‘On the edge of “typical”’? A qualitative exploration of the intersection of asexuality and disability

Abstract

This dissertation explores the intersection of asexuality and disability by means of a qualitative study involving asexual-identified disabled persons. The study is framed in response to Kim‟s (2010, 2011) claims that asexual-identified disabled persons are at risk of (double) erasure, given attempts by the asexual community to distance themselves from disability, and attempts by the disabled community to distance themselves from asexuality, as both attempt to increase their acceptance into the mainstream.
Online interviews (using email, instant-messaging and video conferencing) were conducted with eleven participants. Four key themes emerged from my analysis of these interviews: (i) participants discursively constructed the asexual community as open and inclusive with regards to disability, but that a normative construction of asexuality was still at play; (ii) participants felt that it was important to challenge the asexual assumption made of disabled persons and did not feel marginalised by attempts to do so - possibly because there is a more nuanced perspective on asexuality developing within disability communities that distinguishes between asexuality as ascription and asexuality as identity; (iii) participants were open to the possibility that their asexuality and their disability might be linked but that this could be recognised in a way that was non-pathologizing; and (iv) being disabled mediated how people responded to participants‟ identities as asexual as well as the process of coming to an asexual identity in the first place, and these were further complicated by issues of gender and „race‟.
The study adds to the very small body of empirical sociological research on asexuality. It is also the first to introduce a consideration of intersectionality into asexuality research, and ultimately argues for the importance of considering asexuality – both how it is constructed and experienced – as a socially situated and relational phenomenon.