Where Asexual and Queer Meet: Quotidian and Communal Experiences among Bay Area Queer Aces
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- This thesis examines the intersection of queerness and asexuality, particularly for people who identify as both asexual and queer in the San Francisco Bay Area. Asexuality is most commonly and most simply defined as not experiencing sexual attraction. I am here using “queer” to refer to the personal individual identity (how someone refers to themself), which can have meanings ranging from any non-normative sexual orientation to a particularly politicized kind of pansexuality to a synonym for gay or lesbian. During the summers of 2014 and 2015, when I conducted my research, I engaged with people online and in person in the Bay Area about how they defined asexuality and queerness and their experiences with different kinds of communities. My basic research question is: how do asexual-and-queer people, particularly in the Bay Area and also in certain online communities, think about, talk about, and experience these identities? In particular, how do they experience their queerness, and define queer identity more broadly? In my thesis, I discuss this question through three layers: how individual asexual-and-queer people experience their identities on (inter)personal levels, how asexual-and-queer community organizing is done online and in person, and how and with whom asexual-and-queer people form ties of solidarity across different identities. I will argue that asexuality offers a critical intervention into both mainstream queer discourse and dominant discourse in the U.S. more generally by decoupling rigorous associations of romance with sex and sex with liberation, and that greater acknowledgement of the diversity of attractions, desires, and ways of loving would tremendously benefit asexual people and society at large.
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Date created | May 20, 2016 |
Creators/Contributors
| Author | Pelrine, Meredith |
|---|---|
| Primary advisor | Malkki, Liisa |
| Advisor | Inoue, Miyako |
| Degree granting institution | Stanford University, Department of Anthropology |
Subjects
| Subject | queer |
|---|---|
| Subject | asexual |
| Subject | identity |
| Subject | community |
| Subject | Department of Anthropology |
| Genre | Thesis |
Bibliographic information
| Related Publication | Pelrine, Meredith. (2015). Invisibility and Assailability: Living Asexual and Queer in an Aggressively Heterosexual Society. Contexts: Stanford Undergraduate Research Journal in Anthropology, Spring 2015, 13-18. Available at: https://issuu.com/stanfordanthro/docs/contexts_2015/1?e=8601302/13613813 |
|---|---|
| Related item | |
| Location | https://purl.stanford.edu/vc637bx8320 |
Access conditions
- Use and reproduction
- User agrees that, where applicable, content will not be used to identify or to otherwise infringe the privacy or confidentiality rights of individuals. Content distributed via the Stanford Digital Repository may be subject to additional license and use restrictions applied by the depositor.
- License
- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial No Derivatives 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-NC-ND).
Preferred citation
- Preferred Citation
- Pelrine, Meredith. (2016). Where Asexual and Queer Meet: Quotidian and Communal Experiences among Bay Area Queer Aces. Stanford Digital Repository. Available at: http://purl.stanford.edu/vc637bx8320
Collection
Undergraduate Research Papers, Department of Anthropology, Stanford University.
View other items in this collection in SearchWorksContact information
- Contact
- mmpelrine@gmail.com
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