East Asian American Identities and Asexualities
Location
PANEL: Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship Seniors
Wilder 101
Moderator: Kathryn Metz
Document Type
Presentation - Oberlin Community Only
Start Date
5-1-2026 11:00 AM
End Date
5-1-2026 12:15 PM
Abstract
This research explores how the forces of sexualization, racialization, and gendering intertwine and interact with one another among 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. Scholars of asexuality 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, demonstrating a significant gap in the literature because of hypersexualization of Asian women and the desexualization of Asian men. Theory on the gendered nature of Asian American sexualities, such as Celine Parreñas Shimizu's bind of representation and straitjacket sexualities and Anne Anlin Cheng's ornamentalism, identifies stereotypes and explains strategies for reacting to sexualization.
In this presentation, I will discuss the sociological findings of twenty-three in-depth interviews, in which many participants reported that their asexual and Asian American identities did not overtly influence each other. I argue that this finding offers 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:
Asian American sexuality, Asexuality, Queer identity
Recommended Citation
Liu, Katelyn, "East Asian American Identities and Asexualities" (2026). Research Symposium. 53.
https://digitalcommons.oberlin.edu/researchsymp/2026/presentations/53
Major
Sociology; Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies
Award
Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship
Project Mentor(s)
Greggor Mattson, Sociology
2026
East Asian American Identities and Asexualities
PANEL: Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship Seniors
Wilder 101
Moderator: Kathryn Metz
This research explores how the forces of sexualization, racialization, and gendering intertwine and interact with one another among 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. Scholars of asexuality 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, demonstrating a significant gap in the literature because of hypersexualization of Asian women and the desexualization of Asian men. Theory on the gendered nature of Asian American sexualities, such as Celine Parreñas Shimizu's bind of representation and straitjacket sexualities and Anne Anlin Cheng's ornamentalism, identifies stereotypes and explains strategies for reacting to sexualization.
In this presentation, I will discuss the sociological findings of twenty-three in-depth interviews, in which many participants reported that their asexual and Asian American identities did not overtly influence each other. I argue that this finding offers 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.
Notes
Access to the presentation slides is available to Oberlin College users only.