Developing Asexual Identities Through Participation in r/asexuality

• In Event: 41021 - Student Forum Refereed Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (90 minute): Roundtable 2: Critical Gender Studies

Abstract

With an estimated 1% of people identifying as asexual, the internet has become a vital space for the asexual community to share information about asexuality and raise awareness about the community’s existence (Robbins et al. 2015). In recent years, the Reddit forum r/asexuality has become the most active discursive space surrounding asexual identity, with over 230,000 members. Existing literature has theorized asexual identity formation through the lens of “discovery,” wherein individuals come to identify as asexual after “discovering” the label (often via online spaces) and using it to understand their deviant experiences and desires—or, more precisely, their lack thereof (e.g., Carrigan 2011, Robbins et al. 2015). However, identity formation is a process that stretches beyond discovery of the asexual label as people negotiate complex experiences of doubt, reaffirmation, and validation. I argue that emergent online spaces such as r/asexuality play a key role in mediating these processes of identity negotiation. Through qualitative interviews with members of the r/asexuality community, I ask: How do ace people make sense of their role(s) in r/asexuality as they engage with the community over time, and how do these roles facilitate identity negotiation? I find that individuals who are new to r/asexuality see their primary role in the community as observing and learning from others, while members who have spent more time in the subreddit described their role as supporting others. Acting within their respective roles facilitated the identity negotiation processes of both groups in divergent ways. This study broadens scholarly understanding of asexual online communities, which remain understudied in social scientific research.

Author

• Kylan Francis Bartel, University of Chicago