On the Reasons for a Non-Black, Male Ace Person to Write About Anti-Black Racism and Misogyny
It’s all because of the Bible.
It must have been after my second or third read-through of my mother’s immaculately snow white Gideon Bible, a special edition minted for nurses. It was then that my thirteen-year-old brain, marinated in CNN and Cheerios, came up with two incredible, earth-shattering realizations: First, there’s a lot of really unfair, and unjust things happening in the world to people who aren’t me. And second, that makes me feel really bad. Even though those things aren’t happening to me.
In the decades since that cereal-fuelled epiphany, a lot has changed in my life: How I’ve both approached activism, my attitudes about race, poverty, and queerness, and my understanding of the genuine meaning of unfairness and unjustness. But one thing hasn’t changed: A profound, intuitive rejection of discrimination and injustice; a refusal to accept that we can somehow justify or normalize the suffering of marginalized people for the apparent crime of merely existing and trying to make their voices heard.
That ultimately, is what propelled me to write about the intersection of racism, misogyny and asexuality. Not purely out of my own experience with racism in asexual spaces, but out of the anger and frustration I’ve heard in the stories of Black and POC aces and aros who have experienced racism in asexual spaces. I’ve seen these stories briefly acknowledged before our collective gaze turns back toward the ever-present menace of aphobia and cultural invisibility. Only to have the conversation about race come up again. And again. And again.
I write because I want to see more Black, Indigenous and POC voices in our collective ace and aro consciousness, standing alongside disabled aces/aros, and those suffering other marginalizations — especially those of Black, Indigenous and POC women. I write because I want to see a more inclusive ace and aro community, and because I feel that we all have a responsibility to help bring about a better society for aces and aros going forward. I write not with the intent to take the mic away from Black ace and aro women, but with a fierce desire to ask why so many of them are not given the chance to take the stage in the first place.
Under the Umbrella
Asexuality is an umbrella term.
That was arguably one of the key messages that came out of the greater conversation about asexuality in 2021, amidst a resurgence of exclusion against both asexuals and grey asexuals. On one level, this message was brought to the forefront in the mainstream media with articles from outlets such as the BBC, Cosmopolitan, Elle, and InStyle.
For some asexuals however, asexuality still doesn’t feel like an umbrella term. Maybe it never really did to begin with. Instead of representing a community to call home, asexuality may mean something else entirely. Yes, the wider community may proudly use terms like “Ace”, “Asexuality”, or “Asexual Spectrum” as umbrella terms, but that umbrella may not be as all-inclusive as we may first think. After all, an umbrella term doesn’t do much good if its shade provides coverage to only a select few.
This has raised a question that I’ve observed coming up again and again, both in my own thoughts and in my own writing about the exclusion faced by grey asexuals and demisexuals. What is the real point of the asexual community? What is the asexual community actually striving to accomplish?
Being a person of colour myself, and being someone who identifies as demisexual, I’ve personally grappled with these questions both consciously and unconsciously. These questions have never truly loosened their grasp on my thinking about the asexual community. For a long time now, I’ve felt like their answers are what determine the extent to which I — and others I care about — can find belonging and a place in the asexual community…if I can even say that I belong at all.
I found myself grappling with these thoughts as I observed the ace Twitter discourse towards the close of 2021 surrounding Yasmin Benoit, one of the ace community’s more well-known public facing BIPOC female activists. When I witnessed the withering effects of racism taking their toll on their mental health, I started thinking and reading more about the interplay of race, gender, and asexuality. That led me to two pieces of fascinating research about how anti-Blackness and misogyny interact in societal attitudes. The connections that came from my readings led me to wonder about where the ace community is now, and where it will be going in the future.
On Leadership, Femininity and Blackness
How are Black women leaders perceived and evaluated when compared to their male and white counterparts? In 2012, Asheligh Shelby Rosette and Robert W. Livingston published an article that attempted to tackle that question, titled “Failure is not an option for Black women: Effects of organisational performance on leaders with single versus dual-subordinate identities.” (Beverly Tatum defined ‘subordinate identities’ as those that are often sociopolitically marginalised or suffering from negative professional and/or social bias — in this case, being black and female.) Their study focused on a test group, asked to critically examine a purported newspaper article that chronicled either the financial success or lack of success of a corporation. The articles were paired with a photo of a senior executive officer — the corporation’s leader. The photos featured a male or female face that was either white or Black.
The results showed that when the corporation was reported as doing well, each one of the four gender/race types of leader were given a positive evaluation — but Black women received a significantly lower evaluation than white men. When the corporation was reported as not successful, Black women were also given significantly lower evaluations compared to white men and women, and Black men.
In other words, when the organisation was successful, Black women were given far less credit for their success than white men. When the organisation faced failure, Black women were evaluated far more harshly than white men, white women, or Black men. Rosette and Livingston speculated on how this might affect Black women leaders in the real world:
“Black women executives may have to work exceptionally hard to minimise mistakes made on the job as their penalty for doing so may be greater than consequences experienced by White women and Black men…Black women may have to be exceptionally diligent when managing subpar outcomes.”
At first glance, this makes intuitive sense, but the implication is that in workplace settings, Black women in leadership positions have to work significantly harder — and I would argue, disproportionately harder — than their male or white counterparts. Furthermore, Black women face a significantly higher degree of criticism for any perceived mistakes. While this study was done in a corporate context, I don’t see any reason to doubt that this would be just as true for activist or social justice work too.
The bottom line is that Black women — especially those in leadership positions — are the focus of significantly more negative scrutiny when they work in the public eye.
On Misogyny, Activism, Femininity and Blackness
Moya Bailey, is a scholar, writer and activist who is an associate professor at Northwestern University. In her 2010 essay “They aren’t talking about me…”, she coined the word “misogynoir”, defining it as a:
“…word I made up to describe the particular brand of hatred directed at Black women in American visual & popular culture.”
On her blog Gradient Lair (sadly now sunsetted), writer and photographer Trudy further added that that misogynoir was:
“…a word used to describe how racism and anti-Blackness alter the experience of misogyny for Black women, specifically.”
That this would apply to the realm of pop culture and the media, especially in the West, isn’t surprising. One doesn’t have to go very far to see how people have catalogued and discussed the past and present trend of oversexualizing Black women as a means of depriving them of their power and agency. But arguably this sharp negativity towards Black women extends into more arenas than just visual and popular culture; it can also affect the treatment of Black women in social justice activism too.
Stewart M. Coles and Josh Pasek argue in their 2020 article on the double-erasure of Black women that “single-axis” social justice movements (e.g. social justice movements primarily focused on one source of oppression) fail to recognize the unique issues and needs facing Black women. As a result, Black women face erasure on two intersecting levels. First, they are erased by being rolled into Black men as a category — being Black, their issues are thought of in a similar way to how others think of Black men’s issues. Second, they are erased through an over-differentiation from “women” as an overall category. (According to their results, Black women can be perceived as being more “masculine” in their traits.) Coles and Pasek finish their study with an important conclusion:
“…It is therefore imperative that social justice movements work to improve their advocacy for Black women so as not to engage in the same harms toward them that they are charged with combating.”
In wider society, Black women suffer from a compounding effect of both anti-black racism, and misogyny. Not only does it result in Black women having to endure, “a particular brand of hatred”, but it also results in them being potentially erased and ignored by the very same groups who are supposed to champion and support them.
So what do these three pieces have to do with the asexual community? And what does it have to do with asexuality being an umbrella term?
Illegitimate Activism
Yasmin Benoit is a model, which makes her a highly visible public figure in a professional environment where she has to work with major brands and corporations. Ideally, one would think that a person in such a position would be in an excellent place to be an activist for the ace community; Benoit herself has used her privilege to boost the visibility of Black aces and other marginalised ace identities.
Yes, the subject of Pink Capitalism is problematic. But there’s no escaping the fact that in our current capitalist brand- and corporate-dominated culture, recognition or acknowledgement by major brands and corporations have been influential in boosting the acceptance and visibility of queer people. The queer community is apparently not blind to this: After all, major brands like Oreo have been lauded for their inclusivity of lesbian and gay couples.
That hasn’t stopped people from criticizing Benoit’s work with brands and companies like Budweiser UK (which drew controversy for its 2019 London Pride ad campaign, but nevertheless put asexuals and the asexual spectrum squarely in the public eye). One of her white ace critics have even gone so far as to imply that her brand work invalidates her work as visible and public champion for the ace and aro community, rendering her activism work “illegitimate”.
Defying Stereotypes
The theme selected for Ace Week 2021 was “Beyond Awareness”. As Laura Guenzel wrote on aceweek.org:
“…it’s time we look beyond awareness. It’s not enough that people simply know that asexuality exists.”
With an emphasis on combating discrimination (especially in health care and in the legal system) and erasure (especially in discussions of queer history) Ace Week 2021’s goal was clearly to move beyond a focus on the existence and validity of ace identities. A huge part of going “beyond awareness”, to combat discrimination and erasure, is also to break down harmful myths and stereotypes about asexuality and ace identities.
One of the most common myths about asexuality is that ace people are “prudes”. While there is definitely a valid part of the ace community that is sex-averse and/or sex-repulsed, those terms describe how people personally describe their feelings towards the act of sex, whether it be personal engagement in sex (sex-averse), or depictions and discussions of sexual activity (sex-repulsed). However, the asexual = prude myth centers amatonormative and heteronormative ideals of sex. It completely erases the agency of people who refuse to buy into those norms. And furthermore, it reduces their sexual identity to a caricature of a person who, clearly, should dresses in nothing but nun-like conservative “asexual” attire.
In the spirit of Ace Week 2021’s theme, Yasmin Benoit partnered with lingerie brand Playful Promises on the first ever asexual-themed lingerie campaign, featuring Benoit herself. She had this to say about the project:
“…I always saw things like corsets, stockings, big boots and things like that as being integral parts of a cool outfit. I also used to be really into video games and professional wrestling, where the women were always wearing something very akin to lingerie and kicking ass doing it. I guess it made me associate those looks with being powerful, and it was something I wanted to incorporate into my own style. So when I wear it, I feel like I’m channelling that energy. Lingerie is the closest thing you can get to a straight-up superhero outfit without going full Comic-Con…(I) feel like I’m capable of back-flip-karate-kicking a giant man out of an arena.”
For me, that photo shoot and Benoit’s accompanying article sends so many powerful messages, both for ace and aro people, and for society at large. It didn’t just demolish the myth that asexuals are, or have to be, prudes. It showed that identifying as ace can be a bold and powerful way to reclaim one’s own sexual identity, sexual power, and body image. That one can express their sexuality and their asexuality in any way and using any type of clothing they please — especially including lingerie. It sent the loud and clear message that asexuality is sexually empowering. For Benoit, a Black woman, to deliver it further underscores how powerful and important this message is for Black aces/aros and Black ace/aro women.
In my experience, the ace community reacted positively to Benoit and Playful Promises’ lingerie campaign, seeing it for what it was intended to be: a powerful visual statement decisively breaking down one of the asexuality’s most recurring myths.
Others, however, thought differently. Outside of the ace community, the campaign triggered waves of vicious online outrage directed at Benoit. On social media, People who proclaimed that they were feminist activists — the majority of them being older white men and women — accused Benoit of pandering to the male gaze. According to their logic, wasn’t it counterproductive for asexuals to dress up in lingerie in public photos? Instead of seeing the act of dressing in lingerie for one’s own sake to be a sexually liberating and empowering act, they saw it as objectification, and invalidation. In their eyes, to be asexual meant that you couldn’t wear or express yourself however you wanted — you had to, essentially, dress like a nun. For them, Benoit’s photoshoot was at the same time an invalidation of asexuality, a validation of the asexual = prude stereotype, and a condemnation of a Black woman owning their own sexuality in a way that was outside of their approved boundaries.
With such restrictive beliefs and venomous anger, it wasn’t long until connections could be seen between Benoit’s critics and the UK’s notorious TERF/Gender Critical movement. While white and BIPOC aces in community were swift in vocally expressing their support for Benoit, many prominent white ace activists in the ace community appeared to be silent.
Putting it All Together
From what I’ve seen, the criticism levelled at Benoit over her activism work is an excellent example of the effect that Rosette and Livingston outline in their 2012 paper. As a Black woman doing highly visible and public-facing work, her position has sadly invited a degree of negatively critical scrutiny from the ace community that would not have been present if she had been or white, or male.
The backlash Benoit received over her work with Playful Promises is also a powerful example of misogynoir — both through the toxic criticism she received from self-identified white feminists, and the noticeable absence of support from leading and well-known white ace activists. This also connects me back to Cole and Pasek’s article. In broad brushstrokes, the ace community has traditionally placed its singular focus on representation and visibility. In my observations, this has led to the asexual community hyperfocusing on media representation, invisibility and asexual erasure. It’s become more and more clear to me, then, that the ace community as a movement has largely taken on the character of the “single-axis” social justice movements that Cole and Pasek largely spoke of. In so doing, the recognition of the needs and experiences of POC women and Black women in the community have been effectively erased.
The negative scrutiny levelled against Benoit was further compounded by the misogynoir displayed towards her by white aces. One argument made on social media to justify the scrutiny applied to her is that because she is an ace activist leader, she should be held to a higher standard. But on one level, Rosette and Livingston tell us that that standard is going to be unfairly higher and unfairly tougher for a Black woman like Benoit to live up to. On another level, there is the difference between Benoit’s symbolic power and her actual power. Despite Benoit’s visible success on social media and in her public career, she still holds very little systemic privilege as a Black queer woman. In her native UK, for example, Black women are four times more likely to die in childbirth than white women, deal with more barriers to starting their own business, and have more difficulty in accessing supports when faced with domestic abuse, to name but a few examples.
Like Yasmin Benoit, Simone Biles, the Williams sisters and Naomi Osaka are famed figures in their own right. Yet, their experiences show us how high-profile Black women have far less privilege when dealing with a society hyperfixated on their supposed failings.
Benoit’s work has furthered the narrative that being asexual doesn’t equal being a prude; that being asexual means that we can be as sexy as we want to be, and that we can wear whatever we want. That being asexual means being in ownership of one’s own personal sexuality.
There is however something sadly ironic about the opposition and lack of support that Benoit has faced: it sends the message, consciously or not, that ace representation only matters, and is only desirable, when it is not done by a Black woman. The absence of support for Benoit from white ace activists when she was attacked by white TERFs, and the criticism she has received from other white ace activists — on top of the frustration I have encountered in my own personal conversations with other Black and POC ace women — sends another message to would-be future female ace/aro activists and advocates who are Black or come from other racialized backgrounds: your voices are not welcome.
When combined with what looks like the persistent whitewashing of asexuality in the spheres of both social and popular media, it further sends a clear message that ace activism and ace visibility is for white people.
Which leads us to the ultimate conclusion that asexuality as a whole is for white people only. Is this what the ace community really wants?
Expanding Our Awareness
In my personal conversations with other ace Black and POC men and women, I have noticed two common threads: The first is a sense of racial alienation from the greater ace community, and the second is a historical unwillingness or inability for ace groups — largely dominated by white aces — to acknowledge the importance of race and how it plays a key role in the asexual and aromantic experience for so many people in the ace and aro community. This underscores how the asexual community as a “single-axis movement” — through its heavy investment in the singular issue of visibility — is in urgent need of expanding its social awareness to the issue of race and white supremacy.
Some have taken this to imply that the awareness of racism has been raised at the expense of disabled aces. To them, it is as if the ace community has to “pick and choose” what marginalizations it needs to champion. As a disabled and racialized ace person myself, I heartily disagree: the ace community shouldn’t be forced to decide on which axes of oppression are more or less important. We are a group that, in my opinion, should be focused on working towards ace/aro and queer liberation. To that end the ace community can focus on all axes of oppression. There is much room in the ace world for discussions of racism, ablism, mental health discrimination, religious discrimination, and classism, among many others. All can coexist, support and uplift each other. That is the strength that diversity gives the ace community. Believing that discussions of racism comes at the expense of discussions of ableism is not only shortsighted, but also has a chilling effect on the effort to address racial issues in the ace community — and also acts against disabled Black and POC aces/aros.
The alienation and exclusion of Black and POC ace and aro people — especially ace/aro Black women, through erasure and misogynoir — comes at a sharp expense to the ace and aro community. It leads to a weakened and divided community that is less likely to achieve any meaningful, positive change. If the sole purpose of the asexual and aromantic community is visibility, it will do aces and aros no good if we don’t do the greater work to dismantle racism, classism, ablism, amatonormativity and cisheteronormativity.
Towards a Widening of the Umbrella
When I see the controversy that discussions of racism and intersectionality — especially regarding Black ace women — have evoked in the ace and aro community, it leaves me feeling heavy from a cacophony of emotions, from anger to sadness. I feel angry at the continuing pattern of exclusion, silencing and gatekeeping levelled against marginalised people, from a community that is itself doubly-marginalised. I am sad at how the community continues to lose out on opportunities to strengthen and enrich itself, and how BIPOC aces (as well as disabled aces, and other marginalised aces) have suffered the most from it.
In my personal conversations with other Black and POC aces, I’ve seen a recurring theme of separation and erasure between Black/POC aces and white aces; this division was especially impactful in one conversation I had with a Black ace woman. I’ve been left thinking more and more about how Black women are erased in the ace community, and how they’ve experienced the same criticism and absence of support as Benoit.
I also think back to my own experience as a Demisexual in the Asexual community, and Laura Guenzel’s article “5 Defining Moments in Grey-Asexual History” gives me some measure of hope. From the initial raising of awareness of greysexuality to the present, Guenzel draws a clear path starting with the beginnings of the discussion of greysexuality and demisexuality, to the greater asexual community’s acknowledgement and acceptance of grey asexuals and demisexuals. Despite past episodes of vocal exclusion seen from some corners of the community, greysexuality, demisexuality, and all identities inhabiting the asexual and aromantic “grey area” enjoy a greater level of acknowledgement and inclusion and ever before. The ace and aro communities have become a better place for it.
This path isn’t just “possible” for the discussion of race in the asexual community— it’s a necessity. Instead of pushing out Black aro/ace voices, or avoiding the work of confronting racism in asexuality, we can have a community that is willing to challenge its own racial biases and uplift the voices of Black and POC aces and aros. We can have a community that recognizes and celebrates its multi-axis diversity. We can have a community where the asexual umbrella is genuinely all-inclusive. If we’ve been able to make asexuality and aromanticism an umbrella term for people in the grey areas, we can certainly make it a wider umbrella term — a true umbrella term — for BIPOC aces and aros — and not just racialized aces, but disabled aces and aros, religious aces and aros, and all of those who confront multiple levels of socioeconomic and political oppression. Like with grey aces and grey aros, our community only stands to gain when we lift up the voices of those who are the least among us.
I look forward to a future where, like with greysexuals, we can trace a path from these difficult and challenging conversations, to a place where racial diversity and intersectionality is embraced in all its forms among all aces and aros. All it takes is for us to remember that there is truly no liberation for anyone in the ace and aro community, until there is liberation for all of us in the ace and aro community.
I wish to thank all of the people who helped me in the writing and forming of this piece, primarily lacarterwrites, T.Mo, Sarah C., and the other Black and POC ace/aro people who spoke with me. Thank you for sharing your feelings and experiences with me. I also wish to thank Marshall Blount for boldly sharing the truth of his experiences with the wider ace/aro community on social media.
