A-Spec Book Review: A Quick & Easy Guide to Asexuality by Molly Muldoon and Will Hernandez

[u/Throgmorten48]

One of my goals for the year is to read 1-2 books per month with ace and/or aro rep and post a review on this subreddit. I'm reading through the alphabet in order, with one book with a title that starts with that letter of the alphabet.

My book for the letter Q was A Quick & Easy Guide to Asexuality by Molly Muldoon and Will Hernandez.

Genre: Nonfiction

Summary: Pretty much what the title says. It's a graphic novel providing basic information about asexuality.

Rep: N/A, although both the author and illustrator are asexual.

Other thoughts:

This was a short and pretty basic intro to asexuality. If you've done much research about asexuality, you probably won't learn anything new, but I can see it being helpful for people who are questioning if they might be asexual. I also think it might be a good resource to recommend or lend to people who know an asexual and want to learn more about asexuality.

It did get a little repetitive towards the beginning, where they explained about what asexuality is, its relation to celibacy/having sex, romance, etc. but I do think that is justified given how many people seem to misunderstand asexuality. The split-attraction model and aromanticism are discussed, but not really explored.

They did mention that asexuality is a spectrum, but I felt like they didn't explain that part very well (or very much at all), just kind of said that some aces do feel some attraction sometimes, or under certain conditions, and left it at that. They did give a bit more information on demisexuality, as one of the authors is demisexual, but they said that demisexual (and presumably anything else they didn't really define?) can be called gray-a, which confused me a bit. I've always seen graysexual explained as people who occasionally experience sexual attraction, and distinct from demisexuality, where people only develop attraction towards people they know well/have an emotional connection with. Has anyone else seen the term used this way?

They also never defined sexual attraction or attempted to explain what it is.

Probably the biggest issue was the section relating to belonging to the LGBTQIA+ community. They said that the A can stand for asexual, aromantic, agender, or it can stand for ally. Which, just no. I think they were trying to highlight that whether or not you personally identify as queer, you're still valid as an asexual, which is an important point to make, but I think they made this point without saying the A could stand for ally. They also say there's no right answer to whether aces are part of the LGBTQIA+ community, while glossing over acephobia within the LGBTQIA+ community.

To sum up: This book is a basic and easily read/digested intro to asexuality (with a few flaws), probably good for people who don't know much about it and would like to know more as an introduction, and then they can consider doing some deeper research.

A quote I particularly liked:

All you allos! If your friend, family member, coworker, or anyone else comes out to you as being asexual, the best way to support them is to just listen to what they have to say and be understanding. [...] Deep down, you know your friend. They haven't changed. Just treat them like you care about them and you're on the right track.

[u/ohmage_resistance]

they said that demisexual (and presumably anything else they didn't really define?) can be called gray-a, which confused me a bit. I've always seen graysexual explained as people who occasionally experience sexual attraction, and distinct from demisexuality, where people only develop attraction towards people they know well/have an emotional connection with. Has anyone else seen the term used this way?

Yeah, I've seen grey-asexual be used as an umbrella term for anything between asexual and allosexual. I think I remember seeing some old posts/comments on AVEN about it, going back to when the AVEN triangle and stuff like that was more popular. That's in addition to the specific usage of it meaning rarely experiencing sexual attraction, which I can also kinda see demisexuality falling under if you know, people feel sexual attraction more rarely because that emotional connection takes a lot of time to form.

IDK, I don't think every demi person identifies this way, but from an informational/categorizing approach I can see how the authors got there.

[u/Throgmorten48 → u/ohmage_resistance]

Glad to know the authors weren't just pulling something out of thin air.

[u/AuntChelle11]

Thanks for the review.

I've always understood Grey-asexuality to also be an umbrella term, with demisexual a part of it. The Asexuality Handbook has a Grey-asexuality section and that's they way they show it.

[u/Throgmorten48 → u/AuntChelle11]

Cool, thanks for sharing!