Refusing Compulsory Sexuality is a book discussing what it means to be asexual, but also how it intercrosses with the questions of race, and what it means in that context. The book is focused on the US specifically, and it centers on the Black asexual experience. The book explores various topics, from the concept of a-spec people not being 'queer enough', to the sexualization of Black people, and subsequently how being both in the world that wants to deny you visibility on all of those matters looks like.

The book's strong point is in truth its intersectionality, in consideration of the overlap of the two often intentionally overlooked. It provides a very unique perspective and presents many things people outside of those identities would probably not consider. I am white, allosexual, and not from the US, so this was very fascinating to read, as there are truly many things I didn't know. I don't think this would have been an easy starting point if you know nothing about any of these identities (the one I knew most about is asexuality), but there are plenty of resources at the end of the book, and I think this book is definitely one you should read if you are educating yourself on these topics.

The writing style was clear and this book was truly well-researched, it is clear how much work was put into it. As I mentioned, it talks about plenty of topics that are often talked about separately but put together like this, it is obvious how connected they actually are. There is talk about history, and how racism, and its view of Black bodies, have shaped the 'norm', and how tied with racism societal expectations still are. All that combined with how a-spec people at large are considered 'other' and outside of the usual, shows how invisible Black asexuals are. The talk of compulsory sexuality, in general, is something I've considered many times but never knew how to contextualize, and I thought this book explored it extremely well.

I would highly recommend this book if these topics interest you - I think it's highly informative and incredibly researched and written. I did mention it is centered on the US, so the political and cultural aspect is that one (this is not a critique, the book claims exactly that) - but I think there are good points to consider even on the wider scale, even if you are living somewhere else.

Thank you to Netgalley for providing me with an arc in exchange for an honest review!

- REFUSING COMPULSORY SEXUALITY not only digs deeper into how asexuality is viewed and why it is often rejected by allosexual people, it also shows clearly how acephobia is closely intertwined with many other social constructs, from racism to capitalism.
- This book is quite academic and took me awhile to get through, but it's more than worth it to devote a chunk of time to it. Brown has written a seminal work here, and I think scholars, educators, and thinkers will be referring to it for a long time to come.

I'm fairly newly out as ace and learned SO MUCH from this. At times it's a kind of hefty read with a lot of academic resources and such in it, but it's helped me understand how our sex obsessed society and racism go hand in hand, and how that can be changed. Can't wait to pick up a copy of this.

I've noticed quite a few books coming out this year around asexuality and the asexual spectrum. This is a completely different take, and a much-needed one! Author Sherronda J. Brown goes beyond simply defining asexual identities, or even describing personal Black asexual experience, and instead approaches the topic from the lens of how compulsory sexuality is harmful along intersecting axes of anti-Blackness, misogyny, and acephobia. Brown presents asexuality not as an identity alone, but as a lens.

I found this approach refreshing, as Brown flips the common script of "why are you ace-spectrum people the way you are?" This is a challenge to the demand of the normative gaze: as the author states, "We don't have to perfectly understand Black asexuality to make way for it." But Brown also broadens the scope of inquiry, essentially saying: look at how society is fucking everything up—you wouldn't even ask that question if you didn't normalize investment in a particular understanding of race, gender, and sexuality.

Brown shows how compulsory sexuality as a system is bound up in compulsory cisheteronormativity, as well as white supremacy, and how asexuality is just one of the things viewed as a threat under its reign (alongside, for example, blackness, queerness, and feminism). Readers who have experienced marginalization and are not themselves on the ace spectrum are thus likely to find connections they hadn't considered in this text, and to broaden their understanding of how sexuality and desire operate and how they intersect with oppression.

Readers familiar with a womanist lens, for example, will be familiar with the discussions around anti-Blackness and misogynoir in particular, but the asexual lens adds an additional layer. Brown digs into, as one example, the complexities of how compulsory sexuality, inextricably blended with white supremacy, both encourages white men to tie their masculinity to fetishization of Black women and leads white sympathizers to fetishize Blackness when we attempt to participate in racial justice struggles, rather than practicing a true ethic of care.

Brown historically roots Jezebel and Mammy stereotypes and then considers the double bind of Black asexual women and femmes, whose experience is erased by hypersexualization but who also risk playing into into the misogynoir of the Mammy stereotype when claiming an asexual identity. While Black girls are typically "adultified" and sexualized, risking sexual violence from a young age, those who fall on the ace spectrum are also infantilized, seen as incapable of full maturity without meeting cisheterormative milestones. This "rock and a hard place" characterization, which ultimately erases Black asexual women’s experience, is also part of a broader practice of using sexuality to both humanize and bestialize: punishment and ostracizing come whether one is having the "wrong" kind of sex or not having it at all.

Just as Black women and femmes in general experience racism from white feminists and misogyny within male-dominated Black communities, Brown highlights asexual exclusion from queerness, Blackness, and normative ideas of gender. Brown shows how this exclusion is often based on erroneous assumptions: that asexuality isn't a vector of discrimination and violence, for example, or that asexual people are somehow straight by default or don’t understand our own experience. But Brown’s arguments also illustrate potentials for solidarity, and the importance of intersectional awareness in all of these overlapping communities.

This book offers a particularly nuanced consideration of sexual self-determination and agency, through considering how these rights are denied to a range of different people under the norms of white supremacy. Brown compares "Female Viagra," for example, to anti-queer conversion therapy, and digs into how the medical establishment's framing of "low libido," particular among women, is decidedly not neutral, both centering masculinity and pathologizing varying experiences of desire. While ace-spectrum folks experience particular harm here, women's desire in general is seen as "outside the norm" of spontaneous desire (more commonly found in men), let alone the additional layer of a racist medical establishment for Black women and non-binary folks.

A comprehensive history of "impotence" further reveals how “medical science” gets tangled up with harmful norms and beliefs including gender normativity, the myth of queer women "just not being satisfied by the right person" yet, and a general pathologizing of sexual variance. The narratives of impotence and low libido allow for the erasure of asexual women and non-binary folks from history, as our actual desires and interests are ignored in favor of treating authentic experience as a medical problem. Through this historical treatment Brown shows how normative sexuality, defined as white and "civilized," excludes all Black folks, all queer folks, and of course everyone on the asexual spectrum.

Threads of solidarity with trans folks are especially obvious in the medical discussion, given the shared challenges of framing experience as an identity vs. a disorder, and the way both gender non-conformity and asexuality are seen as threats to fragile masculinity. There’s a connection with the saviorism of particularly toxic strains of feminism like those espoused by TERFs or Anita Bryant, where gender essentialism is used as a bludgeon to protect "real women" from the threat of lesbianism or asexuality. And from a cultural lens Brown points to how ace-spectrum characters, like lesbians and trans women, are often portrayed as villains to reinforce this narrative.

An anti-capitalist thread also runs throughout the book. I particularly appreciated, as a relationship anarchist on the ace spectrum, the discussions of chrononormativity and how ace folks' rejection of a normative timeline bound up in sexual and romantic relationships defies capitalist expectations of how we're supposed to contribute to the economy. Brown connects the rigidity of how capitalism expects us to organize our family structures to the rigidity of the workplace, and posits that lacking desire under capitalism is not so surprising, while also exploring how masculinity in particular gets tied to worker productivity through toxic narratives around sex.

Despite all the challenges, the picture Brown presents of Black asexuality also suggests tremendous possibility! Black ace-spectrum experience, especially that of Black women and nonbinary folks, clearly offers a site of resistance against the twisted logics of capitalism, white supremacy, and patriarchy. By framing the narrative with this level of complexity, engaging extensive academic evidence but also personal experience and the stories of other Black asexual folks, Brown shows what is possible and how consideration of those multiply marginalized along these axes demands revolutionary shifts in how we think about sexuality but also in how we imagine our collective futures more broadly.

From this space of possibility, Brown includes the direct voices of other Black ace-spectrum folks, as well as a beautiful love letter tot their peers. But I especially loved the chapter on the beloved hero of Black liberatory imagination, Octavia Butler. In considering how Butler presented herself during her life, Brown challenges the narrative that non-disclosure of sexual practices automatically suggests internalized homophobia and a closeted gay person. Instead, Brown opens up possibility for reading non-normative takes on love and relationship at face value.

This particularly struck me as a writer on the ace spectrum who experiences many facets of intimacy through worldbuilding and love of words, as I've always found Butler's description of her own preference for solitude and her relationship with her words deeply familiar. In my late 30s, I'm coming to accept that I meet many of the needs most people meet through relationship through reading and writing—and that there is, in fact, nothing missing in that. But it took a lot of development of my imaginative capacity to get there, given the weight of what's considered normal!

Reading about Butler again got me thinking about what I've termed "legible identity privilege" in the context of non-binary identity, and how that plays into the right "to be unknown and unknowable," as Brown terms it, in the context of asexuality. I also love that Brown digs into the idea of "single at heart" in the discussion of Butler, because this was a concept I understood even before I had the language of the ace spectrum to apply to myself, and I’ve noticed many ace-spectrum folks resonating with similar discussions. I see this concept showing up as well in my approach to solo polyamory, another potential connection for solidarity.

While I was initially a little challenged by Brown's heavy focus on those who do not have any interest in sexual intimacy, and I think some ace-spectrum readers who are familiar with the split attraction model may be similarly challenged, it’s clear that this choice to focus on those most harmed by cultural norms is rhetorically effective.. Since the goal of this book isn't to educate allosexuals, this distinction may not be as important, and as Brown points out, focusing too heavily on the range of possibility within the spectrum often has the unintended consequence of reassuring allosexuals that we can be palatable by their standards, leaving sex-averse folks in the lurch.

One thing I found myself reflecting on in this context is how "desire" itself isn't always a clear term. Desire for intimacy is much broader than the experience of sexual desire, let alone attraction, and we don’t often make room for this. I remember as a younger person having this sense from media representations that someone would eventually come along and "awaken" my desire in a more normative way, which is obviously super fucking toxic, playing into some of the violent viewpoints Brown describes in both queer and heteronormative contexts. And also, I think part of the challenge was that I didn't have language for how my own desire was valid exactly as it was, that it got to "count" as desire, and didn’t require the additional component of sexual attraction to be valid.

As is likely obvious, I would recommend the hell out of this book to pretty much anyone, but especially folks who are interested in justice and liberation and haven't deeply considered how asexuality threads into that picture. As Brown writes, "A world that allows for Black asexuals to be seen as possible, to live more freely in our asexuality, would also be a revolution for all others racialized, gendered, and queered. Such a world requires us to combat white supremacist ideologies and the very idea of 'human.'"

This book is the perfect resource for those looking for a more academic book on asexual studies in the US.
In 12 succinct chapters, Brown lays out their thesis, definitions, and arguments that show how much sexuality has shaped society, how sex interacts with gender, race, disability, and queerness, and how US history has influenced the modern understanding of relationships and more. As they state themselves: asexuality is not prescriptive of a behaviour, it's a tool.

They are very upfront about the (limited) scope of her work which is helpful for any further research one might be interested in while making any analysis she does make stand on a strong foundation. I would add that there is a third axis that plays a strong role, it's focused on those socialzed as women and the patriarchy. It
Some of the topics explored show the (de)sexualization of Black bodies during chattel slavery and hows those ideas still persist, in modern porn titles, for example; sexual trauma and its use to control and gatekeep identities; chrononormativity and the infantilization of marginalized people (not limited to asexuals); capitalists incentives and more.
It's packed with sources, historical texts and quotes and there is a lot to dive into in each chapter. I do sometimes wished Brown had included some potential limits or criticism of their own analysis (e.g. how much whiteness is in the definition of man/woman when many other cultures and races have defined those roles on similar lines? Or what it might mean if HSDD/FSAD were no longer diagnosed - and some people still wanted help from it?) it's a wealth of concise information and the undertones clearly show that there are ways to combat this current issue - to the benefit of everyone.

I found some chapters easier to read than others - the writing is dense and it does not have the more casual writing style of other ace nonfiction but if you take your time, it's absolutely worth your while.

this was a complete and complexe piece, and yet it was really enlightning. i recommend reading it after you have a few knowledge of the asexuality spectrum. as a queer person it is a pleasure to read and as a heteronormative person it is interesting to understand the nuances of asexuality. reading this book as for a queer woc it is amazing, it shows you the power of representation and how it matters

This was book was SO GOOD. I normally don't get all riled up over nonfiction books, but this book was absolutely phenomenal and I want everyone to read it. Sherronda J. Brown does an incredible job with this and their ability to weave and make sense of all of these interconnecting concepts is just fantastic. This book touches on so many things but I never felt overwhelmed by any of it, I honestly couldn't stop reading it. The main connections that are focused on are those between compulsory sexuality, white supremacy, cisheteropatriarchy, and Blackness. I found myself completely blown away by the relationship between all of these topics (and more); things that had never even crossed my mind but made so much sense when explained by Sherronda.

I view this as a bit of a "deep dive" into asexuality, compulsory sexuality, and all the topics mentioned above, and how these things infiltrate pretty much every aspect of our lives, probably in a lot of ways we don't even realize until we examine them more deeply. This book is an incredibly well-researched look into our society as a whole and how individuals who go against the "norm" have been demonized and ostracized for centuries. As well as drawing the focus onto Black asexuals and how the history of racism, sexualization, and misogynoir strongly impact them and have rendered them almost invisible to general society and to the LGBTQIAP+ community. Racism has historically and currently been a problem in LGBTQIAP+ spaces and I thought this book did a wonderful job addressing and exploring this.

This is truly one of the best nonfiction books I have ever read, and probably just one of the best books I've ever read period, and I would recommend this to literally everyone.

4.5 stars

*eARC received from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review*

this was an excellent read! took me a while but that's mostly just the headspace i was in when reading it. at times it can be a little bit Ace 101, but i imagine that would serve as really good context for those less familiar with asexuality. the author unpacks really well how absolutely pervasive compulsory sexuality is in every area of society, namely capitalism and white supremacy, but also contemporary conceptions of queerness, and why that damages everyone. i also really liked the use of contemporary examples, such as the impact of COVID on birth rates and also race relations, to illustrate how compulsory sexuality affects many, many areas of our lives. additionally, there was a variety of really interesting (a)sexuality history, and it was really wonderful to learn about the history of asexual identity in one chapter, and also a discussion of potentially asexual historical figures.
i greatly appreciated the use of content warnings per section, as not every section features the same potentially triggering content.
i'd recommend this to everyone tbh - whether you're an aspec person who wants to understand more about asexuality as an identity and how it is affected by racism, or a non-asexual person who wishes to understand how asexuals can be better included in queer liberation.

Wow, this book was excellent. It kind of blew my mind, actually, and I have so many highlights.

Basically, it does what it says on the box. It is ALL about intersectionality, and specifically the intersectionality between compulsory sexuality, Blackness, white supremacy, and the cisheteropatriarchy. So many of the things Brown draws attention to are things I had never even thought of, the ways that racism, capitalism, and the cisheteropatriarchy work together to force sexuality on folks, especially folks socialized as women.

It was really interesting to see how asexuality has been treated throughout history, from frigidity, to feminists, etc. And it's interesting to see how many of these damaging stereotypes still persist today, especially in terms of romance novels. How often do we see the frigid spinster, the "older" single woman, who magically meets "the right one" and she is magically cured and is hot and horny. These are things that I hadn't seen as ace-phobic before, but that really are, but are such common tropes that we are all just used to them.

I honestly have so much that I want to say about this book. It was SO good. Quite dense, with a lot of jargon, but so, SO good. And also really important. Not only to see how being asexual goes against to much of our society and how we have all been socialized, but also how Blackness just makes all of this more so. How historical racism means that Black asexuals are invalidated and made invisible because of racist ideas of Black sexuality. I'm certainly not one to speak on that, not being Black, but it was incredibly interesting and eye opening to read about the ace experience through that lens.

This really isn't an introduction to asexuality, it is a critique of our current society and how it is all about compulsory sexuality, and that if you don't fall into that normative role, there's something wrong with you. If that sounds like something you would be interested in, I highly recommend this book.

This book was a lot. There’s no other way to describe my initial reaction to Refusing Compulsory Sexuality: A Black Asexual Lens on Our Sex-Obsessed Culture. I don’t feel like stating or explaining my sexuality to justify my review in any way so let’s just say that I’m partially an own-voices reviewer.

My initial interest in the book stems from the fact that with this exploration of both Blackness and asexuality, the author offers a unique look at an intersection of two marginalised identities that the general public, as well as the humanities and sciences, have overlooked and continue to overlook for too long. It is certainly no easy feat to navigate two topics as fraught with prejudice, as othered as these two, but the author expertly manages to do so, drawing on the complicated and harmful history of science and medicine with female frigidity and lack of sexual desire, discussing the over- and undersexualisation of Black bodies and offering in-depth looks at the gatekeeping and acephobia aces/aros/… experience not only from outsiders but from other LGBTQI+ individuals.

Therefore, this book is PACKED. Chock-full of information, think-pieces backed by scientific sources, (science) journals and studies, and other writings on asexuality and queer studies, this book came across as a little overwhelming to me at times. And that’s even though I a) love reading non-fiction b) have what I’d call a solid base knowledge of the concepts of compulsory sexuality, heteronormativity, and systemic racism, and c) have read works in a similar style before (notably Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex and Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race). As a result, I was only able to read this book in batches, taking breaks in between the individual chapters so as not to read it without being overwhelmed.

The book is divided into 12 different chapters whose topics are now and then referred to again in later chapters but they are written in a way that you wouldn’t necessarily have to read them in chronological order to understand the points the author makes. The language the author uses is highbrow, direct, and non-fussy. In a way, this read like a scientific secondary source I’d use for one of my term papers. The style of the chapters often comes across as essay-like and they are all constructed similarly, with a ‘catchy’ introduction being followed by either a look at the current subject’s history or a presentation of stats and figures on which the author bases that chapter’s argument. Sometimes this can also take the look of the author reliving a two-page story of how redditors worked to bring down Wall Street stocks before getting to the point of the story.

At other times, their opening paragraphs looked like this:
“White supremacy is a slippery, dishonest adversary, setting the clock but never allowing the pendulum to swing freely. It bends time to its will to suit whatever ugly need it has. In this temporal distortion, Black children never exist. Guided by the hands of this two-faced clock, adultification takes root so that Black youth can be denied a childhood, instead being perceived and treated as if they are older than they really are—a perception based in anti-Black stereotypes and logics.”
Like, woah, this is only the chapter’s opening paragraph and already there is so much to unpack here. Not to mention that this seemingly jumps from topic to topic, not letting me have enough time to breathe before diving deeper into a complex subject that I found mentally challenging. It’s meant to be mentally challenging, I’m sure of that. Racism, compulsory (hetero)sexuality and the ways they intersect need to be challenged to achieve any kind of change. The author does challenge it, with every word they write but I’m wondering whether the writing style won’t put those readers off who have next to no basic knowledge of the subject matter. I persevered because I wanted to because I found it necessary to do so and frankly because it’s freaking important to expand one’s horizon. But will straight white people who are the one group most in need of a better understanding of LGBTQIA+/BIPOC experiences pick up this book? I doubt it but I hope I’ll be proven wrong.

Sherri das J. Brown’s Refusing Compulsory Sexuality: A Black Asexual Lens on Our Sex-Obsessed Culture is – in many ways – a revelation. What might very well be the first cohesive work on Black asexuality, on the similarities Black and aroace people share, and on the way compulsory (hetero)sexuality works as a weapon to suppress queer and Black folks alike, this book is an eye-opener. Extremely well-researched and at once both informative, opinionated, and educating, this book will hopefully become a staple in asexuality/queer studies and serve as a fountain of both strength and wisdom for asexuals, aromantics, and anyone feeling bound by the oppressive shackles of compulsory (hetero)sexuality.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for granting me an e-arc in exchange for an honest review.

This was a very well researched book, and for the most part I think the author did a great job at presenting it. This does not necessarily focus on all of the different shades of asexuality though - in fact, the focus is mostly on those that choose to have no sex. It does expect the reader to have a basic grasp of the nuances and discourses around asexuality though, which was awesome for me (as an ace that has read a lot on the topic), but which might be more challenging for those new to the topic.

The book covers a great variety of theory and themes, but focuses in particular on how being asexual intersects with being black - something I know little about due to being white. This perspective is so so valuable to share due to the practically non-existant representation!
The variety of topics covered did leave me with a wish for more depth at times though -especially with how they connect to asexuality. You can resonate to this yourself of course, but I think the author should have been a bit clearer.

What I really liked was how the author used theory in a way that made it easy and interesting to follow the arguments. There were also a great focus on history and how asexuality has been considered throughout the years, and I felt like I learned a lot of new information! Some was also very funny (in like, a sad way); for example, there was this one guy that talked about how asexual women were going to literally end the human race eventually. Like yes, that's exactly what I'm planning on doing lmao.

All in all, a very good and important read, and one that I think everyone should read! I think it would also go particularly well with Angela Chen's Ace, which I think is more of an introductory book on the subject, while this one digs deeper!

This is one of the best and in depth researches into Asexuality that I've ever read. I'm not even really sure how to review this one. It's written and structured like a research paper, but is straightforward and easy to understand. She is inclusive in her gender language but talks especially about sexual oppression and violence, even with allosexual women; societal norms; acephobia (how being asexual is seen as unhuman or that something must be wrong with you); and especially what this means for Black people, whose sex is already often criminalized and fetishized. This is a great resource both for asexual people and for anthropology in general, and I think Sherronda brings up a lot of great points. Definitely recommend, especially for people in the queer/ace community.

Thanks to netgalley for a free copy in exchange for an honest review!

Though Refusing Compulsory Sexuality is written through the perspective of a Black asexual, don't make the mistake of assuming that this book is only for aces. Compulsory (hetero)sexuality harms us all, and Sherronda J. Brown peels it apart layer by layer, encouraging readers to push back. Being that both the Black and asexual communities exist on the outskirts of the larger LGBTQ sphere, Brown is in the unique position of being able to see and call out all the bull in a world built on the foundation of compulsory sexuality.

This title is remarkably well written and researched, and even though I received a digital ARC, I have preordered a physical copy. I can't wait to go back through and highlight some of the particularly hard-hitting passages.

Amazing to have this information finally! I resonated with so much of this, and this is. a much-needed contribution to the field of asexuality studies-- the perspective from a person of color, and all the intersectional layers, is a voice that needs to be heard. a work like this brings up important questions on how American society views sexuality and intimacy. I'm glad this exists and that I had an opportunity to read it!

This was an insightful perspective on something so important. Asexuality is something that is so rarely explored, especially with intersectionality in mind.

This book does make the reader realise the difficulties of living without prejudice as an asexual person. It makes you realise how much of society is centred around sexuality.

Overall I’d recommend this book to anyone interested in educating themselves on asexuality!

I’ve been involved in the ace community for coming on ten years now. In that time, I’ve seen many writings and discussions about asexuality and aromanticism that have completely rocked my world. When you look at the world through aro/ace glasses, your view of societal structures and cultural norms completely changes. But in all that time, I’ve never read something like Refusing Compulsory Sexuality.

Sherronda J. Brown’s book tackles subjects related to asexuality, acephobia, and cultural views on sex in essay-like chapters. It’s written in a more academic style than I was expecting, but Brown’s writing is clear and engaging – even for those of us who’ve been out of school for years now. Diving deep into a single subject each chapter, Brown explores acephobia, exclusionists, chrononormativity, the hypersexualization and infantilization of Black girls/women, capitalism, medicalization, gender, the villainization of the asexual identity, and more. Each chapter is written through a Black asexual lens.

It is this lens of experience that makes this book so unlike any that I’ve read. That, and Brown’s clear skill in weaving together history, cultural mores, and systems of power to closely examine the way our society entangles sexuality and race. I’ve seen many of the subjects I mentioned above talked about in other circles – for example, I’ve read discussions on capitalism and its opposition to asexuality. But it wasn’t until Refusing Compulsory Sexuality that I’ve seen someone so concisely link these two subjects to the history of white supremacy and colonialism. Reading this and other chapters felt like a lightbulb going off in my head. I was very impressed with the connections made in this book.

Going back to speaking about the asexual community as a whole – a large failure of that community is its overwhelming focus on white experiences. A lot of the time, the discussions around the interplay between asexuality and race are stuck on the whiteness of the ace community and how unwelcoming it can be. Not that this shouldn’t be talked about! But this book showed me how necessary more analysis is needed and how many opportunities there are to go deeper. To really delve into the how and the why and the specific ways racism and acephobia are bound to each other. The history. The way it’s rooted in ideas that were built to enforce colonialism and enslavement. The way that’s all carried through to the present.

Sherronda J. Brown dives into all of that and more here. I learned a lot reading this, and more than that, felt my understand of the way the world works change. Can’t recommend this enough, especially for ace people and their allies who want to really delve into a smart, in-depth examination of Black asexuality in a way I’ve personally never seen done before.

Thanks to Netgalley for giving me an early copy to review.

This book is primarily about the intersection of Blackness and Asexuality, the ways that one influences the other, and critiques the generally accepted standard that “normal” people want sex.

This book seeks to critique the pervasiveness of expected or compulsory sexuality in modern western culture. It points out ways that marginalized races and specifically black people experience hypersexualization and the ways the hypersexualization of the black body creates a more intense push back on the idea of asexuality in a black body. While I have read other books on asexuality, because this one looks at asexuality through a black lens, it allows for a more intense examination of ace erasure and compulsory sexuality.

My main critique of this book is that as interesting as it is in intent, it’s not all that compelling. It is very academic, the prose and structure are pretty dry, and I found it hard to motivate myself to sit down with it. Once I was reading, I found myself easily distracted and it was hard to meet my reading goals with this one. It’s worth reading for sure, but it did feel like a chore - which hasn’t always been my experience with books on queer theory or Blackness.

Ultimately, this is a valuable and thought provoking look at asexuality and race that is a little slow.

**I received a free e-ARC of this book from the publisher via netgalley**

I loved this book! Not only did it make me feel incredibly seen in the facets of my queerness, but it also was so deeply researched and had so much information spanning various aspects of queerness, race, literature, and history. It was fascinating to look at how white supremacy affects every lens through which our society exists, whether that be sex, gender, race, or the way all of those things intersect. I also enjoyed the addition of other academics'/professionals' viewpoints within their areas of expertise. It added a wonderful layer of communal knowledge to the book.
Sherronda’s writing is wonderful and accessible, which can be difficult with a book contingent on so much theory! It was interesting to read how different identities connect and have been altered or persecuted due to white supremacy in an intellectual yet understandable way. As someone who often gets lost in deep theory books, it was so heartening to be able to follow the well-drawn-out research and concepts of this book.

I definitely recommend this book to anyone interested in learning about Asexuality and anyone interested in the complexities of race’s impact on compulsory sexuality and gender.

Being Asexual myself, I try to read as many books and stories of other people's experiences as possible. I like to support other asexuals and I like to see how others experience, interpret, and feel their asexuality. When I heard about this book, I was definitely excited to check it out and I can say very happily that I am glad that I requested it. Sherronda's writing is fantastic, she really goes in depth into her experiences and how she views things, and I just really enjoyed myself.
If you want to learn a bit more about asexuality or read about another person's experiences, I highly recommend this one.

Thank you to NetGalley for this ARC!

Refusing Compulsory Sexuality by Sherronda J. Brown was incredible. I typically don’t read much nonfiction because I lose interest or find it difficult to get through, but this book was an exception. I found it fascinating.

I think this book is a very important one. I am asexual myself, but I am also white. Reading this book made me consider perspectives that I never had before, and I was made aware of things that I had been painfully ignorant of. I think that this should be required reading for every white and/or allosexual person, as it gives valuable insight as to the prejudice and harmful societal norms that whites and allosexuals have perpetuated for centuries.

At times this book was difficult to read because it dealt with some very heavy, very difficult topics. It made me feel like I am not doing enough to help counteract the horrible expectations put onto Black people, especially Black women and girls. I think that the difficult books are the most important to read, though, and I’m very glad to have read this book and finished it with much more knowledge than I started with.

I don’t like to rate nonfiction books, but if I had to rate Refusing Compulsory Sexuality I would give it five stars. It was an incredible book, and I highly recommend that everyone reads it.