ASEXUAL EROTICS ABNORMATIVITIES: QUEER/GENDER/EMBODIMENT Scott Herring, Series Editor ASEXUAL EROTICS INTIMATE READINGS OF COMPULSORY SEXUALITY ELA PRZYBYLO THE OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY PRESS COLUMBUS Copyright © 2019 by Th e Ohio State University. Th is edition licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Przybylo, Ela, 1985– author. Title: Asexual erotics : intimate readings of compulsory sexuality / Ela Przybylo. Other titles: Abnormativities: queer/gender/embodiment. Description: Columbus : Th e Ohio State University Press, [2019] | Series: Abnormativities: queer/gender/embodiment | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifi ers: LCCN 2019009059 | ISBN 9780814214046 (cloth ; alk. paper) | ISBN 0814214045 (cloth ; alk. paper) Subjects: LCSH: Asexuality (Sexual orientation) | Sex. | Sexual attraction. | Queer theory. | Feminist theory. Classifi cation: LCC HQ23 .P78 2019 | DDC 306.7—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019009059 Cover design by Susan Zucker Text design by Juliet Williamson Type set in Adobe Minion Pro CONTENTS List of Illustrations vi Acknowledgments vii INTRODUCTION Erotics and Asexuality: Thinking Asexuality, Unthinking Sex 1 CHAPTER 1 The Erotics of Feminist Revolution: Political Celibacies/ Asexualities in the Women’s Movement 33 CHAPTER 2 Lesbian Bed Death, Asexually: An Erotics of Failure 63 CHAPTER 3 Growing into Asexuality: The Queer Erotics of Childhood 89 CHAPTER 4 Erotics of Excess and the Aging Spinster 112 EPILOGUE Tyrannical Celibacy: The Anti-Erotics of Misogyny and White Supremacy 137 Notes 143 Bibliography 169 Index 189 ILLUSTRATIONS FIGURE 0.1 Taking the Cake zine 7 FIGURE 0.2 Denial narratives 9 FIGURE 0.3 Asexuality on House 18 FIGURE 1.1 “SISTERHOOD FEELS GOOD” poster 34 FIGURE 2.1 Still from season 1 of The Fosters 70 FIGURE 2.2 Still from season 2 of The Fosters 70 FIGURE 2.3 Tammy Rae Carland, Lesbian Beds 79 FIGURE 2.4 Kyle Lasky, Lesbian Bedrooms II 81 FIGURE 3.1 Vivek Shraya, Trisha 107 FIGURE 4.1 Stills from Frances Ha 133 vi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS POET LEAH LAKSHMI PIEPZNA-SAMARASINHA writes that in life, “you’re going to find the people you can sketch the secret inside of the world with [and] if you can’t find them you can sketch the secret inside of your world inside yourself.”1 Asexual Erotics was created just in this way—navigating intimacy, distance, betweenness, longing, and loneliness across cities, across contexts, and in erotic entanglement with many people. This book is in remembrance of erotic friendships that were cut short, especially those with Andrzej Przybyło and Jadwiga Chabasińska née Wilczyńska, for instilling in me a sense of longing for erotic worlds past and future. My father, Andrzej Przybyło, showed me Polish soft masculinity at its best, even within contexts of displacement and poor working conditions, teaching me to apply love, pride, and beer breaks to everything one does, both big and small. The biggest of thanks to my intelligent, sassy, and fiercely loving mother, Irena Przybyło née Chabasińska, who has always oriented me toward learning in all its many forms and gifted me with feminist determination and life invention in the face of immigration’s many adversities. Despite our differences, I am your daugh- ter through and through and you are my deepest love. Thank you also to both my beautiful Polish femme sisters, Aleksandra Przybyło and Ewa Przybyło, who taught me how to live in ways that were expansive by introducing me to poetry, conversation, writing essays, drawing plants, going on bike rides, traveling on a dime, putting on eyeliner, and loving deeply. Thank you to their vii viii • acknowledgments children, Veronika, Amelia, and Antoni, for reminding me of the spontane- ity of erotic joy through collaging, painting, and play. My heart, as always, is with you my very queer nuclear kin: my nieces and nephew, my mother, my sisters—thank you for being my horizon. Thank you also to our family friend, Elwira Sokołowski, who passed away as I was completing this book and who brought warmth, kindness, and healing into our home during traumatic times. At The Ohio State University Press, I was fortunate to receive support from an incredible editorial team, including my editor Tara Cyphers, series editor Scott Herring, assistant acquisitions editor Becca Bostock, assistant editor Kristina Wheeler, copyeditor Rebecca S. Bender, marketing director Laurie Avery, and Eugene O’Connor, who took interest in my book project as an acquiring editor. A special thank you also to Benjamin Kahan, KJ Cer- ankowski, and anonymous reviewers for critical engagements, which made Asexual Erotics a much stronger book than it would have been otherwise. I have been very fortunate also to have exceptional instructors and super- visors throughout my career who provided me with space to learn and the tools with which to develop my research on asexuality. In particular, my thanks to Michelle Meagher, Mebbie Bell, Lise Gotell, Jo-Ann Wallace, and Susanne Luhmann in the Women’s and Gender Studies Program at the Uni- versity of Alberta, who taught me theories and methods that stimulated my feminist imagination. Thank you especially to Michelle Meagher for her con- tinued intellectual support and guidance. Thank you also to faculty both in and beyond the Gender, Feminist, and Women’s Studies Graduate Program at York University, including Shannon Bell, Sheila Cavanagh, Barbara Crow, and Eva Karpinski. My biggest thanks to Shannon Bell, who believed that asexuality was a “sexy” topic and encouraged my writing with many prezis, lunches, and the occasional trip in her femme jeep. The biggest thank you to my heart-core feminist friends at York University and especially to Sara Rodrigues, Danielle Cooper, Sage Milo, Veronika Novoselova, Leyna Lowe, Hans Rollmann, Amy Verhaeghe, and Preity Kumar, who have all been part of this project and forever are part of my personal archive of asexual erotics. Thank you to Danielle Cooper in particular for recommending that I look at the “Sisterhood Feels Good” poster featured in chapter 1 and for suggesting that I think about the lesbian art histories of the bed in chapter 2. I was funded by the Michael Smith Foreign Study Supplement to spend a semester at the University of Auckland in 2010 as part of the Gender and Critical Psychology Research Group, and would like to thank Nicola Gavey, Virginia Braun, and Gareth Terry for their hospitality and collaboration dur- ing my time there. At Arizona State University I had the privilege of building acknowledgments • ix friendships with many wonderful folk, including Breanne Fahs, Eric Swanson, Tess Doezema, Jenny Dyck Brian, and the members of the Feminist Research on Gender and Sexuality Group. My most deep feminist gratitude to Breanne Fahs in the Women and Gender Studies Program, who offered me feminist mentorship, encouraged me to put together my book proposal, and became my feminist collaborator and movie theater date. I also want to offer a shout- out to all the queer folk of the Cornell School of Theory and Criticism, 2014 for providing me with an unforgettable summer of karaoke, queer angst, and intimacies. Thank you as well to the many other people who have offered me informal mentorship, including Chloë Taylor, Lucas Crawford, and Kelly Fritsch. My gratitude also to my colleagues in the Department of Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies at Simon Fraser University for their support of my work and in particular to Coleman Nye, Helen Hok-Sze Leung, and Lara Campbell, and to Kate Hennessy at the School of Interactive Arts and Technology. Thank you also to Roberta Neilson, who has offered me support at SFU and helped me navigate many a bureaucratic form. This book would have not been possible without the existence of multiple asexual and asexuality studies communities. In particular, thank you to the Ace/Aro Vancouver, BC community for inviting me to events and for trusting me to be part of the community as an organizer, facilitator, and friend. Thank you in particular to Justine Munich, who has been a source of wisdom and a superb co-organizer. Big gratitude as well to everyone involved in organiz- ing and attending the inaugural asexuality studies conference held in Van- couver in April 2019, “Unthinking Sex, Imagining Asexuality: Intersectional and Interdisciplinary Perspectives,” and most especially to my co-organizer, KJ Cerankowski. I am also indebted to the Asexuality Studies Research Group at the National Women’s Studies Association, including to Kristina Gupta, KJ Cerankowski, Ianna Hawkins Owen, Eunjung Kim, Cynthia Barounis, Regina Wright, M. Milks, Anna Kurowicka, CJ Chasin, Jasmine Stork, Michael Par- amo, Bauer, and others for working together to make asexuality matter in fem- inist and queer contexts. Thank you also to Steve Davies, who has provided me with many excellent ace-relevant content and asexual resonances and to Theresa Kenney, who has been a fantastic co-collaborator in bringing asexu- ality to the Sexuality Studies Association and to Women’s and Gender Stud- ies et Recherches Féministes in Canada. This book has also benefited from my incredible students and most especially those in “Critical Nonsexualities” at SFU in fall 2017 and students in my asexuality studies directed readings, Evelyn Elgie and Kaiya Jacob, who challenged me to think about erotics and x • acknowledgments asexuality in many ways both surprising and familiar. This book is for you and for all future asexuality studies scholars. Finally, thank you to my circles of friends, and especially to my queer pals and rock-climbing buddies who have given me opportunities to laugh at myself, to laugh at them, and to keep the machine of my life oiled by encour- aging me to seek learning and momentum through my body. My biggest thanks to my many emotional and thinking interlocutors in Toronto, Phoe- nix, Vancouver, Edmonton, and beyond with whom I am grateful to have shared love and loving of many forms.