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Asexuality Is Not Just for White People, Says a New Book
Angela Chen’s ‘Ace’ is a new and fresh addition to literature
Through her essays in publications like Catapult, author and science journalist Angela Chen has been asking readers to question what we know about sex, sexuality, and interpersonal relationships. Chen identifies as asexual and frequently writes about that identity in her work, showing us that there is no right or wrong way to be asexual. In her debut book, Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex, Chen tells us, “There is no one asexual (or ace) story and no book can capture all of ace experience.” Nevertheless, Chen embarks on a journey to teach the world about asexuality and show the wide scope of identities that fall under the ace umbrella.
Chen shares her own personal story, talking about the ways she arrived at asexuality, even while being in relationships that did involve sex. She also interviews a wide range of people with varying experiences and identities. Chen’s book is one of the first on asexuality, and so in many ways, it covers just about everything, from race, to disability, to consent, and more. Most importantly, Chen provides us with a fluid, working definition of what it means to be asexual (as opposed to allosexual, meaning someone who does not identify as ace) and tells us that “The world is not a binary of aces and allos. It is a spectrum.”
In a conversation with ZORA, Chen discusses the idea of race in the ace community, and how racial stereotypes and representation can affect one’s sexual identity.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Deena ElGenaidi: To start, I want to say that I learned so much reading this book. There’s not a lot of writing out there about asexuality, so what was it like to work on this knowing that for many people, this would be the first text on asexuality that they’ve come across? And did that affect your research and writing of it?
Angela Chen: Yeah, it really did. This is the first reported trade book on asexuality, so there’s so much pressure to be everything for everyone, and to cover all the bases. There are parts in the book where I went broad instead of going deep because I knew that I…
