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Article published In:
Journal of Language and Sexuality
Vol. 12:2 (2023) ► pp.145–172

From crushes to squishes

Affect and agency on r/ AskReddit and r/ Asexual

ORCID logo | College of Saint Benedict and Saint John’s University, USA
Previous research on language, sexuality, and affect has focused primarily on the presence rather than the absence of desire. This analysis investigates the linguistic manifestations of non-desire on two subreddits: r/AskReddit and r/Asexual. Contrasting asexual redditors’ responses to threads such as When and how did you realize you were asexual? with straight, allosexual redditors’ responses to a thread titled Straight redditors, when did you realize you were straight?, I find that allosexual and asexual redditors’ responses differ in agency and emotionality. While straight allosexual redditors attribute their lack of homosexual desire to factors other than themselves, asexual redditors attribute their lack of allosexual desire to their own identity. Additionally, asexual redditors frame their realizations of their asexuality as processual and emotional, using feel and felt more often than straight allosexual redditors’ responses. These results expose the importance of emotionality – including lack of desire – as a resource for asexual identity construction.
Keywords: affect, agency, asexuality, desire, heterosexuality, masculinities
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Theoretical framework and literature review
    • 2.1Affect and agency in queer linguistics
    • 2.2Previous work on language and asexuality
  • 3.Methods
  • 4.Straight allosexual redditors: Agentive desire, passive non-desire
  • 5.Asexual redditors: Agentive non-desire
    • 5.1 At first I felt formulas: Confusion, worry, epiphany, relief
    • 5.2Affect-laden framings of non-desire
    • 5.3Partiality
    • 5.4Agentive non-desire
      • 5.4.1Labeling of asexual identities and types of attraction
      • 5.4.2Preference constructions
    • 5.5Denaturalizing desire: Parodic voicing of and metaphors for allosexual attraction
  • 6.Discussion
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 13 July 2023
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/jls.22004.fin
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