What It's Like To Be a Man Who Doesn't Want Sex

Jay reminds us that unlike celibacy, which is a choice, asexuality is a sexual orientation. Asexual people have needs for intimacy and relationships like anyone else, but those relationships just look a little different.

Being asexual gives him a different perspective on masculinity and male sexuality. This slight distance, allows him to acknowledge things that may be hard to see ourselves. Here, he dissects male friendships, masculine role models and male power.

As an asexual person, you must have an interesting take on the messages that men receive from this culture about their sexuality.

I think there’s an interesting cultural struggle going on, at least judging by the advertising that’s targeting my demographic right now. I think there’s this sense that masculinity, as it’s traditionally articulated, is really problematic, so masculinity isn’t something that we seriously address. Also, it’s not something that’s presented to us in a serious way. In [current] culture, it’s presented to us almost comically.

What effect does masculinity not being taken seriously have?

So, my friends and I, when we act traditionally masculine, we are both performing and making fun of masculinity. But we aren’t examining it, and we end up expressing our gender that way. It’s not, I’ve thought a lot of masculinity and other forms of gender expression; it’s the way I relate to my masculinity is by making fun of masculinity. And other than that, I don’t really know how to deal with it.

Has masculinity has become too self-deprecating?

I don’t even know … It’s this image of masculinity that we know is problematic, but is also empowering. And we wanna access some of that power, even though we know it’s problematic. So you can’t do it blatantly, it becomes: I’m gonna do it by kind of making fun of it, and I get some of that empowerment and some of that identity without having to take it seriously.

What are some of the messages men soak up about their sexuality?

That our sexuality is problematic and destructive. I think that’s the message. I think that culturally there aren’t enough symbols of non-destructive sexuality for men to really adopt.

Are there any masculine symbols you look up to?

The most defining factor of my masculinity, happened was when I was in high school. There was the group of popular girls, the ones that ran everything socially. My freshman year, some critical mass of them started realizing they were gay. Then two of them had a falling out and there was this cascading outing process that happened over the course of a week. A couple of the ringleaders wound up becoming butch. That became my image of what was cool and what was powerful and what was respected.

Popular teenage lesbians formed your masculinity? That is different.

They were able to embrace masculinity without a lot of the history of oppression I have associated with it. And they were able to take some of the assertiveness and the cultural icons of masculinity, and use them to create this world that jived way more with my sense of social justice.

I also gravitated to that because, as a young asexual kid that was the safest place for me to find intimacy. I knew if I became close with a straight girl, there was this whole question of her sexuality directed at me, which I wasn’t ready to deal with—the same problem with a gay guy. And if I became close to a straight guy, there were rules about emotional expression and affection, it wasn’t that kind of relationship where we could actively explore being close in the way I wanted to. But if I became really close with lesbian a lot of that was fixed.