Gender Identity and Asexuality

[HJAlbone]

Hello!

First of all, many thanks to those who participated in my previous thread, Valeri Lukyanova and Asexuality. Your contributions were greatly appreciated for my research.

I am still continuing my research on asexuality and femininity at Coventry University for my third year research project, and as such I would like to continue to gather more opinions from the AVEN community on the topic. From my research, I've come across some interesting ideas regarding asexual and gender identities. So my question to ask is:

How important is gender in relation to asexuality? This can be in personal or relationship terms.

DISCLAIMER: Please read the information below before taking part in this thread.

Coventry University

The Doll Asexual – Asexuality and Femininity

Introduction

I am a final year Coventry University undergraduate student studying Media and Communications. For my dissertation topic I am looking at asexuality and femininity, focusing on the Living Doll Valeria Lukyanova, a self-identified asexual prominent in the media, and how asexuality distances itself from Western and sexualized culture while still allowing practices of femininity.

Purpose of the research

The purpose of my research is to continue to highlight the growing asexuality movement, and to expand into the areas of femininity as separate from sexuality. I will be looking at asexuality as an identity, practices of femininity and gendered practices, and to gather opinions of Valeria Lukyanova as a prominent asexual Living Doll.

Type of Research Intervention

Research will be focused around semi-constructed conversation threads in online posts and discussion forums (such as on www.asexuality.org/en). I will pose topics for discussion on various threads so as to not cause confusion, and I will not be involved unless I am needed to mediate a discussion. The discussions will be carried by the participants who are free to discuss the topic at will in the thread.

I may also open the possibility of conducting short email interviews with participants if they contact me with interest. Questions will be prepared by myself and will be open to interpretation by the participant. All emails and personal data will be protected and given anonymity.

Participant Selection

Participants have complete free will over whether to take part in discussions or not. Discussions will be posted in accessible online forums and participants can choose to partake or not. All participants will be fully data protected. Any data gathered will be destroyed following the completion of my project, and if at any point participants need to be identified pseudonyms will be used or they will be given full anonymity protection. All participants MUST be 18 years or older.

Voluntary Participation

Your participation in this research is entirely voluntary. It is your choice whether you wish to participate or not. You can withdraw from this research at any point without requiring any justification to your decision. If any data has already been collected about you, it can be destroyed or removed on request when leaving the project.

Procedures

Research will purely be conducted in online spaces, primarily in public access forums through which participants can contribute to the discussion threads via a comment based system.

In the event that participants express an interest in taking part in short email interviews, a separate and private email account will be used to conduct the interviews, and all emails will be limited to professional interview exchanges. Any personal data that becomes visible from these exchanges will the protected until the end of the project and then destroyed.

Duration

Research will be collected from November 2014-March 2015 approximately.

Risks

As the topics being discussed could be considered to be of a sensitive nature (regarding sexuality and gender practices), there is a small risk of emotional upset to participants. However, if you feel you are likely to be triggered by such discussion you are under no obligation to take part. If you do take part and then feel uncomfortable at having participated, you are free to withdraw without needing to give justification. However, you will be in no physical or at high risk of emotional or psychological distress.

Benefits

There will be no direct benefit to you, however your participation will greatly help the understanding of gendered practices and perception of gender within asexuality, and continue to raise awareness of the asexual community and movement.

Reimbursements

You will not be provided with any incentive to take part in the research.

Confidentiality

All information will be protected and kept confidential. Any data collected from online discussions will be protected in a locked file on my hard drive, and any personal data (including online screen names) will also be protected in such a way. All data will be destroyed after the project is completed. All participants will be given pseudonyms if identification is needed for quotation purposes, otherwise blanket anonymity will be used to protect individuals. Data may be shared with my dissertation supervisor but this will be in a data secure capacity (i.e. face to face) and no personal data will be disclosed.

Right to Refuse or Withdraw

This is a reconfirmation that participation is voluntary and includes the right to withdraw.

Who to Contact

If you have questions about anything regarding participation, the topic or data protection, please do not hesitate to contact me onalboneh@coventry.uni.ac.uk. All emails will be data protected.

Part II: Certificate of Consent

I have been invited to participate in online research about asexuality and femininity practices.

I have read the foregoing information, or it has been read to me. I have had the opportunity to ask questions about it and any questions I have been asked have been answered to my satisfaction. I consent voluntarily to be a participant in this study. In participating in online comment discussions I confirm I have read this information and give my consent to take part. I also confirm that in taking part in this research I am over the age of 18.

Statement by the researcher/person taking consent

To the best of my ability the participant understands that the following:

1. Online comment based discussion and data collected from comment threads for research purposes.

2. Information provided will be shared only under pseudonyms or given anonymity

3. All data will be password protected and erased after 6 months

I confirm that the participant was given an opportunity to ask questions about the study, and all the questions asked by the participant have been answered correctly and to the best of my ability. I confirm that the individual has not been coerced into giving consent, and the consent has been given freely and voluntarily.

Participant Information

The Doll Asexual – Asexuality and Femininity

Research Summary

My research centres on asexuality and practices of femininity as separate from sexualised Western culture and cultural norms. My case study is the Living Doll, Valeria Lukyanova, a self identified asexual who has modified her body to resemble the classic Barbie doll. I am aiming to find out how asexuality and femininity can be divorced from ‘traditional’ paradigms of sexualisation, and how they can be represented in the media through icons such as Lukyanova. I am particularly keen to learn more about how the asexual community sees gender and sexualities as practises or performances.

Participant Involvement

Participants will be given the opportunity to take part in comment-based discussions on Internet forums such as AVEN, discussing a variety of topics regarding my research on asexuality and femininity. Participants will only be required to give their opinion or reactions to the discussions posed, and no personal information will be required. All participants agree that in taking part in the research they have read all the relevant documentation and are over the age of 18.

Should participants express an interest in my research, they are welcome to take part in short email interviews which will go more in depth into the research topic they feel the most strongly about. Participants are in no way obliged to contact me for email interviews.

NOTE: All my research is ethically approved by Coventry University and their ethics board, and my dissertation supervisor will monitor the research throughout the project. Participants are free to withdraw from the project at any time without justification or penalisation. In the event that any kind of personal information is gathered for research purposes, it will be data protected throughout the research and destroyed following the completion of the project.

[littlepersonparadox]

This Project is approved by the PT team.

Littlepersonparadox

PT member.

[alto]

Can a female-bodied, potentially genderqueer person participate too?

[HJAlbone]

Hi Alto, yes anyone can participate! I'm happy to hear from everyone

[dash]

Have you looked at our gender subforum? There is a lot of information there.

I don't really understand your question, "how important is gender in relation to asexuality." If you would like a breakdown of folks on this site by gender identity, that is in the census forum. Are you asking to learn more about the experiences of asexual people by a certain gender (e.g. but not limited to men (both cis and trans), women (both cis and trans), demiboys/demigirls, genderqueer, bigender, nonbinary, agender/neutrois)? There are many threads that cover this on the gender subforum (but you will have to read the gender IDs of people under their userpics, as people of different genders reply to each thread).

Gender and sexual orientation are two unrelated concepts. I don't see how one can be "more important" than another or how they are necessarily "in relation" to one another (though they do intersect). One's gender affects how one is treated in the world, and so being ace and (some gender) may be different from being ace and (some other gender), just like with any other intersectionality (e.g. race, ethnicity, religion, age, national origin, etc.). Like if you had asked, "how important is age in relation to sexuality," I also wouldn't know what to say. I would, however, be able to direct you to subforms and threads for aces of certain age groups. Aces who are 15 and aces who are 50 have some things in common and also some things which are different.

I strongly suggest you go to the threads in the gender subforum if you haven't already, and spend a few hours or more reading what people have already said on this topic, and then coming back here and asking a more specific set of questions. It will be more productive for both you and for us. :)

[Augustus]

I am interested in this, but I don't know if I'm the kind you want to interview for this?

[RhuinHruda]

Do you want my opinion here or did you want to ask specific questions?

[thylacine]

Is this discuss to take place in this space here... or do we have to email back & forth... ?

[HJAlbone]

I'd like to have an open discussion here on the topic, but if you'd prefer to email me about your opinion on the subject line, my email is alboneh@uni.coventry.ac.uk :)

The topic here is quite open, because I feel it's a very hard subject to narrow into specific fields. Do you feel your gender has any impact on your asexuality? Do you feel more able to play with gender and identity because of asexuality?

Thanks again to everyone who is taking part in this thread

[RhuinHruda]

My gender identity is very fixed, so I don't think I'd be very helpful. Despite what my father once "suggested," I have not now nor every wanted to be male. Even though I was a tomboy as a child, it was merely because my interests and friends were in the "male" category. I had trouble as a child relating to other girls purely because of interests and personality styles. My gender has never been a question for me.

My sexuality, however, was a question for a long time, and it wasn't until I realized being Ace was an option that I was able to recognize that's what I was. Being Ace doesn't have an impact on my own gender, but it does leave me the freedom to accept a relationship with someone of any/all/no gender/s. Since sex is off the table, all that matters to me is the emotional and intellectual relationship between us.

I don't think asexuality had any impact on my gender identity, but I can see how it would for others. I think not showing attraction to other human beings gives people leave to question your gender identity, but less then they would question the label of "asexual." I feel a distinct bias towards people of our orientation. When you're "in the closet," people think something is wrong with you for not being more sexually active. When you're out, people seem to either not understand, or in my case, not care. With our culture moving progressively fast in terms of sexual broadcasting (e.g. the media, magazines, TV, conversations, sexual activity), Asexuals face some discrimination for not moving with it. Still, despite the culture becoming more sexually active, and the media becoming more sexually loud, our society still remains fairly close-minded in general. The fantasy of television is accepted, the sexual activity of young adults is tolerated, but most people still want to see the world as two people meet, begin a relationship (sexual or not), get married, have kids. In some sense, despite the nature, gender, race, creed, of the picture of the nuclear family and it's modern impracticality, most people still imagine their lives and others will end with that photograph.