Book Review
Title: Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex by Angela Chen
Genre: Non-Fiction, Society, Relationships
Rating: 3.5 Stars
This was a book I picked up because I have hesitantly attached the label of ace to myself in recent years. With coming to terms with that I wanted to know more about the ace experience especially in terms of romance and sexual relationships because for someone under the age of 30 that can be a huge make or break in a relationship with someone who is labelled as “normal”. The introduction introduces us to the author and their experience as an ace person, the revelation for which didn’t come until they were well into their 20’s much like me. Also like me, they had so called normal relationships before but just lacked a little understanding about the things their friends were describing.
In the opening couple of chapters, we learn about the ace spectrum and how like any other orientation or identity ace people are different from each other and there is no one size fits all when it comes to this sort of things. Learning about the different spectrums and how someone could be ace and homoromantic or sexual positive and a romantic and almost any other combination you can think of was insanely interesting. It also made me think about my own situation and how it might not match another ace person on the planet but that is completely valid and doesn’t make my experience any less unique or ace than someone else’s.
Chapter 3 begins looking at compulsive sexuality and how this social construct is in part, responsible for a lot of the isolation that those that fall on the “normal” spectrum do not. Compulsive sexuality is the idea that one’s sexuality and freedom are intertwined when that isn’t the case. For men, this comes in the form of hyper sexuality to conform to the masculine ideal. This means that men that fall under the ace, aro or Demi sexualities are seen as less masculine or less worthy of appreciation than men that have a lot of sex. While women, walk a fine line, having too little sex makes them a prude or a bad feminist while having too much makes her worthless in the eyes of society. Those that are non-sexual are left outcast because of these views and this is what desperately needs to change for true inclusion to be brought into our modern society.
The rest of the book introduces us to stories from real ace people and it shows how these people despite having the same sexuality label come from different background and have different attitudes towards romance and sex. This was honestly the best part of the book as it shows clearly that people who share the same label aren’t the same and how that image projected by society can actually have a negative impact on the community and how these people form and maintain relationships. It also touches on a lot of the issues that ace people face in relate to romance and intimacy since everyone is different on how they feel about sex and how tolerant they are to it. I saw my own story in the author and identified strongly with her and that made the book much more meaningful to me despite there not being a lot of stuff going on in the book. This book focuses more on the human element than the scientific or societal view on asexuality and if you like non-fiction like this then definitely pick it up, especially if you are ace or know someone that is.
Buy it here:
Paperback/Hardcover: amazon.co.uk amazon.com
Kindle Edition: amazon.co.uk amazon.com
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