East Asian American Identities and Asexualities
Location
PANEL: Queer Imaginations & Identity
CELA Moffett
Moderator: Karen Reynolds
Document Type
Presentation - Oberlin Community Only
Start Date
4-25-2025 2:00 PM
End Date
4-25-2025 3:00 PM
Abstract
This research explores how the forces of sexualization, racialization, and gendering intertwine and interact with one another for asexual East Asian Americans.
Asexuality, or the absence of sexual attraction, disrupts stereotyped conceptions of East Asian Americans’ sexualities by questioning sex’s normativity and how its structures support hegemonic ideas about a “correct” sexuality. Asexual scholars focus on the pervasive nature of compulsory sexuality and acephobia, which assumes the belief that everyone desires sex and those who do not are abnormal. Few scholars have addressed asexuality among East Asian American identities, which is interesting because of the hypersexualization of Asian women and the desexualization of Asian men. Theory on the gendered nature of Asian American sexualities identifies stereotypes and explains strategies for reacting to sexualization.
Through seventeen in-depth interviews, participants reported that their asexual identities were not as salient in everyday life. Instead, Asian Americans reported that their gendered and queer identities exerted a more overarching influence. Additionally, although all of the interviewees were aware of racial stereotypes about Asians, the majority of participants expressed a lack of stereotyping in their lived experiences. These emerging findings offer surprising insights into the intersection between asexuality and East Asian American identities, with implications for our understandings of sexuality, racialized genders, and the salience of identities in everyday life.
Keywords:
Sexuality, Asian American, Gender, Race
Recommended Citation
Liu, Katelyn, "East Asian American Identities and Asexualities" (2025). Research Symposium. 22.
https://digitalcommons.oberlin.edu/researchsymp/2025/presentations/22
Major
Sociology
Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies
Award
Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship
Project Mentor(s)
Greggor Mattson, Sociology
2025
East Asian American Identities and Asexualities
PANEL: Queer Imaginations & Identity
CELA Moffett
Moderator: Karen Reynolds
This research explores how the forces of sexualization, racialization, and gendering intertwine and interact with one another for asexual East Asian Americans.
Asexuality, or the absence of sexual attraction, disrupts stereotyped conceptions of East Asian Americans’ sexualities by questioning sex’s normativity and how its structures support hegemonic ideas about a “correct” sexuality. Asexual scholars focus on the pervasive nature of compulsory sexuality and acephobia, which assumes the belief that everyone desires sex and those who do not are abnormal. Few scholars have addressed asexuality among East Asian American identities, which is interesting because of the hypersexualization of Asian women and the desexualization of Asian men. Theory on the gendered nature of Asian American sexualities identifies stereotypes and explains strategies for reacting to sexualization.
Through seventeen in-depth interviews, participants reported that their asexual identities were not as salient in everyday life. Instead, Asian Americans reported that their gendered and queer identities exerted a more overarching influence. Additionally, although all of the interviewees were aware of racial stereotypes about Asians, the majority of participants expressed a lack of stereotyping in their lived experiences. These emerging findings offer surprising insights into the intersection between asexuality and East Asian American identities, with implications for our understandings of sexuality, racialized genders, and the salience of identities in everyday life.
