By Rachel Nevada Wood
As we come to the end of Ace Week, I’ve been thinking a lot about the mental blocks I am holding onto that have prevented me from claiming my asexuality loudly, joyously, and constantly. Most often, these blocks are related to the assumptions I know others will make about me once they know I am asexual. Will they suddenly forget I am a hardworking, capable adult? Will they worry about having mature conversations around me? Will I forever be branded a kid in their minds?
My personal fear of my asexuality marking me as childish is backed by data. In their undergraduate thesis, Julia Prims reported that 69.4% of aces had their identity challenged in some way, typically via infantilization. Sherronda J. Brown, author of Refusing Compulsory Sexuality: A Black Asexual Manifesto, describes infantilization as “a dehumanizing process by which a self-righteous sense of superiority is wielded over someone seen as inferior— assumed to be less mature, more naive, and less worthy of respect.” Infantilization is especially dangerous because it is used as a tool to squash the autonomy of queer, Black, and disabled folks. When someone tells you that you are too young to know you’re queer or that you just haven’t met the right person yet, they are engaging in infantilizing behavior. They are asserting that they know you better than you know yourself.
Since many asexuals are not engaged in sexual relationships, asexuality is particularly prone to infantilization. Again, as Sherronda J. Brown puts it, “sex…continues to be regarded as a rite of passage and a marker of maturity.” Since many asexual people are disinterested in sex, they often are believed to be disinterested in adulthood and its related trappings. This can be viewed as a temporary, almost teenage-like rebellion. Or, as Michael Paramo puts it, “ there’s a sense that an asexual person is a ‘late bloomer’ who will eventually mature out of identifying as asexual or aromantic.”
It can be tempting to respond to this infantilization with assertions of the kinds of maturity we do hold, the ways we are adult in our housing, work, clothing, taste, or family. For example, a single woman who is critiqued for not “settling down” with a partner might use her career as a shield from this kind of criticism. We do this in an attempt to reassert our autonomy and humanity. Sure, I might not engage in sex and romance normatively, but look at all these ways I am conforming!
However, sex and romance are not the only parts of life associated with a strict normative timeline. For example, another common sign of “maturity” in the United States is some form of independent housing. In fact, moving out from your parent’s house into a home of your own is considered an essential step to becoming an adult. So much so, that there’s stigma around dating for folks who continue to live with their parents, regardless of the reason for their cohabitation. This stigma persists whether or not an individual is financially independent, whereas individuals who live on their own receive the benefits of being perceived as independent, even if they are receiving financial support from their families.
This also means that we are not on an equal playing field when it comes to maturity. People are more likely to be able to live on their own if they have the financial support of their parents and aren’t in need of other kinds of support, like the kinds of caretaking done by family members of some disabled folks. In this context, maturity is also more likely to be assigned to white people, since other demographics often have strong cultural practices of staying in the home for longer. Other markers of maturity have their own expected timelines including taste, clothing, and careers. Access to each of these is shaped by race, gender, sexuality, and class.
Thus, if our response to our infantilization is to assert our maturity in other ways— ways that are also shaped by the patriarchal, capitalist society that we live in— then we are simply reinforcing other hierarchies.
This is not to say that you need to alter all of your individual choices. We all must survive in the world we’ve been handed and that can mean trade-offs like wearing a wig to cover your pink hair at work. However, as in any situation, it’s important to consider what hierarchies we might be reinforcing and who we are throwing under the bus to save ourselves.
I have dear friends who need help paying their bills, who lack steady employment, who still live with their parents, and who have unique senses of style that make people stare in the grocery store. Each and every one one of these people is an adult capable of making their own decisions. My sensible shoes and full-time job won’t save me from infantilization or aphobia and I refuse to pretend that they will, especially at the expense of those I love.
So this Ace Week, rather than asserting my maturity, I’d rather begin the hard work of dismantling the chokehold maturity has on me (and on all of us).
References
- Brown, Sherronda J. (2022) Refusing Compulsory Sexuality, North Atlantic Books
- Chen, Angela (2020) Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Society, Desire, and the Meaning of Sex, Beacon Press
- Freeman, Elizabeth (2010) Time Binds, Duke University Press.
- Hogan, Ginny (2021) “The Most Awkward Part of Living With Your Parents as an Adult” The Atlantic
- Paramo, Michael (2024) Ending the Pursuit, Unbound.
- Prims, Julia (2012) “Societal Challenge and Depression, Self-Esteem and Self-Concept Clarity in Asexuals” University of Colorado Boulder.
