So you want to learn about asexual/aromantic theory...
I wanted to make a list of some key texts in asexual/aromantic theory (as well as some lesser known ones I find personally interesting). Hopefully this should be useful both for ace and aro people themselves and for anyone else who wants to learn more about the issues facing these communities and the perspectives coming out of them (which should. hopefully. be everyone who cares about queer rights and body autonomy and consent activism etc). Even though asexuality and aromanticism are still underrepresented in academic circles, there's still plenty of interesting new scholarship being written about them, so I thought it would be useful to gather all of the (mostly) academic sources I've found in one place:
Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex by Angela Chen - Probably the most well-known book on asexuality and with very good reason, an incredibly thoughtful book that takes a very intersectional approach, with a lot of discussion of how ace people’s experiences are impacted by race, gender, age, disability, culture, religion etc. Also one of the rare books to actually discuss aroallo experiences in any kind of depth, so worth checking out for that reason alone imo!
Refusing Compulsory Sexuality: A Black Asexual Lens on our Sex-Obsessed Culture by Sherronda J Brown - I cried multiple times reading this one lol. I think it provides a good counterpoint to Chen’s book, in the sense that while that one is aiming for a very broad discussion of asexuality and a-spec identity in all its forms, this book approaches it from a very specific and personal perspective. That said, it also manages to be a great resource in terms of its discussion of asexual history, which I always appreciate, and I think the chapter about the concept of frigidity is especially a must-read!
Ace Voices: What it means to be Asexual, Aromantic, Demi, or Grey-Ace by Eris Young - Perhaps a bit less typically “academic” than the previous two, with more of a focus on personal experiences both of the author and of the people they interviewed for this book! Discusses aromanticism in perhaps the most detail of anything I’ve read, and again actually discusses the experiences of aroallo people, which I think is very cool!
Ending the Pursuit: Asexuality, Aromanticism and Agender Identity by Michael Paramo - An absolutely fantastic book by Michael Paramo, editor of aspec literary journal AZE magazine, that combines history, personal memoir, and analysis. Unique so far in that, as the title suggests, it has a pretty equal focus on asexuality and aromanticism. It was easily one of my favourite books I read last year, and does some truly monumental work in trying to trace a-spec history back to the Victorian times, as well as discussing the intersections between amatonormativity and colonialism. I haven't seen a lot of people talking about this one compared to other a-spec books, and I really encourage everyone to check it out!
Minimizing Marriage: Marriage, Morality and the Law by Elizabeth Brake - I would be remiss not to mention Brake’s work here. While Minimizing Marriage is not specificallly about aromanticism or asexuality and deals with marriage reform and the concept of amatonormativity more broadly, I think it’s fair to say that many of Brake’s ideas (particularly her coining of amatonormativity as a term) have become vital to the aro community and aro activism in recent years. Definitely a must-read for anyone interested in deconstructing amatonormativity and in contemporary critiques of marriage as an institution, though it’s worth noting that this is a work of moral/political philosophy first and foremost, and as such it gets very into the weeds of things.
I’d really recommend checking out the collection Asexualities: Feminist and Queer Perspectives in general - it has a ton of essays on a wide range of different topics and I think is an especially great starting point for thinking about how asexuality can overlap with race, gender, and disability. If you want some specific essay recommendations, On the Racialization of Asexuality by Ianna Hawkins Owen is a personal fave of mine (Available along with the rest of Owen's work on academia.edu here), but I’d also recommend checking out Masculine Doubt and Sexual Wonder by Ela Przybylo, Spectacular Asexuals by Karli June Cerankowski, and “Why Didn’t You Tell Me That I Love You?” by Andrew Grossman
And once you've read that, there's also Asexualities: Feminist and Queer Perspectives - Revised and Expanded Ten-Year Anniversary Edition, that was published just last year! I think the original is still well worth reading but this new edition features a more diverse and global range of perspectives, which I think is really valuable! I'd really recommend Toward a Global Asexual Solidarity by Yo-Ling Chen, "Jarek, Get On Tinder" by Anna Kurowicka, Asexual Kinship by Eunjung Kim, and (SA)fe Sp(aces) by Yash Gupta if you want to get more of an idea of issues facing the ace community around the world. Subjective Limits of Imagination by Justin Smith and Girltalk by [sarah] Cavar and Ulysses [Constance] Bougie are two other favourites of mine from this collection!
Reconsidering Asexuality and its Radical Potential by CJ DeLuzio Chasin - A really good starting point for beginning to think about the potential implications of ace activism for people beyond the asexual spectrum, as well as for starting to think more radically about depathologising low sexual desire. Available on JSTOR here
Sexuality, romantic orientation, and masculinity: Men as underrepresented in asexual and aromantic communities by Hannah Tessler and Canton Winer - Hannah Tessler has published a lot of really great research on aromanticism, and this paper discusses the role of narratives around sex and romance in constructing gender. If you aren't able to access the paper, @the-agent-of-blight has written up a summary of key points here
The stability of singlehood: Limitations of the relationship status paradigm and a new theoretical framework for reimagining singlehood by Hannah Tessler - Discusses how experiences of certain groups (including aromantic people) challenge the typical construction of singlehood. If you aren't able to access the paper, @the-agent-of-blight has written up a summary of key points here
The stability of singlehood: Limitations of the relationship status paradigm and a new theoretical framework for reimagining singlehood by Hannah Tessler - Discusses how experiences of certain groups (including aromantic people) challenge the typical construction of singlehood. If you aren't able to access the paper, @the-agent-of-blight has written up a summary of key points here
Still, Nothing: Mammy and Black Asexual Possibility by Ianna Hawkins Owen - I really can't recommend Owen's work enough! I already briefly mentioned his essay in the original edition of Asexualities: Feminist and Queer Perspectives, and it's worth mentioning he contributes a newer essay to the tenth anniversary edition: Freedom Lovers. He's made a lot of really vital contributions to discussions of the intersections of asexuality on race, and I think this essay on the Mammy archetype is a particularly engaging one. A really interesting and valuable read for those who want to read about a-spec identity from a more intersectional perspective. Available along with the rest of Owen's work on academia.edu here
More: Cake, Feedism, and Asexuality by Ianna Hawkins Owen - Another great essay from Owen, this time focusing on the use of cake as a symbol in both asexual and feedism communities, and possible overlap between the two. A really playful and interesting read that offers new perspectives on asexuality. Available along with the rest of Owen's work on academia.edu here
While it’s not strictly about asexuality, I do want to give a shoutout to Hetero Barbie? by Mary F. Rogers - a segment from her book Barbie Culture that has since been reprinted as a separate essay in several collections (and is available in full on the internet archive hehe) . It discusses the relationship between Barbie and normative ideas of gender and sexuality, and briefly poses the idea of interpreting Barbie as asexual. While it doesn’t go into much detail about this, I think it’s worth mentioning purely because the original book was published in 1999, making this the earliest mention of asexuality in academia I’ve found so far! (though I’m sure there are plenty of earlier ones I’ve yet to look at!)
The Poles of Wantonness: Male Asexuality in Alan Moore's Film Adaptations by Evan Torner - A very early piece of academic writing on asexuality from 2012. A lot of it would probably be considered quite outdated now, and it is. Fairly obviously not written by an asexual person, but I still find the way it applies asexuality to the concept of the male gaze in film very interesting and compelling!
Asexual People's Experiences with Microaggressions by Tamara Deutsch - An MA thesis from 2018 and as such is more limited in scope than most of the other papers I've talked about - for example the sample of ace people interviewed is just eleven people. Despite this and despite the fact that a lot of what's said here probably seems quite obvious now 7 years later, I think it is still worth a read and makes some interesting points. I found it particularly noteworthy how this thesis identifies microaggressions in medical settings as a particularly prevalent issue facing ace people that needs to be addressed, which seven years later remains a glaringly present community issue. Available here
Ace in the UK Report 2023 by Yasmin Benoit and Stonewall - Just a really useful and illuminating piece of research on the experiences of asexual people in the UK and a must read if you want to learn more about the kind of issues faced by ace people and the ace community, as well as some potential practical solutions. Yasmin Benoit has made so many important contributions to community activism and this is a really big one. Available here
Asexuality in the UK: Public attitudes towards people who experience little to no sexual attraction by Yasmin Benoit, Michael Sanders, and Vannessa Hirneis - Another really important piece of research promoted by Benoit, this time specifically on discrimination towards asexual people. Some pretty major findings to this one - I think the finding of the degree to which acephobia is seen as socially acceptable is particularly concerning and worth noting. Available here
Nonlimerent//Monosexual: An Aromantic and Asexual History curated by Luciella Scarlett - link here - Digital version of a now-closed Australian museum exhibit on asexual and aromantic history. It's a really rich and interesting collection, and I think it's also a really great and useful and accessible starting point for finding lots of other sources on asexuality and aromanticism
If any of these sound interesting to you please do check them out - there's a lot of really interesting writing on asexuality and aromanticism out there if you're ready to look for it!