How religious conservatism harms asexual people
By teaching people that good girls do not express sexual initiative or desire, they make it more difficult for asexual girls to realize that they do not experience sexual attraction in the same way most young women do. This hinders their personal growth and denies them the knowledge needed to make informed decisions about their own sexuality.
Because of religious conservatism, celibacy among unmarried, non-clerical people is almost universally assumed to mean “waiting until marriage.” This creates two problematic ideas: first, that asexuality is a choice, not a natural sexual orientation; secondly, that asexual people will change and become eager for sex after marriage. As a result, people believe that asexual people can be “changed” and that asexuality does not need to be accepted in the same way as other sexual orientations.
The sex-positive movement is largely a reaction against the sex-shaming attitudes of traditional religion and conservatism. Sex-positivity is chiefly concerned with encouraging people to have sex and enjoy sex. But for historical/cultural reasons, it puts much less emphasis on the value of non-sexual lifestyles and activities. Asexual and celibate people, particularly those who are sex-repulsed, often find the sex-positive movement alienating and invalidating of their life choices. Sex-positivity does not adequately address the culture of compulsory sexuality that harms asexual people, and in fact often reinforces it. This tension between asexual people and sex-positivity is utterly unnecesary, and is ultimately caused by conservative religious attitudes that shame people for sexual expression.
Religious conservatism is the chief reason why asexual people find difficulties with acceptance from sex-positive people and progressives. The association between asexuality and celibacy, and between celibacy and religion, leads otherwise open-minded people to become suspicious and defensive toward those who claim not to desire sex.
Christianity in particular teaches that humans are commanded by God to populate the Earth. Asexual people, who frequently do not wish to have sex or bear children, are thus considered sinful. Like childree people, they are often accused of selfishness, immaturity, greed, materialism, inhumanity, not truly loving their partners, and of rebellion against God. Sexual behavior is considered not only natural, but a duty that is intrinsic to being human.
All extant religions, that discourage premarital sex, encourage it in the context of marriage. Celibacy is only socially acceptable for unmarried people; ultimately, having sex and producing genetic children is a duty for all laypeople. Asexual people are thus pressured into being sexually active even though they may not want it.
The same religions that discourage unmarried people from having sex also teach that women have a duty to obey and provide sex to their husbands. Women who do not or cannot enjoy sex with their husbands are told that they are sinful, and that their husbands have a right to and deserve sex. Women’s bodies, especially asexual women’s bodies, are treated as the property of men. Women who do not wish to marry - many of whom are asexual and/or LGBT+ - are treated as abnormal, incomplete or disreputable.
Asexual men suffer from religious conservatism as well. They are often perceived as gay (regardless of whether they identify as LGBT+ or not), and are thus attacked by homophobia. Also, conservative religious groups teach men that their place is at the head of a heterosexual household, with a heterosexual sex life and genetic children. Asexual men frequently do not want this lifestyle, and as a result their masculinity, heterosexuality, and religious devotion are called into question.
Most asexual people are not hetero-romantic, and thus suffer from the same homophobic and biphobic prejudice that other LGBT+ people do. Anti-LGBT+ prejudice is strongly correlated with religious conservatism in western countries.
When LGB people believe that asexuality is harmful to the LGBT+ movement, this is commonly because they fear that religious conservatives will use asexuality as “evidence” that LGB people can “choose not to be gay.” Enforced lifelong celibacy, silencing, and self-denial has long been the only lifestyle that religious conservatives will accept from LGB people. Religious conservatism is to a large extent responsible for the tensions between the LGBT and asexual communities.
The key issue with religious conservatism, which harms women, LGBT+ people, and asexuals, is that it denies people their sexual agency. It’s not celibacy or asexuality that’s encouraged, it’s chastity, and chastity means performing or abstaining from sex in accordance to strict religious mandates. Sex outside marriage is wicked; sex within marriage is mandatory. Heterosexual sex is glorified; same-sex and non-binary sex acts are demonized. Women (asexual or not) are punished not only for choosing to have sex outside of marriage, but for ANY attempt to control their sexuality in ways that do not follow traditional religious commands or please the desires of heterosexual men.
Asexual people are attacked by religious conservatism because, like LGBT+ people, they tend to act and think in ways that do not fit the prescribed traditional models of acceptable sexuality.
(Note: I use “religious conservatism” to mean traditional, western attitudes toward sexuality, which are steeped in Christianity, and are typically homophobic, biphobic, transphobic and misogynistic. If that doesn’t sound like your personal religious views, then congratulations! You’re not the sort of person I’m talking about here.)
dailybridgerton
pixelskylines
ellievsbear
turnnoffyourmind
vaporwave
