The Liminal Space between Sex Work and Asexuality
The liminal space denotes the space in-between, a threshold between what once was and what will be; it is a space that is filled with both chaos and its constituent calm, with its remnants of old structures and pieces of new constructs. This is the space where I am sitting with my ideas, my feelings, and my sense of self. This is the space I often inhabit but today I want to focus on how it means for me to be a sex worker that identifies as asexual.
Who am I?
I call myself KT, and she is my sex work persona. I am 30 years old, I grew up privileged in North America and I inhabit a biologically female body. I have been in this industry for almost a decade now, but more than that, I have considered myself an erotic artist. Which means that not only have I engaged in sexual activity with numerous people (in the hundreds and counting) but I have also been primarily interested in arousal as a form of artistic expression. And to someone who isn’t a particular fan of nuance it of course sounds convoluted and quite confused.
Definitions
So keeping in mind that we’re in a liminal space, let’s just throw everything on the table, starting with a couple of definitions for asexuality:
“Asexual is the lack of sexual attraction to others, or a low interest in sexual activity. Some people consider asexuality to be their sexual orientation, and others describe it as an absence of sexual orientation”
-WebMD
“Asexuality is a sexual orientation. Typically, an asexual person has little or no interest in sexual contact with other people”
-Medical News Today
Based on these definition I suppose asexuality is an umbrella term that speaks to sexual proclivities that are in the lower to nil end and deviate from what is considered the norm. Which many of my acquaintances and friends have found interesting and ridiculous, to say the least, given my sexual history.
Coming Out
Upon announcing my asexuality I had someone say to me, “So why the fuck haven’t you lived your real feelings this whole damn time? You’re not asexual, you’re just sexually lost.” I suspect a lot of adults who come out of the closet later on in life (possibly with existing families) have been met with this kind of hurt, dismissal, and negative speech. I spent most of that day trying to explain my feelings and my situation, all the while resenting the fact that I had to do it at all. I ended up just saying I had a low sex drive in order to ease other people’s discomforts and avoid these conversations.
Another friend during that same day told me “Asexuality isn’t a choice”, to which I thought, well, my life would be a lot easier if I were sexual. And for the longest time, that is what I pursued, a sexual life, one that I monetized. And as for my artistic interests, for someone who doesn’t experience arousal and desire in a “normal” way, I was interested in knowing why, so I took a paid opportunity to study and to learn. Sex for me became a subject of academic inquiry, rather than an organic interest.
Sex as a Subject of Study
In academia there is always research, gathering data, both first-hand and second-hand. In my early teens I read books, I talked to friends, I searched the internet, and fell into these rabbit holes of erotic content, primarily fan fiction. Through these works of fiction I discovered a slow burn for character development and a desire for taboo. I learned about kinks, fetishes, and different realms of BDSM through these stories. I wanted to know why talking about sexuality and arousal in polite company was not acceptable. I wanted to know about the private lives of others and what drove them to their actions, or lack thereof. My interest in sexuality in retrospect has been primarily one of voyeuristic intent and creative performative action, more rooted in an artistic creative expression than the traditionally animalistic desire for power or for procreation.
Physical Arousal
This isn’t to say I haven’t had sex I enjoyed, or that I haven’t been driven to have sex out of my own volition. This is where nuance comes in. As a human in a female body, I have and I continue to experience sexual arousal as a consequence of my biological imperative. I have one or two days in a menstrual cycle where my hormones drive my sexual behaviour. In my younger years this would manifest as 2–3 tinder dates a night, or push me to engage with men I wouldn’t want to bring into my life, yet my body responded to them immensely. And what a betrayal that felt, continually acting in ways that left me with feelings of emptiness and disgust. I often felt violated because I didn’t know how to voice my objection, and I didn’t know that changing my mind was okay.
Consent
Lack of eye contact, lack of smiles, lack of engagement, that felt safe. Only letting those that I was aesthetically attracted to in my vicinity, especially when I was intoxicated or vulnerable, was my only option. If my body responded to the friends that I was aesthetically attracted to, at least that was my choice. I made my choice prior to the act, because I knew during it, I didn’t have a choice, I could only respond to minimize damage. The man I ended up marrying was the first one who gave me a choice. He told me that it was okay to say no, that allowing my body to be used and trying to find a way to enjoy it was not necessary for me to do. I didn’t need to be easy or submissive to my partner. He taught me that just because someone else was turned on and I enjoyed them as a person, I didn’t need to feel responsible to be the object of their sexual desires. I learned that I didn’t need to physically turn myself on and get myself off, in order to make sex bearable (since after my first orgasm I was happy to let anyone just pound away).
Insecurity
And despite learning all of this, I still had insecurities surrounding being the object of sexual desire. I conflated sexual desire with love, I thought that being wanted sexually meant being loved. So I continued to try and incite my partner’s sexual arousal because I wanted to feel loved, not recognizing that romantic love and sexual love can be two very different things. Where in my professional life I pushed away sexual advances because it repulsed me, in my personal life I invited it because I so desperately wanted to feel loved.
Pleasing Others
I think this is where I should remind the reader that I grew up embedded in a specific culture. As an Asian woman, I was raised to embody certain ideas of femininity, particularly that of submission and meekness. It shows up in my personality as wanting to please others, there is a strong desire in me to make those around me happy, and often this conflicts with my personal desires. This personality in my work was a boon because I could so easily tune into the desires of others and work them to completion, but in personal life this created dissonance and resentment. I would do something to please someone and wonder why they didn’t respond in kind. Although this dichotomy still plays out, in my professional life I am trying to be more selective with my clients so that our desires coincide, and in my personal life, I am trying to become more aware of my intentions so that I can act with more agency.
Moving Forward
It’s been a journey this past decade, to look out at the girl I have been, with all her penchants and proclivities. I have combed through her history, her sands of time, her thoughts washed to shore, and that strong current almost pulling her under. But still she stands, formed like rock out of the sea, beckoning, for me to meet her. Here I am, where the past meets the present, in this liminal space, where my identity rests as a multiplicity of being rather than a fragmented self. Regardless of my seeming contradictions, I am a self that will keep on evolving, whether there are words or ideas in this language and in our culture to contain me. I am a sex worker who has very little inherent sexual attraction to others (yet a lot of mental and aesthetic attraction). My sexual appetites mirror that of a partner of my choosing, and it is borne out of my desire to please. I will not continue to engage in sex that doesn’t fulfill me in order to feel worthy. I am worthy. And finally, just because my body can experience sexual arousal, it does not mean that I am interested in the pursuit of it outside of artistic expression or of professional performance.
I hope you too can find comfort in a liminal identity and embrace yourself in all your multitudes, for we humans are full and nuanced universes within ourselves.
Author’s Note: This piece was particularly hard for me to write since I don’t quite have the language to fully express myself yet on this topic, and it’s still an ever evolving area for me to explore. I also haven’t had the opportunity to write for a wider audience in a while and I thought this MWC would be a good opportunity to do so. The images are my own, they capture both visual and metaphorical liminality. Comments and questions are welcomed, please be respectful, you are talking to another human being (even if behind the barriers of the internet).
