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#sherronda brown
writersarea · 2 years
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GOT A BOOK REC FOR MY ACES OUT THERE (especially my fellow white aces)
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I heard about Refusing Compulsory Sexuality by Sherronda Brown from tiktok, not gonna lie, and I knew I had to read it. I just finished it, and I loved it.
It has a fantastic discussion of asexuality, racism, and sexism (especially the intersection thereof). Sherronda is a wonderful writer and does a great job exploring not only their experience but discussing the history of black people’s sexuality and aceness in a way that is educational and very interesting to read.
It also has a timeline about asexuality dating back to 1855 which I have never seen one that dates back that far before. The amount of research that must have taken floors me, and I love it.
They also sprinkle in really cool tidbits throughout the book that I’m not going to spoil except for my favorite one. Apparently, ace people are 2.4-2.5 times more likely to be left handed than the general population. (And I’m a left handed ace)
I’m hoping to buy myself a copy soon so I can mark it up like I did my copy of Ace by Angela Chen. I checked this out from the library.
So go see if your local library has a copy or if you can buy a copy!
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micahthemoon · 10 months
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June 8 2023 For pride month, I’ve begun reading two books: the Nico di Angelo solo book and a book about asexuality from the perspective of a black woman. The first I finally got my grabbers on when at the mall recently, it has taken me a little over a month to read about my favourite goth gay demigod and I feel bad for letting him wait. The second sounded interesting since it’s a perspective we don’t hear about often– intersectionality ftw. I am enjoying both books so far.
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bookcub · 10 months
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I will always advocate for every queer person's right to be a fully autonomous sexual being-and that always must and always will include asexuals. Recognizing the significance of queer sex should not mean that every queer person should be mandated to meet an arbitrary sexual prerequisite in order for their queerness to be affirmed. Centering queerness around sex leaves very little room for queer folks for whom sex is insignificant, or for whom sex is never or rarely possible, or for queer folks who have never had sex before, or for queer folks whose only sexual experiences have been violent. It also leaves a lot of queer people, especially young ones, feeling pressured to have a certain amount or certain type of sex in order to legitimate or prove their queerness to themselves or to someone else.
-Sherronda J. Brown, Refusing compulsory sexuality: A Black Asexual Lens on Our Sex-Obsessed Culture
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ravel-ing · 2 years
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# Refusing Compulsory Sexuality A Black Asexual Lens on Our Sex-Obsessed Culture, by Sherronda J. Brown.
"What i have come to learn after many years of studying, thinking, and writing about power and oppression is that there will always be factions of marginalized people who do not want collective liberation from the oppressive systems we must live and die under. Liberation is simply too big, too daunting, too difficult to fathom. What these people resort to instead is the creation and maintenance of systems in which they have the opportunity to act as oppressors and wield what little power they do have over others. If the world must be structured through hierarchies, then marginalised people who are not fully committed to liberation or the dismantling of those hierarchies must find a way to never be at the bottom. For those marginalised by sexuality or gender within a cisheteronormative system, having this outlook on power and oppression - whether or not they are conscious of it - means that groups who are even more obscure and hieroglyphic to dominant society must be under their boot."
“Ce que j'ai appris après des années à étudier, penser, et écrire sur le pouvoir et l'oppression est qu'il y aura toujours des factions de personnes marginalisées qui ne voudront pas la libération collective des systèmes oppresseurs sous lesquels nous devons vivre et mourir.
La libération est simplement une idée trop énorme, trop décourageante, trop compliquée à appréhender.
Ce que ces personnes font à la place est de créer et maintenir des systèmes dans lesquels iels pourront avoir l'opportunité d'agir en tant qu'oppresseurs et utiliser le peu de pouvoir qu'ils ont sur d'autres.
Si le monde doit être structuré à travers des hiérarchies, alors les personnes marginalisées qui n'ont pas adhéré entièrement à la libération ou au démantèlement de ces hiérarchies doivent trouver un moyen de ne jamais être au bas de l'échelle sociale. Pour ceux marginalisés par leur sexualité ou leur genre à travers un système cishétéronormatif, avoir cette vision sur le pouvoir et l'oppression - qu'ils en soient conscients ou non - signifie que ces groupes qui sont encore plus obscurs et éloignés de la société dominante doivent être sous leur botte.”
Quote picked by @moosedotcom https://www.tiktok.com/@moosedotcom/video/7143746906710232362?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pc&web_id=7115684720352380422
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scribbleymark · 4 months
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"During my freshman year of college, my psychology professor said, 'Everything is about sex. You are here, at this university, in this class, because you want to have sex...You came to college so that you can go to parties, meet people, and have sex. And so that you can graduate with a degree that will allow you to get a good job so that you can be an eligible dating and marriage prospect, and have sex.' All around me, heads nodded while I sat in confusion, unable to wrap my head around the assertion that everything is about sex.
I was already exceedingly aware of the fact that my lack of investment in seeking out sexual encounters alienated me from my college peers, especially because some of the people closest to me made it clear, in one way or another, that there was something 'abnormal' about this, about me. They viewed me as immature and undeveloped; some even pitied me. I needed to 'grow up' or else I would 'end up alone,' they’d warn. I referred to myself as a 'late bloomer' for many subsequent years, often as a sort of apology or disclaimer. Only after affirming my asexuality did I understand that this 'late bloomer' rhetoric was an unhelpful sentiment and a reinforcement of the same ideologies that caused others to treat me like an abnormality in the first place. One does not 'bloom'—as in, enter into sexual exploration—too late, because there is no set time frame in which one must 'bloom.' One is not required to 'bloom' in this way at all.
Infantilization is 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. It’s closely akin to and often comes with a heaping side of patronization and condescension, with the infantilized being spoken to and treated as if they are unintelligent, unimportant, deserving of pity, and in need of guidance and education from those who are allegedly more superior and more knowledgeable about the world. This often manifests as the infantilizer regarding themselves as more qualified to make decisions on behalf of and about the infantilized, whom they regard as childlike and incapable of making these determinations on their own...
According to one study, 'Societal Challenge and Depression, Self-Esteem and Self-Concept Clarity in Asexuals,' 69.4 percent of the asexual participants report having had their identity challenged, and the vast majority of those challenges came in the form of infantilization, with phrases like 'you are a late bloomer' or 'you have not met the right person yet' being offered in response to them revealing their asexuality or simply being noticeably disinterested in sex. The association of asexuals with childishness and immaturity reproduces much of the same disregard and dismissive attitudes that are typically directed toward actual children. I understand the infantilization of asexuals as its own brand of gaslighting, in which seeds of doubt are continually planted in our minds and cause many of us to question our experiences, desires, and perception of self.
-Sherronda J. Brown, Refusing Compulsory Sexuality: A Black Asexual Lens on Our Sex-Obsessed Culture
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specialagentartemis · 3 months
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"I wish more aro or ace books were good" REAL. I'm not a huge reader these days (a victim of the "read several books a day as a kid to easily distractable ADHD adult" pipeline :/, I'm working on it though) but I stick to mostly nonfiction when I do read, because most fiction is too amatonormative for my tastes and most aspec fiction is. Well. I already struggle with reading books, I need to be able to actually get into them to have a hope of finishing them.
The biggest mood there. Kinda all of it :') Reading books takes so much longer and more Effort than it used to when I inhaled books when I was 12... and SO many books that market themselves on the Aro or Ace Rep are just. They just aren't good books. Most aren't Morally Objectionable or anything, they're just not good books.
I feel like it's normal growing pains for a Queer Identity... god knows how many books I read of high schoolers going "It's okay... to be gay, actually!" when I was in middle/high school--but I kind of wish we could hurry up to the point where there are plenty of good ace and aro ones to choose from. (There are some good ones! The Murderbot Diaries, Ancillary Justice, Michelle Kan's novelettes, Polenth Blake's work, Darcie Little Badger's entire ouvre... I love those. And I haven't read The Bone People but it won a bunch of Real Literary Awards, and Firebreak I've been told is really up my alley... but I have. also read a bunch of aro and ace books that were just mediocre-to-bad.)
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floof-ghostie · 2 months
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Hey have you guys read "Refusing Compulsory Sexuality; A Black Asexual Lens on Our Sex-Obsessed Culture" by Sherronda J. Brown, I really think you should read "Refusing Compulsory Sexuality; A Black Asexual Lens on Our Sex-Obsessed Culture" by Sherronda J. Brown
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lgbtqreads · 1 year
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Happy International Asexuality Day 2023!
Happy International Asexuality Day! Today we’re celebrating books with main characters all along the ace spectrum, so check out these titles and find your perfect next read! As usual, all links are affiliate and earn a percentage of income for the site, so please use them if you can! Please note this roundup only features titles that were not previously featured [with covers] in past…
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smokefalls · 9 months
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When sex is compulsory, it fosters the sense that we are each duty-bound to consistently engage in a certain arbitrary amount of sexual activity—regarding it as something that should be weighed, measured, and quantified, rather than an experience that people should engage in only when all involved have the desire and ability to do so, regardless of how frequent or infrequent that may be. Removing it from the center and the pedestal in our relationships—or, in some cases, our mere existence—would better serve everyone, not only asexuals.
Sherronda J. Brown, Refusing Compulsory Sexuality: A Black Asexual Lens on Our Sex-Obsessed Culture
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all-seeing-ifer · 5 months
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this is the very definition of "if you get me you get me" but this exchange is an ace cordy moment. to me
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calllmeyonu · 7 months
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sunrisenovaa · 3 months
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“A divine place that is just as misunderstood as “balance” is. Where Blackness intersects on the realm of sexuality is simultaneously spiritual, political, social, and physical. We don’t have to perfectly understand Black asexuality to make way for it. Asexuality is already valid. We can know this about ourselves, and we can have trouble with understanding it, unpacking it, and feeling secure within it.”
Excerpt From Refusing Compulsory Sexuality: A Black Asexual Lens on Our Sex-Obsessed Culture by Sherronda J. Brown
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Ace non-fiction
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bookcub · 1 year
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As with other identity labels, asexual is not prescriptive of behavior; it is a tool. People are free to use the term to help better understand themselves and find community with others who also find the label to be accurate. It is unfortunately quite true that labels can sometimes feel as carceral as they do liberating. But ideas don't put us in a box. Ideas do. For many of us, it is in asexuality that we find the affirmation we have always needed but were never afforded by any other language. We have taken hold of the part of our being, or are we coming, that has long been nameless, and have given it a name.
-Sheronda J. Brown, Refusing Compulsory Sexuality: A Black Asexual Lens on Our Sex-Obsessed Culture
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qbdatabase · 11 months
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Everything you know about sex and asexuality is (probably) wrong.
The notion that everyone wants sex–and that we all have to have it–is false. It’s intertwined with our ideas about capitalism, race, gender, and queerness. And it impacts the most marginalized among us. For asexual folks, it means that ace and A-spec identity is often defined by a queerness that’s not queer enough, seen through a lens of perceived lack: lack of pleasure, connection, joy, maturity, and even humanity.
In this exploration of what it means to be Black and asexual in America today, Sherronda J. Brown offers new perspectives on asexuality. She takes an incisive look at how anti-Blackness, white supremacy, patriarchy, heteronormativity, and capitalism enact harm against asexual people, contextualizing acephobia within a racial framework in the first book of its kind. Brown advocates for the “A” in LGBTQIA+, affirming that to be asexual is to be queer–despite the gatekeeping and denial that often says otherwise.
With chapters on desire, f*ckability, utility, refusal, and possibilities, Refusing Compulsory Sexuality discusses topics of deep relevance to ace and a-spec communities. It centers the Black asexual experience–and demands visibility in a world that pathologizes and denies asexuality, denigrates queerness, and specifically sexualizes Black people.
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scribbleymark · 4 months
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"I knew I was not straight. I had always failed to perform heterosexuality correctly, but I was not evidencing my deviation from heterosexuality in a way that some could recognize as queer enough. And so, what I learned from queer exclusionists is that asexuality will never be loud enough or legitimate enough to be called queer, because queerness is apparently about sex and that fact disqualifies asexuals. I learned that the more pointed terms asexuals use to describe our specific experiences with sex and attraction—like demisexual or aceflux—are just frivolous five-dollar words that mean nothing, excuses wrapped up in a pretty little bow. They taught me that asexuals are liars, just making shit up, vying for special snowflake recognition. Some even informed me, without further explanation, that asexual just means 'a sexual predator.' Among straight people, I was too queer. But to queer exclusionists, I was not queer enough. So there I was. Floating on a lonely island between two worlds, an illegitimate unwelcome child in both.
I had always understood queer to mean existing outside of traditional, rigid ideals of what normative sexuality and gender look like. But what I learned from trying to engage in queer spaces while ace was that, next to trauma and discrimination, many queer people center sex in their queerness and conceive of sex acts as the catalysts for queerness itself. And if that’s where queerness was located, and could only be located according to some, then where did that leave me? I wasn’t fucking back against heteropatriarchy, and what’s so radical about not fucking back? What’s so queer about not fucking, not dating, not loving in the way that society pedestals as the most significant?"
-Sherronda J. Brown, Refusing Compulsory Sexuality
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