Sherronda J. Brown - Refusing Compulsory Sexuality: A Black Asexual Lens on Our Sex-Obsessed Culture

Highly educational, expertly researched, and easy to digest, Refusing Compulsory Sexuality eloquently reframes our understanding of asexuality, Blackness, and how the two intersect, providing an essential contribution to a discussion that is often dominated by white voices and perspectives.

Yasmin Benoit, asexual activist and model

Sherrondas writings continue to be a gift to the reader. With Refusing Compulsory Sexuality, they expand our understanding of gender, sexuality, and (anti-)Blackness with deftness and precision while also pushing us to rethink our understanding of asexuality and our relationships with ourselves and others. Without any doubt, people will find themselves in this book after spending years trying to find themselves elsewhere, and for those readers, this book will be home.

Lara Witt, writer and editorial director of Prism

A gloriously honest examination of asexual history and Blackness. Browns words traverse binaries, exude care, and act as radical archive for those marked by the violence of cisheteropatriarchy. Rarely is a book this rich with history this capable of integrity. It captures the gaps and lives of those deemed unworthy of remembering. Refusing Compulsory Sexuality will change you and encourage you to reignite a world worthy of it.

Amber Butts, author, editor, and organizer

With Refusing Compulsory Sexuality, Sherronda continues to introduce us all to a new and/or deeper perspective on (a)sexuality, queerness, and desire with razor-sharp racial analysis, limpid prose, and incredible research. She is keenly aware of the ways that Black folks have often been removed from conversations specific to asexuality; the ways that the hypersexualization of queer identity has played a significant role in the subjugation of folks on (and outside of) the ace spectrum; and the ways that the hypersexualization of Black flesh is a particular form of anti-Blackness that has been employed by white and non-Black people for centuriesacross political linesto hurt, harm, and abuse Black(ened) subjects. Sherronda proves with Refusing Compulsory Sexuality that they are a leading thinker in asexuality scholarship; gender and sexuality studies will never be the same.

DaShaun L. Harrison, author of Belly of the Beast

Refusing Compulsory Sexuality is an accessible primer for anyone in the general public looking to understand asexuality; Sherronda J. Brown illustrates the intellectual and lived ramifications for Black asexual possibility by synthesizing a wide range of personal experiences, academic, and activist sources for a sustained and loving look at this critical intersection. The deeper into the book you move, the more grateful you become that they have taken on this project and shared it with us, the world.

Ianna Hawkins Owen, assistant professor of English and African American studies, Boston University

Copyright 2022 by Sherronda J. Brown. All rights reserved. No portion of this book, except for brief review, may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwisewithout the written permission of the publisher. For information contact North Atlantic Books.

Published by
North Atlantic Books
Huichin, unceded Ohlone land
aka Berkeley, California

Cover design by Amanda Weiss
Book design by Happenstance Type-O-Rama

Refusing Compulsory Sexuality: A Black Asexual Lens on Our Sex-Obsessed Culture is sponsored and published by North Atlantic Books, an educational nonprofit based in the unceded Ohlone land Huichin (aka Berkeley, CA) that collaborates with partners to develop cross-cultural perspectives; nurture holistic views of art, science, the humanities, and healing; and seed personal and global transformation by publishing work on the relationship of body, spirit, and nature.

North Atlantic Books publications are distributed to the US trade and internationally by Penguin Random House Publisher Services. For further information, visit our website at www.northatlanticbooks.com.

ISBN 978-1-62317-710-2 (pbk.) ISBN 978-1-62317-711-9 (ebook)

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data is available from the publisher upon request.

This book includes recycled material and material from well-managed forests. North Atlantic Books is committed to the protection of our environment. We print on recycled paper whenever possible and partner with printers who strive to use environmentally responsible practices.

for the impossibles

Maybe Sherronda wouldnt classify herself as a conjurer, but I would. We needed someone to create an understanding of Black asexuality. In response, Sherronda coaxed together research and analysis of Black asexuality in long form. We havent seen that exist until right now, with this book. All the will, intention, and magic that it takes to conjure something that doesnt yet exist into the world is found here. What you have in your hands is not only a declaration of time, space, and embodiment; what you have in this book is a grimoire on how to cast yourself and folks like you into the world in a way that wont be denied.

Who are we to name ourselves, to declare ourselves as intergalactic territory that isnt colonized in Genesis? Who are we to declare that parts of our most honest, unadulterated personhood arent up for collaboration, not even for reasons that the collective deem as good?

Sherronda does something in this book that I want to stress to you, dear reader. They declare that asexuality can exist, does exist, and should exist in such a way that we dont need to make utility of it. Asexuality just, is. As a society, we have a hard time reckoning with that. There must be usefulness somewhere in this gray space. Then, when discussing Black relationships, Black love, Black romance, and Black sex, we often see the relationship as something that functions and reproduces within the larger family, then within the larger community, and finally within the larger society. All toward reproduction, consumption, subjugation, or pleasure. All of it a utility to keep the lights on in this machine. All of them we need to step away from when talking about sexuality. Sherronda has helped me learn that parts of my identity dont have to be in service to others. This book is an extension of that: a long, lingering medicine.

I looked at my own asexuality as a model of self-fulfillment, as if it was only valid if I could paint it as something that elevated me spiritually and intrapersonally. What some spiritual traditions will tell you is that queer folk (intentionally inclusive of asexuality) were once prized in their assumed ability to hold certain foresight and wisdom; it was seen as a spiritual rendering of self. In that way, I manufactured and romanticized the usefulness of my own asexuality. That made me feel less misunderstood. Stepping out of centering usefulness helped me shape and reshape my own sexuality.

Sexuality is a flight of the senses; within sexuality is the asexual experiencealso a flight of the senses. We believe that if another entity or person is not there to partake, or witness us partake, then its not sensual. It is. Sense of the self, the abyss, the space where there is no giver and no takerjust being. 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 dont