Editing Asexuality (section)

=== Feminist research ===
The field of asexuality studies is still emerging as a subset of the broader field of [[gender and sexuality studies]]. Notable researchers who have produced significant works in asexuality studies include [[KJ Cerankowski]], Ela Przybylo, and CJ DeLuzio Chasin.

A 2010 paper written by KJ Cerankowski and Megan Milks, titled ''New Orientations: Asexuality and Its Implications for Theory and Practice'', suggests that asexuality may be somewhat of a question in itself for the studies of gender and sexuality.<ref name="Hultquist">{{cite book|author1=Aleksondra Hultquist|author2=Elizabeth J. Mathews|title=New Perspectives on Delarivier Manley and Eighteenth Century Literature: Power, Sex, and Text|isbn=978-1317196921|publisher=[[Routledge]]|year=2016|page=123|access-date=January 4, 2017|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lDGTDAAAQBAJ&pg=PT123|archive-date=September 23, 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190923043758/https://books.google.com/books?id=lDGTDAAAQBAJ&pg=PT123|url-status=live}}</ref> Cerankowski and Milks have suggested that asexuality raises many more questions than it resolves, such as how a person could abstain from having sex, which is generally accepted by society to be the most basic of instincts.<ref name="Cerankowski and Milks 5">{{cite book|author=Karli June Cerankowski|author2=Megan Milks|title=Asexualities: Feminist and Queer Perspectives|isbn=978-1-134-69253-8|publisher=[[Routledge]]|year=2014|pages=1–410|access-date=January 4, 2017|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XbgTAwAAQBAJ|archive-date=July 26, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200726101807/https://books.google.com/books?id=XbgTAwAAQBAJ|url-status=live}}</ref> Their ''New Orientations'' paper states that society has deemed "[LGBT and] female sexuality as empowered or repressed. The asexual movement challenges that assumption by challenging many of the basic tenets of [[pro-sex feminism]] [in which it is] already defined as repressive or anti-sex sexualities." In addition to accepting self-identification as asexual, the Asexual Visibility and Education Network has formulated asexuality as a biologically determined orientation. This formula, if dissected scientifically and proven, would support researcher [[Simon LeVay]]'s blind study of the [[hypothalamus]] in gay men, women, and straight men, which indicates that there is a biological difference between straight men and gay men.<ref>{{cite book|last=Myers|first=David G.|title=Psychology|year=2010|publisher=Worth Publishers|location=New York|isbn=978-1-4292-1597-8|page=474|edition=9th}}</ref>

In 2014, Cerankowski and Milks edited and published ''Asexualities: Feminist and Queer Perspectives'', a collection of essays intended to explore the politics of asexuality from a feminist and queer perspective.<ref name="Cerankowski and Milks 5"/> It is broken into the introduction and then six parts: Theorizing Asexuality: New Orientations; The Politics of Asexuality; Visualizing Asexuality in Media Culture; Asexuality and Masculinity; Health, Disability, and Medicalization; and Reading Asexually: Asexual Literary Theory. Each part contains two to three papers on a given aspect of asexuality research. One such paper is written by Ela Przybylo, another name becoming common in asexual scholarly literature. Her article about the Cerankowski and Milks anthology focuses on accounts of self-identified male asexuals, with a particular focus on the pressures men experience towards having sex in dominant Western discourse and media. Three men living in Southern Ontario, Canada, were interviewed in 2011, and Przybylo admits that the small sample size means that her findings cannot be generalized to a greater population in terms of representation and that they are "exploratory and provisional", especially in a field that is still lacking in theorizations.<ref name=":1">Przybylo, Ela. "Masculine Doubt and Sexual Wonder: Asexually-Identified Men Talk About Their (A)sexualities" from Karli June Cerankowski and Megan Milks, eds., ''Asexualities: Feminist and Queer Perspectives'' (Routledge, 2014), 225-246.</ref> All three interviewees addressed being affected by the stereotype that men have to enjoy and want sex in order to be "real men".<ref name=":1" />

Another of Przybylo's works, ''Asexuality and the Feminist Politics of "Not Doing It"'', published in 2011, takes a feminist lens to scientific writings on asexuality. Pryzyblo argues that asexuality is made possible only through the Western context of "sexual, coital, and heterosexual imperatives".<ref name=":2">{{cite thesis |last=Przybylo |first=Ela |year=2011 |title=Asexuality and the Feminist Politics of 'Not Doing It' |degree=MA |location=Edmonton, Alberta |publisher=University of Alberta |doi=10.7939/R3RB04 |doi-access=free}}</ref> She addresses earlier works by Dana Densmore, Valerie Solanas, and Breanne Fahs, who argued for "asexuality and celibacy" as radical feminist political strategies against patriarchy.<ref name=":2" /> While Przybylo does make some distinctions between asexuality and celibacy, she considers blurring the lines between the two to be productive for a feminist understanding of the topic.<ref name=":2" /> In her 2013 article, "Producing Facts: Empirical Asexuality and the Scientific Study of Sex", Przybylo distinguishes between two different stages of asexual research: that of the late 1970s to the early 1990s, which often included a very limited understanding of asexuality, and the more recent revisiting of the subject which she says began with Bogaert's 2004 study and has popularized the subject and made it more "culturally visible". In this article, Przybylo once again asserts the understanding of asexuality as a cultural phenomenon, and continues to be critical of its scientific study.<ref>{{cite journal | last1 = Przybylo | first1 = Ela | s2cid = 144394132 | year = 2013 | title = Producing Facts: Empirical Asexuality and the Scientific Study of Sex | journal = Feminism & Psychology | volume = 23 | issue = 2| pages = 224–242 | doi = 10.1177/0959353512443668 }}</ref> Pryzblo published a book, ''Asexual Erotics,'' in 2019. In this book, she argued that asexuality poses a "paradox" in that is a sexual orientation that is defined by the absence of sexual activity entirely. She distinguishes between a sociological understanding of asexuality and a cultural understanding, which she said could include "the open mesh of possibilities, gaps, overlaps, dissonances and resonances".<ref>{{Cite book|last=Przybylo|first=Ela|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1096288008|title=Asexual erotics : intimate readings of compulsory sexuality|publisher=[[Ohio State University]]|year=2019|isbn=978-0-8142-1404-6|location=Columbus|pages=1–32|oclc=1096288008|access-date=December 9, 2020|archive-date=March 9, 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220309223644/https://www.worldcat.org/title/asexual-erotics-intimate-readings-of-compulsory-sexuality/oclc/1096288008|url-status=live}}</ref>

CJ DeLuzio Chasin states in ''Reconsidering Asexuality and Its Radical Potential'' that academic research on asexuality "has positioned asexuality in line with [[Essentialism|essentialist]] discourses of sexual orientation" which is troublesome as it creates a [[Binary opposition|binary]] between asexuals and persons who have been subjected to psychiatric intervention for disorders such as Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder.<ref name="Reconsidering Asexuality" /> Chasin says that this binary implies that all asexuals experience a lifelong (hence, enduring) lack of sexual attraction, that all non-asexuals who experience a lack of sexual desire experience distress over it, and that it pathologizes asexuals who do experience such distress.<ref name="Reconsidering Asexuality" /> As Chasin says such diagnoses as HSDD act to medicalize and govern women's sexuality, the article aims to "unpack" problematic definitions of asexuality that are harmful to both asexuals and women alike. Chasin states that asexuality has the power to challenge commonplace discourse of the naturalness of sexuality, but that the unquestioned acceptance of its current definition does not allow for this. Chasin also argues there and elsewhere in ''Making Sense in and of the Asexual Community: Navigating Relationships and Identities in a Context of Resistance'' that it is important to interrogate why someone might be distressed about low sexual desire. Chasin further argues that clinicians have an ethical obligation to avoid treating low sexual desire per se as pathological, and to discuss asexuality as a viable possibility (where relevant) with clients presenting clinically with low sexual desire.<ref name="ReferenceA"/>