don't
34:10
Speaker 1: want to do this, I shouldn't have to feel obligated
34:15
Speaker 1: to make you feel better, so violating my own sense
34:19
Speaker 1: of self in order to make you feel comfortable. And
34:22
Speaker 1: that's that whole thing of Yeah, we've gotten to this
34:24
Speaker 1: point that that's more acceptable. Then we say that as
34:27
Speaker 1: being nice and kind actuality is harmful for us, So
34:30
Speaker 1: is it really nice and kind, or have we continue
34:33
Speaker 1: to feed into the stigma that no is bad, right right, right, right,
34:51
Speaker 1: Here is another quote. Life is a continuous process of
34:54
Speaker 1: unlearning for minorities and anyone with less power. These groups, women,
34:57
Speaker 1: people of color, and in the next chapter, disabled people
35:00
Speaker 1: can find it very difficult to claim asexuality because it
35:02
Speaker 1: looks so much like the product of sexism, racism, ableism,
35:05
Speaker 1: and other forms of violence. The legacy of this violence
35:08
Speaker 1: is that those who belong to a group that has
35:09
Speaker 1: been controlled must do extra work to figure out the
35:12
Speaker 1: extent to which we are still being controlled, which is
35:15
Speaker 1: a lot of what we've been talking about, right, And
35:18
Speaker 1: she continues on when it comes to race, so many
35:20
Speaker 1: different complicated threads keep the ACE community white. And I
35:24
Speaker 1: found this very interesting, by the way, so I'm really
35:26
Speaker 1: glad we're getting into this. Asexuality, she says, has been
35:29
Speaker 1: idealized and it has been denied. Both are problematic. Asexuality
35:34
Speaker 1: is tied to whiteness because white people and especially white women,
35:38
Speaker 1: are often assumed to be sexually quote pure, whereas black
35:42
Speaker 1: and Latin X people are often considered hyper sexual. And
35:46
Speaker 1: I would put Asian people there in there as well.
35:49
Speaker 1: And these racialized sexual stereotypes are a form of control themselves.
35:53
Speaker 1: At the same time, asexuality can also look suspiciously similar
35:57
Speaker 1: to racial tropes like the mammy or the an adult,
36:00
Speaker 1: which again keeps people of color away. So yeah, I
36:03
Speaker 1: did find this interesting because she is a woman of
36:05
Speaker 1: Asian scent. When she talks, she didn't include Asian people
36:08
Speaker 1: in the hyper sexualize, but I'm like, there's a lot,
36:11
Speaker 1: like that's the whole Asian fetish level, which includes for
36:15
Speaker 1: some like not necessarily all of anime, but a lot
36:18
Speaker 1: of anime got twisted into very hyper sexualized Asian women,
36:23
Speaker 1: like in general, whether it's torture born or any of that.
36:26
Speaker 1: And again, I know this is different from anime, Like
36:29
Speaker 1: I get it. There's a love and appreciation and it
36:31
Speaker 1: is beautiful and I think it's wonderful. But when we're
36:34
Speaker 1: talking about that negative stereotype and we see that hinte
36:37
Speaker 1: type of anime porn, that's gets so like, oh a
36:41
Speaker 1: skewed to the point that it's super on supernatural. The
36:45
Speaker 1: level of Asian fetishism in there is like why why
36:48
Speaker 1: was it necessary? Y'all? Who who in your group is
36:52
Speaker 1: doing this? Stop it? But that is that characterization that's
36:56
Speaker 1: overly sexualized as women once again kind of again the
36:59
Speaker 1: Atlanta shooting, And I know this was written before all
37:02
Speaker 1: of that happened, but I found that interesting that she
37:03
Speaker 1: took that out and she didn't include that and put
37:05
Speaker 1: them in the China doll category, which, by the way,
37:08
Speaker 1: chime doll category I actually was also a sexualized manner
37:12
Speaker 1: two and not the sweet I guess maybe this is
37:15
Speaker 1: more of the Tiger Mom maybe level in that same
37:18
Speaker 1: of like asexual. She's not hyper sexual, she's controlled and
37:21
Speaker 1: prudish essentially and harsh, so I could see that way.
37:26
Speaker 1: But I found that interesting that she left that differently,
37:29
Speaker 1: and maybe it's because that's how she sees herself in this,
37:34
Speaker 1: but anyway, that was just a sigement. Yeah, I mean
37:37
Speaker 1: so many things were tie into this because this also
37:40
Speaker 1: reminds me of the of the episodes we did on
37:42
Speaker 1: virginity and like that whole idea of like that being
37:45
Speaker 1: sexualized almost like the lack of sexual experience being sexualized,
37:50
Speaker 1: which I have seen a lot actually now that I
37:53
Speaker 1: think about it, and fan fiction too interesting. But this
37:57
Speaker 1: is another thing going back to like those stereotypes that
37:59
Speaker 1: were talking about of like always trying to fight them
38:02
Speaker 1: and wondering why you're trying to fight them, Like why
38:06
Speaker 1: do I want something? Is it me that actually wants it?
38:09
Speaker 1: Or is it some kind of programming I've absorbed feeling
38:12
Speaker 1: alienated from multiple communities because, as we said, Chen did
38:16
Speaker 1: interview people from all types of communities, and yeah, this
38:20
Speaker 1: is assumption that only white people can be aced because
38:22
Speaker 1: it's already like not that well known, but even that
38:27
Speaker 1: is pretty white. And so if you never hear about it,
38:30
Speaker 1: like I said, I wouldn't have who knew, who knows
38:33
Speaker 1: if I'd never heard about it on this show, what
38:35
Speaker 1: would happen? That that was really fascinating And it's just
38:38
Speaker 1: like another layer of questioning that you have to do
38:42
Speaker 1: about who you are and how you identify and that
38:47
Speaker 1: I mean that being said, I did want to briefly
38:49
Speaker 1: touch on representation because that is important and that is
38:53
Speaker 1: a way that people can see that this exists. And
38:55
Speaker 1: one of the things people talked about, which is something
38:57
Speaker 1: I talked about, was Todd from bo Jack Horsemen and people.
39:00
Speaker 1: That's why when I learned that's when I was like,
39:02
Speaker 1: oh my god, that's me. So if you haven't seen it, Yeah,
39:07
Speaker 1: there's a whole arc where Todd realizes he's a sexual
39:10
Speaker 1: and he creates an app and he has a really supportive,
39:13
Speaker 1: like semi girlfriend who's totally like okay, yeah, but I
39:18
Speaker 1: want to read a quote about that cherish as he is,
39:20
Speaker 1: Todd is not a perfect solution for one. Bo Jack
39:22
Speaker 1: has ended, and so have Game of Thrones and Shadow Hunters.
39:25
Speaker 1: There are now zero a sexual characters on primetime television,
39:28
Speaker 1: according to the Glad Media Institute, which tracks queer characters
39:31
Speaker 1: and television and started including a sexual characters a few
39:34
Speaker 1: years ago. Yeah, as we've discussed in recent Listener Mail episodes,
39:40
Speaker 1: though there's more going on outside of prime time television.
39:45
Speaker 1: Perhaps perhaps, And here's another quote, there exists no perfect,
39:50
Speaker 1: iron clad formula for understanding how sexuality and health interact,
39:53
Speaker 1: but that hasn't prevented people from believing, in elegant but
39:56
Speaker 1: incorrect statement, people who don't want sex are sick, and
39:58
Speaker 1: people who are sick that mentally or physically disabled or
40:01
Speaker 1: different in some way don't want sex. So this is
40:05
Speaker 1: I mean, there is so much in that chapter, and
40:08
Speaker 1: this is something I really struggled with with, like the
40:10
Speaker 1: eating disorder and trauma like thinking that something has to
40:13
Speaker 1: be wrong, right, this means I'm not healthy, And I
40:17
Speaker 1: was thinking about it in terms of we have a
40:19
Speaker 1: running joke on the other podcast, I do savor everything
40:22
Speaker 1: was an aphrodisiac at one point, and that's just pretty
40:25
Speaker 1: telling that that's there's a long history of believing that
40:28
Speaker 1: low sex drive means something is wrong with you and
40:30
Speaker 1: something needs to be fixed. And I'm not saying that
40:31
Speaker 1: that that's never an issue and it's never a problem,
40:36
Speaker 1: but that I mean, you know, it's also a joke
40:38
Speaker 1: too about how much money we put into Viagrid. It's
40:41
Speaker 1: just so important and such a kind of understood thing that, yeah,
40:46
Speaker 1: no sex drive means something is not right here, right,
40:51
Speaker 1: and I do yeah. And also to come back to
40:53
Speaker 1: like those who are physically disabled talking about the fact
40:58
Speaker 1: that they couldn't even recognize they were a sexual because
41:00
Speaker 1: they just assumed it was their disability and or was
41:03
Speaker 1: told that it was just their disability and actuality. No,
41:06
Speaker 1: this is exactly who they are. And there are people
41:08
Speaker 1: obviously who are sexual that are disabled, and this is
41:11
Speaker 1: a nonsense to assume automatically, and which does happen a
41:15
Speaker 1: lot that physical disable or automatically a sexual and that's
41:18
Speaker 1: almost like a running joke, and it's like that's so
41:21
Speaker 1: so harmful for both communities that why would you do
41:25
Speaker 1: this and why would we assume this and why would
41:26
Speaker 1: we allow this as a conversation. But yeah, the double
41:29
Speaker 1: down on again, like can you like I cannot imagine
41:34
Speaker 1: having to defend myself either way and be like why
41:36
Speaker 1: would you have this as a narrative? Please stop it?
41:40
Speaker 1: And such an ablest trope, right, yeah, Yeah, here's another
41:44
Speaker 1: quit about that many aces were once aloes diagnosed with
41:46
Speaker 1: a disorder and prescribed hormones off label because they learned
41:49
Speaker 1: about asexuality and decided they were fine, As is a
41:52
Speaker 1: change in perspective is all that is necessary to switch
41:54
Speaker 1: from one to the other, from sick to well disordered,
41:56
Speaker 1: two different. So that's more about like changing your mind
42:00
Speaker 1: mindset in this case of like maybe nothing's wrong with
42:04
Speaker 1: me and I don't need to be taking these things
42:06
Speaker 1: to up my sex drive, which we are constantly bemarted with.
42:09
Speaker 1: But there is a whole chapter about, yeah, the disabled
42:13
Speaker 1: community in that double whammy, and yeah, we have a
42:16
Speaker 1: quote from it actually, so she says you can be
42:19
Speaker 1: asexual if your disability caused your a sexuality, and you
42:23
Speaker 1: can be a sexual if sexual trauma caust you a sexuality,
42:27
Speaker 1: and you can be asexual if you lose your sexual
42:30
Speaker 1: desire later in life. The asexual community should be there
42:34
Speaker 1: to help in all these cases. You don't have to
42:37
Speaker 1: be part of the asexual community forever. But the lesson
42:40
Speaker 1: that a happy life for Aces is possible regardless of
42:43
Speaker 1: origin is one that is important, and one that includes you.
42:47
Speaker 1: Two is for you even if you don't identify as ACE.
42:51
Speaker 1: If asexuality is fine, so is every other form of
42:54
Speaker 1: a low sexual desire or so called sexual dysfunction. Anyone
42:59
Speaker 1: who has any form of desire or attraction or higher
43:02
Speaker 1: than normal can still be okay better than okay, Yes, yes,
43:07
Speaker 1: And then I wanted to include this one because this
43:11
Speaker 1: was something that really fascinated me, So she wrote, Aces
43:14
Speaker 1: know that sex is not always the dividing line that
43:16
Speaker 1: determines whether relationship is romantic. We take another look and say,
43:20
Speaker 1: maybe you're in love with your friend even though you're
43:21
Speaker 1: not sexually attracted to her. Questions about the definition of
43:24
Speaker 1: romantic love are the starting point for Aces to think
43:26
Speaker 1: about love and romance in unexpected ways. From new explicit
43:29
Speaker 1: categories beyond friendship and romance, to the opportunities legal, social,
43:33
Speaker 1: and more of a world where romantic love is not
43:35
Speaker 1: the type of love valued above all others. Asexuality destabilizes
43:39
Speaker 1: the way people think about relationships, starting with the belief
43:41
Speaker 1: that passionate bonds must always have sex at a route. Yes, yes, yes,
43:47
Speaker 1: this is something I've been thinking about a lot lately
43:49
Speaker 1: because I just feel very passionately about people, and I
43:52
Speaker 1: care about people a lot, and I do. I feel
43:54
Speaker 1: like I do thinking about it like this and going
43:58
Speaker 1: really back to my for and questioning things and then
44:01
Speaker 1: questioning my worldview and like what does relationship look like
44:04
Speaker 1: and what kind of look like? It's been It's been
44:06
Speaker 1: really liberating and interesting. I'm just somebody who's like a
44:09
Speaker 1: nerd about that kind of stuff. So yeah, I think
44:12
Speaker 1: that that's good. I would, I mean I would. Again,
44:14
Speaker 1: this is not just very sexual people. I would advise
44:16
Speaker 1: everybody to ask yourself these questions and think about how
44:21
Speaker 1: how things can look and why just asking being mindful
44:26
Speaker 1: and asking questions about yourself. Right, and goes on to
44:42
Speaker 1: say it's already taking for granted that sexual desire doesn't
44:46
Speaker 1: need to include infatuation or caring. One night stands and
44:50
Speaker 1: fuddy arrangements are all explicitly sexual and explicitly non romantic.
44:55
Speaker 1: The opposite conclusion that for some infatuation never included never
45:00
Speaker 1: turns into sexual desires, it's harder for people to accept,
45:03
Speaker 1: at least in the West. Yeah, that's very true, and
45:06
Speaker 1: on point that's true. I always think of how there's
45:09
Speaker 1: like a word for friends with benefits, but there's not
45:12
Speaker 1: really just friends, no, but I mean like being kind
45:17
Speaker 1: of in a relation the benefits there is sex, right,
45:21
Speaker 1: but what if the benefits wasn't sex, right, that's just friendship.
45:26
Speaker 1: That's just that's the actual The other part is they added.
45:33
Speaker 1: And then as we wrap up here, there so much
45:36
Speaker 1: was covered in this book, and some of it it's
45:39
Speaker 1: just frustrating how some of it feels so basic, like
45:41
Speaker 1: I should have known this already, but just hearing reading
45:46
Speaker 1: about it, I was like, oh yeah. But one thing
45:49
Speaker 1: that she wrote about was like you can ask things
45:51
Speaker 1: of others too, you can ask them to compromise, and
45:54
Speaker 1: that should be just I should have known that already,
45:56
Speaker 1: But that's something I still struggle with, and I just
45:59
Speaker 1: always felt so much guilt not having sex, and it
46:05
Speaker 1: was always about the other person, even though she also
46:07
Speaker 1: writes about how in her relationship, a lot of times
46:11
Speaker 1: she's the one that feels pressure to have sex and
46:13
Speaker 1: the other person might be like, no, it's cool, but
46:16
Speaker 1: she has that I guess because it's not like a
46:19
Speaker 1: natural thing you're feeling, so you're kind of trying to
46:21
Speaker 1: gauge what is quote unquote normal. I'm wanting to do
46:27
Speaker 1: that for someone else, but yeah, I don't know why
46:30
Speaker 1: that's like, yes, I can ask things of other people. Yeah,
46:37
Speaker 1: but she asked. That goes into like we talked about
46:40
Speaker 1: desire for a little bit, different types of love and relationships,
46:43
Speaker 1: constant questioning of why you want to have sex, and
46:47
Speaker 1: what happens if you remove that question, if you remove
46:50
Speaker 1: it as the dominant force in all relationships. She talks
46:53
Speaker 1: about negotiation in the kink community Duty two have Sex,
46:58
Speaker 1: which we also talked about, and breaking down consents and
47:03
Speaker 1: rate and sex and all those ideas. Right. I really
47:08
Speaker 1: did like how she talked about the king community, and
47:10
Speaker 1: we talked about it in our episode. Brought in them
47:14
Speaker 1: and the fact that they communicate and able to understand
47:17
Speaker 1: each other, and how they've created a safe environment, and
47:20
Speaker 1: that's why people who are ace really are love this
47:24
Speaker 1: environment because you're able to open everything and nothing is taboo,
47:28
Speaker 1: including lack of sex and lack of penetration and being
47:31
Speaker 1: able to be as you were, let's say, like being
47:33
Speaker 1: on the edge of something and enjoying just that without
47:37
Speaker 1: the physical touch necessarily. And I found that really interesting
47:40
Speaker 1: because yeah, we talked about that that even though things
47:43
Speaker 1: can go awry, the king community has a better understanding
47:47
Speaker 1: of consent and understanding that this is negotiable, This is
47:50
Speaker 1: not negotiable, right, let's talk about it. And I thought
47:54
Speaker 1: I was like, yeah, just having that reminder of like, yeah,
47:56
Speaker 1: they were really right on and just what that looks
47:59
Speaker 1: like beyond just the community and into personal relationships and
48:03
Speaker 1: being able to actually walk and talk things through. But also, yeah,
48:08
Speaker 1: there was a bit of a moment where I had
48:11
Speaker 1: and I think it's because I have a background and
48:14
Speaker 1: working with a sexual assault victims as well as you know,
48:17
Speaker 1: you and I are both traumatized victims from past. When
48:20
Speaker 1: she was talking about consent and the language between rape
48:23
Speaker 1: and sex, and of course that narrative of that rapists
48:26
Speaker 1: not sex essentially, and going back and forth and I
48:30
Speaker 1: understand exactly what you're talking about in having because we
48:33
Speaker 1: talked about it when we did the book club with
48:34
Speaker 1: Come as you are about talking about the gray levels,
48:39
Speaker 1: so having again a spectrum of consent and what that
48:42
Speaker 1: could look like. And when she was talking about it, it
48:45
Speaker 1: it was obviously for ace people to understand, or to
48:49
Speaker 1: those who are trying to learn this about themselves to
48:52
Speaker 1: understand that just because it's consent, it doesn't mean it's
48:55
Speaker 1: consent true consent, and having those level to enthusiast stick
49:00
Speaker 1: from Coors and one of the things that I wanted
49:03
Speaker 1: to get back to and have this thing is like,
49:05
Speaker 1: it's really really dangerous. This conversation is very, very important.
49:09
Speaker 1: But when it comes to context of black and white law,
49:11
Speaker 1: which is what they operated on, the guilty not guilty
49:14
Speaker 1: verdict of law, how this can be really really misconstrued
49:20
Speaker 1: in the court communities, and how it defends lawyer could
49:22
Speaker 1: take this and run with it into saying, see, it
49:26
Speaker 1: may not have been it was not rape because there
49:29
Speaker 1: was some type of consent. And even to the point
49:32
Speaker 1: that we've talked about the fact that we have to
49:34
Speaker 1: be black and white about it because they even take
49:38
Speaker 1: the she went home with him passed out that was
49:42
Speaker 1: consent in the story, which was what we know. It's like, no,
49:46
Speaker 1: that's not true. If she couldn't say yes, then she
49:50
Speaker 1: couldn't say no. So we need to understand that that
49:53
Speaker 1: was not consent, period, but that there's a again she's
49:56
Speaker 1: not talking about that, and we know this, I know
49:58
Speaker 1: this beyond that, but giving to an example of like
50:01
Speaker 1: how yes, I really wish there was a better way
50:04
Speaker 1: to present this as a law enforcement or court level
50:10
Speaker 1: of conversation. But because they do not, and they care
50:13
Speaker 1: not to, Like that's the biggest stuff. This is not
50:17
Speaker 1: something they care to change ever, because the question of
50:22
Speaker 1: but what about him? But what about the perpetrator? He
50:25
Speaker 1: has rights too, and forgetting that her rights had been
50:28
Speaker 1: violated altogether in this conversation. And then yeah, even talking
50:32
Speaker 1: about the marital aspect of rape that I think even
50:35
Speaker 1: in some courts, even in some states, they still haven't
50:37
Speaker 1: put that in their books, and we need to talk
50:40
Speaker 1: about that. And so if it's there, then it can
50:44
Speaker 1: be presented and it will stand until it is seen
50:47
Speaker 1: and over like have to go through all the constitutional levels,
50:49
Speaker 1: which oftentimes doesn't happen. So there's so many things that
50:53
Speaker 1: we can talk about this, but in that age of consent, Like, yes,
50:57
Speaker 1: there are these levels, but with the reason the breaking
50:59
Speaker 1: between the no consent this is rape, this is sex,
51:03
Speaker 1: and I fall to the coarse consent means is rape.
51:06
Speaker 1: Like I will say this to this day, like to
51:07
Speaker 1: the point that just because they finally talked you into
51:11
Speaker 1: giving it up doesn't mean you weren't right. You were.
51:14
Speaker 1: It was it was a violation of your rights. They
51:17
Speaker 1: held you essentially until you said yes, and that way
51:22
Speaker 1: they can be you know, told they didn't fight me
51:26
Speaker 1: type of right. So there's so many layers to this,
51:29
Speaker 1: and yeah, absolutely it's a societal thing that we need
51:32
Speaker 1: to look at. But what we know of what we're
51:34
Speaker 1: seeing today in the court's judicial system, they really side
51:38
Speaker 1: on the caution of the patriarchy, and unfortunately we have
51:42
Speaker 1: to be that blunt. But maybe pushing that line and recognizing, hey,
51:47
Speaker 1: if you're that person who has to push someone to
51:50
Speaker 1: have sex, you're gross and you're violating that person like that,
51:54
Speaker 1: that's the point that we need to get to and
51:56
Speaker 1: that if at any point they change their mind, they
51:59
Speaker 1: have that right and that's when you stop. So that
52:02
Speaker 1: is that level of like at beyond consent. Enthusiastic consent
52:06
Speaker 1: is a no, and it should be able to be prosecuted,
52:09
Speaker 1: to be mad, to be honest, Yeah, it reminded me.
52:12
Speaker 1: I mean, it reminded me of a lot of things.
52:14
Speaker 1: It reminded me of the whole a zz and sorry
52:16
Speaker 1: thing and how a lot of mostly women were like yes,
52:19
Speaker 1: I hear that, and a lot of mostly men were
52:20
Speaker 1: like what. Oh No. I had several women who told
52:23
Speaker 1: me that They're like what, that's not she's complaining, she's
52:26
Speaker 1: making victims look bad. Yeah, I mean I heard women
52:29
Speaker 1: for sure, but it was mostly men in my in
52:32
Speaker 1: my experience, but just kind of that level. And then
52:35
Speaker 1: also especially when I was younger, there was definitely things
52:39
Speaker 1: and yeah, I mean I am a sexual sorry speaking
52:41
Speaker 1: for that experience, but there were definitely things I agreed
52:42
Speaker 1: to because I thought I should want to agree to them,
52:46
Speaker 1: and then later just felt violated, like felt greatly wrong
52:50
Speaker 1: and like hurt. And it's hard to pinpoint what that
52:54
Speaker 1: is because it's like, well, I you know, I said yes,
52:56
Speaker 1: and I thought I wanted it, but yeah, that being said,
52:59
Speaker 1: I was like just taking away a love Like most
53:04
Speaker 1: of this book, you know, ask questions, and there's too
53:08
Speaker 1: many things that we're sort of relying on, assumptions on,
53:12
Speaker 1: or have been kind of indoctrinated in. And obviously this
53:16
Speaker 1: is a two partner, so there's a lot, a lot,
53:17
Speaker 1: a lot we could discuss. I did want to end
53:20
Speaker 1: on this quote. The goal of ACE liberation is simply
53:23
Speaker 1: the goal of true sexual and romantic freedom for everyone.
53:26
Speaker 1: A society that is welcoming to aces can never be
53:28
Speaker 1: compatible with rape culture, with misogyny, racism, ableism, homophobia, and transphobia,
53:32
Speaker 1: with current hierarchies of romance and friendship and contractual notions
53:36
Speaker 1: of consent. It is a society that respects choices and
53:38
Speaker 1: highlights the pleasure that can be found everywhere in our lives.
53:41
Speaker 1: I believe that all of this is possible. Oh, I
53:44
Speaker 1: hope so. And Yeah, to be clear, like we touched
53:49
Speaker 1: on this, but she's done. There's definitely problems in a
53:52
Speaker 1: sexual community, and there has been for since it's existed.
53:56
Speaker 1: It's not different than any other community and that regard.
53:59
Speaker 1: But yeah, I thought that was a very helpful note
54:03
Speaker 1: to end on. Yeah. Yeah, again, I think she does
54:07
Speaker 1: a great job in aligning this with Yeah, an implication
54:11
Speaker 1: of what society looks like because that could be said
54:13
Speaker 1: for all of these things, liberation for all people's in general,
54:18
Speaker 1: and that conversation just like you know low key TLDR
54:21
Speaker 1: and this thing, it's like, we should allow for choice
54:24
Speaker 1: and freedom to be comfortable in our choice as long
54:27
Speaker 1: as it's not harming others or yourself. I don't understand
54:32
Speaker 1: this level, Like I if that there's something on you,
54:35
Speaker 1: that's on you, if you feel a bias for some reason,
54:39
Speaker 1: you need to pick through why you have this bias,
54:41
Speaker 1: not tell them something that they are doing something wrong.
54:44
Speaker 1: And that's either it's you want you don't think it's
54:47
Speaker 1: feminist enough, or you think it's too ridiculous, like any
54:50
Speaker 1: of those things. Is like, that's on you as the
54:52
Speaker 1: individual who's having this opinion because you cannot accept and
54:55
Speaker 1: can't move past this, right right, right, yep, ask more
55:01
Speaker 1: questions always always, well, definitely check this book out if
55:06
Speaker 1: you haven't already. As always, we would love to hear
55:09
Speaker 1: from you book suggestions or otherwise. You can email us
55:12
Speaker 1: at Stuffy DM mom stuff at iHeartMedia dot com. You
55:14
Speaker 1: can find us on Twitter at most of podcasts, or
55:16
Speaker 1: on Instagram at stuff I Never Told You thanks, it's
55:18
Speaker 1: always too our super producer Christina, thank you, and thanks
55:21
Speaker 1: to you for listening stuff I Never told Youse, production
55:23
Speaker 1: of iHeart Radio. For more podcast from my iHeartRadio, visit
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55:27
Speaker 1: to your favorite shows.