#desexualization

Desexualized: others view you as an inherently nonsexual person regardless of your actions or words, and/or you're never/rarely the object of sexual attention.

It is possible to experience both at the same time (i.e., you feel you're seen as predatory and thus sexualized, but also as unattractive and thus desexualized). These are broad definitions of the terms; use your own judgment if they don't quite fit for you.

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I have been gaining a lot of mobility lately and am only using a wheelchair about half the time I go out. And what pisses me off and also makes me sad, is how much more attention I get. Especially from men.

Yeah there's the negative attention, but I'm also talking about polite positive flirting, or even just basic conversation. It really opened my eyes to how totally and utterly I have been desexualized.

If I roll into a queer space I don't get sexual attention even if I'm looking for it. I use a lighter mobility aid like a cane or forearm crutches? Often more than one person openly flirting. Even buying me a bunch of drinks one time.

Just the appearance of a wheelchair detracts EVERYTHING about me and just makes me into a thing rather than a person with a sexuality. Ive literally had people go cold and stop flirting with me when they realize I'm sitting in a wheelchair and not a regular chair.

And what people wouldn't expect, this happens most prominently in queer spaces. Queer spaces are very much not free of bigotry

If the only difference between you shooting your shot is if they use a cane or a wheelchair, you need to seriously examine your biases. Even if you're queer. Even if you're also disabled. This shit is way too prominent and all people deserve to be seen as sexual beings if they want to be, and to be treated equally to abled queers.

Nonbinary Vietnamese character, worried about (neutral = de-sexualized) tropes

A note that Vietnam is part of Southeast Asia, not East Asia! 

Obviously there are multiethnic Vietnamese people such as myself that are East and Southeast Asian, and Vietnamese people of East Asian (ethnic) origin - but Vietnam’s considered a Southeast Asian nation (here’s a link to the ASEAN’s page on Vietnam).

Speaking as a nonbinary Vietnamese person, I’d say go for it! I personally know many other Vietnamese nonbinary people, so the identity is definitely a sizable population of the queer Viet diaspora.

Clearly you’ve done research on dehumanizing tropes of characters of color, so I would just recommend scrolling through our “nonbinary” and “Vietnamese” tags.

If you want some resources from LGBT Viets specifically, I’d recommend checking out Viet Rainbow of Orange County, an organization founded by LGBT Vietnamese people based in Little Saigon.

[Content Warning for mentions of suicide and mental health issues]

According to the Trevor Project, many young queer Vietnamese-Americans struggle with mental health issues with as high as 60% LGBT Vietnamese youth not being “out” to their parents, and 31% contemplating suicide. I would tread carefully if this is a topic you plan on addressing in your story.

Something interesting I’ve stumbled across with regards to the nonbinary Vietnamese identity: according to the Asian American Writers Workshop, some people use “chanh” as a pronoun (combining the words for sister and brother). I personally don’t speak Vietnamese, but thought this was pretty neat!

Nonbinary Vietnamese readers, feel free to contribute any thoughts you have.

There’s a popular attitude that asexuality + any other marginalized identity or experience is a sort of Forbidden Combination because it inherently “desexualizes” that identity.  This is a viewpoint that has drawn language from some genuine discussions of desexualization, but has been twisted and hyped by acephobes and exclusionists to the point where even people within those groups are afraid to write or headcanon characters that are asexual + disabled, female, a person of color, neurodivergent, mentally ill, trans, etc.

First and most importantly:  I cannot even put into words how damaging and stifling this is to those of us who are one of these “forbidden combinations.”  There’s this level of shame that often comes with the territory that often walls us off from more generalized positivity and support.  Acting like imagining or writing a character that resembles us is a Sin (tm) makes this SO much worse.  

For example, I am ADHD, most likely autistic, and asexual.  The first time I ever felt free to explore the idea of a character who is both asexual and neurodivergent was with a canonically asexual character, and it was the most remarkably freeing and exciting experience.  In my experience, having an ace headcanon for a character that even hinted at neurodivergence would get you dogpiled with accusations of ableism, so I avoided it for years and years out of fear--but I could FINALLY write about someone who resembled me!  I could finally explore how those two sides of me interact and interconnect!  I hate knowing that the reason why it’s more accepted to start with the ace character and add other headcanons was because of this idea that asexuality is a demeaning identity (conflating it with desexualization, which I’ll get into later), but regardless it’s been a great time.

...And now I’m seeing people insisting that, no, even if you’re starting with a canonically ace character, adding a headcanon for another marginalized identity is also bad and “desexualizes” that identity.  Now it’s a “these two things are never allowed near each other” rather than just “ace headcanons are bad for anything but a white, able-bodied, neurotypical, able-bodied, cishet man.”

All of the above completely disregards the actual execution of the writing for a harmful and lazy attitude of “never allow these two identities near each other.”  But execution matters.  Learning what desexualization actually is, and not treating it as a synonym with asexuality, is vital for undoing these attitudes.

Why is desexualization harmful?

This is highly summarized, but the gist is: 

- Infantilizing the person, treating them like they can’t be a consenting adult in a sexual situation.

- Depriving the person of agency, which ties into the above issue of treating them like they can’t consent.  This is also an overlapping issue with oversexualization, which treats a person like a sexual object regardless of their input.

- Treating the person as undesirable; the disgust reaction of “I hate imagining this person in a sexual/romantic situation, so let’s just wall them off from the possibility completely”

- In fandom, a character being dismissed or sidelined in circles that focus on romantic/sexual content.

These are also terrible things to portray about asexual people.  If the execution of an asexual character or headcanon includes the above, it’s demeaning and acephobic!  But if an asexual depiction does not include these elements, it is not desexualization.  

I want to keep this post fandom nonspecific since this is an issue EVERYWHERE I went, but the character in question for the “you can’t headcanon him as anything but white or it’s desexualization” accusation I saw (ironically written by a white person) a) is an adult, b) has confidently set boundaries for sexual activity, c) is unabashedly portrayed as receiving romantic interest & desire for the entire course of the show, and d) is the main character and almost always centered in fanworks.  It’s practically a checklist for why the above wouldn’t apply.  But with this lazy, harmful approach of “asexuality can’t be combined with any other marginalized identity,” it still gets the “problematic” label slapped on it.  And let me tell you, the asexual PoC in the discords I’m in were NOT happy with that post telling them “just :) think about why this is wrong :))”

There is nothing inherently harmful about writing two intersecting identities. Asexuality is not the same thing as desexualization. Asexuality is about the asexual person - desexualization is what is done to them.

I’m not qualified to give advice on the racism aspect of this, but I hope that helps give you something to spring off of. I definitely think writingwithcolor would be a good place to go to next. They’d definitely be more qualified than the couple of mods currently active here.

- mod nat

There is an old ask sent to WWC regarding this. In short and paraphrased: Queer and aroace people exist everywhere. There might be specific tropes that you need to look out for, but overall we exist and we're not going anywhere. Link from 2014.