Asexuality, Judgment, and Deliberation: Novel Self-Concepts Under Pluralism

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Abstract

In this paper, I examine the puzzle of how we can make sense of the emergence of novel forms of social identity under conditions of pluralism and disagreement. I consider two questions. First, how can groups come to form genuinely new self-conceptions amidst the constraints imposed by oppressive social or political schemas? And second, how can these groups persuade others to see them in a manner compatible with how they see themselves, particularly when that identity is illegible or at best is understood in stereotypical or oppressive terms?

In order to examine these questions, I focus on the emergence of asexuality as a salient social identity over the past twenty years, as well as activism on the part of the asexual community that challenges conventional views of asexuality as a pathological lack of “normal” sexuality, immaturity, or mere prudishness (with these mischaracterizations emerging both from the general population and also within certain parts of the LGBTQIA+ community), and that has begun to make political demands. The asexual community provides a significant case study for two reasons. The first is because the identity claims they make explicitly do not fit within available social schemas of compulsory (hetero)sexuality. This means it is necessary to use a wider variety of persuasive tools than are often recognized in deliberative theory in order to make their self-understanding legible (first for themselves, and then others). The second is because of the particular structure of self-discovery, namely “how do you come to understand that you do not have a particular kind of common experience (here, sexual attraction), and what meaning do you give to your experiences when the socially available set of meanings seem insufficient?” I argue that this follows the structure of a transformative experience, or in terms popularized in consciousness-raising, a “click moment” that radically reshapes a person’s sense of self in the world (following Paul and Babbitt). I also argue that both of these reflect processes of Arendtian judgment (including an emphasis on novelty, bottom-up reasoning aimed at constructing identities that provide better “fit” with experience rather than a focus on a priori truth, and a broader array of deliberative resources), and use them to show how her theory can be extended from judgments within a community to problems of judgments across different communities and the formation of new communities of judgment. In order to make this argument, I chiefly engage with primary sources within the asexual community such as blogs, discussion threads, and pamphlets that exemplify practices of open-ended, transformative deliberation.

My paper thus makes two significant theoretical contributions. First, it extends Arendt’s model of judgment to the problem of communication between different communities of judgment which have distinct schemas for how the world works and ways of reasoning through it. This offers resources for deliberation under pluralism that are also applicable to other identity groups. Second, it addresses the emergence of asexuality as an identity grounded in a community with its own characteristic set of social scripts, projects, and norms. This has been neglected by many academics studying asexuality, who address it only in scientific terms, largely ignoring the relevance of lived experience.

Author

• Aberdeen Berry