Title
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2014
Center/Program
Center for Gender & Sexuality Law
Abstract
Asexuality is an emerging identity category that challenges the assumption that everyone is defined by some type of sexual attraction. Asexuals – those who report feeling no sexual attraction to others – constitute one percent of the population, according to one prominent study. In recent years, some individuals have begun to identify as asexual and to connect around their experiences interacting with a sexual society. Asexuality has also become a protected classification under the antidiscrimination law of one state and several localities, but legal scholarship has thus far neglected the subject.
This Article introduces asexuality to the legal literature as a category of analysis, an object of empirical study, and a phenomenon of medical science. It then offers a close examination of the growing community of self-identified asexuals. Asexual identity has revealing intersections with the more familiar categories of gender, sexual orientation, and disability, and inspires new models for understanding sexuality.
Recommended Citation
Elizabeth F. Emens,
Compulsory Sexuality,
66
Stan. L. Rev.
303
(2014).
Available at:
https://scholarship.law.columbia.edu/faculty_scholarship/718