u ndergr ad
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Where Asexual and Queer Meet: Quotidian and Communal Experiences among Bay Area Queer Aces by
Meredith Pelrine, undergrad anthropology major
“So are you gay?” So said many of the people I conducted my research with, describing people’s reactions to hearing them describe their asexuality. Misunderstandings, stereotypes, and total lack of awareness about asexuality abound, and so it is perhaps no surprise that many heterosexual people quickly reduce non-heterosexual orientations to the one most salient in their minds. Asexuality is not the same thing as being gay, but whether it might be a kind of queerness is a question of some debate, and one integral to my research project. My research 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 defined as not experiencing sexual
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2015 / 2016 NEWSLETTER | VOLUME 9
attraction. This definition has been crafted through online asexual community dialogues, and is accepted by most asexual people (as well as used in the vast majority of recent literature about asexuality). Asexuality, like many sexuality-related identities, is imagined on a spectrum, whereby people can experience no sexual attraction, some sexual attraction, regular sexual attraction, or anywhere in between. “Queer” does not have such a commonly accepted definition, and can have a multitude of meanings. Here, however, I am using the term to refer to the personal individual identity—as in how someone refers to themselves. This means that it can have meanings ranging from any non-normative sexual orientation to a particularly politicized kind of pansexuality to a synonym for gay or lesbian, as defined by the particular individuals I spoke with. During the summers of 2014 and 2015, when I conducted my