actual rating: 3.5

If I had to give one criticism of this book I would say that it probably needed another pass at editing as I found it to be a bit disjointed at times but I think it probably would have worked better if I had taken breaks between all the chapters and thought of them as entirely separate essays instead of thinking of them as building on each other all the way through. I also was pretty uncomfortable with the section that kept comparing ace people to lesbians for a number of reasons but I'm not sure if that's like something that's really 'valid' of me to criticize or if I just have a negative reaction to it because of my personal real life experiences as an ace person so trying not to let that affect my rating and doing a 3.5 rounded up.

Even with that issue I still think it's a very informative book with a lot of really eye-opening analysis that a lot of people have probably never considered in regards to both race and sexuality and would recommend it overall. I do think you should probably have some familiarity with asexuality before going in though because like some other reviewers and myself have said, this isn't the most well-organized thing in the world. I didn't find it too distracting but also I'm ace myself and have read several books about it in the past.

This is fantastic non-fiction about rejecting allosexuality (compulsory sexuality) and the relationship between being Black and being asexual. This is a well-researched book which insightful inputs from the author. There are content warnings before every chapter which I really appreciated.

The author discusses how the stereotype of Black people being hypersexual continues to feed into anti-Black and anti-fat attitudes and policies. Purity culture attaches morality to sex in the sense that sex will inevitable happen and everyone desires sex. They also reject the definition of asexuality as being "lack of sexual attraction/desire", as being asexual is not being without sexuality. To lack is to be without, deficient or not enough. When we use the word "asexual", we mean "relating sexually to no one" and not "without sex". They also discuss the role of consent and sexual autonomy, the absence of which leads to a rape culture fueled by misogyny and racism, and denial of asexuality.

Brown elaborates upon the Black asexual identity and says that Black asexuals often find themselves pushed out of spaces on claims that "talking about race will divide us" or "Black people can't be asexuals". The author discusses various aspects of this identity through headings like acephobia, gatekeeping, corrective rape, medical conversion or conversion therapy, hypersexualiztion of young Black girls, lack of census data and research on asexual people and especially Black asexual people, dehumanization or infantilization, microaggressions, cisheteronoramtivity, the orgasm gap, harmful effects of porn sites, etc.

As Adrienne Rich writes, "women have been convinced that marriage and sexual orientation towards men are inevitable- even if unsatisfying or oppressive- components of their lives."

The author concludes with stating that the singular view of "normal" sexuality, gender binary and cisheteropatriarchal gender roles need to be done away with. The role of racism in exclusion of queer POCs needs to be interrogated.

I'm very glad I got the opportunity to read and review this book. Thank you Netgalley!

I’m not sure if this would be a good introduction to asexuality and intersectionality, as it might be too chaotic for that (more on that a bit later), and I don't know how much value this would bring to anyone who has read anything on these topics. Even though I haven't done that much research, this book didn't offer me a lot of new information. It was good to read from another person's perspective on issues I already knew some things about, but I cannot say it was a big learning experience.

By no means do I think this is a bad book. It's not what I was expecting, and, at times, the ideas were not delivered very well. It might have made more sense to have this structure for a podcast, as the chapters were not necessarily a continuation of one another. As a note, I consider a good non-fiction book (apart from autobiographies, memoirs, and maybe one or two more exceptions) one heavily based on scientific research. And I'm pretty sure now that's not what the author wanted to accomplish, even though that's the impression I got after reading the description.

The good parts:

It begins with a few definitions and common misconceptions; it also makes it clear what the objectives of this book are;

The way asexuality is explained, not by a lack of something, but as follows:
"I believe it is more true to say that asexuality is defined by a relationship to sex that is atypical to what has been decided on by society at large to be normative, and that atypical nature is marked by varying degrees of sexual attraction and desire. Asexual experiences stand outside what has been accepted and approved of as “normal” sexual experiences for both the queer and the heterosexual communities."

There are content warnings at the beginning of chapters with sensitive content or potential triggers;

There were some things backed by research, and some parts where the author managed to get an interview with some experts and included parts in the book;

There's a timeline at the end about the history of asexuality and how it was seen throughout time (I found it very useful, but I think it would've made more sense at the beginning of the book).

There were also a lot of comparisons between asexuality and other things misunderstood (in the past or even in the present). However, I think they would have made sense in the beginning, not throughout all of the book (some were even at the end), as by that time the reader should already understand those ideas. One example toward the end is about how the number of people identifying as asexual increased in the recent years, the same way the number of left-handed people did - the point being, it's not the number of people identifying as such that grew, but the number of people that felt safer to publicly acknowledge these aspects of their lives;

My favorite parts were by far those about Octavia E. Butler;

These quotes stood out to me:
"I want us to interrogate what we demand of our queer icons—and more, what kind of performativity we demand from our own queer selves and queer kin— and how this is informed by compulsory sexuality."

"A closet can be a cage, but it can also be a sanctum."

The not so good parts:

I don't know if it's because I read an arc, but I think this book could've benefited from another round of edits and a bit more consistency;
It got repetitive really fast. At only 15% in, 3 ideas have been repeated in almost every chapter, in almost the same way, using mostly the same words;
- For example, it's clearly stated that acephobes "fear" asexuals because they are “other”, because they don't conform to their narrative about sexuality, something that is even more obvious (for us) and more confusing (for them) when they encounter Black people (very often hypersexualized). But then, not much later, the author writes "So, I must wonder, what exactly is it that acephobes fear? What is it about the concept of asexuality and the implications of its existence that causes so much inner turmoil, and discomfort that acephobes feel compelled to deny and challenge someone else's lived experience, and even visit violence upon them because of it?";
- Throughout the book there are terms used multiple times before they are properly defined (if ever);
- Every time I felt like a subchapter was going somewhere it was immediately over and the next one began with a whole new idea;
- Another thing that kept bugging me was how sometimes the author would say "us, the asexual people" and other times "they, the asexual people". Again, some consistency would've been nice.

Most of this book reads as very full of anger. I don’t know how I feel about that, other than it makes me feel weird - I've read non-fiction before on discrimination and injustice and I felt a lot of anger, but here, the author's emotions get in the way of making a clear point or getting an idea through, as they repeat the same thing over and over again;

Some of the statements were backed by research (which is one of the good aspects I mentioned earlier), but some really big ones were not. For example, the author states "These are male supremacists who fail to form romantic and sexual relationships or connections, blame others for their social and sexual ineptitude, and believe that women should be required or forced to have sex with them. Several have even become mass killers because of their frustrations and misogyny." Without any reference to anything. They state that and move on…

There weren't that many new things for me. I started learning something after 35%. There were a lot of great ideas, but unfortunately, there were not explored as much as I would've liked.

"When we prioritize our desires that are present, we are choosing to hold on to the truest parts of ourselves that we have always been told should be cast off. In asexuality, there is abundance, there is room to expand, there are a multitude of possibilities for companionship, stability, and reciprocal support. There is room to let go of the myth that we are less valuable, less productive, less deserving, less human without normative sexuality.”

As an ace white woman, I felt so seen and affirmed within these pages, while also learning about the ways white supremacy and the adultification of Black children, hypersexualization, and at the same time infantilization of Black adults affects their experience of asexuality and acephobia in different ways. For me it was a book best read in short stints since there is a lot to unpack and digest. Brown addresses many aspects of the asexual experience including why asexuality absolutely “deserves” its place as an identity in the queer community, the ways that capitalism plays a role in heteronormativity, and alternative definitions and perspectives of asexuality that are not based on “lack” but rooted in abundance and autonomy. It’s not just a book for asexuals or Black asexuals, but for the queer community and anyone who wants to learn more about compulsory (hetero)sexuality and how we can be more kind and better support anyone who might be seen as Other. I highlighted so many things and it’s a re-read for sure.

“People on the asexuality spectrum, also called ace, experience little to no sexual attraction and/or little to no sexual desire, and these things are not evidenced by either the presence or absence of sexual arousal or activity.”

In Refusing Compulsory Sexuality: A Black Asexual Lens On Our Sex-Obsessed Culture by Sherronda J. Brown our understanding of the intersection between Blackness and sexuality is reframed. Sherronda introduces readers to a deeper perspective on the spectrum of queerness. As a leading thinker in asexuality scholarship, she provides an honest and well researched examination of the ways Black folks have been removed from the conversation around asexuality.

Sherronda challenges readers to look beyond our societies obsession with sex and consumption and to consider the possibility that “…desire for sexual contact with others will not always be sustained, that it is possible for desire to never even be present, and more importantly, that boundaries should always be honored when desire is not present.”

In a world where patriarchy sets the tone, asexual experiences stand in the margin of what is considered normal and acceptable. People who do not want sex exist and they are not disordered or stunted in some way- it’s actually so problematic that our society thinks this way especially when there are many people who choose not to have sex for a number of reasons beyond just celibacy or abstinence.

I learned so much from this book and would highly recommend this as a resource to direct service practitioners. One of the most immediate ways to counteract the harmful effects of patriarchy is to decenter, or at least become curious about, sex as the pedestal in our relationships and our overall existence.

The bibliography is enough to keep my TBR growing through the summer. I want to read With Aberrations in Black: Toward a Queer of Color Critique by Roderick Ferguson next.

Thank you to the publisher for this ARC copy.

The moment I saw this book between the new releases of the year I was sure I was going to love it. Refusing Compulsory Sexuality is hugely needed and beautifully written.

Sherronda J Brown investigate black asexuality, its relation to society, colonialism, capitalism and racism. The author explains through the lenses of asexuality, the limitations and contradictions which characterize the expectations society has for black people.

This book achieves to be both informative and educative to the readers lacking knowledge in the matter . The author, at the same time, decides to use a strong political tone.
I appreciated this last element immensely: it shows the passion that the author carries for the topic, passion that Brown is able to transfer to the readers. In addition I believe that a certain degree of assertiveness is required when writing about a topic that challenges the strict and pervasive allosexual norms imposed by society.

The book space between different topics, all well presented and contextualized.
I consider myself well informed on the topic of asexuality and I was afraid this book would have been kinda redundant for me. I was wrong.
The author collected an impressive amount of data and used them to make innovative, clear and enlightening arguments.
I appreciated in particular the chapter dedicated to all references to asexuality in history.

The book addresses deep and complex topics, but the author is able to master them and make them accessible to everyone. I highly suggest this book to all who wants to know more about asexuality, in particular black asexuality.

Thank you to Netgalley for providing me with a free copy of this e-book in exchange for an honest review.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for granting me access to this marvelous book for an honest review.
This book goes into depth about how sex-obsessed our world is. It dives deeper into many topics and discussions related to sex, which most everything is, in a lot of different directions. It shows how asexuality is refusing these sexual roles assigned to us by the cis-hetero-normative world.
The themes addressed in the book vary from gatekeeping, acephobia, racism, history of asexuality, capitalism, cis-hetero-patriarchy, and many more.
The book is written in an engaging way and it was a pretty fast read because of the interesting way the author has managed to get their points across. The research done for the book is commendable and while a lot of things were a little horrifying to read, they were very important and needed to be talked about.
I also really loved that this was a very inclusive read, I was sort of afraid that it might not be, being a non-binary person but it was! :')
After a certain age, everything leads to marriage and having kids. Everyone in your life starts asking, "when are you getting married? When are you going to start a family? When is the good news coming?" and many other questions along the same lines.
As an asexual person, this has always rubbed me the wrong way. Whenever someone implies that I'll eventually go on to get married and have kids, I get this itchy feeling that I've come to know as me not wanting these things to consider my life fulfilling and satisfying.
I loved reading the various chapters from various different directions about asexuality and what it means. I could relate to everything so much and I felt truly seen. I'm going to hold this book close to my heart forever.
The author has also interwoven black experiences along with asexuality which was very eye-opening, for me. As a non-American, brown person, I had no idea about a lot of the stereotypes around Black sexuality.
The Black Asexual Insights were also very relatable in regards to asexuality and informative in regards to Blackness.
If there is one negative thing I can think of that kinda stopped me from bingeing the book, it'll be it gets a little repetitive sometimes, which I understand is because compulsory sexuality is being analyzed from different points of view so it might not feel repetitive to everyone.
The trigger warnings are given in the book itself for each section etc, which I really appreciated.
I'll recommend it to everyone who wants to understand asexuality but especially the compulsory sexuality that is prevalent in our society.
TW: Acephobia, racism, queerphobia.
Actual rating: 4.5

Sherronda Brown’s Refusing Compulsory Sexuality should be a required read and is a book I will be recommending to friends. Brown defines the intersectional oppression faced by those who identify as asexual, incorporating a complex but accessible analysis that includes racism, sexism and ways in which different aspects of our society, including queer communities, perpetuate mainstream ideas of “normative” sexuality. I highlighted my way through this book, as I didn’t realize how much I didn’t know—from truly defining a sexuality ( the the various spectrums of it) to the deeper effects of the exclusion of asexual people.

Rep: asexuality, aromanticism, Black author

This is a great book that’s explains so many different topics and show the intersectionality of race and asexuality. Some topics include hypersexuality and adultification, especially for Black girls, infantalization of asexuality and Blackness, dehumanization, the pressure of conforming to white cisheteropatriarchal ideals, white supremacy, racial capitalism, gender roles set by society, and so much more. There’s so much this book unpacks and does not shy away from heavy topics. There are content warnings before most of the chapters.

I am a white aro and ace person, so I did relate to those parts of the book. I obviously cannot say I related to the struggles Black people and other POC have to deal with. I thought I knew a lot before, but wow this book informed me on so much more. White supremacy has so much to do with the way society is today, and Brown does not shy away from explaining some of those reasons.

This book is definitely good for allosexual and white people to read. If some things were eye opening to me, as an aroace individual, others would definitely learn a whole lot as well. Especially since most people don’t know much about asexuality, and white people don’t experience the same things as POC, since we are very privileged and are blind to a lot of things. It’s very eye opening. Learning about white supremacy and the patriarchy and how it really influences society, and its history is very important. So I would recommend this book to anyone willing to learn and be more aware.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with an ARC of this book

Refusing Compulsory Sexuality is a timely and comprehensive analysis of (a)sexuality and race.

Unflinchingly and unapologetically, Sherronada J. Brown lays out the challenges and injustices that are often faced by the asexual individual: acephobia, infantilization, gatekeeping, singlism, and outright dehumanization in media and real life alike. In addition to assault and sexism in case of asexuals socialized as women and or racial fetishization if said individual also happened to belong to a marginalized ethnicity

Sherronada establishes compulsory sexuality as a tool of heteronormativity, cisheteropatriarchy, colonial doctrine, white supremacy, and capitalism that had been and continues to be wielded in order to stabilize the status quo that is most profitable to them. I loved how she defined asexuality not as opposed to or a contradictory concept to sexuality, but rather a part of a larger whole that is the sexual experience. With recurrent reminders, she also asserts that asexuality should not be defined as a lack of sexual desire or attraction as opposed to allosexuality (i. e. making it appear as a dysfunction or an abnormality), but rather more of a consensual deprioritizing of a sexual partner and or the act of sex to a satisfactory relationship, regardless of reason. Well-researched, empowering, and quite illuminating. I highly recommend.

Interesting book, I'd recommend it to anyone who isn't familiar with the topic and wishes to learn more. It's less focused on black asexuality than I thought it'd be - but it presents a good overview of history of asexuality and its current meaning in our society, so if those are topics you don't know about and wish to know more, I think you'd like this book.

I don’t tend to read non-fiction novels very often as I do a lot of non-fiction reading for university, but once every few years I’ll pick up a non-fiction book that interests me. A few years ago it was a book on brains and neurosurgery. Most recently it was a Refusing Compulsory Sexuality: A Black Asexual Lens On Our Sex-Obsessed Culture by Sherronda J. Brown.

As someone who personally identifies as asexual it was fascinating to read about the intrinsic ways sex is present in western society and see Sherronda clearly lay out evidence for why it feels so lonely to be an aroace person in this sex (and romance) obsessed world. Using both current events and historical sources Sherronda provides example after example of the way sex and sexual desire is assumed to be universally experienced. Doing so from both a ace and African American lens allows them to not only examine the sex-obsessed, cishetropatriarichal nature of our society, but also demonstrate the added complexity of being black in America as well as ace.

As a white reader I don’t feel qualified to talk a lot about the black lens this book and Sherronda use to analyze Asexuality, but I will say I learned a lot and this book made me really question some of my own views of the world. As someone fairly secure in my Asexuality (and a history nerd) I have done a lot of previous reading and research on the topic but this is the first time I have read something that so clearly lays out the intersectionality of Blackness and Asexuality. While I have read 2 of Claire Kann's black ace romances; Let's Talk About Love and The Romantic Agenda (both amazing books for anyone looking for a little bit lighter books that still touch on the intersectionality of Blackness and Asexuality), Sherronda provides in-depth examples on the contradictory reality of being Black and Asexual -- something I had not really understood before reading this book and still will never be able to truly understand.

As interesting as the book was in some sections it also felt like it dragged in others leading me to falling asleep multiple times while I read it. Now this may just be that I am not used to reading non-fiction books as much but I still believe a good non-fiction book should keep the reader more engaged. Further, as a Canadian reader, the book was very American-centric and while I acknowledge Sherronda is American and was therefor writing about their own society, it would have been interesting to bring in perspectives from other countries. That being said, they more I read they book the more engaged I became. The last 3 chapters were probably my favourite of the book, as they used the ground work set by the earlier chapters to really dive into issues of Blackness and asexuality in the past, present, and future.

Ultimately, Sherronda J Brown's Refusing Compulsory Asexuality is a well thought-out and unfortunately necessary book the reality of existing in our current cishetropatriarichal and sex-obsessed culture when you don't fit into the roles this society deems 'normal'. I think everyone, whether Black, or Asexual, or neither could learn something form this book and like Sherronda, I hope this book is the only the beginning of many works that will help to increase the visibility of asexuality, and particularly non-white asexuality in our world in which that visibility is currently lacking

This was a pretty heavy book but I feel like it was really well researched. I knew a lot about asexuality already but it was really interesting to see it through an alternate lense.

Recommended for academic and large public library collections. I am interested in the topic and on board with what the author is saying, and she brings up a lot of interesting points. However, I found the writing difficult to get through because there was a lot of summarizing of various people's academic work (generally a good practice), but since it was condensed, it turned into a lot of jargon. There was a tendency to use a lot of jargon and also repetition. I found that there was a lot of words like "cisherteropatriarchy" which are fine in small doses but make for dense reading. For me the ideas are good, but the writing is kind of a slog. This is not my field, so it sounds like it's addressed more at academic insiders who are already familiar with a lot of the concepts. I would have loved the book to be more accessible for a general audience, because it's a fresh take/angle on an important topic that matters to a lot of people, including non-academics. I will probably keep reading small amounts when I can, because it's a topic I haven't seen addressed elsewhere.

This book compounds what most people understand about asexuality and being asexual, contextualizes with greater American politics and prevalent definitions. At its core, the book is a layered representation of black asexual experience, dealing with stigma and the added racist connotations to their existence. The cultural expectations aside, being black boxes them into a claustrophobic space.

Brown explores both the spaces spectacularly.

<i>Thank you to Netgalley and North Atlantic Books for providing me with a free copy of this e-book in exchange for an honest review.</i>

3 stars

Although I could have used the education, I don’t feel this book was right for me. As a white, cis female, the narrative was not directed to my demographic, but I can appreciate the message.

(ARC received from NetGalley in exchange for honest review. Thank you.)

This was a great read which I finished in one sitting. I'm doing some research on asexuality and this book was helpful for informing where I was looking for more information. The author challenges the reader to think outside the box and consider a new perspective around asexuality. This book is well researched and the author's candid tone enhances the conversation around asexuality including the Black voice.

I've been reading this book on and off for the past few weeks, so my recollection of the early chapters is a bit fuzzy - I do remember loving them, however.

I have a solid understanding of asexuality and for some reason, I keep coming back to books and published work about it to see what else has been said about the matter. Brown's exposure to compulsory sexuality is something that Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex by Angela Chen talks about in relation to the over-sexualization of the LGBTQIA+ community (and feminism). Getting to read a book that explores this thread sort of exclusively was very interesting. Perhaps more interesting was getting to read about the black asexuality experience and the historic sexualization of black people. This has sparked great conversations between me and a couple of friends and educated me quite a bit about stuff that I had never even heard about; I'd be interested to know what black communities outside of the US have been objectified by similar projections of how they should act or be.

Something that I also found super fun to read was her takeaways from surveys and her data collection. I guess all the info is 'out there', but having it so well collected and exposed was great. And all the fun tidbits (i.e., asexuals are more prone to be left-handed) were great to read.

My only and tiny 'complaint' was that I struggled with Brown's voice. Her way of writing or explaining flirted between the lines of assertiveness or aggressiveness, and I feel certain ideas have to be chewed up for bigger audiences so people can form their own opinions. Whereas all of it (no exceptions) is just human rights and basic respect, history has proven (and she exposes so) that rejecting compulsory sexuality and/or being asexual is something persistingly disrespected. Bigger audiences may need more coddling rather than being fed the information so aggressively at times (but then again, not a big complaint. Saying people's sexual preferences should be respected shouldn't be something we're advocating at all. It should be a given).

"Refusing Compulsory Sexuality" was an interesting read, but somewhat repetitive in some of the chapters.

After reading this I'm quite happy that I don't live in the USA because I never had to fear sexual violence just because I'm asexual.

The strongest chapters were, in my opinion, the ones focusing on the history of asexuality and the intersectionality of race and asexuality.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with an ARC of this book.
I am not usually a non-fiction reader, but this book might have converted me. As an asexual person, there were so many parts in this book that left me only thinking “YES!!”. It also really encouraged me to think more intersectionally about my own identity and community. Every single time I opened this book I learned something new or thought about something in a new way. I would really recommend this book to anyone - it explores sexuality and the way we are raised to think that’s so important for everyone, not just asexual people.