Asexualities and media

This chapter discusses some of the intersections between asexualities and media, demonstrating that adopting asexual reading practices and utilising the lens of compulsory sexuality can provide insight into media representations of asexuality, non-sexuality and sexuality more broadly. It describes two lenses of analysis that have been developed by activists and scholars in the field of asexuality studies – compulsory sexuality and asexual reading practices – and argues that these lenses yield new insights about media representations of asexuality, non-sexuality and sexuality more generally. The chapter then offers a number of examples of media analysis that employ these two lenses to model critical asexual reading practices. Activists and scholars in the field of asexuality studies have identified 'compulsory sexuality' as a system of social control different from 'compulsory heterosexuality'. The chapter demonstrates how one might use asexual reading practices and compulsory sexuality as lenses for analysing and revising normative understandings of intimacy, relationships, kinship, desire and sex.