Male Asexuality and Its Challenge to Masculinity
An asexual man, particularly a celibate and/or sex-averse asexual man, is a bit like a symbol of religion in a fiercely atheistic society: some will dismiss him as a fantastical impossibility, while others will react with varying levels of animosity, out of the sense that he is an intrusion threatening the validity of their own worldview. In one corner, we’ve got the asexophobes who don’t acknowledge that asexual men even exist, which is necessary to their general dismissal of asexuality as not a real orientation but simply a new way to label an exclusively female tendency toward disinterest in sex or sexual inexperience or repression. In another corner, we’ve got the asexophobes who accuse asexual men of: being too emasculated by exposure to feminism and feminist women to express their sexuality, being closeted homosexuals, being too socially inept or unattractive to obtain sex, etc. While many ignorant sexual people with little to no knowledge of asexuality often make the assumption that only women identify as asexual (which is in itself a roundabout expression of buying into the misogynistic stereotyping of women as naturally less sexual beings than men), others are downright angry at the idea of men identifying as asexual, and they’re especially angry at the idea of men having an enthusiastic aversion to sexual participation. I’ve noticed that the sexual people who feel anger toward male asexuality are usually other men. The reason? Male asexuality is a powerful challenge to mainstream masculinity, which hasn’t changed its attitudes toward male sexuality at all, even after three waves of feminism. No matter what else has changed about how we view men and women, masculinity and femininity, no matter how men have changed since the 1960s, one thing remains utterly the same: successful masculinity depends heavily upon the male’s active sexuality.
The role of sex in masculinity performance is connected to other important markers of successful masculinity: power, money, dominance, and the approval of other men. All one has to do is pay attention to mainstream media to see that we collectively associate sex with power and money, regardless of gender but especially for men. The more money a man has, the more powerful he is, the more sexually desirable he is. The more sex he has and the more sexual partners he has, the more masculine he is, which wins the approval not only of women but of other men. Sex is also a part of male dominance: over women, naturally, but also over other men, even when the man in question is heterosexual. In male society, men can have a sense of where they rank next to each other, based on these elements of masculinity. Sexual promiscuity is something to be proud of, if you’re a man, while sexual inactivity is shameful. Men respect other men for their sexual accomplishments and disrespect men who don’t measure up to a certain sexual standard. Men compete with each other sexually: who can rack up the higher number of sex partners, who can build the best reputation as a skilled lover, who’s had sex with the most desirable women (or men), etc. They dominate one another with their sexual performance according to these parameters.
*
One interesting observation I’ve made is the way that certain sex-positive feminists or sex-positive people, who adopt their own feminism-disguised attitude of compulsory sexuality, actually (unintentionally) encourage and bolster the very patriarchal conceptualization of masculinity that includes compulsory sexuality and sexual performance as defining features of itself. Men don’t have the same shame attached to their sexuality that women have, thus compulsory sexuality means something different for men than it does for women. Sex-positive feminists who pursue the idea of women having a lot of sex consistently as the expression of their empowerment, freedom, and rebellion against misogynistic control of female sexuality, without giving due respect to voluntary sexual inactivity, fail to realize that not only are they creating a new, unhealthy paradigm of sexuality for women–one that ironically circles back around to feed into rape culture–but that they are also affirming mainstream masculinity’s compulsory sexuality tenet that plays a part in men’s misogynistic treatment of women. The kind of compulsory sexuality that feminists recognize as overtly anti-woman is the kind that demands women be sexually available to all men, at all times, for the sake of pleasing the men. The kind of compulsory sexuality sprouting from sex-positive feminism is actually more along the lines of masculinity’s compulsory sexuality: creating shame around not having sex, rather than having sex.
A man is never supposed to NOT be in the mood for sex. It doesn’t matter if he’s straight, gay, or bi. It also doesn’t necessarily matter who the potential sex partner is. If someone offers a man sex, he’s expected to enthusiastically want it. The idea of a man saying “no” to sex and meaning it is so unbelievable to us, as a society, that male rape victims are still often viewed as a myth. This is one of the more extreme consequences of the compulsory sexuality aspect of masculinity. A man can’t say no, without failing at masculinity in the moment. For women, the issue of saying “no” is tied into the misogyny, compulsory heterosexuality, and rape culture of our society; it is more an issue of a woman’s “no” not meaning anything or having power, when she says it. For a man, “no” isn’t even supposed to be in his vocabulary, when it comes to sex. We have men tied up in a situation where he’s supposed to want sex constantly, having sex makes him more of a man, and he’s also supposed to be incapable of emotional passion and intimacy outside of a sexual context. Saying “no” to sex, if you’re a man, is a rejection of masculinity, love, and intimacy–not just a “no” to the sex. Arguably, when women say “no” to sex, their femininity isn’t in jeopardy. We encourage women to say “no” more, because saying “no” and having that respected, as a woman, is something we’ve had to learn that we’re entitled to do. But no one’s encouraging men to say “no” to sex when they aren’t truly enthusiastic about it, are they? No one’s even imagining that men want to say “no,” ever.
http://thethinkingasexual.wordpress.com/2012/04/12/male-asexuality-and-its-challenge-to-masculinity/
the whole article is interesting.
= new reply since forum marked as read
In fact, you'll find some heavy objections around the asexual community if you suggest otherwise...
