Category Archives: Research and Scholarship

Special Issue of Feminist Formations on the Erotics of Asexualities

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Elzbieta Przybylo and I guest edited an issue of Feminist Formations on The Erotics of Asexualities and Nonsexualities. It is now available in print and online at: https://muse.jhu.edu/issue/43630. The issue includes articles by Theresa Kenney, Anna Kurowicka, Justin Smith, Day Wong and Xu Guo, Min Joo Lee, Nathan Snaza, and Casey Ryan Kelly and Chase Aunspach; as well as poetry by Cameron Awkward-Rich, Juan Miera, Sav Schlauderaff, Jo Teut, and Rebecca Ruth Gould; a book review by Sam Kizer; and cover art by Alex Farquhar. Thank you to the editorial team at Feminist Formations including Patti Duncan and Andrés López and to all the peer reviewers.

Front Cover: “Wood and Fish” 2018 Clip Studio Paint 18" by 24" Alex is an agender artist from Victoria BC. Alex goes by they and he, and makes art revolving around themes of asexuality and feelings of hope, wonder and alienation. You can follow them on twitter @AgentBoss to see what work they are making next.

Front Cover: “Wood and Fish”
2018
Clip Studio Paint
18″ by 24″
Alex is an agender artist from Victoria BC. Alex goes by they and he, and makes art revolving around themes of asexuality and feelings of hope, wonder and alienation. You can follow them on twitter @AgentBoss to see what work they are making next.

Society for Disability Studies Conference 2015

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I had a lovely time attending the Society for Disability Studies Conference in Atlanta, GA.

Here is a link to the poster I presented at the conference, “Rethinking Medical Approaches to Sexual Disinterest: A Disability Studies Perspective”:

https://rethinkingmedicalapproachestosexualdisinterest.wordpress.com/

Also, I picked up this great poster at the silent auction:

Guest Post on Psychology Today

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I was recently invited by Dr. Bella DePaulo to contribute a post about asexuality to her “Living Single” blog at Psychology Today.

Here is a link to my contribution, “So Long, Compulsory Sex! See Ya, Viagra! Asexuality is Here”:

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/living-single/201408/so-long-compulsory-sex-see-ya-viagra-asexuality-is-here

Thank you to Dr. DePaulo for this opportunity!

Asexuality and Sexual Normativity: An Anthology

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The special issue of the journal Psychology and Sexuality on asexuality that I co-edited with Mark Carrigan and Todd Morrison was recently released as an edited collection, Asexuality and Sexual Normativity: An Anthology (2014), by Routledge.

The book is available through Amazon and through Routledge, although the price is quite steep.

The LSE Review of Books just published a favorable review of the book.

Asexuality and Sexual Normativity Cover

 

Can You Grow One with Teeth? The political and ethical issues raised by “lab grown vaginas”

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Not too long ago, I came across this news story about lab grown vaginas. Apparently, a team of researchers from the U.S. and Mexico grew vaginal organs in a lab for four teenage patients who had “underdeveloped” or absent vaginas.

The Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine has posted materials about the study here and here.

The story raises interesting questions about whether this new medical technology will serve to enforce gender and sexual norms or whether it could serve to enable gender and sexual play; however I argue in this post that these questions are not all that easy to answer.

vaginal scaffold

Vaginal Scaffold (Credit: Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine)

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Edited Collection Published: Asexualities: Feminist and Queer Perspectives

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Asexualities Feminist and Queer Perspective Book CoverI am happy to announce that the edited collection, Asexualities: Feminist and Queer Perspectives, has been published by Routledge. The volume is a wonderful collection of essays exploring the feminist and queer politics of asexuality. I have a chapter in the collection titled “Asexuality and Disability: Mutual Negation in Adams v. Rice and New Directions for Coalition Building.”

Here is a brief excerpt from the book description: “Together, these essays made out of a residency personal statement writing service challenge the ways in which we imagine gender and sexuality in relation to desire and sexual practice. Asexualities provides a critical reevaluation of even the most radical queer theorizations of sexuality. Going beyond a call for acceptance of asexuality as a legitimate and valid sexual orientation, the authors offer a critical examination of many of the most fundamental ways in which we categorize and index sexualities, desires, bodies, and practices.”

For more information about the book, and to order, please visit the book page on the Routledge website.

If you are affiliated with a college or university, please ask your institutional library to purchase a copy for their collection. A library recommendation form is available here.

Thank you very much to the editors, Karli June Cerankowski and Megan Milks, for their hard work on this volume and for their leadership in the field of asexuality studies.

Flibanserin: The Saga Continues

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PillDollarPharmaceutical companies have been working for years in order to secure FDA-approval for Flibanserin, a drug intended to treat female desire disorders. Recently, there have been a number of new developments in the Flibanserin saga, involving drug companies, the FDA, feminist activists, and the media, which I analyze in this post. Here’s a quick preview of my judgment on each of these actors: pharmaceutical companies = profit driven (what else?); FDA = differential treatment of drugs for men vs. drugs for women; feminist activists = doing some good, but efforts have limitations; media = totally dropping the ball.

Background on the Flibanserin

Flibanserin is a drug that increases levels of the neurotransmitters dopamine and noradrenaline and lowers levels of the neurotransmitter serotonin. It was originally developed and tested as a treatment for depression by the German pharmaceutical company Boehringer Ingelheim, but it was not found to be effective in treating depression.

DSM-IV and DSM-V

Credit: Wikimedia Commons

In 2010, Boehringer Ingelheim applied to the FDA for approval for Flibanserin as a treatment for Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder (HSDD) in women. HSDD is defined by the American Psychiatric Association in the DSM-IV as “persistently or recurrently deficient or absent sexual fantasies and desire for sexual activity” which must cause “marked distress or interpersonal difficulty” [1]. In clinical trials, women diagnosed with HSDD who took Flibanserin reported an increase of around 2.5 “sexually satisfying events” per month, while women diagnosed with HSDD who took a placebo reported an increase of around 1.5 “sexually satisfying events” per month. The FDA panel that reviewed Boehringer Ingelheim’s application recommended against approving Flibanserin, citing modest benefits and long-term safety concerns (the transcript of the hearing is available online).
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A Recommended Sex Manual?

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The Guide to Getting It On (6th Edition) Cover

The Guide to Getting It On (6th Edition)

I am happy to report that my co-authored article with Thea Cacchioni, “Sexual improvement as if your health depends on it: An analysis of contemporary sex manuals,” has been published by Feminism & Psychology. In the article, we review seventeen U.S. sex manuals published between 2000 and 2010. We argue that in addition to positioning sexual activity as a biological, essential (albeit gendered) human need, and as the ultimate path to individual fulfillment and empowerment, a new rationale for the importance of sex (and working on sexual improvement) is now prominent in contemporary sex manuals. Reflecting the “healthicization” of sex in the post-Viagra era, authors frame frequent pleasurable sexual activity as an important factor in the maintenance of health and wellness while enjoy harder erections, an argument that gives further weight to the importance of “sex work” as a fundamental aspect of particularly women’s work in heterosexual relationships.

In a previous post, “The Sex-Glutted Marriage: A Couple’s Guide to Reducing Their Marriage Libido,” I parodied what I still consider to be one of the worst manuals we reviewed, The Sex-Starved Marriage: Boosting Your Marriage Libido: A Couple’s Guide by Michele Weiner Davis. This manual was relentless in promoting the idea that if one member of a couple is disinterested in sex, the relationship will inevitably fail; and, therefore, that person must do everything in her or his power to become more interested in sex.

In honor of our article coming out (and in case you are looking for gifts to give this holiday season), I decided to reveal which sex manuals I would actually recommend. The truth is, out of all the ones we reviewed (including several that were explicitly positioned as feminist and/or queer), the only one that I would really recommend is the Guide to Getting It On by Paul Joannides (I read the 6th edition). The reason why I would recommend this manual is, frankly, because it actually doesn’t give much in the way of advice. It’s really more of an encyclopedia of sex and sexuality (and, at 900+ pages, quite an extensive encyclopedia). Rather than implying that there is one right way to be sexual (or not), the book gives information about different sexual desires, practices, identities and other topics, and allows readers to decide what might work for them.
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