Date of Award
2019
Document Type
Honors Thesis (Open Access)
Department
Colby College. Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program
Advisor(s)
Lisa Arellano
Second Advisor
Laura Fugikawa
Third Advisor
Stephanie Taylor
Abstract
Gray-Asexuality offers us a paradox in understanding sexuality, since while it is posed as a middle ground between Asexual and Allosexual, it is also solidly a category of Asexuality. This poses the question of when does someone become Asexual and if they are ever interested in sex why are they not just Allosexual? While understandings of Asexuality that have excluded the Gray-Asexuality can ignore this question, including it requires asking this question, which not only requires defining Asexuality, but also more importantly requires a naming of what normative sexuality is. Within these contexts people who are Gray-Asexual engage in a well played out question and answer where they introduce themselves into the AVEN forums, explain their experience of sexuality, and ask if they are Asexual enough. I will explore this call and response in depth in a later section, but it is interesting because the answer to this question is almost always yes, as if asking the question is a defining aspect of Gray-Asexuality itself. This means that this knowing ambiguity, which is evident to both the person posing the question, and those on the forum who arbitrate over, and then accept them into Asexuality, is accepted, and even expected within the Gray-Asexual community.
Keywords
Asexuality, Gray-Asexuality, Queer Theory
Recommended Citation
Gurevitch, Jason M., "A Rethinking of Gray Asexuality: What do we Learn from an Undefinable Identity?" (2019). Honors Theses. Paper 967.https://digitalcommons.colby.edu/honorstheses/967
Included in
Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Studies Commons, Other Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons