Why Would Someone Choose to Live an Asexual Lifestyle?

With the 38th anniversary of Roe vs. Wade just passed, questions concerning the nature of life and sexuality are swirling. Add to that the recent Church scandals and the prevalence of casual sex in our culture, and it is only natural to find the asexual lifestyle at best odd, at worst, perverted. What could foster in someone the desire to abstain from sex? Is sex not a fundamental human need, one rooted in both pleasure and love, and one which our culture accepts without question? Indeed, abstinence is not the norm; but there is no better time than now to ask whether there is even a conceivable logic to the choice of asexuality. It seems that, as sex is bound up with questions of possession and belonging, so the choice to live asexually must also answer these questions, but in a different way.            

There are two facts about sex that are at the root of our cultural obsession with it: it’s fun, and it causes feelings of closeness and belonging. We find a casual sex partner, because sex is an animal instinct, and its fulfillment is gratifying. If we accept the psychology of such figures as Sigmund Freud, the need for sex goes much deeper than marriage or one-night stands. Even our dreams betray overwhelming sexual desire, and every insanity is the product of the cultural or individual repression of the libido. Further, the term “sexual tension,” which we all know, indicates that we understand sexual desire to be frequently at the root of what seem to be purely platonic relationships. Even abortion and contraception (neither of which is unique to our time in world history, by any means) point to a view of sexuality as both an overwhelming instinct, and one rooted more in pleasure than anything else. On the other hand, there is no doubt that our culture grants that sex tends to promote feelings of attachment. The preponderance of monogamy indicates an understanding that sex is not merely pleasurable, but deeply relates two different human beings in an incredibly profound way. Even the Gay Rights movement points to this, insofar as it seeks the right for two people to be accepted as legitimate and lifelong partners, regardless of sexual orientation.

Since this profoundly instinctual pleasure and this profoundly affecting union are both apparently at the root of sexuality, something in the asexual lifestyle must oppose them. And it does, in both a limiting and a freeing way. For the asexual individual cannot experience this unique pleasure that Freud considered the guiding principle of human psychology, and which many recognize as the highest physical pleasure attainable. And he cannot experience the precise feeling of union brought about by sex. While asexuality limits a person in this way, it also frees her in another. For while she perhaps cannot experience this pleasure, she can experience the pleasure of loving another person without any consideration of their sexual nature. And while she cannot experience this particular union, she can experience a different union with a greater number of people on a non-sexual level. Since sex is the height of union and the height of pleasure, it will become the reference point, the yardstick by which to measure the quality of every subsequent relationship and pleasure.

Thus, the sexual lifestyle leads to one’s “belonging” to this pleasure, and “belonging” to their sexual partner, in a unique and almost intangible way. The asexual individual does not “belong” to any particular pleasure, but experiences them all and belongs to them all—except the sexual pleasure. And she does not “belong” or commit to any particular person in the uniquely sexual way. She is free to belong to any number of people in any number of ways: even, if she so chooses, to “belong” to all people.

Of course, the flip side of belonging is possession. This holds true for sex. If I belong to my sexual partner, she in some way possesses me, and vice-versa. And insofar as sex leads to procreation, it leads to “my” children, over whom I exercise a unique prerogative to raise as I see fit. There is in sex both obligation to and power over—a beautiful balancing of responsibility and humility. The asexual relationship, however, neither belongs to nor possesses a sexual partner, nor has responsibility for particular children. The pleasure of having children, and the sense of belonging inherent in that, is one of the most beautiful facets of the sexual lifestyle; but it is obviously also limiting. Insofar as I have my own children, I do not have those children which are not mine, and I have a definite responsibility to see to it that my own children are raised well. Whereas the asexual lifestyle allows one to escape the question of possessing another person at all—the asexual individual may instead devote himself completely to non-embodied pursuits, such as learning and prayer, or to causes, such as pro-life or pro-choice, or even to “people” in the abstract, whatever this might mean. 

There is both a sacrifice inherent to the asexual lifestyle, and a freedom gained. Sex leads to what are often acknowledged as some of the highest joys of human life: sexual pleasure, family, and belonging. But, while he foregoes these, the asexual individual attains to something different, neither better nor worse. By refusing complete self-gift to a particular person in the sexual relationship, he enables himself to give himself in another way to many people, or to abstract causes or ideas: to live for Goodness itself, rather than to live for a particular good.