Jump to content

Article about Asexuality and Academic Studies on Stanford Website


snowleopard12

Recommended Posts

snowleopard12

I'm a high school student and I like to have unrealistic dreams, so today I was looking at the Stanford website. On their main page they had a link to this article:

http://news.stanford.edu/news/2015/february/asexuality-studies-scholar-022315.html

I think it's pretty great, and I'm glad we've got people like Dr. Cerankowski advancing asexuality as a respected field of academic study. The more people know about us and view asexuality as a valid sexual orientation, the more acceptance I think we'll have, and the easier it will be for all people on the asexual spectrum who are realizing who they are and coming out.




Stanford Report, February 23, 2015
Stanford scholar blazes pathway for academic study of asexuality
Drawing from her research into the growth of asexual communities and queer studies, Stanford lecturer Karli Cerankowski is shedding light on an under-studied and misunderstood facet of human sexuality: asexuality.

BY LEAH STARK


When confronted with the notion of asexuality, most people are baffled by the idea of a life devoid of sexual attraction.

14867-asexuality_news.jpg
Asexual marchers at World Pride Parade Toronto 2014. Stanford lecturer Karli Cerankowski's work has helped make asexuality studies a recognizable academic discipline.


But that's rapidly changing, in society and in academia, thanks in part to Stanford scholarKarli Cerankowski. A lecturer in Stanford'sProgram in Writing and Rhetoric, Cerankowski's research and activism has made strides toward designating asexuality as an academic discipline.

Cerankowski, who received her PhD from Stanford's Program in Modern Thought and Literature last year, emphasizes social discourse and de-pathologization of sexual orientation.

In her dissertation about the ways asexuality is misunderstood in American culture, Cerankowski traced "the history of the creation of sexual categories" through an extensive study of text and media from pop culture as well as historical works, including collections of sexology texts in the Stanford University Libraries.

Cerankowski says that "society has normalized certain levels of sexual desire while pathologizing others. In a sense, it's the social model that's broken, not asexuals."

Although sex and sexuality are centralized, prized aspects of our culture, Cerankowski says that "if we recognize the diversity of human sexuality, then we can understand that there are some people who just don't experience sexual attraction or have a lower sex drive or have less sex, and that doesn't mean there is something wrong with them."

Cerankowski and her co-editor, Megan Milks, recently published Asexualities: Feminist and Queer Perspectives, the first collection of essays on asexuality – and the second book ever to be written on the topic.

Asexualities is academic in its approach, and contributors from a variety of disciplines pursue the subject through scientific, sexological, psychoanalytical and political models.

Science takes a back seat to the human experience in the introduction of the book, where Cerankowski and Milks each share personal anecdotes. Cerankowski details her own perplexing identity journey, spanning her identification as celibate to her establishment in the queer community. She recounts later finding some resonance upon exploring the small world of asexuality, but realizing that current definitions needed to be complicated and the parameters loosened.

Cerankowski's own research reveals that people are capable of obtaining just as much contentment from other areas of life, and complete gratification in life doesn't necessarily include sexual gratification.

"We sort of prioritize sexual pleasure and sexual fulfillment in our lives, but we can think about the other ways that people experience intense pleasure, like when listening to music," Cerankowski says.

Cerankowski's studies of asexuality found their home under the expansive umbrella of queer and sexuality studies, which she says assists in the acceptance of asexuality as a legitimate sexual orientation.

In 2010, Cerankowski and literary scholar Megan Milks speculated on the creation of "asexuality studies" as an academic field in an article they co-authored for Feminist Studies. And now, just five years later, Cerankowski says asexuality studies is becoming more recognizable as an academic field of study.

"We argued in our article, and I still argue, that approaching the study of asexuality from a queer and feminist perspective can be an enriching endeavor," Cerankowski says. "Not only can we use those theoretical and methodological tools to understand and theorize asexuality, but asexuality can also shift those frameworks and get us to think about queerness and sexuality in new and exciting ways."

A vast spectrum of sexuality

A reasonably imaginative mind might consider that since the prefix "a-" means "not," that asexual must mean "not sexual" and that an asexual person is entirely uninterested in sex and love in any capacity.

But as Cerankowski points out, the pluralization of the term in her book's title is no accident, as it aspires to encompass the intricacies involved in the vast spectrum of asexuality, to be compatible with the "more commonly understood model of fluid and multiple sexualities."

Cerankowski cites an independent film, Snow Cake, in which the autistic female protagonist falls somewhere on the complex spectrum of asexuality. The title of the film arises from the intense enjoyment she experiences while eating handfuls of snow. When her friend describes to her the sensation of orgasm, she says something along the lines of, "That sounds like an inferior version of what I feel like when I eat snow!"

As Cerankowski has found, studying and thinking about asexuality brings up broader implications of what pleasure means to the human species.

In one scenario, an asexual person might be married, living with a partner and having regular intercourse. This person might be a romantic asexual, meaning someone who experiences strong, intimate and romantic feelings for another person but engages in sexual behavior only for procreative purposes or as a means of experiencing intimacy.

Another scenario might involve an a-romantic asexual, who is completely uninterested in romantic attachment or sexual encounters altogether, but finds satisfaction in other arenas of life. To debunk a common myth about sexuality, this a-romantic, asexual person is not necessarily any less fulfilled than a person with romantic and sexual drive.

The next frontier

Cerankowski's work raises the question: Why is now the ideal time for recognition of the asexual community and of asexuality as an orientation? Cerankowski points to the recent evolution of asexuality acceptance as the next natural step in equal rights.

In addition to publishing the groundbreaking Asexualities, Cerankowski has been a member of the National Women's Studies Association (NWSA) for four years, and has witnessed growth in the community of scholars working on asexuality. The spike in the topic's visibility within the NWSA is largely due to the emergence of the Asexuality Studies Interest Group, pioneered by Cerankowski and her colleagues.

However, much as homosexuality was once consistently pathologized by the public, the asexual community faces similar contention.

In Cerankowski's words, "There's a whole history we're building upon with feminist movements, with queer movements and LGBT politics that have really established a ground on which people can think about sexuality in different ways. Asexuality seems like the next frontier for that reframing of sexuality."

Cerankowski points to the countless forums, blogs and YouTube channels that provide platforms for open discussion of the topic.

While Cerankowski's research has done much to shed light on asexuality, she says there's still much more to be understood: "What I imagine being the next step for my research would be to look through some of those medical and sexological histories and trace a kind of genealogy."

Media Contact
Corrie Goldman, director of humanities communication: (650) 724-8156, corrieg@stanford.edu

Dan Stober, Stanford News Service: (650) 721-6965, dstober@stanford.edu

Link to post
Share on other sites

That is very interesting. Great asexual's are getting the recognition they deserve. Next will be the other sexualities that fall under the asexual umbrella.

Link to post
Share on other sites
Dodecahedron314

I'm a high school student and I like to have unrealistic dreams, so today I was looking at the Stanford website. On their main page they had a link to this article:

http://news.stanford.edu/news/2015/february/asexuality-studies-scholar-022315.html

I think it's pretty great, and I'm glad we've got people like Dr. Cerankowski advancing asexuality as a respected field of academic study. The more people know about us and view asexuality as a valid sexual orientation, the more acceptance I think we'll have, and the easier it will be for all people on the asexual spectrum who are realizing who they are and coming out.

Stanford's not unrealistic! People get in every year, just not a lot of them. Just do well academically and have extracurriculars to prove you're not a robot (or if you are, that at least you're an outgoing robot), and you'll have the best chance you can possibly have of getting in. (Fun fact: I'll actually never know whether I got into Stanford or not. I applied through a ranking program and it was 4th on my list, but I got into a school that was higher up and so the way the program works means I was automatically committed to go there instead and had to withdraw all my other applications. So I could well have gotten into Stanford, but I'll just never know.)

Anyway, back to the topic at hand. Realizing my asexuality was actually what got me thinking about taking gender/sexuality courses in college, because I came to realize thanks to the magic of the internet that there's such a huge diversity of people out there that the majority of the population somehow ignores, and I feel like there needs to be more understanding of all these different ways people relate to themselves and others. I just find all the different ways people are to be really interesting, and I think it's way past time asexuality was more recognized as part of that diversity. I have to wonder how many people out there are actually asexual, but think they're something else, just because they've never heard of it, because that seems to be a pretty common experience from what I've seen.

Cerankowski says that "society has normalized certain levels of sexual desire while pathologizing others. In a sense, it's the social model that's broken, not asexuals. "

YESSSSSSS YES YES 1000X YES. So. Important. This is the best articulation of this I've ever seen. I just...wow. I didn't expect myself to react so strongly to that, but I did. This is the sentence I never knew I needed.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Stanford... like, wow, dude. That might make society take us seriously.

Link to post
Share on other sites
Metaparadox

I was considering posting about this article, but someone else did first! I'm a Stanford student myself so I was super excited to see this when I logged onto a campus computer and immediately shared it to Facebook. Dr. Cerankowski is the real deal and actually cares about the ace community. I've met Dr. Cerankowski when they came to speak at a class I was taking (FEMST 140A: Destroying Dichotomies, which has a week devoted to asexuality). Now that Stanford is taking asexuality seriously, a lot more people will take it seriously.

Link to post
Share on other sites
Metaparadox

Also: regarding "unrealistic dreams". When I was applying to schools I thought there was no way I'd get into Stanford, but applied anyway even though I didn't expect to get in. The only penalty to applying is losing the application fee, and there's financial aid for that, so go ahead and apply if you're really interested in Stanford. You do have to have pretty good grades, but not everyone is the stereotypical genius Microsoft intern who volunteers building schools in Africa (they do exist, but the don't rub it in your face.) I went to a small public high school and only ever took one AP class and didn't have any job or internship experience and I managed to get in.

Link to post
Share on other sites
snowleopard12

Glad everyone likes it!

Dodecahedron314: I totally agree with you. I wonder how many other aces there are out there who don't think of themselves that way. I also think that asexual is a word we use to describe ourselves, and if someone who we may consider asexual is fine without using it, that's cool too. I just wish we had more visibility to help those people who would identify as ace find out about it sooner. I think I would have been a lot less confused for awhile if I'd known about asexuality as a sexual orientation sooner.

Metaparadox: Tell me more! I'm definitely applying (when the time comes--I'm a sophomore now) and I'll work really hard on my application and everything, but I'm wondering if there's anything I should look into doing now or exploring further to help my chances of getting in. I go to a pretty big, competitive public high school, and we have soooo many APs offered, for us it isn't "are you taking APs this year?" it's "How many APs are you taking this year?"

Link to post
Share on other sites
Dodecahedron314

Glad everyone likes it!

Dodecahedron314: I totally agree with you. I wonder how many other aces there are out there who don't think of themselves that way. I also think that asexual is a word we use to describe ourselves, and if someone who we may consider asexual is fine without using it, that's cool too. I just wish we had more visibility to help those people who would identify as ace find out about it sooner. I think I would have been a lot less confused for awhile if I'd known about asexuality as a sexual orientation sooner.

Metaparadox: Tell me more! I'm definitely applying (when the time comes--I'm a sophomore now) and I'll work really hard on my application and everything, but I'm wondering if there's anything I should look into doing now or exploring further to help my chances of getting in. I go to a pretty big, competitive public high school, and we have soooo many APs offered, for us it isn't "are you taking APs this year?" it's "How many APs are you taking this year?"

Whatever you do, don't let the competition get to you. DO NOT take more APs than you can handle. I'm an IB student, which is basically like taking every single class at beyond AP level, and candidly, it sucks. Granted, I got into an awesome school with a full ride, but I get the feeling that I could have had a fighting chance at getting in anyway if I'd just taken some AP courses instead and not had to worry about working myself to death (almost literally, depression is awful) in courses I frankly couldn't care less about. Don't take APs just for their own sake--if it's a class you don't genuinely like and you're just taking it so it'll look good on your transcript, drop it like it's on fire because with very few exceptions, you're just spinning your wheels for something that very well might not make much of a difference, especially if you can replace it with an AP you actually like (it's good that there are lots available though, because you should have a better chance of finding good ones). Know your limits, and remember that your mental health is more important than your GPA weight. And if you have something extracurricular that you really love, think very very carefully before you consider dropping it in favor of more academics--if it wasn't for band, I don't know where I'd be.

tl;dr: You can do it! Just don't be me.

Signed, a somewhat jaded senior counting down the days until graduation

Link to post
Share on other sites
snowleopard12

I'm so sorry if you're not feeling well...I've totally been there, and I hope that you are able to relax some now that's second semester (maybe? You might still have AP exams coming up, like me).

You are being so reasonable in your advice to me, though! :) I'm really glad my school has lots of options, but then I think that leads to me wanting to take more classes than I have time for! I'll manage to narrow it down somehow, though. I do music outside of school, too, and I wish I had more time for it...my parents don't really put the same amount of emphasis on it that I think I do, since there's no way I'm going to do it professionally (and I'd rather do something else, anyway), and sports can get in the way. Fweh! Is your main issue with IB the course load, or all the extra commitments that come along with it, like all the essays? I think that next year I'll be taking a lot if APs I'm interested in anyway, but of course i have to take the required classes: English and US History. I need the US History credit to graduate, and most juniors take it as an AP.

Were you involved in a lot of stuff outside of class and band, too?

Link to post
Share on other sites

love this bit "In a sense, it's the social model that's broken, not asexuals." she hits the nail right on the head!

Link to post
Share on other sites
Dodecahedron314

I'm so sorry if you're not feeling well...I've totally been there, and I hope that you are able to relax some now that's second semester (maybe? You might still have AP exams coming up, like me).

You are being so reasonable in your advice to me, though! :) I'm really glad my school has lots of options, but then I think that leads to me wanting to take more classes than I have time for! I'll manage to narrow it down somehow, though. I do music outside of school, too, and I wish I had more time for it...my parents don't really put the same amount of emphasis on it that I think I do, since there's no way I'm going to do it professionally (and I'd rather do something else, anyway), and sports can get in the way. Fweh! Is your main issue with IB the course load, or all the extra commitments that come along with it, like all the essays? I think that next year I'll be taking a lot if APs I'm interested in anyway, but of course i have to take the required classes: English and US History. I need the US History credit to graduate, and most juniors take it as an AP.

Were you involved in a lot of stuff outside of class and band, too?

That first post kinda turned into a rant, sorry about that--the thing about IB is that you have things like Internal Assessments (presentations, projects, absurdly long essays) for every single class, and all of these things of course are due right around the same time of year, which is...somewhere around now. You also have a community service project you have to spend at least 150 hours on between junior and senior year combined, so there's also that on top of your regular class load. And if you're in a small, underfunded school like mine, teachers are basically whoever the administration can cajole into getting an IB certification, meaning that sometimes you wind up with teachers who assign way too much work for classes that really shouldn't require that much, or practically no work for classes that really should. So perhaps it's more my particular situation than IB itself, I don't know. Oh, and AP exams aren't even the worst of my problems--IB exams are a thing that exists. Meaning I have three solid weeks of exams in May, because you have at least two exams for each class (usually three) spread out over multiple days. Wheeeee.

Yeah, I don't really know how well my original post said it, but if there are AP classes that you like, then by all means, go for it! It's the ones you don't like that you have to watch out for.

In all honesty, IB and band are basically what constitute my life right now, especially with the inefficient teaching I mentioned before and the fact that I'm a section leader for the biggest section in the band (and our competition is on Friday...). Community service is a big one too that overlaps with both of those, because of my IB project, all the band stuff I get lassoed into thanks to my friend's project, and National Honor Society. The only other club I have that doesn't fall into anything previously mentioned is Future Problem Solving, which is a sort of futuristic writing thing where you get a scenario that could possibly happen, then have to pick out challenges from that, choose the most important one, think up solutions for that, figure out which solution is the best, and write an action plan for that one. It sounds like a lot of work, but the whole competition is only two hours, minus skits for the action plans, which thankfully you don't have to do if you're an individual writer as opposed to being on a team. States for that is in a couple of weeks, and I did pretty well last year so of course my coach is expecting me to take first place this year. :blink: no pressure...

Link to post
Share on other sites

Cerankowski says that "society has normalized certain levels of sexual desire while pathologizing others. In a sense, it's the social model that's broken, not asexuals."

that was the best part.

Link to post
Share on other sites
Metaparadox

Glad everyone likes it!

Dodecahedron314: I totally agree with you. I wonder how many other aces there are out there who don't think of themselves that way. I also think that asexual is a word we use to describe ourselves, and if someone who we may consider asexual is fine without using it, that's cool too. I just wish we had more visibility to help those people who would identify as ace find out about it sooner. I think I would have been a lot less confused for awhile if I'd known about asexuality as a sexual orientation sooner.

Metaparadox: Tell me more! I'm definitely applying (when the time comes--I'm a sophomore now) and I'll work really hard on my application and everything, but I'm wondering if there's anything I should look into doing now or exploring further to help my chances of getting in. I go to a pretty big, competitive public high school, and we have soooo many APs offered, for us it isn't "are you taking APs this year?" it's "How many APs are you taking this year?"

Colleges will probably evaluate you based on what options you had available to you and which you took advantage of. In your case it is probably better to take more AP classes, as long as you can handle them and aren't taking them solely because they are AP. And don't let it keep you from taking classes you love, even if they aren't at the AP or honors level (like a film studies class I took my senior year, which led to working with a documentary filmmaker, which looked good on my app and was something I really enjoyed doing.) I went to a small rural public high school that only offered 4 AP classes. They did, however, offer other AP tests, which people in certain classes could take, but it meant studying outside of the materials taught in the non-AP classes (I did this for my honors US History class in my Junior year and got a 5.) I had to self-study about the years of US history we didn't get to in class. It was also the case with taking SAT subject tests, which are often required by presitigous universities. The material in the subject tests wasn't covered in some of my honors classes (like my honors chemistry class, which covered maybe 2/3 of what was in the subject test, so I had to study the remaining 1/3 on my own.) Luckily for you, you probably won't have this problem, since the AP classes are available.

My lack of access to transportation (I can't drive and my family only has one car and there is no public transportation) was related to why I didn't have job experience or as much volunteering experience as the typical applicant, so that was probably taken into account, as well as what extracurriculars (or lack thereof) were available at my school. I did quiz bowl, volunteered at my school (the class advisor was a family friend so she drove me to and from the volunteer events), created and ran the website for the literary magazine, and participated in a few academic competitions where I won prizes. These were my main extracurriculars. I also was on my Junior class council (and the prom committee, even though I'm the least prom-y person ever and didn't even go with a date), as well as the National Honor Society (which didn't really do much, it was more of just a symbol at my school, not something participated in. It mostly meant going to a few awards ceremonies and getting to wear the sash at graduation.)

It's probably also significant that I come from a demographic not as well represented at Stanford (rural New England, and not the rich part, and I'm latina, and showed a strong interest in STEM.) Students from California probably have a harder time getting in, since so many more apply, as well as those from big, competitive schools with a history of sending students to prestigious universities.

Full disclosure: I was my high school valedictorian, but don't let that discourage you. My class only had about 120 people in it, at a school mostly known for its agricultural education program. Not everyone at Stanford is a valedictorian or salutatorian, especially if they come from competitive high schools.

Other advice: It's never too early to practice writing application essays. My Common App essay was one I wrote for an English class assignment to write practice essays. Look into what AP credit is taken by schools you are interested in. Stanford doesn't accept credit from a lot of APs (mostly humanities). Those that are accepted tend to be for the sciences and math. Don't take classes you hate unless they are required because they may drag you down. It isn't worth it. High school is stressful enough. For the love of gawd, don't wait until the last minute to fill out the apps. I had the most miserable, terrifying winter break of my life when I was trying to do like 11 different apps in the last days before the deadlines. All I did was sleep, eat, and fill out apps. Also, doing something original that you really care about will probably look better on apps than just lists of extracurriculars participated in (remember, application readers go through literally thousands of apps, so something outside of the norm is more likely to stand out in their mind.) And look up common application essay cliches and avoid them like the plague. Don't be afraid to write something unusual. One of my essays for the University of Chicago app (I was accepted) was about webcomics and why online comic communities were exciting to me. You know what an interesting topic would be? Asexuality!

Link to post
Share on other sites
snowleopard12

Thanks, Metaparadox! All great advice. I think I'm definitely taking more APs than the average sophomore, but sometimes it's discouraging when freshmen are in your calc AB/BC class and taking AP Chinese or something. But I'm definitely going to try and go for the classes I'm interested in...I'm just a bit worried about scheduling, too. So, I'm definitely not set to be valedictorian or salutatorian, but I'm in the top 10%, and my ranking went up after this first semester because the first semester of calc got factored in as an AP.

I feel like I'm involved, but I just don't think what I have is original. I have sports and music, and other things here and there, but mostly it's just that I'm fairly well-rounded and have good grades. I did just get accepted into the National Honor Society. I'd like to do something that will really stand out, but I'm wondering what I should try. I've actually been thinking about trying to do meetups for asexual teens in my area, and that's something I'd really love organizing regardless of whether or not it ever goes on any application or resume. I hope that people would be interested in that, I don't really know, what do you think?

I may even be at a different school next year (the North Carolina School of Science and Math, if I get in--we find out in April), and that would impact a lot of things. I don't know if they have a Gay-Straight Alliance there, but if they don't, I'll start one! Even though I'm not gay or straight, lol.

I had some practice writing an app when I applied to Science and Math, so we'll see how successful I am. You're right, though, more practice would definitely be a good idea. And who knows...I wrote my SAT essay on asexuality this year and got a 12!

Link to post
Share on other sites
Metaparadox

Thanks, Metaparadox! All great advice. I think I'm definitely taking more APs than the average sophomore, but sometimes it's discouraging when freshmen are in your calc AB/BC class and taking AP Chinese or something. But I'm definitely going to try and go for the classes I'm interested in...I'm just a bit worried about scheduling, too. So, I'm definitely not set to be valedictorian or salutatorian, but I'm in the top 10%, and my ranking went up after this first semester because the first semester of calc got factored in as an AP.

I feel like I'm involved, but I just don't think what I have is original. I have sports and music, and other things here and there, but mostly it's just that I'm fairly well-rounded and have good grades. I did just get accepted into the National Honor Society. I'd like to do something that will really stand out, but I'm wondering what I should try. I've actually been thinking about trying to do meetups for asexual teens in my area, and that's something I'd really love organizing regardless of whether or not it ever goes on any application or resume. I hope that people would be interested in that, I don't really know, what do you think?

I may even be at a different school next year (the North Carolina School of Science and Math, if I get in--we find out in April), and that would impact a lot of things. I don't know if they have a Gay-Straight Alliance there, but if they don't, I'll start one! Even though I'm not gay or straight, lol.

I had some practice writing an app when I applied to Science and Math, so we'll see how successful I am. You're right, though, more practice would definitely be a good idea. And who knows...I wrote my SAT essay on asexuality this year and got a 12!

Wow. AP calc as a freshman?! That's basically impossible at my old high school. Because of a guidance counselor error I didn't even get to take calculus in high school. My school was the kind of school that got rid of the computer science classes (and the entire home ec department) and spent the money they saved on a new gym floor...

And I think organizing ace meetups or ace education events in your area would be a great idea!

Link to post
Share on other sites
snowleopard12

Aw, I'm sorry! Yeah, there's a middle school in my area with a precalc class, and some people take it over the summer.

Thanks! I think I'm going to go for it.

Link to post
Share on other sites
  • 4 weeks later...

http://scopeblog.stanford.edu/2015/03/06/asexuality-that-doesnt-mean-there-is-something-wrong/

Asexuality: That doesnt mean there is something wrong

Andrea Ford on March 6th, 2015

As a scholar with ties in both humanities and medicine, Im always interested when those realms intersect. Medical understanding of sexuality has been heavily influenced by social science and humanities research, and now a new frontier in sexuality studies, asexuality, is being pioneered at Stanford.

Karli Cerankowski, PhD, who graduated from Stanfords Program in Modern Thought and Literature last year and is a lecturer in Stanfords Program in Writing and Rhetoric, is working on broadening our perception of healthy sexuality by including lower levels of sexual or romantic desire. Her work, recently spotlighted by Stanford News, traces people who might now identify as asexual through historical and pop cultural works, analyzing how they and society have interacted. Shes quoted in the Stanford News piece as saying that society has normalized certain levels of sexual desire while pathologizing others. In a sense, its the social model thats broken, not asexuals.

Asexuality is a very new field of study, which exists under the wide umbrella of sexuality and gender studies. Cerankowski and her co-editor, Megan Milks, recently published the second book ever to be written on the topic. Thinking about the ways people experience their sexuality, desire, and gender informs how science and medicine understand optimal human health. Although sex and sexuality occupy a prominent place in our cultures understanding of bodies, they are not prominent for every individual.

Cerankowski, again quoted in Stanford News, says:

If we recognize the diversity of human sexuality, then we can understand that there are some people who just dont experience sexual attraction or have a lower sex drive or have less sex, and that doesnt mean there is something wrong with them We sort of prioritize sexual pleasure and sexual fulfillment in our lives, but we can think about the other ways that people experience intense pleasure, like when listening to music.

Pleasure and desire are important aspects of being human, but they dont have to be tied to sex, or even to romance. On the wide spectrum of asexuality, there is room for those who engage neither in sex nor romance, as well as those who enjoy a romantic partnership and may engage in sex for reasons other than personal desire. This spectrum intersects with other aspects of sexuality that have also, though activism, become recognized as spectrums: sexual orientation, sexual identification, and gender identification.

Link to post
Share on other sites

http://www.futurity.org/asexual-asexuality-863042/

IS ASEXUALITY ON THE ROAD TO ACCEPTANCE?

Posted by Stanford on February 24, 2015

Most people find the idea of asexuality, a life free of sexual attraction, baffling at first. But that’s changing, according to the editor of a new book on the topic.

“Society has normalized certain levels of sexual desire while pathologizing others,” says Karli Cerankowski, a lecturer in Stanford University’s Program in Writing and Rhetoric.

“In a sense, it’s the social model that’s broken, not asexuals.”

Although sex and sexuality are centralized, prized aspects of our culture, Cerankowski says that “if we recognize the diversity of human sexuality, then we can understand that there are some people who just don’t experience sexual attraction or have a lower sex drive or have less sex, and that doesn’t mean there is something wrong with them.”

Cerankowski and her co-editor, Megan Milks, recently published Asexualities: Feminist and Queer Perspectives (Routledge 2014), the first collection of essays on asexuality—and the second book ever to be written on the topic.

Contributors from a variety of disciplines pursue the subject through scientific, sexological, psychoanalytical, and political models.

PLEASURE WITHOUT SEX

Cerankowski’s own research reveals that people are capable of obtaining just as much contentment from other areas of life, and complete gratification in life doesn’t necessarily include sexual gratification.

“We sort of prioritize sexual pleasure and sexual fulfillment in our lives, but we can think about the other ways that people experience intense pleasure, like when listening to music,” Cerankowski says.

Cerankowski’s studies of asexuality found their home under the expansive umbrella of queer and sexuality studies, which she says assists in the acceptance of asexuality as a legitimate sexual orientation.

In Cerankowski’s dissertation on the ways asexuality is misunderstood in American culture, she traces “the history of the creation of sexual categories” through an extensive study of text and media from pop culture as well as historical works, including collections of sexology texts in the Stanford University Libraries. She received her PhD from Stanford’s Program in Modern Thought and Literature last year.

A ‘VAST SPECTRUM’

The prefix “a-” means “not,” and so some might mistakenly assume that asexual must mean “not sexual” and that all asexual people are entirely uninterested in sex and love in any capacity.

But, as Cerankowski points out, the plural in the book’s title is no accident. They use the plural to evoke the intricacies involved in the vast spectrum of asexuality, to be compatible with the “more commonly understood model of fluid and multiple sexualities.”

As Cerankowski has found, studying and thinking about asexuality brings up broader implications of what pleasure means to humans.

In one scenario, an asexual person might be married, living with a partner, and having regular intercourse. This person might be a romantic asexual, meaning someone who experiences strong, intimate, and romantic feelings for another person but engages in sexual behavior only for procreative purposes or as a means of experiencing intimacy.

Another scenario might involve an a-romantic asexual, who is completely uninterested in romantic attachment or sexual encounters altogether, but finds satisfaction in other arenas of life. And, to debunk a common myth about sexuality, this a-romantic, asexual person is not necessarily any less fulfilled than a person with romantic and sexual drive.

RIGHTS AND RECOGNITION

Cerankowski’s work raises the question: why is now the ideal time for recognition of the asexual community and of asexuality as an orientation? Cerankowski points to the recent evolution of asexuality acceptance as the next natural step in equal rights.

Much as homosexuality was once consistently pathologized by the public, though, the asexual community faces similar contention.

“There’s a whole history we’re building upon with feminist movements, with queer movements and LGBT politics that have really established a ground on which people can think about sexuality in different ways,” says Cerankowski. “Asexuality seems like the next frontier for that reframing of sexuality.”

Cerankowski points to the countless forums, blogs, and YouTube channels that provide platforms for open discussion of the topic.

While Cerankowski’s research has done much to shed light on asexuality, she says there’s still much more to be understood: “What I imagine being the next step for my research would be to look through some of those medical and sexological histories and trace a kind of genealogy.”

Source: Leah Stark for Stanford University

Similar: http://medicalxpress.com/news/2015-02-asexuality.html

Shedding light on asexuality

February 24, 2015 by Leah Stark

When confronted with the notion of asexuality, most people are baffled by the idea of a life devoid of sexual attraction.

But that's rapidly changing, in society and in academia, thanks in part to Stanford scholar Karli Cerankowski. A lecturer in Stanford's Program in Writing and Rhetoric, Cerankowski's research and activism has made strides toward designating asexuality as an academic discipline.

Cerankowski, who received her PhD from Stanford's Program in Modern Thought and Literature last year, emphasizes social discourse and de-pathologization of sexual orientation.

In her dissertation about the ways asexuality is misunderstood in American culture, Cerankowski traced "the history of the creation of sexual categories" through an extensive study of text and media from pop culture as well as historical works, including collections of sexology texts in the Stanford University Libraries.

Cerankowski says that "society has normalized certain levels of sexual desire while pathologizing others. In a sense, it's the social model that's broken, not asexuals."

Although sex and sexuality are centralized, prized aspects of our culture, Cerankowski says that "if we recognize the diversity of human sexuality, then we can understand that there are some people who just don't experience sexual attraction or have a lower sex drive or have less sex, and that doesn't mean there is something wrong with them."

Cerankowski and her co-editor, Megan Milks, recently published Asexualities: Feminist and Queer Perspectives, the first collection of essays on asexuality – and the second book ever to be written on the topic.

Asexualities is academic in its approach, and contributors from a variety of disciplines pursue the subject through scientific, sexological, psychoanalytical and political models.

Science takes a back seat to the human experience in the introduction of the book, where Cerankowski and Milks each share personal anecdotes. Cerankowski details her own perplexing identity journey, spanning her identification as celibate to her establishment in the queer community. She recounts later finding some resonance upon exploring the small world of asexuality, but realizing that current definitions needed to be complicated and the parameters loosened.

Cerankowski's own research reveals that people are capable of obtaining just as much contentment from other areas of life, and complete gratification in life doesn't necessarily include sexual gratification.

"We sort of prioritize sexual pleasure and sexual fulfillment in our lives, but we can think about the other ways that people experience intense pleasure, like when listening to music," Cerankowski says.

Cerankowski's studies of asexuality found their home under the expansive umbrella of queer and sexuality studies, which she says assists in the acceptance of asexuality as a legitimate sexual orientation.

In 2010, Cerankowski and literary scholar Megan Milks speculated on the creation of "asexuality studies" as an academic field in an article they co-authored for Feminist Studies. And now, just five years later, Cerankowski says asexuality studies is becoming more recognizable as an academic field of study.

"We argued in our article, and I still argue, that approaching the study of asexuality from a queer and feminist perspective can be an enriching endeavor," Cerankowski says. "Not only can we use those theoretical and methodological tools to understand and theorize asexuality, but asexuality can also shift those frameworks and get us to think about queerness and sexuality in new and exciting ways."

A vast spectrum of sexuality

A reasonably imaginative mind might consider that since the prefix "a-" means "not," that asexual must mean "not sexual" and that an asexual person is entirely uninterested in sex and love in any capacity.

But as Cerankowski points out, the pluralization of the term in her book's title is no accident, as it aspires to encompass the intricacies involved in the vast spectrum of asexuality, to be compatible with the "more commonly understood model of fluid and multiple sexualities."

Cerankowski cites an independent film, Snow Cake, in which the autistic female protagonist falls somewhere on the complex spectrum of asexuality. The title of the film arises from the intense enjoyment she experiences while eating handfuls of snow. When her friend describes to her the sensation of orgasm, she says something along the lines of, "That sounds like an inferior version of what I feel like when I eat snow!"

As Cerankowski has found, studying and thinking about asexuality brings up broader implications of what pleasure means to the human species.

In one scenario, an asexual person might be married, living with a partner and having regular intercourse. This person might be a romantic asexual, meaning someone who experiences strong, intimate and romantic feelings for another person but engages in sexual behavior only for procreative purposes or as a means of experiencing intimacy.

Another scenario might involve an a-romantic asexual, who is completely uninterested in romantic attachment or sexual encounters altogether, but finds satisfaction in other arenas of life. To debunk a common myth about sexuality, this a-romantic, asexual person is not necessarily any less fulfilled than a person with romantic and sexual drive.

The next frontier

Cerankowski's work raises the question: Why is now the ideal time for recognition of the asexual community and of asexuality as an orientation? Cerankowski points to the recent evolution of asexuality acceptance as the next natural step in equal rights.

In addition to publishing the groundbreaking Asexualities, Cerankowski has been a member of the National Women's Studies Association (NWSA) for four years, and has witnessed growth in the community of scholars working on asexuality. The spike in the topic's visibility within the NWSA is largely due to the emergence of the Asexuality Studies Interest Group, pioneered by Cerankowski and her colleagues.

However, much as homosexuality was once consistently pathologized by the public, the asexual community faces similar contention.

In Cerankowski's words, "There's a whole history we're building upon with feminist movements, with queer movements and LGBT politics that have really established a ground on which people can think about sexuality in different ways. Asexuality seems like the next frontier for that reframing of sexuality."

Cerankowski points to the countless forums, blogs and YouTube channels that provide platforms for open discussion of the topic.

While Cerankowski's research has done much to shed light on asexuality, she says there's still much more to be understood: "What I imagine being the next step for my research would be to look through some of those medical and sexological histories and trace a kind of genealogy."

Link to post
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
×
×
  • Create New...