Book Club: Ace, Part 1

In part one of this two part conversation on Angela Chen's book Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex, we discuss sexual desirability, attraction and what exactly it means to identify as ace.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, this is Andy and Samantha and welcome to stuff
I've never told your production of I Heart Radio. So
it is time for another book club. And thanks to
listeners and friends who have suggested this one, um, because

(00:25):
today we are talking about Angela Chans novel Ace What
a Sexuality Reveals about desire, society and the meaning of sex, which,
as the title might imply, is an exploration into ACE
experiences of all kinds and what we can learn from
these experiences in terms of how we understand love and desire.

(00:45):
And Chin is a journalist and speaker, has been very
open about her own experience as an a sexual person.
She's very clear that there is no one ACE, and
that the book mostly focuses on liberal, Western, generally sex
positive folks. She interviewed hundreds of people who identify as
ACE from all kinds of backgrounds, digging into the intersections

(01:06):
of race, disability, and gender with a sexuality and it
was a very very quickly, very good read. Uh, And
it was interesting to hear all these different perspectives kind
of woven together. And um, if you would like to
hear more, you can see our interview with a Doha

(01:26):
Donzo that we did on a sexuality. UM. We also
did We've done it with several episodes on this now,
but one that came to mind a lot for me
during this when I was reading this is our episode
we did on what is Love, which was kind of
an examination of what the sexual aspect of romance and
how that's sort of understood in a lot of our culture,

(01:49):
and how that might not be the case and perhaps
we should separate that out or at least think about it.
And Yeah, I would. I would recommend this because it
does go into things like you don't have to be
a sexual to this. I think it's it makes you
ask questions about a lot of stuff, So I would
recommend it. I definitely connected very hard with a lot
of it about like not understanding sexual attraction, feeling hypocritical

(02:12):
about things, UM, feeling pressure, feeling like I was a
problem in a relationship, and avoiding talking about all of it,
wanting to want what it seems everyone wants but not me. Right, Yeah,
just to put it out there. You did talk about
the fact that there are a lot of great examples
and personal stories and interviews within it. And when we
originally had the a sexual episode, we had a couple

(02:35):
of male followers who are like, hey, I identify as
a can you talk a little more about it, because
you know, we don't hear that. We only hear the
women because it's more acceptable for women to be ACE
than it is for men. And I absolutely understand that.
So if you're still listening, this is a great book.
If we didn't lose those followers, Um, this is a

(02:57):
great book for all sexes and all genders being able
to bring you prime examples from all perspectives. So I
think that's a great way to look at it. That so, yes,
recommended for all, and not just our female listeners or
those who have to defies female or non binary. Is
for all. So I think this is something to put
out there for anyone who's just trying to figure themselves
out and need to relate. Absolutely. Yeah, there's a there's

(03:19):
a chapter on male ACE experience and we're going to
talk about that a little bit. But yeah, I'm really
really fascinating a lot of stuff in there, and this
one is pretty quite heavy because a lot of it
and I was like, yes, let's just putting the quotes,
but we're going to have discussions around all of that.
So let's start with this one. I misinterpreted a person

(03:40):
who does not experience sexual attraction to mean a person
who hates sex, and so I personally could not be
a sexual I hadn't had sex yet, but the idea
held great promise. That's the strange thing about this orientation
and all the misconceptions that carries. It is possible to
be ace and not realize it, to see the word
and still shrug and move on. Definitions are not enough.
One as plumb deeper. Yeah, And I just wanted to

(04:02):
include that because this chin is really open with her
experience and all the questions she had and all of
the stuff she still wrestles with. And I think that that, like,
you know, you have to dig deeper. I think that's
good for everybody, first of all, but I also felt
that that was really true. And there's just a lot
of questions you have to ask yourself of like what

(04:25):
it's odd when there are things that you just take
for granted and when you realize, like, oh, maybe I'm
not experiencing this thing. Everyone else's right and that's fine,
but you do have to kind of really get to
know yourself, right, And I think in overall, it could
just be said as a blankett type statement. What we

(04:46):
see as sex by media and or assumptions is often
wrong for anyone who I didn't advise as anything, So
we all didn't know that that Like, it's just it's
just misinterpreted altogether. Point like the way it is represented
to us. Man, we need real honesty, and this is
part of that honesty is again feeling different or feeling

(05:09):
not the same as everyone else when it comes to
what it actually is. And yeah, really did for everyone
for sure. But the confusion for so many of us,
uh is because of what the expectations were rather than
what it actually is. Yes, um. And here's another quote.

(05:33):
There's the man who grew up in a religious environment,
followed all the rules, only to realize after marriage that
sex was not the wonder he had been promised. The
woman who ordered blood tests in high school because she
was convinced that her lack of desire for sex was
a symptom of serious illness. Disabled aces can have trouble
fitting into either community, wondering where their disability ends and

(05:53):
their asexuality begins, and whether finding that borders shouldn't matter.
Aces of color and gender nonconforming a says, question whether
there's a sexuality is a reaction against stereotypes. Everyone wonders
how to separate friendship and romance when sex is not
part of the equations. Aces who don't want romantic relationships
wonder if there's room for them in a world hyper

(06:14):
focused on a particular type of partnerships, and aces who
do want romantic relationships point out how consent practices don't
make room for their needs. Yeah, and those are like
all chapters, all those things she mentioned. She breaks down
into the whole chapters and has these interviews with people
and discussions with people, and there's a lot of things
I found interesting in all of that where I I,

(06:36):
like I said, I've been kind of dealing with this
for a while and asking questions about myself for a while,
And like I said in a recent happy are, I
think I'm starting to my mind is starting to expand
into like what could a relationship look like for me?
And like it could be a bunch of different things,
which is really exciting in a lot of ways. Um
or if I even need it, or if I can

(06:57):
be complete, which I can be, but like that idea
of I'm not sure if that's even what I want,
but it's just that I'm thinking about it, right, And
so that I found that really interesting. There was a
chapter that we really went into like definitions around romantic
and platonic and attachment and all those how those are different,
and how we might misunderstand those things, and how they

(07:18):
don't necessarily have to be like they all have separate definitions,
but they also can interact, and how different groups of
people see those things differently as well. Um And of course,
because of the nature of this book, it does come
from kind of an a sexual understanding a lot of
times of like what what does that mean? Um? So

(07:41):
I just thought that was really really interesting, and like
the whole conversation of a lot of this is around language, right,
Like we don't have the language to express perhaps things
that are feeling. Are these different shades of relationships? Are
are any kind of I don't know, like attraction, And

(08:03):
so one of them was like friends versus more than
friends but not necessarily you know, like sexual partner. But
just having these like shades of it can be very passionate, um,
feelings for someone without sex, and we just don't have
a lot of times the terminology or even the tools

(08:26):
to express that, which I thought was really interesting. And
then yeah, we've talked a lot about this constant narrative
of not being complete without romantic love, and that is
present in our language, in our laws, in our media,

(08:46):
and our songs. Like just today, before we came in,
I was making a tally of all the times that
I was kind of bombarded with you need this relationship
and you need sex, and it's very sad if you're
not having And I just recently saw a TikTok or
Twitter I can't remember somewhere where this woman comes on
and it's pretty much joking about the fact that men

(09:09):
continue to threaten women with if you're not careful, you're
gonna be all alone. You're gonna be old alone. And
she started life and she's like, you have no idea
the fact I would be so excited to not have
to be responsible for someone else. I don't understand why
y'all keep using this as a threat as if said
something bad um, And of course everybody was like, yeah, absolutely,
And that's kind of that whole narrative is we've been

(09:31):
fed for so long that if we don't have a
partnership that means sex. Family all of those things, then
we have not done this right, and that that we
will be miserable. And it's just this weird stretch to
say you need to be codependent on someone, and it's
kind of like, really, is that the best you can do?
And what you're telling me is because I'm able to

(09:52):
rely on myself and I'm happy if I'm content with
just being here with myself and whatever hobbies I have
and or whatever dog I have, or indoor just joyfully
reading as you would fan fiction all day long. I mean,
and that's a flex to say, but you're going to
be unhappy, but I'm not. I haven't been, so I

(10:15):
don't understand. But yeah, stuff like that, that type of
narrative that's what existed for so long and that we
assume was the norm and true, right, And she in
this book gives some pretty excellent, slash really frustrating examples. Right,
we're going to go into um. But something else she
talks about is this idea that like, once you're in
a relationship, in this case particularly married, but like in

(10:38):
any relationship, there's this expectation that sex is like owed
or is a part of that. And she points out
like marital rape being essentially a pretty new thing, like
up into the two thousand's, like some long and that
that's not really right because you're in a relationship, and that,
again is just another instance of reallyationships look like that,

(11:03):
that sex has to be a part of it. And
if somebody wants another person doesn't, then too bad, and
that's not really rape, which is gross and disgusting and
completely wrong, right, and which, yeah, we've talked about that.
And she even brings up the example of the Trump
case with his former ex wife, which we talked about
a long time ago, and the fact that he settled
out of court because he knew he was wrong because

(11:25):
he was. The only defense they had was they're married.
It can't be rape, like that's what his life offered
up right. Here's another quote. Sexual rights should not be

(11:49):
assumed and self determination must never end upon entering relationship.
You can give a no with zero caveats in each
and every situation, full stop. You can say no if
someone loves you and you of them back, you can
say no for the rest of your life. Loving another
person should never mean forfeiting bodily autonomy. Right. Of course,
this has everything to do with the patriarchy in itself,

(12:11):
because it is absolutely directed more at women. Now, of
course it's gonna be twisted and flipped for sure, but
when you come into a heteronormative relationship, you know what
this is pointing towards, and that's women's obligation to men,
which has been a barrier for so long in general,
and why this conversation needs to happen more often because

(12:31):
it goes beyond just and she says us a lot
just ace community. It goes beyond to that, just to
humanity in itself. But yeah, that that that level of
expectation again an obligation, is part of the problem in
this narrative. Yes, yes, and then I did want to
just put on here, putting in your very briefly this

(12:53):
whole idea of like puberty being a very confusing time
and when you're like feeling these things and you're feeling
crushed is and all the stuff, and you're kind of
getting exposed to that through people that you know as well.
It can be hard when you're seeing mostly one type
of relationship two understand, especially if you haven't heard terms

(13:13):
or you don't know these things exist, what it is
that you're feeling are what you want and how that
compares to what other people are experiencing. And I think
that that can get in the way of a lot
of people. I know we recently read a listener mail
where the listener was saying, like, I didn't feel like
I could claim this sexual orientation or the sexual identity

(13:34):
because uh, you know, I was passing as hetero and
I was getting privileged, and also like I hadn't done it,
and so a lot like I didn't have enough women
partners versus men partner, like all these things, and I
think that can get in your head, and that does
it's just confusing, it's confusing time. Um well, in general,

(13:58):
I think when we look at this, uh, we have
to understand once again the true conversation of this is
people are fluid. People change, people's reaction changes. So what
may have interested you and at one point in time
may interest you less as you grow older. And you know,
one of the funny parts of women in sexuality, there's
this big conversation of when's the best time, or when

(14:19):
are the where their hormones high up, or you know,
all of these conversations and the fact of the matter is,
if it's that way hormones have about everything to do
with that. If there's a genetic disposition, if any of
those things, if it's biology, then we should allow for change.
Then that means, yeah, maybe what interested me one time
doesn't interest me anymore. Maybe what I was attracted to
then is not what I tried to tune now. Maybe

(14:40):
it was a certain person that I was attracted to,
you know, and and then for like to that point.
Of course, we love having identifiers and being able to
identify ourselves, but that could also block us in and
be like, well, already identified as this. Oh no, I
can't change. So that's a bigger conversation. Yeah, puberty is
super confusing, don't. I don't understand why. That's the moment

(15:01):
where we have to decide this is absolutely what I'm
going to be in their next hundred years. But you
know what I mean, right, Yeah? Yeah, And I think
that's worth noting as well. Again, and there's crushes upon
crushes upon crushes because of course I've identified one way
the whole time in my life. But I don't I
won't hesitate. TikTok obviously thinks I'm a lesbian. Okay, look,

(15:22):
show me all the beautiful women. I will gladly watch
them talk about their great day. Who it right? But that,
by the way, that's an inside joke for many of
TikTok ER's I think women have been like all been like,
why does TikTok I think I'm a lesbian? Well, this
is a cool video according to their algorithms. Yes, I'm

(15:46):
just saying it knows I'm like dogs and funny women content.
I don't know, And that's apparently what identify is. I
don't know what that means. I don't know if there's
a thing for that, but according to TikTok that's my identifier.
That sounds right. I'm just saying alright, So moving on,
we're gonna read a little more. I understood for the
first time that it is possible to lack the experience

(16:08):
of sexual attraction without being repulsed by sex, just like
it's possible to neither physically craved nor be disgusted by
a food like crackers, but still enjoying them as part
of the cherished social ritual. Being repulsed by sex is
a fairly obvious indication of the lack of sexual attraction,
but the lack of sexual attraction can also be hidden
by the social performative or wanting having sex for emotional reasons,

(16:31):
and because of different types of desires are bound together
so tightly, it can be difficult to untangle the various strands.
People who have never felt sexual attraction do not know
what sexual attraction feels like, and knowing whether or not
they have ever felt it can be difficult, writes ace
researcher Andrew cy hinder Litter in a two thousand nine
letter to the editor of the journal Archives of Sexual Behaviors. Yes, exactly,

(16:56):
and she wrote all of that. Yeah, I think that's
a big conversation. Like if you don't know what it is,
then what do you think it really? You know, you
make up your mind too, Oh, this is what it's like.
Kind of like if you're tasting food for the first time,
you have no idea what it tastes like, so you assume, Okay,
it's like this. Yeah, And you can't put yourself in

(17:16):
other people's shoes. You can like listen to them and
be empathetic, but you can't like experience right what it
is they're experiencing, and you're limited once again by your vocabulary.
And also like when people say what they're experiencing. It
might mean something to them that means something different to me,
and you're trying to make that match because you and

(17:38):
she's really honest about this, and she says like it
was difficult for her to be so honest about it.
But there are there are times when I've wanted, like
I feel like I should fit into this whatever this
is that people are feeling. I should feel that, So
I'm trying to make it work in my brain when
people are describing it to me, like maybe I do
feel that, and you know, just feeling like this would

(18:01):
be and it sounds so terrible to say, but easier.
It could be easier if I could just feel this
whatever it is. So I would try to convince myself
like maybe this is what people are talking about, right,
and we're just like it's almost like an expectations thing
where I'm just not as intuit as other people, right.

(18:22):
I mean you could say that about love in general too,
and for me when it comes to partnership love, I
never really understood that that was a new thing for me,
and I kept asking, even like recently, my friends who
would so easily tell their partners I love you. I
was like, how did you come to that point? How
did you get here? And they could never really explain,

(18:44):
and some people would be like, yeah, I just said
it because he said it like or she said it
like that was that narrative and something, so like in
my mind it didn't make sense and I don't. I
still don't quite understand it. And I say this and
that I absolutely care for the people around me, and
I would call that love because for me, it's a
measure of what I would do for you, or how

(19:04):
far I would go for you, or how how much
you are in my thought process. So I'm thinking of
things like I'm going to do this, but would any
enjoy this? Let me let let me think about it,
you know. And I don't think of it as like
cherishments some source, So like if you care for me
enough and you send me a message, I know that
you think you're thinking about me like stuff like that,
that to me is my measure of love. But it's

(19:26):
different from everyone. And I still can't grasp that for
partnership all the time, and I'm learning about it and
I'm there because I've reached that level with a new
partner where I'm like, okay, I'm willing to do the
things that I do for my best friends for you,
so that must be and right right, And I think
that's a good point. I think people are very different,

(19:48):
and I think that we do experience things that are
very specific to our experiences and our upbringing and all
these things like we internalized. Um. But that being said,
you know, there is sort of similar threads throughout, but
that can kind of get lost if you're if what
you think love looks like isn't what you're experiencing, then

(20:10):
that can be confusing, even though of course we do
experience it in different ways, just with two shared threads. Well,
it's kind of like how you know, I love my musical,
so I thought, you know, being and love and then
we're going to dance on the street in the rain
as well as I thought sex. Meant, uh, if you're watching,
you know, leave it the beaver. You just kind of

(20:31):
hug each other and you said sleep the supper beds
and you know like that, you know, yes, yes, but yeah,
going back to your point of like the food thing
or are you people just don't it's hard to describe
something that only you know. So, like I was, I

(20:51):
was talking about this with a friend the other day
about colors, like, I'm not entirely sure we're seeing the
same thing. Even though we're looking at the same thing,
I don't know what your brain in my brain, they
could be doing totally something different right there. And I think,
like this was a good I wanted to bring in
this quote just because it reminds me of the argument

(21:11):
around feminism, where feminism doesn't mean I hate men, but
that's what it gets turned into. And for a lot
of times, for a sexual people, it get turns into
you hate sex, which it doesn't necessarily mean that, it
can mean that, but um it can. Like she said,
like if you want to something you want to participate
in emotionally or are because it's like a you know,

(21:32):
a social ritual, then that's cool too, right as long
as you're if you're doing it because you want to
do it. So the book also goes into some history,

(21:56):
and here's another quote. People who could be described as
a sexual have existed for a long time. They were
certainly around in the nineteen forties when sex researcher Alfred
Kenzie was developing his model of sexual orientation. Kinsey believed
that sexual orientation was more than a binary of homosexual
and heterosexual. He created a scale, a line really that
runs from zero to six, zero for someone who is
exclusively heterosexual, six for someone who is exclusively homosexual, three

(22:20):
for bisexual. Today, the Kinzie scale is famous and has
become the main way of thinking about sexuality and sexual
orientation in the West. It does not make room for
a sexuality. Even though Kinzie knew about a sexual people.
During the thousands of interviews that he conducted, Kinsey had
come across people who didn't fit onto his line, who
in his language, had no socio sexual contacts or reactions.

(22:42):
Faced with data that didn't fit this theory, he didn't
revise his line to make it more multidimensional and said
Kinsey marked these people into a separate category called X
and carried on heterosexual, homosexual, and bisexual dominated while group
X was mostly forgotten. Yeah, and I that was so.
According to this book, one percent of the population in

(23:02):
the United States identifies as a sexual. And she does
go into the history of that and talks about the
importance of the Internet for finding connection. But it's very
clear like that's not when it started, that's just when
people because there aren't you know, a huge population, we're
able to find others and connect um through that. And
then she does go into like a whole section on

(23:25):
the difficulty of definition of being divined through negative space. Essentially,
a sexual is defined by like the negative, the lack
of something. And then it was interesting to read the
history of this community and conversations around well what does
it mean? And I love how often the question what
about masterbation comes up? Because I get that question all

(23:46):
the time to I get it all the time. And
we're going to talk more about that. And in a minute, Um,
here's another quote to the best I can tell. Sexual
attraction is the desire to have sex with a specific
person for physical reasons. Sexual attraction can be instantaneous and
involuntary heightened awareness, a physical alertness combined with mental wanting.

(24:07):
My allo friends say they feel sexually attracted to people
they have just met, to people whose company they don't enjoy,
two people they don't like, or even find good looking
fair enough. Aces don't experience this. Aces can still find
people beautiful, have a libido, masturbate, antiquat porn. Aces can
enjoy sex and like kink and be in relationships of
all kinds. So yeah, this. This reminds me of a

(24:30):
very specific conversation I had with a friend Katie who's
been on the show, where I was literally like, look,
I'm gonna ask some questions that probably sound very strange
to you, but I just am curious. And I was like,
so tell me what it's like to want to have sex.
So tell me what you're do you like fantasize and
what is that like? You know what happens when you masturbate?
What are you thinking about all these questions, because it

(24:54):
is it's a moment of having or you're you're like
I don't think I have and experiencing these things, and
and then you're just trying to go back to like
the square one of Okay, I've assumed it's it looks
like this, but maybe my assumption was wrong. And so

(25:14):
I have what I call tame kink, and I look
forward to discussing this and a future future happy hour.
But basically, I experienced what I imagine is close to
sexual attraction, but it's not sexual attraction because there's no
like actual sexual part, but like the physical feelings where

(25:36):
my fingers will get all tingly and it feels like
my body is all warm and my butterflies in my
stomach when it's something very tame happens, like somebody shows
that they care about somebody else, Are they really protective
of somebody else, or just like really sweet, caring stuff.
That's what gets me going, and that's what I seek

(25:57):
out in fan fiction. And I do feel the thing,
but it's not like a sexual yeah, because I'm not
like seeing anybody. Usually it's just something I'm reading about
or even thinking about, or it feels kind of like
when you're at the top of a roller coaster and
it's just about to drop. But that's what I experience,
and it's almost never I do with fictional characters. Obviously,

(26:18):
like Luke Skywalker being the number one, I feel like
strong emotions, but like if you remove it, I don't
feel for the actor. So it's like it's a fictional uh,
entirely based on that. And if I get if I
find somebody really like emotionally attractive, I can think someone's
really beautiful, I can and feel that, but I think

(26:41):
even then, I don't think I'm feeling sexual attracts me
so much as just like I want to be with
that person and just like spend time with them and
talk with them, right, I don't know like all of
those makes sense into the level of like safety and
such as well. Everybody has different things and it's according
to how I feel a certain time. It could be

(27:02):
an action that someone does. I'm like, oh, day on
the sexy you know, that's definitely I think, uh, something
that I do have a moment of of course, I
have a harder time sometimes because of the sexual trauma
that I've experienced as well as the sexual trauma that
I saw in work um and had to deal with
on a daily basis. I had a lot of sex
offender cases, so there's a lot of different levels to

(27:23):
that and trying to separate some of these things because y'all,
when you've been in that field, and I'm sure we've
got more and more social workers following us, how y'all,
I'm sure they know what I'm talking about that you
want to be in that moment. But even like being
distracted by whatever work that happened that day is a
huge thing and changes things pretty quickly no matter what,

(27:44):
And that could be a whole conversation of being just
really distracted and your mindset as well as preferences. But yeah,
I think all of those things that you're talking about
which you find as attraction, is that what would you say?
But it's not necesarily sexual, but us an attraction. Okay,
I'm trying to see how to say. It was like
not making a romantic thing, but it is a romantic

(28:06):
thing without the sexual thing, but not necessarily always yes, right, okay,
so you're getting there. But like for me, all of
those things are just and it is for you too,
But for me, it's like a personality thing that is
an automatic that I would want that you know what
I mean, or want to give that. You and I

(28:27):
are very close and reason were very close as we
have that language of giving to each other or comforting
each other in a manner of helping or or doing
something that you see as the other person likes or
wants or enjoys. So you cater to that for me
my own life because you have very defined loves and
I love that you make it very easy to give,

(28:50):
even though it's a little abstract, so it's harder to
find those things. We'll have to create my own things
for you, but I know you love it because you
also have tons of things that you like. Uh, kind
of like our other friends who have those interests already
have it. I'm like, what the what the hell do
I do? In the hell? They already got this because
I loved it for so long and they've always been
a part of them, So that's easy and hard at

(29:12):
the same time for me, I don't really have those interests.
I thought about that the other day. It's like I'm
a I feel like sometimes I'm a sociopath and this
is going on a whole different level because when we
talk about attraction and I've thought about this, I thought
about this one. I was watching Dexter too, and I
don't know if people who have gone through and probably
had been a diagnosed with the react of attachment disorder
at one point in time and or could have been.

(29:32):
I'm still sure it could have been. I have a
hard time in finding loves and likes of things I
used to make myself because I'm like, this is normal.
I have to play normal, so I would pretend to
collect or want something. And then my dear love of mother,
who also is similar to you, and I have like
you like this, I'm gonna cater to this and I'm
gonna focus on this because you love it would give

(29:53):
me tons and tons and tons of stuff like that,
me realizing I only said it because I needed to
say because I needed to be normal, and now I
have all this I do with it. I'm going on
a different round this one, but it's kind of that
whole level of trying to figure out what is it
that I love and when I do find attraction, what
is it? So for me, for the longest time, it's

(30:13):
just physical. It wasn't emotional. It's in fact, I took
emotions completely out of it. For the longest time, there
was no such thing for me. So it's kind of like,
I don't do the emotional sexual attraction. I don't do
that because I think someone said, maybe you just don't
like romantic you're you're a romantic and I was like,
because I want it. There's there's there's sometimes to be like, Man,

(30:36):
if someone so did this for me, I would be
blown away, you know what I mean, Like growing up
like these kind of romantic notions and queues. I love it,
And so when I do get it, I'm like, oh,
thank you. I love that, and I want to do that.
I want to do that for other people. Do what
you love. So let's do this, but it's weirdly enough,
like I don't know what that is for me? Again

(30:58):
read discovering all these things, but that that conversation of like, okay,
so what is this attraction for me? Is it? ABC?
And d okay, let's figure this out and trying to
also combat the very very like and again, you know
this as well as I do. And I think anyone
who identifies as anything but heterosexual would understand. This is

(31:19):
that level of how do I pretend to be normal?
And it's so ingrained with me in me that what
I'm pretending to be becomes what I think I am.
Does that make sense? Like, okay, so for the law,
this is normal, So I'm gonna say I am. And
then I believe it to the point that I can't
change it. So I'm like, wait, do I actually like that?
Like it's kind of that level, and it is It's

(31:41):
really hard to like decipher all of that because I'm like,
all right, these makes does these makes this? But this
is what I know and this is what I pretended
to be. And of course this goes beyond once again,
and I keep pulling this in and I don't mean
to that it goes beyond just sexuality, like identifying my
sexuality goes beyond that. It goes beyond the every day Again,

(32:02):
am I freaking sociopath? Do I need to rethink my life? Yes?
But dot dot dot. But to say there's a lot
to that level of just beyond if we can focus
beyond that, it's like, wow, Okay, let's have a big
conversation of again, what societal expectations of norms are are

(32:26):
placed on us and how tangled that makes everything else
in our thought process. Yes, yeah, I think that's one
of my biggest takeaways from this whole book is that
it's messy, Like we can't you can't remove the patriarchy
from your experience and you can't remove white supremacy from
your experience, and like you can be aware of it

(32:47):
and do work on your part, but you grew up
in that system. And so when you start asking yourself
these questions which we're going to talk about more, but
you you can get really in your head about well,
what does this mean? Am I? Is this some something
that came out of being raised in this system? Like

(33:09):
am I playing into a stereotype or against the stereotype?
And why am I doing that and just really really
being uncertain on something you were probably already kind of
I didn't feel maybe, or I should say, for me,
it makes it hard for me to claim something one
because I'm like, I can't say for sure, And that's

(33:32):
not a great mind space to be in where you
can't say why you feel the way that you do
or don't feel the way that you do. Oh no,
now we're the advice gonna think of as sociate about
That's okay. I recently told some friends of ours that
I thought about the whole dogs thing being overrated, a

(33:53):
babiot of being overrated, and let me say, people would
not let it go, They would not drop it. They
already you should have learned this lesson, Andy, You got
mal about your stays on, but not about the baby Yoda.
Not about the baby Yoda, but about the I do
want to say, though, because this is actually kind of
relevant to what we're talking about, is I think that

(34:14):
my when I say overrated, I think that my version
of overrated might not mean what a lot of people
mean when they say it. But it is kind of
a similar thing of And we talked about this in
my Dead Inside episode where it's like maybe I'm just
not maybe I'm feeling the thing you're feeling. I'm just
not emoting like you're emoting, or like maybe we're just
expressing it differently. But A get you can't be in

(34:34):
somebody's head, right, Okay. You can think something's not interesting
and that's okay, and that might be dog and like
oh yah, it's there cool in the story and that's
kind of your conversation. And I thought about this because
every time before I started watching Star Wars, every time
I said I never saw it, the look of like

(34:55):
that I got, I was like, calm down, and then
I had to be a bigger stance on like, oh,
I'm never watching it, which is what my other friend
who have known for years, when I told him I
actually watched it, he's like, I thought you that was
gonna be your thing where you just never watched Star Wars.
I was like, yeah, I gave in. He was like
huh like and it wasn't because people are so like
pushy to be like you need to watch this. And

(35:16):
then this weekend I just got the you didn't watch
Star Trek. I don't know if you can read friends,
And I was like, I don't know what's happening, and
then me having to explain I don't like sci fi
that much. I'm starting to get into it, and they're
like and me just having to stare. So that's a
whole different conversation. But yeah, it's literally like, it's not
that I hate it here. Yes, I totally hear you.

(35:42):
I even brought you up. No, I was just saying, like,
I know she's not feeling what I'm feeling when I
watched Star Wars, And that's kind of the thing we're
talking about. We're just experiencing the same thing in different ways.
It's kind of like food. You may like this thing,
I may not. The one thing we agree with was
Mayo's trash. I don't think that's one thing we agree

(36:03):
with it. No, I'm just saying it's one of the
things that like, like, I won't touch it. I won't
even like I don't like it. I don't have it
in a refrigerator and I've never had it, and it
blows my mind. I'm like, oh, yeah, is that a
thing you want? I mean, anyway, sorry, you've gone Okay,
So back to the book. Let's go back to some quotes, right,

(36:25):
repeat after me and she wrote this not don't not me,
so I don't repeat after me, se repeat after me.
Sexual attraction is not sex drive. These two phenomena are
often treated as interchangeable, but understanding that their separate helps
explain ace experience. Simply put, sex drive or libido is
a design for sexual release, a set of feelings in

(36:46):
the body, often combined with intrusive thoughts. It could come
out of nowhere and for no obvious reasons and not
be about anyone. It's an internal experience of sexual frustration
that does not depend on sexual orientation. A woman can
be gay and have a high sex drive, that is,
she frequently wants sexual release. A man can be straight

(37:06):
and have a low sex drive. A person can be
ace and have no desire for sexual release at all.
Or a person can be ace and have a so
called undirected sex drive that tingling in the other's and
undirected sex drive isn't a cork of ex experience. It's
another way of saying being horny, which can afflict anyone.
Because horny nous does not need to include sexual attraction.

(37:28):
Imagine a gay man with a high sex drive surrounded
by women. It is possible for him to fill horny
and want to get laid even if he's not interested
in anyone around him. Sexual attraction then is horning this
toward or caused by a specific person. It is the
desire to be sexual with that partner, libido with a target.
To use a food metaphor, a person can fill physiological hunger,

(37:51):
which would be like sex drive, without craving a specific dish,
which would be more like sexual attraction. And just as
people have different sex drives, they also experienced different levels
of sexual attraction. Some aces have a libido and some don't,
but we all share the lack of sexual attraction and
most of us have low desire for partnered sex. As

(38:13):
a side note, it's important to clarify that neither sexual
attraction nor sex drive are the same as physical arousal.
People can have random erections or be aroused during medical
exams with no libido or attraction involved. And by the way,
that could also be said, and this is not what
she writes. This is me speaking about when rape cases
happen and they're talking about being aroused. That is always

(38:36):
a conversation, and yes, that is a physiological thing. It
is not necessarily sexual attraction or wanting it, yes, yes, um.
And we talked about that in our other our pass
book Club Come as you Are, And I think that
this is a good quote to kind of describe those things.
It's like I said, that's one of the number one
questions I get, is like, but you mastured it, so

(38:59):
you must you must um have some kind of sexual desire.
But they are just all these we've gotten all these
things tangled up together and they don't need to be
and they shouldn't be. And I think, you know when
I yeah, I mean this who I've been t m

(39:21):
I on this many times, but like when I masturbate,
I'm not it's usually because it feels good, and also
it's like a release. I can concentrate better, and I'm
like almost never ever thinking of somebody, and if I am,
it's a fictional character, but it's not. It's not like
I saw somebody, I got some turned on and I
gotta go to this Like it's just talk about specifically

(39:45):
about that too. But a lot of times people are
having masturbated because it just feels good in the story,
it just feels and if I mean, I know this
is probably much bigger conversation, but it feels better than
any sex I've ever had, and I would prefer it
for the older one who would say that even people

(40:05):
who would consider themselves sexual would have that same conversation. Yeah,
which is I mean makes sense. And I'm not trying
to like throw anybody under the bus here because it
just makes sense. You would know your own body better
and you figure those things out. And it's also like
battery operated easier to communicate you in your head, yes, exactly,
and it's just kind of like instinctual, Oh this is

(40:27):
where to go. And and I mean, I think people
can have amazing sex and can communicate really well and
and I'm not trying to say that that doesn't exist,
because I totally believe it does. But there are just
some things that are easier. It's yourself and yeah, you
know what you want and you don't have to really
try to communicate that because the words can be tricky
and explain it can be tricky. Right. Here's another quote.

(41:03):
In fact, demi sexuality and gray sexuality not only can
describe aloes, they actually referred to many who could technically
be considered alo a. Sexuality is about who you're sexually
attracted to. No one demi sexuality described the conditions under
which someone developed sexual attraction after an emotional bond is formed,
and gray a sexuality can be about how often someone
developed sexual attraction rarely as possibility. Pan sexual and demisexual,

(41:26):
are gray a heterosexual, or any number of other combinations.
And I want to include that because I think there
was a lot of interesting things that was brought up
through interviews in that chapter. There was one point about
hookup culture and overall sexualization that maybe kind of an
anxiety that these terms, these labels were being used for

(41:47):
people who basically thought that the level of sex they
should want they weren't there, and that as a society
we've just been totally hyper sexualized and oversexualized, and so
they thought that maybe something was and very heavy quotes
wrong with them, or they weren't on the same level
of people, and maybe that's just a cultural thing they've internalized.

(42:11):
And then there's also the interesting point of people using
these labels but really they were just being jack it's
about it and having anxieties around that of like and
I'm being very general and stereotypical here, but kind of
you know, like the man who says he is like

(42:33):
a romantic and and all this stuff and then treats
you like like that's not cool. Don't treat people terribly.
So I understand all those anxieties, and I think, again,
this book does a really good job of like it's complicated, um,
and people have acted in ways that are cruel to

(42:56):
other people that can unforeinately sometimes sort of aligne with
how people understand or think that these labels what they mean,
which isn't necessarily the case at all, but just what
people think. Like if you, I think of her a
lot of women, if you met a guy who said, like,
I'm not into romance, even if he did identify that way,

(43:17):
you would immediately have kind of like a tensing up
of oh, he means like he just wants to tree
use me and then throw me away or something, which
I'm again generalizations. I know that you can be a
romantic man and not be like that, but I think
that's like the anxiety um that people have. Yeah, it
labels in general make people nervous all kinds of ways.

(43:39):
And and then we also see people who are being
dicks about the fact that labels can be important in
that you need, you want to identify yourself, you you
need to know about yourself, which I know is like
a lightbulb moment for many of people. And we've got
we're kind of seeing this and I don't think she's
she's definitely didn't really mention this, but like with the
pronoun stuff, and we have the right coming in and

(44:01):
going real hardcore and being like, how dare you do this?
Because now you're categorizing in or whatever, making me see
something that I don't want to see, or making me
acknowledge something that I don't want to acknowledge type of
conversation as well, and it's it's kind of like, well,
it's not for your son down, yes for sure. Yeah,

(44:23):
So going on with more quotes. Sexuality is more than
sexual orientation, and attraction is more than sexual attraction, Yet
humans can act as though sexual interest is the only
reason we find ourselves compelled by others. Aesthetic attraction can
guide romantic attraction, or the feeling of being romantically interested
in or having a crush on someone. Romantic orientation then

(44:45):
denotes the gender that people usually develop crushes on. These
use the same linguistic constructions as sexual orientations, swapping out
the sexual part head a romantic pan romantic, homo romantic,
and so on. People who don't experience romantic attraction towards
anyone are called a romantic or arrow. The concepts of

(45:06):
a romanticism and a sexuality developed alongside each other, so
arrows have long been part of the ACE community, though
some people are a romantic and not a sexual. Yes,
which the one asked me if I was well, And
that's something else I had no idea about until I
started on this show, right, that was new to look

(45:27):
it up. I was like, is that a thing like,
you know, well into my adult life, and that's I
identify personally as by real bantic. But it is nice
to know because I would feel like attraction to both
Luke and Leah and be very confused by it. But
then I want nothing like sexual and I'm like, how

(45:48):
is this happening at all? Right? Right now? I know?
There you go. Something else that Chen goes into in
this book is religion, which is something we talked about
a lot in this show, and how that impacts views
on sex and and morality, and how not wanting sex
can feel old fashioned and conservative. You know, this whole

(46:10):
idea of not wanting to feel repressed, wanting to feel liberated,
and that's something I really identify with, I really connected with,
and yeah, I just feel and I talked about this
briefly because I'm so happy that we're finally talking about
women having sex and liking sex and wanting sex. I
think that's great, but I think it has gotten kind
of like tied to that means you're liberated and if

(46:32):
you don't want that, then you're not. And I think
that also is changing. And again, it is another thing
that is complicated because of the patriarchy and and things
like religion, which of course the patriarchy touches. But yeah,
it's sort of where's the whole chapter about? Is a
religious aspect of this and this assumption that everyone struggles

(46:52):
with sexual desire and religious text is kind of a
lot of in a lot of ways, the heart of
a lot of religion is that the idea that everyone
struggles with this and you have to be chased and
withhold hold back from your desire until you are married
and then you know, have kids and that's it. Speaking
of which, there has been this viral video recently of

(47:14):
this dude who decided to approach several eighteen year old
girls on the beach to tell them that they are
causing mendicine and they need to think about their life.
And what they're doing is they're dressing like sluts and
they need to get it together. Oh yeah, because he's
like he said, my son's out here, my family is
trying to enjoy somethings, and all they can see is

(47:34):
your bikinis. And by the way, they're normal bikinis. Like
that it matters, not that it matters at all, Like
they can be wearing jeez jeans and whatever whatnot and
enjoy your life, do your thing. But they were just
regularly wearing regular bikinis. They look great. Go ahead, enjoy it,
love your life. You look wonderful. Enjoy that body. But

(47:56):
and it went viral to the point that all the
people were like, what the hell is wrong with you?
And he came and decided to come back with a
video is saying that he was, you know, a god
fearing man and he was doing the work of God
and just wanted to let this and he tried to
be real cool. I just wanted them to protect them
and let them know that you know, this is really
harmful into what Jesus loves them more than that essentially, Yeah,

(48:19):
to say he got fired and then he got chastise
and he's been reamed over the coals repeatedly has been
a delight. But anyway, but I think stuff like that,
And again, we talked about it when I was talking
about the murders that happened in Atlanta, the shootings that
happened in Atlanta. This conversation causes a lot of violence

(48:40):
in general when we talk about morality, but it also
causes a lot of like fear and just again this
whole conversation of like am I normal? Am I supposed
to be feeling this? So if I'm not trying to
be religious and I'm not trying to be and I'm
trying to go forward in the feminist movement and me
saying I don't want sex and my doing the wrong
thing because I'm not, you know, liberated again like she says.

(49:02):
And I think that's a big conversation because we have
one extreme or the other. Is there either you have
to completely chase or you have to be you know,
raging and and constantly turning over partners. You know, there's
not this middle ground of just being just being and
just being happy to be what they were and who
who they are and not wanting this, and then you

(49:24):
go on into like, yeah, that it's both good and
bad when it comes to relationships and what it is
expected under the misogynistic idea of what marriage is supposed
to be. When we look at the religious conservative religious
ideas of what marriage is and how damaging it is
for one or the other, and it's such a weird

(49:45):
conversation because yeah, it doesn't feel like there's much of
a common like a middle ground or a no ground situation. Yeah, yeah,
and I think that's something we can we should all
examine perhaps and maybe we'll come back and do another
episode on it one day. But there's just a lot
of judgments around if people are having sex, in the

(50:06):
type of sex they're having, so like, even if maybe
you are having sex but it is quote, you know, boring, right,
but maybe that's fine with you, maybe that's what you want.
But I feel like there's a lot of judgment around
that and like how much sex you are having. And
I do think it has a lot to do with

(50:27):
this history of the patriarchy and repressing women and not
letting women be sexual and not letting women have pleasure,
and so we do have a lot of concern around
that and anxiety around that, but the fact is those
things can exist and that might be what somebody wants,
and again it can change, Yeah, it can change. And
that's kind of part to that is um, this whole

(50:48):
level of duty and that that's a conversation we need
to call. Like we've talked about many times, but how
that stigma also really really hurts everything everything and this
obligation and in this whole narrative of again your sex,
women's sex, just saying it as this is something to
be a prized and then gifted to those worthy. So

(51:10):
if you're gifting to those who are worthy, that means
you can't deny it because it's a gift, you know
what I mean. And so that's just both of those things.
And to slow it down, it's become a running joke
obviously and like the once you get married you stop
having sex. That especially to the points like I'm very
confused why, like like as a kid watching this conversation

(51:31):
and this constant joke that I'm like, don't get it,
what's happening? And I get it, but like having that, Yeah,
people sex drive changes and there's a lot of again,
like I talked about my job and we know that
the outside narratives and then feeling that guilt not only
for those, it's just I think for everyone if you
can't keep up with that and feeling like, okay, well

(51:53):
I'm not normal now, you know. Yeah, that's a that's
a good point because that's just another example of this assumption,
which I know we're going to talk about that more
later too, but the assumption that this is like sex
is the best thing and you should be getting it
all the time and it should be great and the best,

(52:16):
and if you're not, then something's wrong or you're boring
or like all these things that we assume about people
like that. But it's just assumed that that that's what
you should want. And it is a joke like once
you get married. The fact that it's a joke that
once you get married, all of a sudden it's usually
the woman doesn't want to have sex anymore. That we

(52:39):
should question why that is why? Very much question why
that is my name? Mini? Alright? Yes, and going on
with more quotes because we love it. None of this
aligned with my goals, She writes. The words used to
describe women who didn't have sex celibate, absolute pure chase

(53:00):
seemed either clinical or moralistic in a way. I disdained
the words used to describe women who did free empower
bold I liked and wanted to apply to me down.
A few people would explicitly say that sexually conservative women
are wildflowers, but popular culture made it that insinuation clear,
and so I had a vague, unquestioned feeling that the

(53:23):
women who pursue sex are more fun and feminists in
the women who don't. Yeah, And I think that's really
interesting that's what she writes, because also there's that opposite
within the feminist group. Yeah, you want to say that's
free empower bold, but within outside of that, that's a
slut or any of those narratives. Again, as we talked
about that, dude, So it's kind of interesting that that's

(53:44):
how she saw it. But it is that narrative, like
you want to fit in, So what structure do you
want to fit in? Yeah? I I find that dichotomy
interesting as well, because there's the version of, you know,
for so long a woman who's actually liberated it has
been called a slut or a horror or like even
just you know, might have had sex once that can

(54:05):
be thrown lobbed at her. But in feminess circles, it's
it's more like, yeah, girl, you get you have that sex,
which is great. Again, all for it, but it does
once again rely on this assumption that that equals empowerment
and and a liberated woman, which it does in some ways,

(54:25):
but it's not the only way that it can. Here
is another quote. My ideas about the humiliation of repression
and the meaning of liberated sexuality did not come from nowhere.
For so long, women have been encouraged to deny our
sexual needs and instead serve the needs of men. Are
worth is tied to sex. We are sexualized until we
are too old, get shamed and police for being sexual,

(54:46):
ourselves prevented from exploring what we desire, are allowed to desire.
This is doubly true if the women in question aren't straight.
So yeah, that's kind of going off of what you
were saying, Samantha. That is just once again, you cannot win.
You cannot win, no matter what it. And I want
to include this because I did feel this as well,
especially when I came into work on a feminist podcast.

(55:06):
I was like, oh no, I have to keep this
to myself, like I gotta be loud and proud about
go having sex, women, go get it, which I am.
And I was like that in high school too, because
I wanted to fit in. I wanted to be normal
and heavy quotes and I did. I wanted people. I
wanted women or any marginalized group to have sex that

(55:29):
they wanted and it'd be fine. But and that does
get all mixed up with this sort of the patriarchy
and feminism and assumptions around sex. But I will say
for me, and I don't think that this is a
healthy thought either, but I experienced almost the opposite of
this whole thing where I It's hard to describe, but

(55:52):
I guess I thought sex was degrading for women because
it had been for so long been about men's pleasure,
and to me it seemed and that this was also
really uninformed about like what I saw on corn and
in movies and stuff. But to me, it just seemed
like the woman was apprised to be one and the

(56:14):
man won in my sexual encounter and the woman lost.
So I experienced almost this opposite thing. And that's also
because I wasn't where I grew up. You know they
were feminist people, but that conversation was not being had,
So I didn't really have that sort of like empowered
narrative as much as I as I do now as

(56:36):
I hear now. But for me, I just and I
would hear my friends talk about uh, sex they were
having and how how much they enjoyed it, and I
was like, my brain could not get on board. And
and I just thought that was interesting that for me
it was like the opposite where I was like, I'm
never having sex with a man because the patriarchy. So

(56:58):
it's like a different form of someone of not not
good feminism, but you know, kind of this really misinformed
understanding of it. And uh, I don't know. I just
thought I was I was intrigued by our different experiences
around that. I think it's interesting too because I feel
the same way as you did. It's it's always been

(57:19):
about power. It's all about men gaining power taking something
and women are just prizes essentially, uh. And I grew up.
I grew up with that and like that's what we
learned in high school. That's what we hear guys saying,
and like having brothers and kind of talking about you know,
so and so did this is so and so, and
it was always the girls a slut, and the dude
obviously was the one pressuring. And that was that conversation

(57:40):
I grew up with and understanding, this is what happens.
Oh no, I don't want that. I don't. Every time
I'd hear a story about something happening between a couple,
the girl is always, you know, something happening, whether she's
forced to do something or whether they do something that's
gross to like, always an added to humiliate the woman,
and then including like oral sex and having blow jobs

(58:02):
on any of that to me was the most degrading
of all things, because that made women seem nothing but
the vessel. Yeah, I don't know, like orpheus, I guess,
I don't know, for something just for a male pleasure only,
that's what it seemed. And to me, that was one
of the most humiliating things that you could think of.

(58:23):
And so that was the biggest joke for anything that
happened within high school, teenagers or whatever. Like. Of course
it's not sex, but it's still something that men can
have and therefore used women even more so That's that's
what it seemed, and it wasn't until Sex in the City.
They kind of turned that perspective from me when they

(58:44):
talk about again, it's still that power dynamics, but how
it can be pleasurable, how it's not pleasurable, and all
these things. Because it literally goes from one character saying
she doesn't like it, she doesn't want it, she doesn't
want to do it, and that ended their relationship to
another character talking about I like sometimes I would yeah,
like literally says I'll order it off the menu every
now and again, yeah, and talking about how you know,

(59:07):
things have been changing and how that can be a
thing for women to enjoy as well. This again negates
all of the love and romance and trust and communication
in a relationship that can happen in that too, which
we want to come back to in general. But like, yeah,
I write with you, or like this is degrading, and

(59:28):
this is what it means. But it also came with
that misogynistic idea of my virginity is my prize and
I must not give it unless say, are worthy, right, right.
And I have had friends where I've had this discussion,
this very discussion with them, and they'll they'll tell me, like,
you know, I get real pleasure out of like really
bringing someone like to the edge and like having being

(59:50):
in control of that pleasure for them. And I totally
get that, but yeah, these formative ideas I had are
these really misinformed ideas I had at the beginning that
I was. Yeah, I thought it was degrading, And I
think that also says something about great culture and the
media we consume and how sex is often portrayed that

(01:00:13):
that's what I thought it looks like, And it's never
about the woman's pleasure ever, or if it is, it's
only like we talked about as a way for the
man to be like, look how good I am? Yeah,
still about him. Okay, So, because we went so far
off the rails on this one, we're gonna we're gonna
have to break this one up into two our first

(01:00:33):
book club two partner. Yes, So keep an ear out
and eye out for part two soon. But in the meantime,
if you have any suggestions for book club, or or
any suggestions at all, we love to hear them. You
can email as a stuff media mom Stuff at iHeart
media dot com. You can find us on Twitter at
mom Stuff podcast or on Instagram at Stuff I've Never

(01:00:55):
Told you I thinks it's always to a super producer, Christina,
Thank you and thanks to you for listening stuff I
never told these production of I Heart Radio. For more
podcast on my heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app,
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