A Review of “(A)sexual”, a documentary by Angela Tucker

Last weekend I watched “(A)sexual,” a documentary about the asexual community, a group of people who experience no sexual attraction. It was a thoughtful exploration of this growing community and offered a nuanced portrait of David Jay, an asexual who “came out” to his parents about it in 2000. He has no problems about being asexual, though he recognized that his lack of sexuality didn’t align with sexual norms. He started the Asexual Visibility and Education Network (AVEN), a website that offers resources to the public and an online gathering place for other asexual people. The documentary shows how the nascent community is still coming to terms with definitions of it means to be asexual. Surprisingly funny, the film follows David Jay and his work as the unintended poster child of asexuality in America. The film begins with a woman saying that when she thinks of asexuality, she thinks of moss, and when two men are asked to consider it, they dismiss it as impossible; one man promises, “Just let them come on a date with me, and I’ll change their minds!”

The film is an intriguing departure point for exploring sexuality in a sex-obsessed (Western) culture. Indeed, the film captures some hilarious moments of the tragically benign AVEN members educating and marching for awareness on asexuality next to the boa wearing, glitter divas at the Gay Pride Parade in San Francisco. I would highly recommend the film to anyone interested in gender relations or sexual politics as it explores how sexual activity has in fact become over simplified precisely because it has functioned as an over-determining force in social relations.

This documentary has less to do with claiming rights, exercising freedom, or establishing legal precedents. Historically, gender politics demanded a legal foundation in order to protect and validate other(ed) sexual orientations and lifestyles, and establishing a legal framework in order to safeguard and protect minorities, whatever they may be, is and continues to be a critical point in asserting marginal identities. Because so much of gender politics has been tied to the legal realm (the recent approval of gay marriage legislation in New York is just the latest example), the political ambitions of asexual people as portrayed in the film have confused some within the LGBT community precisely because of their lack of legal ambitions. An interview with Dan Savage in the film exemplifies the bewilderment at the political cause and purpose of the asexual community. To paraphrase Dan Savage (since I don’t have the movie on hand), he basically questions why the asexual community marches or takes action to promote awareness; after all, they already have their rights to practice their alternate lifestyle, so why not stay home on the couch and enjoy them? Why the need to take it to the streets?

What the film does very well in illustrating, however, is that although legal rights are critical, they are not the only requirements for living a free, safe life. In fact, the legal achievements of minorities in the past fifty years often overshadow the tremendous amount of work that must still be done in ensuring the safety and equal opportunity of minorities, since the legal victories banning overt discrimination have generally led to even more subtle and insidious forms of discrimination that crop time to time in the form of hate crimes, verbal violence, or general lack of social acceptance of other lifestyles and kinds of people. So although it is true that the asexual community has had no legal issues to fight for, it is equally true that merely having rights does not unequivocally result in the end of discrimination or ignorance. Instead, the plight of the asexual community highlights the need to measure social progress not through legal victories, but through a constellation of factors including quality of life, mental health, and personal security.

As such, the asexual community is instead shown to be deeply invested in educating the community and de-stigmatizing asexuality. A scene at the Gay Pride Parade poignantly captured why there is a need for AVEN and greater awareness about asexuality. As David Jay hands out fliers about AVEN to the crowd, a tough, super buff (presumably gay) man in neon yellow shorts shouts, “I pity your soul!” David turns and asks why – why does he pity his soul? “We’re not hurting anyone”, he says as the man blows him off and walks away with his buddies. Onlookers in the crowd try not to stare at David, but it’s too late. David has been ironically cast as the freak among a parade of self-proclaimed freaks, (re)marginalized not for his sexuality but for his supposedly unnatural lack of sex drive. The violence of the man’s words is painful, but the crowd’s rigid silence, the refusal of anyone to stand with David, tacitly endorses the man’s condemnation towards that which he cannot understand. It is an uneasy reminder of how heterosexual individuals openly condemned homosexual persons fifty years ago (and how some still do) – “I pity your soul!” The exclamation reeks of intolerance, hate, and ignorance.

The scene is uncomfortably familiar in how it so effectively captures that universally experienced sense of ostracization – sticks and stones may break one’s bones, but words hurt even more and even longer. What does one do to move past the verbal violence that ends up, for better or worse, defining our identities? How does one live a free, safe life in spite of, what is at times, palpable hostility?

In this moment, however, the film subtly accuses the now common imperative to openly perform sexual identity, to liberate oneself as a fully sexualized being, as a violent command, yet the demand to confess and exhibit one’s sexual desire is seen to take on discriminatory, if not violent, overtones, as if society insists – “Have sex with the one you love…. OR ELSE.” If we have won the right to have a sexual orientation, doesn’t that also mean that we have also won the right to not take on sexual partners? To have the freedom to choose and to also not choose?

During the question and answer session at the end of the film, an audience member asked David if he had personally experienced more hostility from those within the LGBT community or straight folk. After thinking for a couple minutes, David smartly responded that those who see their sexuality as a key component of their identity have the most difficulty in understanding asexuality. Indeed, the film shows how asexuals are either considered with hostility (“I pity your soul!”) or intense confusion (“Is there a biological reason for the lack of sex drive? What do asexuals think of when they have to “clean the pipes” and jack off? Should asexuality be considered a medical illness?)

The film deftly considers the many complicated facets of asexuality in America – how asexuals seek familial, close bonds, just like everyone else, how many asexual people grow up and struggle to come to terms with the overbearing fact that most of society is sexually active, how asexuals have struggled with the intense loneliness and sensation of alienation of not fitting in, how “coming out” as asexual to family members can be painful, how the asexual community continues to grow and grapple with how to define themselves politically and socially.

In recent years, academic queer studies have sought to use its deviant position as a strategic means of queering, or in other words, critiquing hegemonic, heterosexual relations (Judith Butler of course and Lee Edelman comes to mind). Queer studies has become a useful methodology and analytic tool of exploring and revealing the mechanisms of gender relations and normative desire. It seemed to me after watching this film that asexuality can be also used as a means of queering the queer, of critiquing the whole field of gender politics. Since so much of gender theory evolves from sexual politics, it would be fascinating to explore how gender is constructed when not informed by sexuality. How is it different? Can gender be separated from sexuality? So much of gender norms hinge upon the object of sexual desire, but what happens when there is no object of sexual desire? How does that affect one’s positionality in terms of gender? The over-determination of sex and sexual desire in contemporary society has meant that in order to become a full subject, one must be marked as a sexual being, whether as a hetero or homosexual person. (Hence, one is considered a child until he/she has undergone their first sexual encounter.)

So much of life is unrelated to sexual activity, yet the over-determination of sex in the everyday lives of people has led to a particular lack of critical engagement in how sex is valued and used. What I mean by that is sex is taken for granted as a universally structuring force in life that relegates people into certain social compartments – gay, straight, trans, bi, etc – when in fact scholarship has perhaps overvalued its function and thus prevented itself from seeing it in other ways. Engaging in sexual relations is often used as a shorthand signifier for abstract concepts like intimacy, commitment, lust, or as an extreme qualifier; for instance, “it was better than sex.” It seems to me that talk about sex is oftentimes talk about how sex structures our lives, produces identities, or delineate gender codes. But how does sexual activity actually affect relationships? How does sex enable or prevent us from forming bonds with others? During the Q&A session, David mentioned how some early studies on asexuals have suggested that familiar notions of sexual desire – touching, bodily stimulation, emotional attachment – is actually much more biologically complicated than previously thought.

Throughout the film, David is shown to have a complex network of attachments in comparison to hetero/homosexual individuals. Instead of merely forming binary attachments to others, David in a school presentation shows a slide of how he is emotionally invested and committed to a number of “primary relationships”. The slide illustrates a colored web of connections and commitments with those whom David holds in higher regard than ordinary friendships. He speaks excitedly of plans he is making with several friends, moving in together, adopting children, raising children. As a viewer, you feel thrilled that he is able to develop close connections despite having no sexual desire, and that he has found a network of people who accept him as he is.

Yet by the end of the film, the previously bright landscape of positive emotions dim, and we see David a little older, a little more tired, a little skinnier. He sits in his San Francisco apartment on a wooden chair, the gray sunshine filtering through the camera. He explains how many of his primary relationships have moved away, fallen through, or simply lost touch. He explains how the loss of one friend has been the closest thing he has ever experienced to heartbreak, and the earnestness in which he talks about losing her resonates with the universal sentiment of loneliness, of not having anyone to share a life with.

The film chronicles David’s argument that relationships without sex can be just as meaningful and important as those with sex, yet in this scene, David backtracks a little, perhaps because he is lonely, or perhaps because he has truly changed his ideas on sex. He says, “I think sex makes people take relationships more seriously.”

It is a curious statement given the trajectory of how the narrative sought to show how sex can be irrelevant to forming strong relationships, and I wondered if he truly meant it. During the Q&A, I asked if he could speak a little more about that statement; he responded that he now believes that he sees sex as a tool, as a way of getting to know someone, and that he is not averse to being sexually active. He said he sees it as a compromise. Given the few number of people who publicly acknowledge their asexuality, he said that it has compelled him to think about sex differently as he continues to look for someone to share his life with.

I wondered if this statement reflected something about how sex functions in relationships, in cementing bonds and forcing people to “take relationships more seriously.” I also wondered if I was over-valuing the role of sex in relationships by even asking that question. Could sex be considered a compromise just like anything else, like doing the dishes, going to the in-laws, walking the dogs? Clearly, sex is more important to some than others. I don’t think there is or will be a universally applicable response to this question, but in all, the film shows how the asexual community is queering commonly held notions on sexual relations, and where it can or can not take us.