"How do you know you don't like it if you haven't tried it?" asexual agency and the sexual assumption

Abstract

In this chapter I critically engage with existing work on asexuality and develop an account of the ethical, theoretical and methodological issues inherent in asexuality research. I utilise the work of the social theorist Margaret Archer to explicitly articulate a theoretical model within which the experience of asexual individuals can be understood. I draw upon the findings of recently conducted fieldwork into the lives and experiences of individuals within the asexual community, focusing on three domains of experience in particular: friends, families and relationships. Through the practical application of the theoretical and methodological approach expounded upon earlier, I analyse the experiences reported by participants in terms of the situations they face and how they negotiate them through reflexive deliberation. In doing so, I attempt to illuminate some of the wider issues raised by investigating asexual experience in this way. © 2012 by Nova Science Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved.