sorry didn't mean to send the long response to everyone, but you are welcome to read and send me comments if you want

----
Kristina Gupta
Ph.D. Candidate
Department of Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies
Emory University

________________________________________
From: Gupta, Kristina
Sent: Thursday, January 24, 2013 10:32 AM
To: Asexuality Studies
Subject: RE: ASEXUALITYSTUDIES Digest - 17 Jan 2013 to 22 Jan 2013 (#2013-5)

Hi Andrew,

Thanks for your comments - just a quick response here:

1) I was citing your article in AVENues, "“Asexuality Among Sexualities" which was published under the name "Mandrewliter," so I cited the author as "Mandrewliter." In the future, if citing that article, I will include a note indicating that Mandrewliter is Andrew Hinderliter. Thanks for that.
2) history of asexuality: thank you and I will include this in future writing
3) citing AVEN as the source for the definition of asexuality that I use - again, you are right here - in the future I will be more careful, as the second part of the definition comes not from AVEN but from my interviews
4) I do recognize that many asexuals see sexual desire and attraction as different - which is actually what I was trying to indicate in my footnote (that although many describe themselves as not feeling sexual attraction, they may or may not feel sexual desire) - I can see now how that wasn't clear, and will try to be more clear in the future.
5) Regards the parenthetical about masturbation - this comes from Scherrer 2008: "For this person, masturbation was a bodily activity, unconnected with sex." (628); also from Prause and Graham (2007), so I should have cited them instead of AVEN. I included a mention that self-identified asexuals may engage in sexual activity because I thought many casual readers not familiar with asexuality might assume that asexual individuals don't engage in sexual activities (which has been a common reaction of people when I talk to them about my research).
6. I meant to include the mention of a partner initiating as one reason why a self-identified asexual person might engage in sex (but not the only reason), again because this is often a question I get (why would a self-identified asexual person have sex?). I see how I need to reword this to indicate that a partner initiating is only one reason why a self-identified asexual might engage in sex.

Thanks for those points. It's great to be able to share one's work with a community of scholars who can provide constructive criticism. If you want to continue this conversation, I would be happy to do so off-list!

Best,

----
Kristina Gupta
Ph.D. Candidate
Department of Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies
Emory University

________________________________________
From: Asexuality Studies [[log in to unmask]] on behalf of ASEXUALITYSTUDIES automatic digest system [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Tuesday, January 22, 2013 7:06 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: ASEXUALITYSTUDIES Digest - 17 Jan 2013 to 22 Jan 2013 (#2013-5)

There is 1 message totaling 395 lines in this issue.

Topics of the day:

  1. article published

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Date:    Tue, 22 Jan 2013 14:22:26 -0600
From:    Andrew Hinderliter <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: article published

Hi everyone,

I've finished reading the article, and I had a few comments which are
partly about this article, but also about similar things in other articles.

As a minor point, we all like to have our stuff attributed to us, and the
connection between my real name and the names I've used in AVENues and
Apositive aren't confidential information.  I believe this is the third
article I've read in which something I wrote was cited without my name
being put on it.  (I write the AVENues article cited here.  Ela's paper in *
Sexualities* cited my piece "Asexuality: History of a Definition" as not
having an author--while I neglected to put my name on the article itself, I
do say that I'm the author in the "defining asexuality" page.  In
Ela's *Feminism
and Psychology *article, my Apositive blog post "The Storms Model" is
attributed to "one asexuality blogger.")  In case of uncertainty, I would
recommend asking.  When unaware of who the author of a piece is, the advice
I received about internet citations is worth following: if you truly can't
find an author's name, cite it without one, but often a little bit of
searching will turn up the information.

Moving to more substantive criticisms, there are some issues I have
problems with, and I've seen these in a number of articles (especially from
Gender Studies).  I hope people don't see this as nit-picking.  I do think
these are important issues:

In the past ten years, a number of individuals have begun to identify as
> asexual and to form online asexual communities. Although definitions vary,
> people who identify as asexual often define asexuality as a lack of sexual
> attraction to other people and/or as a lack of interest in engaging in
> sexual
> activity with other people (AVEN website).13


And then footnote 13 says:

Asexual individuals are diverse in regards to their experiences of sexual
> attraction. Some feel no sexual desire. Others may experience sexual desire
> but may not feel inclined to act on that desire. Some asexual individuals
> do not engage in any sexual activity, some masturbate (but may not consider
> this a sexual activity), and some may engage in sexual activity if
> initiated by a partner (AVEN website).


First, I know that this telling of asexual history is common--and it's one
that I've given in some previous work (dating things to the Yahoo! group
Haven for the Human Amoeba).  However, further research and better digging
through archives indicates that asexual identity goes back at least to the
1970s, and under various terms (i.e. *asexual, nonsexual, antisexual*),
there were some fledgling communities in the mid-late 1990s.  (If anyone
wants more info, please contact me privately.)

Second, I believe that for the sake of accuracy it  is important to credit
AVEN with the definition of asexuality that AVEN gives, not your own
preferred definition of asexuality.  If you do use your own personal
definition which differs from AVEN (which I sometimes do), say it's your
own preferred definition.  AVEN defines asexuality as not experiencing
sexual attraction.  As I recall,  Brotto et al.'s 2010 paper in ASB
reported that all of their interviewees defined asexuality in terms of
sexual attraction.  Scherrer's paper in *Sexualities* reports that the
large majority of people in her (much larger) sample did as well, although
there were notable exceptions to this.

Third,  the footnote seems to use *sexual attraction* and *sexual desire* as
equivalent, but my experience has been many asexuals strongly insist on
treating them as different.  Also, I'm not sure where on the AVEN website
you are getting the claims you credit it with in the footnote, but the
parenthetical comment about masturbation seems to imply an assumption that
"asexuality" is understood as "lacking sexuality" or "the absence of
sexuality."  While a number of articles have treated asexuality as being
the "lack of sexuality", not all asexuals see asexuality as a lack of
sexuality.  The only study that I know of to ask the question was my Jan
2012 survey.  I found that the *majority *of participants (people 25 or
older who identify as asexual and have spent most of their lives since
puberty in English-language contexts) said, "no."

On the subject of asexuality and masturbation, people may find helpful two
2008 posts from my blog, and another from 2010 when my thinking on the
matter had further developed:

http://asexystuff.blogspot.com/2008/11/how-can-someone-who-masturbates-not-be.html
http://asexystuff.blogspot.com/2008/11/once-upon-time-there-were-three.html
http://asexystuff.blogspot.com/2010/01/what-does-it-mean-to-be-not-sexual.html

Finally, I don't think there's been any research yet on asexuals' reasons
for having sex, or about when some asexuals have sex, who initiates.  I
don't think that we can assume *a priori* that it's always the partner who
initiates, given that there are lots of different reasons people have sex.
 (Maybe they're curious.  Maybe their partner wants them to initiate.
 Maybe they're wanting sexual release and they think that their partner
would prefer that this be dealt with together rather than alone, etc.)

I realize that these criticisms all deal with a relatively small part of
the article, but I think it's important to distinguish between one's own
views and the views expressed by AVEN and by "asexual activists" (which
ones?)  For myself, I often find myself wanting to cite source that I
remember as expressing a view I hold, but then in rereading it, I find that
it's not quite as I remembered it.

Best,
Andrew

On Thu, Jan 17, 2013 at 12:49 PM, Shawn Landis
<[log in to unmask]>wrote:

> Quoting "Gupta, Kristina" <[log in to unmask]>:
>
> I'd like a copy but as with many academic abstracts, and academic articles
> themselves,  there seems to be a lot here that could be reduced to a single
> sentence.  Can you provide the general gist of this for the layman who,
> although he can read Pascal code, isn't quite sure what you mean here?
>
> It sounds like a criticism of one specific film and a common response to
> asexual issues from members of the Gay and Lesbian community.
>
>  Hi all,
>>
>> I just wanted to let you know that I recently had an article about
>> asexuality published in the Journal of Lesbian Studies. Here is the
>> citation and abstract:
>>
>> 2013. Picturing Space for Lesbian Nonsexualities: Rethinking
>> Sex-Normative Commitments through The Kids Are All Right (2010). The
>> Journal of Lesbian Studies. 17(1): 103-118. (http://www.tandfonline.com/*
>> *doi/abs/10.1080/10894160.2012.**683381?journalCode=wjls20<http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10894160.2012.683381?journalCode=wjls20>
>> )
>>
>> Abstract: This article examines representations of lesbian nonsexuality
>> in the film The Kids Are All Right and in responses to the film by feminist
>> and queer scholars. In some moments, the film offers a limited endorsement
>> of lesbian nonsexuality, placing pressure on the category lesbian to
>> include nonsexuality and asexuality. However, in their responses to the
>> film, many feminist and queer scholars rejected nonsexuality as an aspect
>> of lesbian experience, placing pressure on the category lesbian to exclude
>> nonsexual and asexual women. Asexual activism challenges scholars to
>> question their sex-normative commitments and to keep the category lesbian
>> open and flexible.
>>
>> If you don't have access to the article and would like a copy, please
>> email me and I would be happy to send you a copy directly.
>>
>> Best,
>>
>> ----
>> Kristina Gupta
>> Ph.D. Candidate
>> Department of Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies
>> Emory University
>>
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