Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Date of Degree

6-2025

Document Type

Master's Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts

Program

Women's and Gender Studies

Advisor

Red Washburn

Subject Categories

History of Science, Technology, and Medicine | Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Studies | Other Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies | Queer Studies | Women's Studies

Keywords

asexuality, desire, sexuality studies, sexology, archives

Abstract

Asexuality became widely known in 2001 when David Jay, launched the Asexuality, Visibility and Education Network (AVEN), however, it’s been just throughout the last decade that it has gained popularity among LGBTQ studies. This thesis explores asexuality beyond its conventional framing as a sexual orientation, positioning it instead as a theoretical framework with the potential to challenge hegemonic understandings of sexuality. It does so by tracing the historical construction of sexual desire through the discipline of sexology, demonstrating how its discourses helped reinforce compulsory sexuality—the expectation that individuals must experience and act upon sexual desire (Emens 2014). Building upon this concept, this work introduces the notion of compulsory desire, to emphasize how contemporary hegemonic notions of sexuality are assembled under the idea that sex is fundamental for a “healthy,” fulfilled, happy human life. Drawing on queer historiography and asexuality studies, this work provides a blueprint to set up an asexual counter-archive that reinvents and reimagines popular understandings of desire, to liberate sex, intimacy, and subjecthood from dominant sexual paradigms. In doing so, it discusses three texts that can serve as pillars for such an archive but ultimately argues that, because of the fantastical dimension of desire, it will never be possible to reduce it to a single definition. This work vindicates embracing asexuality as a lens for critical self-inquiry and a rethinking of erotic and affective possibilities which can foster alternative narratives of intimacy that resist heteronormative and patriarchal rationales.

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