Writing Asexuals in Sex Scenes

I'm glad I could help. Look through the comments, I think people are linking some good resources about asexuality. Haven't even read through it all yet. Good luck with your character!

>>I imagine that trying to write a sex scene involving an asexual could present quite an opportunity to present romantic drama, depending on the asexual involved.<<

It could. There are all kinds of other tension that could be involved. Dramatic tension (nonconsensual scene) and intrapersonal tension (procreative sex) leap readily to mind.

>>an asexual is one who does not experience sexual attraction.<<

I'm intrigued that it rules out something I'd consider an important aspect: indifference or aversion to the physical act(s) of sex. If someone can be attracted to other people, but goes "Yuck!" as soon as copulation comes into the equation, I'd count that as asexual. Hm, perhaps to refine the distinction, traction vs. performance asexuality.

>>Ace-on-ace action would probably be pretty boring to write, from a pornographic standpoint, as likely all it would involve is two people cuddling on the sofa, whilst eating plenty of cake and watching Dr. Who.<<

Not if they're tactophilic. One of the most intense erotic experiences I ever had was completely nongenital, nonsexual, all based on using the body's largest organ (the skin) to focus attention. Closely related are massage and other high-contact sensual experiences. Then there's kink, which is a sexual experience for some people and a nongenital passion for others.

I never cease to be surprised and baffled by how limited other people's view of sexuality and sensuality can be. It is really not all about the orgasm nerves. There are zillions of other ways to trip the pleasure circuits in the body and brain. There are also a great many other forms of intimacy that are equal to or greater than that of copulation (which is not necessarily intimate, itself). Think outside the box. Write outside the box. There are about 400 million English speakers, so about 4 million English-speaking aces out there who would probably enjoy seeing more depictions of ace characters; and some sizable subset of those are probably tactophilic and would pounce all over a graphic rendition of high-contact, nongenital action.

Oh, and it transcends species. I've seen a chitinous alien utterly fascinated by educational massage videos of humans.

>>Unfortunately for most contemporary aces, this is such a rarity, as self-identified asexuals are VERY uncommon. <<

Counting the whole spectral mass, it runs about 1%. Based on the typical monkeysphere, most people therefore know 2-3 aces. The problem is the damn invisibility factor. It's hard to find them. They get hassled, as do many other people outside the core of the bell curve, so many of them don't advertise their identity. And because there's so little information, many asexual people don't even identify themselves as such. They think they're sexual people with something wrong with them. That isn't conducive to forming healthy relationships either.

Eh, same solution with all the other sexual progress waves: educate and network. Wait ten years and it will be mostly fine. Meanwhile, since some of us have seen or studied multiple social evolution waves, it's pretty simple to hack out the pattern and shortcut a lot of it. Push the education and networking hard enough, and the in-community results will arrive a lot faster -- plus now we have the internet, which helps immensely. Social acceptance will lag behind, but at least we can introduce the aces to themselves and each other sooner rather than later.

>>And therein lies the possible interest for the writer; the degeneration of a sexual and asexual relationship. It's still not very exciting pornographically, as the asexual gradually grows to feel that sex is a f*cking chore (pun intended) and even becomes hesitant to display any other form physical attention, lest he accidentally awaken the Lust Beast in his partner. <<

That's not the only possible plot, although it does appear. One might also choose to focus on the internal dynamics of being asexual, or figuring out what one wants and how to get it, or even bringing in another party to meet the sexual partner's erotic needs.

There's also the exploration of nonsexual passion, love, and forming a family. I'm currently working on a story with Omorth and its dance partners. One no-gender character (who is happily ace), one male, and one female. The latter two are sexually active but not interested in marriage or procreation; they prefer to hire carnal workers. What these three folks have in common is that their great passion is the Trefoil Dance. The three of them are a social unit as well as a professional unit; they're protective of that and don't want anything to come between them. "The Green Speech" isn't about their relationship -- but they're teaming up with friends who work at a museum, to reconstruct costuming for a historic dance performance, and the process of that does show some of the relationship dynamics. Now this particular story doesn't go in this direction, but it would be perfectly plausible to write a dance scene with these three characters that would be nongenital but hot enough to fry eggs.

>>Yeah, sexual and asexual pairings tend not to be a good idea, but sadly, this is often the kind of thing the asexual is going to experience, likely multiple times, before finally realizing that he or she is asexual. This might make for good drama, but a steamy sex scene?<<

It depends on the flavor of the asexual, the flexibility of the sexual partner, and the ability of the writer to apply steam in contexts beyond the most simple copulatory ones.

While English has a huge lexical gap around asexuality, it is a splendid language for sexual innuendo. You can take darn near any topic and write it in steamy suggestive terms. Just use that instead of genitals to crank up the heat. The sexual reader's brain will respond to the innuendo connecting with their own sexual identity, but they'll still be able to read the story and grasp the asexual aspects of what's happening therein. There are plenty of things that can be done -- they just aren't all easy to render effectively.

While discussing this topic further at home, I wound up coining a metaphor that might be useful, in regards to the way that many aspects of sexuality are conflated because they rarely function separately. It's like the wheels on a car. As long as the car remains intact, the four wheels will always operate as a unit (or two units, if you want to count front and back separately). They remain parallel and they go in the same direction; you can't have one wheel go left and the other go right. But if you take the wheels OFF the car, then they CAN go in totally different directions. They aren't all one wheel, nor are they attached in a way that can't be detached without destroying them.

So for instance, many people think of sex and gender as synonymous because a male body almost always contains a masculine personality, etc. But it's possible for a male body to contain a feminine or neuter personality, etc. That proves the distinction.

With asexuals, the wheel of desire for romantic intimacy on one side does not have an axle attached to the wheel of desire for copulation on the other; whereas sexual people who feel romantic attraction typically do want to consummate it with copulation. Similarly an asexual may wish to engage in sensual but nongenital touching, whereas for sexual people the concept of "touch" pretty much activates the concept of "sex" to the point that some of them cannot separate the two at all nor imagine how anyone else might.

If it can't be said easily with literal language, solve for X and say it with figurative language.

>> Whilst I never really got much out of sex (save perhaps the satisfaction of a job well done) and my partners often felt frustrated because they never could get me very far, my casual touching seemed to be enough to get them all excited and I seemed to please them quite frequently, so, yeah, I suppose the potential for steam scene is there. <<

It seems to depend on both parties' flexibility and creativity. If you keep trying to do conventional sex, you're both going to wind up frustrated. If you're not comfortable or articulate discussing these things, you'll be frustrated, and you probably shouldn't be attempting something as challenging as a cross-orientational relationship.

The trick is to look for areas of common interest, which usually involves a lot of exploring of things that aren't necessarily the first things people think about regarding sex. Do they both like skin contact? Try sensual massage. Are they audiophilic? Try pillowtalk. Are they intensely attached to each other? Try the very large assortment of Tantric exercises that involve intimacy and personal energy exchange rather than genital excitement. Do they love food? Try playing with that. And so on. It might or might not end with an orgasm; and it's possible for the asexual partner to be involved without necessarily being responsible for having or producing said orgasm.

There are some interesting examples in literature, both fanfic and original. Come to think of it, the not-telling gender in Waterjewel prefers cross-orientational relationships. There's an example in my story "Did You Get Your Answers Questioned?" in Genderflex. (They're kind of at an odd tangent to asexuality. They engage in erotic activity, but don't involve their own genitals if any. The effects can be similar to asexual/sexual pairings.) There's also a fun story from the "Sherlock" fanfic, "Practical Angora Goat Raising," in which the common ground turns out to be Sherlock watching John masturbate. Having 100% of a person's attention focused on you can be very hot. In this instance, it's basically a sexual character getting off on a quintessentially asexual technique: the stimulation is mental, though for the sexual character it gets transmuted into a sexual effect. That's another good one to try for people who are just really stuck on each other and want to find some intimate activity that will be enjoyable for both.

Also worth mentioning as a gorgeous example of a cross-orientational relationship (in this case heterosexual and homosexual) is Ru and Atty in Dog Warrior. Atty was designed as a breeder, but got attached to Ru who is also male, and managed to budge his sexuality juuust enough to connect. The author reveals their backstory in elegant little flashes and shows how careful they have to be to make the whole thing work. Meanwhile the plot involves an insane cult and deadly alien technology per the series.

>> I'm disturbed that here, you seem to be equating "Neuter gender" with asexuality. <<

"Neuter" can refer to physical sex or to gender identity, or both. It doesn't necessarily presuppose asexual identity or lack of sexual practice, although those features often cluster together. Details vary across individuals, cultures, and species.

>>It is unfortunate that you seem to limit Ace-sex to either "Mutually agreeable" or "Awkward Disaster" - because the SAME CAN BE TRUE OF sex between two Sexuals.<<

No, discussing those was an exploration of different ways that ace-sex could go; there are other ways it could go, and there are other combinations that could go those ways. I rarely put impermeable membranes around categories.

>> Sooo, what makes it "Ace-sex"? <<

Character identity, subjective experience, and to some extent chosen techniques. It's up to the writer to reveal those clearly; there are different possible methods, which may be preferred by different writers and readers.

>>Because mechanically? It works the same as it does for everyone else.<<

That doesn't entirely match the dataset I've observed and studied, but YMMV.

>>And frankly, I am not comfortable with people talking about what they think goes on in my head around the issue of Sex. I don't talk about sexuals like that, so don't talk about me like that.<<

Bear in mind that when people talk about what's going on in the head of a character, or a person, or people of a particular group, they may not mean specifically you. What they say may be valid for people who are not you, even if it doesn't match the inside of your head at all. You can disagree with them, and point out counterexamples; but if you try to stamp out what they're describing because it doesn't agree with your particular experience, that's much the same as what you're complaining about. There is room for many different experiences. And as soon as anyone starts talking about the insides of people's heads, or what people do or don't practice in bed, those differences are going to stand out in bold relief.

>> (Also DW affords longer comments.) <<

I love that about DW.