Two years ago I published a post with the title “And now for the asexuals… : Ceaseless labelling in Gender Studies” (15 March 2015). This was inspired by the draft of a chapter in a PhD dissertation, which I was asked to assess. Yesterday I had the pleasure of sitting on the board for the finished dissertation, presented by its author (and new doctor), Petra Filopová (http://kaa.ff.upjs.sk/en/people/159/petra-filipova). During the viva and afterwards over lunch I had a lively exchange with Dr. Filipová on the difficulties of connecting asexuality with other labels used in the past; indeed, she defines this identity as a “new sexuality”, which very much puzzles me. Hence my post today.

As I explained in my 2015 post on this issue, asexuals have made a point of clarifying that they are neither celibate nor frigid. Celibacy is seen as a repression of sexuality willingly chosen by the individual concerned, whereas frigidity is understood to be a sexual disorder that causes distress to sufferers. Asexuality, let me stress this, is the identity embraced by persons who feel no sexual desire but are not distressed by the situation–they feel simply normal and reject both their medicalization and their pathologization. As Petra Filipová argued, many problems beset asexuals: their lack of public visibility, the disrespect poured on them when they announce their identity, the absurd idea that heterosexual romance can ‘cure’ asexuality and, above all, the rampant presence of sex in all aspects of our private and public lives. The point she is raising is that, precisely, this obsession with sex (booming since the 1960s) is what conditions the appearance of asexuality as a new identity and label in the late 20th century and early 21st century.

This posits a problem similar to the one elicited by the introduction of the new label ‘homosexual’ in 1869: how do we define the identity of persons who engaged in the sexual practices that currently define homosexuality before the word even existed? Some believe that homosexuality has always existed as an identity, regardless of its previous invisibility and diverse labelling, whereas others believe that the emergence of the label created the identity: what used to be defined clinically as a perversion and/or abnormality, was eventually transformed into a positive, normalized identity. Following the same line of thinking, I asked Petra whether she believed that there have always been asexual people adapting themselves to whatever social constructions of sex and gender where available to them. She replied that she was not quite sure we could call them asexual since, as happened with homosexuals in the past, they would not self-identify themselves as such, lacking the label. This is a singular conundrum…

I’d like now to consider celibacy, though I’ll leave frigidity aside (what an ugly word…). I often have to explain to students in my Victorians Literature class that one of the most serious obstacles we face to understand the Victorians is that we characterize them as sexually repressed because we apply to them our own (inconsistent) rules about sexuality. As Michel Foucault admiringly explained, the Victorians, far from being repressed, gave sex a great deal of thought and basically invented the labelling system we are still so keen on. The catalogue of perversions that Victorian doctors and psychologists came up with was actually a major step forward since it was their intention to liberate sex from the taint of sinning and the authority of religion. Leaving the so-called perversions aside, it seems plain that the Victorians had other rules than ours for sex, so different that we simply cannot make sense of their lives. Celibacy is, in this sense, a major bone of contention.

We tend to connect celibacy with priests and nuns and see it as an unnatural choice that leads to the criminal abuse perpetrated by many Catholic priests against children. Protestants, allegedly more attuned to the needs of the body, allow their male and female priests to marry; they have no nuns. However, it seems to me that religious celibacy actually confirms the impression that (as a quotation in Petra’s dissertation claimed), the more sex you have, the more you need it; the less sex you have, the less you need it. Celibacy, by the way–as I learned from the excellent, very scary documentary Deliver us from Evil (2006) –was implemented by the official Church as a way to make sure that Church property would not be lost to the children of priests. What occurs to me is that the Catholic Church may also have been a welcome refuge for male and female asexuals uninterested in forming a family. Yet we always think, for this is how our times work, that giving up sex is a major sacrifice for a person. Indeed, many priests and nuns have abandoned their habits and we suspect all the others of secretly engaging in homosexual acts. Yet there might be another truth hidden behind religious celibacy, Catholic or otherwise, if so many people consider it worthwhile to follow the call of divinity…

This connects with my recent realization that in the 19th century (both in Britain and in Spain as far as I can see) celibacy was often a synonym for singlehood. In our modern view being single is no obstacle at all to practice sex, quite the opposite: we think that marriage kills sex. But in the past, when sex was connected mainly with reproduction, many men and women lived openly as bachelors and spinsters, making thus a public declaration of their celibacy. I know what you’re thinking: many Victorian spinsters were actually unhappy old maids who had failed to catch a husband; many Victorian bachelors were far from celibate, using the services of the prostitutes, often minors. Literary examples of the bachelor, such as Stevenson’s notoriously duplicitous Dr. Jekyll fuel rather than quench our suspicions. Yet, I keep thinking of Dickens’ respectable John Brownlow in Oliver Twist, who embraces celibacy when his fiancée dies. And I usually share with my class the passage in Harriet Martineau’s autobiography in which she declares that the early death of the man she was to marry happily freed her from the obligation of being a wife and mother–also, implicitly of having sex. My students always stare at me in disbelief…

I am suggesting, as you can see, that asexual persons may have led lives of their choice within the church or in society in ways no longer available to them. I grant that celibacy is not at all the same as asexuality but I am hinting that in the times when celibacy was not seen with as much incomprehension and dislike as we do today, it may have been a convenient ‘cover’ for many asexuals still lacking that label. In our times, celibacy is seen as an aberration because we believe that all bodies feel sexual needs; hence, sexual repression is, essentially, akin to ill-treating yourself. No wonder then that asexuals, who feel as normal as you and me can be (whatever identity you have), face so many problems when explaining themselves.

The other theory I will volunteer today is that the current proliferation of labels is tied to plain gossip. I was very surprised by many new labels I found in Petra Filipová’s dissertation, such as ‘demisexual’ (only partly sexed, or partly asexual) and ‘sapiosexual’ (“A person who is sexually attracted to intelligence or the human mind before appearance” or “a person who finds intelligence to be a sexually attractive quality in others”, depending on the definition). But why the interest in knowing what people do or don’t do sexually? Isn’t this simply gossip?

Dr. Filipová believes that each new identity label helps individuals to present themselves publicly and to shape their own psychology around the idea of normality. If this helps, then it is fine, though I am truly tired of how little we actually know about the supposedly best-known identity, heterosexuality –often confused with patriarchal normativity. To begin with, heterosexuality used to be up to the 1920s yet another label to define a perversion: that of differently gendered people who engaged in sex for pleasure, not to reproduce… And, let’s be honest: the moment you know that someone is gay, lesbian, queer, trans, bisexual, asexual, you name it… what comes to your mind is not the word ‘normal’ but a strong curiosity to know what exactly they do in bed. The same applies to heterosexuality and its many varied manifestations. And celibacy: you see a young, handsome priest, as I did recently, and the first thing you think is… It’s all down to gossip, believe me and in this sense asexuality is, from the outside, the most perplexing puzzle.

Insisting again that we attach far too much importance to sexuality, I wonder whether discrimination and intolerance will end when we feel real, healthy curiosity (gossipy or less so…) rather than contempt or disgust at what other people do (or don’t do) with their bodies. The more I learn about (a)sexuality, the more convinced I am that the categories and labels we live by are plainly ridiculous. Of course, it is my heterosexual privilege to say so and we still have a long way to go before everyone feels comfortable in public no matter their gendersexual identity. I can hardly ask for an abolition of labels when LGTBQphobia is growing so fast around me… Yet I hope I see in my lifetime the moment when gender and sex will stop defining persons in private and in public (though I know that gossip will never end).

And congratulations Dr. Filipová!! It’s been a pleasure…

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