S5E2 Why does asexuality make the media so angry?
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Happy Valentine's Day. Happy Valentine's Day to my true Valentine. What are you doing tonight? Because, wait, it's not with me. I know. What the hell? We should stay here. Yeah, should we? Should we just have a sleepover in the studio? I like it. Sexy.

I'm not doing anything because I think Valentine's Day is kind of overrated. I don't know. I'm so excited for this evening. I'm going to go home and I'm going to go to sleep. Wow. I'm so tired. That is romantic. Yeah, no, not a Valentine's Day. God, we're just meant to be. I know. Let's run away together. That would be a happy Valentine's Day. Okay, what are we talking about today apart from this? Apparently our secret affair.

Well, with Trump in power, trans rights off the table and social media censorship, it is an incredibly scary time for many LGBT plus people. Definitely. And talking about social media censorship, Ellen Jones is a speaker and a campaigner who's a previous guest of Media Storms.

and she's also a debut author as of very recently and her book is called Outrage Why LGBTQ Plus Equality Is Not Yet Won and What We Can Do About It. It's great but Instagram slash meta don't seem to think so. A

A picture of Ellen holding her book with the caption "celebrating and thanking those who have supported her along the way" was taken down. Ellen was asked to prove the post wasn't offensive. Anyway, after about 400 people tagging Instagram, her post has now been reinstated. But Ellen made a great point when I was chatting to her and she said that she's currently at the front of every bookshop in the country.

being displayed by foils and waterstones, yet she had zero mainstream media interest in covering her book. And then because of that, she was relying on social media to spread the word. Now, we don't know that this Instagram post was taken down because the content was queer related. But as Ellen pointed out, several queer authors were hit with the same issue in the same 24-hour period.

And as we see Mark Zuckerberg, head of Meta, cosying up to Donald Trump, many minority content creators are saying their reach has become more limited. Yeah. And so there are so many reasons that we wanted to focus on the queer community this week.

But even within that community, there are groups that do not get as much media attention or protection as others. And so this Valentine's Day, we wanted to focus on one of those communities, the asexual community. Admittedly, we started out researching asexuality as a topic we were both really ignorant about. So we're hoping this episode is a space for us to all learn about it together.

it together. Definitely. Now, I think it would be useful to give a definition. You'll likely hear us use the term ace or maybe acephobia. Ace is an umbrella term used to describe people who experience little fluctuating or no sexual attraction. There's also a difference between aromantic and asexual. Aromantic refers to people who experience little to no romantic attraction, while asexual people experience little to no sexual attraction.

But asexuality is often widely misunderstood, even within the LGBTQ plus community. So we will ultimately leave it to our guests to help us clear up some of the main myths later on.

Data shows about 1-2% of the US and UK's population are asexual, but only 1 in 4 are open about their sexuality with friends. Asexual people are also not recognised in legislation such as under the UK Equality Act or in most LGBTQ+ specific training for healthcare providers. While more and more TV shows, films and mainstream media are exploring queer experiences,

Is there still a pointed lack of exposure given to asexuality? And when asexuality is represented, is it helpful or hurtful? There are reports that asexual people are less happy. Well, you'd assume that's the case. I would assume so, because they're not getting any. What's an...

Welcome to MediaStorm, the news podcast that starts with the people who were normally asked last. I'm Helena Wadia. And I'm Matilda Mallinson. This week's MediaStorm. Why does asexuality make the media so angry?

Welcome to the MediaStorm studio. Today's guest is a British model, academic and activist. She led the UK's first asexual rights initiative, co-founded International Asexuality Day, hosted the first asexual themed bar at

Pride in London and was the first openly asexual woman to appear on the cover of a UK magazine. She also published the UK's first report into asexual discrimination with Stonewall and has since continually provided hard data into this vastly under-researched area.

Welcome to the studio, Yasmin Benoit. Thanks for having me. Thank you so much for being here. And Yasmin, we at MediaStorm have been very fortunate with the timing of this episode because thanks to your own academic work, it coincides with having some new, rare, hard data on the subject of asexuality. So on the 7th of February, King's College published a paper with you as one of the authors, and it tells us why this episode is important.

asexuality representation is not just a problem of invisibility. There is real ridicule and discrimination resulting from the misunderstandings around it. The study found a significant number of the people they spoke to held prejudice towards the asexual community. Can you tell us what this prejudice actually looked like? Yeah, so in the study, we were looking at public attitudes and

towards asexual people. And we did this thing called a double list experiment to try and alleviate social desirability bias, because you often get that when you're asking people for their opinions on marginalized groups. Everybody tries to sound like as good as possible and doesn't want to say what they're really thinking. But then what was interesting when we were doing it is that there actually was no social desirability bias for people

The asexual community, people had no radar of, oh, this would be a bad thing to say about this group. So we might as well have just asked them straight up because people would have just said it anyway. They had absolutely like no radar for what was offensive and what wasn't, which I guess shows that we could be much more vulnerable to receiving this kind of abuse and this kind of prejudice because it found that one in three people think that asexuality is something that can be cured with therapy.

Which is definitely symptomatic of the medicalization of asexuality in the UK. And that was the finding that didn't surprise me that much personally. They also found that one in nine doesn't think that asexual people exist at all. And yeah, they had no problems just saying that outright. And two in five said that they don't think that you can be asexual if you have sex, which I guess is a fundamental misunderstanding of what asexuality is as an orientation.

And also that a quarter thought that asexual people just hadn't met the right person yet and that that's all it was.

So yeah, it's kind of one of the first studies to kind of give an indication into what people are thinking and how widespread it is. Because even though I've had people tell me these things all the time, there isn't anything that I can really like reference people to outside of like my Twitter comments. So it's good to have something like written down. Yeah, absolutely. And so, you know, in terms of the actual real life harm this causes people, if, as you say, many people are

under the illusion that asexuality is something that can be cured or is even a problem in the first place and needs to be cured. Does this mean that asexual people might be put through conversion therapy, for example? Yeah, it was actually the Government Equalities Office when they did the National LGBT Survey back in 2018. They found that asexual people are 10% more likely to be offered or to undergo conversion therapy compared to other orientations. So they're actually one of the most vulnerable groups

to that. And again, that wasn't something that surprised me because I think from the time when I was like 14 onwards, I've had people saying like, oh, you should see a doctor about that. There's probably a way to fix that. Like this must be some kind of condition that can be resolved. And people still tell me that all the time, especially on social media. And it's kind of like an unfortunate asexual rite of passage to have people saying that to you. How does that feel for you when people say stuff like that?

I think what's quite strange about it is just that, you know, I think on the most part, people have a good gauge of what not to say when it comes to other orientations. Like, I think nowadays, like, people would register, like, oh, if someone tells me they're gay, I shouldn't tell them that you should probably fix that with therapy. Like, most people can kind of tell that that's an inappropriate thing or to suggest to anyone that you can fix their sexual orientation with therapy would be bad. Right.

But then when it comes to asexuality, like the people are very comfortable, even the most like intelligent, like well-meaning people will still come out with that.

And that was actually something else that like the research indicated because we were largely doing it on like a sample of like younger people. There are quite a lot of LGBTQ plus people in the sample. There were quite educated people in the sample. So it's kind of a demographic you would expect to be more accepting or more knowledgeable. But even they were still saying that. So it's quite a widespread thing. Absolutely. And we'll definitely get into...

attitudes within the LGBT community a little later on in the episode. But, you know, you mentioned already some common myths that people who are asexual face. And, you know, we have to admit when we started researching this episode, like neither of us knew a huge amount about asexuality. So thank you, by the way, for reaching out and putting it on our radar because Yasmin actually suggested this episode. So to help our...

us and our listeners better understand what it actually means to be ace or asexual, we'd love you to, yeah, just help us out a bit. And as you mentioned, one common myth is that you can't have sex and be asexual. So,

What does it mean to be asexual and what does that spectrum look like? Yeah, so the most widely accepted definition of asexuality is just that it means experiencing little to no sexual attraction towards anyone, regardless of their gender. So it is a type of sexual orientation that falls under the A in LGBTQIA+. It's not the same as abstaining from sex. It's not like a lifestyle choice. It's not...

synonymous with celibacy, which is something else people tend to get it confused with. So in the same way as like you might be a gay man who's had sex with women before, it doesn't mean you're not gay anymore. Same for asexuality. It's not about your attitudes towards sex or whether or not you have done it before. I think especially as a

Lots of asexual people are in romantic relationships with people that aren't asexual. So in those relationships, they might then be doing that with their partner because that's something that their partner still desires and they don't mind. When we're talking about the sexual attraction aspect, for some that might be like absolutely none, like zero, never. For some, it might be like a very rare occasion or kind of like a very weak feeling. And they might identify as being more gray asexual as the term is or

For some, there might have to be the condition in those rare instances where they might feel some sexual attraction that there has to be an emotional bond with the person first. And then in which case, that's a type of gray sexuality that they call demisexuality. So there are different terms that kind of fall underneath it. But the overarching theme is experiencing little to no sexual attraction.

You also pointed, you know, within that spectrum to the fact that people are often in relationships and asexual doesn't necessarily mean aromantic.

But aromantic also exists, right? Yes, I happen to be both. But it's not like a given. Lots of asexual people still experience romantic attraction. And for those, you kind of use terms like heteroromantic, for example, or homoromantic or biromantic or aromantic if you don't experience romantic attraction either. And also, if you are asexual and aromantic like me, which means that, you know, I'm not going to have a romantic relationship, people kind of

apply a lot of judgments in terms of not just how they think your life is going to be, but also what kind of person you must be to not be experiencing that and to not have the capacity to experience that. They kind of assume you must be like Voldemort or something. You must be like a total sociopath, I think is in my top 10 of things that I get called. Yeah.

And just, you know, to give people a sense of the scale of asexuality, how common is it? The statistics vary a little bit, but I think if you were to kind of find the average, it's like roughly around 1% of the population. Yeah.

I remember the Rainbow Britain report kind of estimated it being more around like 2%, whereas the census kind of said it was at like 0 point something, which is actually way lower than anything else has ever estimated it. So I think it's something to do with the phrasing. So yeah, I would probably say it's around between 1-2% of the population, especially if you take the wider spectrum into account, which sounds small, but... It's like the same as gingers, right? Yeah, it's like the same as ginger people. It's the example I always give. And it's like everybody knows a ginger person is not

that uncommon and also the trans population is also like similar to that and that's still you know an important population that is talked about so it's not that tiny really

A lot of these misconceptions that you've addressed about asexual people, these come from a lack of visibility in the media. But there are also cases where there's actively negative representations in the media. Now, the common pitfall we always call out here at MediaStorm is coverage about a community that doesn't include a community. There's also often, I've seen kind of an ironic mix of commentators saying,

disbelieving that discrimination against asexual people exists at the same time as ridiculing and mocking asexual people. At the end of 2023, a landmark report from Stonewall came out that you, Yasmin, participated in. It investigated the discrimination faced by ace people in the UK. Following this, you faced a personal targeting and a backlash from right-wing media.

including a comment piece in spite which accused you and your fellow ace representatives of vying for a spot at the top of the victimhood pile and ignorantly suggested a quickie might improve their mood.

A discussion on GB News by someone who clearly hadn't read the report since their summary of it was wildly inaccurate, also offered the enlightening advice, no wonder they're unhappy, they're not getting any. You know, this was a whole feature in which people were speaking about you and not to you. Does this categorise a lot of the media coverage towards you and other asexuality campaigners? Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, Spike to Love Me, they're all...

Sometimes I wish that I could like hire these people to do my PR because they're like the first to write an article about me within five minutes of me releasing something. I'm like, you were waiting up all night for that to drop so you could get on there. You're so obsessed with me. Like literally I send them those, those gifts on Twitter whenever they try and tweet at me. Like, hey,

Always you. I mean, I feel like it's more a me thing, honestly. I don't see other asexual people that do this kind of stuff. I mean, there aren't many of them that do, but it tends to be like very much a me thing. I feel like I kind of statistically just get more backlash than other people, probably because I'm also one of the few Black women.

women doing this I'm sure has something to do with it but it's definitely kind of becoming an increasing thing like it's almost like a tradition every time I go to Pride in June like okay when is the the piece gonna come out and the spectator complaining about me going to Pride like every year everyone's like scandalized that I do Pride in London even though I've been doing it for a while now wait what's so scandalizing about it that I I go and I'm there and

People are really upset. That's it. Like, yeah, people are really upset. I mean, last year I was at the front of Pride in London. I was leading it and I was in the Piccadilly Circus campaign. So people were really mad that year. Who was mad? Just the same people. Spiked. Spectator, Unheard, all of those. It kind of goes viral on Twitter every single time. And then people get mad at my outfits.

The horse is like, you should be covered up. Okay. Let's talk about that because a common thing we've noticed with some of the criticism against you is a very physical focus. Yeah. Physical focus. You're a model. Sometimes you model lingerie. Your body, your face, a part of your professional currency. People have, however, criticized you for being asexual and sexy.

presenting your body, displaying cleavage. And this has led to some people questioning whether you're even asexual at all. Yeah, here's some of the examples of the comments. You know, somebody complaining that you've got your tits out. Somebody saying, if you want to see a DEI-hired diversity, equity and inclusion hire, look no further than this. I mean...

Why do you think people feel the need to weigh in on this? But I suppose more critically, what does it reveal about the nature of their criticism? I mean, what's interesting about it is that, I mean, like when I kind of started doing the activism, I genuinely didn't think that like,

The fact that I've like modeled before would be a big deal. I was like, well, surely we're kind of like beyond the whole women only wear clothes to make men want to have sex with them thing. So I was like, oh, that's not even going to be a thing. And then quite quickly, I realized that it actually was a thing. And people found it very controversial that I was so much as wear eyeliner while being asexual.

And I think that what's particularly strange about it is that most of those kind of comments are coming from so-called like gender critical feminists who say that their whole thing is trans women are a problem. But the cisgender women, those are the ones who are like protecting and supporting. But at the same time, you're a stupid slut who needs to put her clothes on. So I'm like, isn't that kind of contradictory to the...

to like, shouldn't this not be your concern? Like my cleavage or how long my skirt is saying that I must want sex and that I'm like a sex toy. And like, I'm just like some kind of walking problem on the basis of my appearance seems to directly go against what you claimed your mission was, which then I feel like highlights that it's not actually all the things that they say it's nothing to do with protecting or supporting women at all. And you mentioned before that

Part of this probably has to do with the fact that you are a black woman. In what ways does race and racism play into this, do you think? I mean, black women were probably one of the most hyper-sexualized demographics in the world. Like, I realized quite quickly, it's not actually anything to do with what I'm wearing. Like, I could, like, I'll post a picture in, like, jeans and a t-shirt and then they're like, oh, but your eyes...

there's something very seductive in the look in your eyes. Like, well, that's a you thing though. That's not actually my eyes. I mean, I remember after I did Pride last year, GB News did a whole segment talking about how my lips are too pouty. And so it's just strange for an asexual person to have such pouty lips. Like I'm just black with full lips. I'm sorry. But like, that's just like a feature of my face. So,

So you can't really avoid it. I'm like, it's not anything to do with the clothes, really. They'll be like, oh, well, your body shape or your, I don't know, there's something about you that just seems too sexual. It's like, that's just you projecting that. And I feel like it's not coincidental that it's almost entirely coming from white people. I feel like there's definitely a reason why that is. Wow. Yeah.

Double wow. Double wow. And the thing is, what those media reports that dedicated entire segments to the poutiness of your lips didn't actually look at or ask you about was the fundamental purpose behind the research that you had conducted. You participated in this landmark report with Stonewall. And...

What it actually looked at was the importance of legislation designed to protect asexual people. And this doesn't seem to be the direction that society is moving in right now. I mean, diversity and inclusion initiatives are under attack. This month in the US, some government agencies have updated their websites to remove

the T and Q that they had in LGBTQ+, reducing the acronym to LGB. This, of course, removes references not just to transgender and intersex people, but also asexual people. So help us to understand why legislation may be important. What positive differences do you believe that this could make for real people's lives and for society in general? It provides an incentive.

Like just for people to even consider that they're missing something or to consider that there's an issue or even that there's another community that exists and needs the same protection as everybody else. I mean, as we've been talking about like things that people say online and these are things people have said to me in person as well, like leave.

legally speaking, that would probably be considered a hate crime to say these things, but we're not protected by hate crime law. So there is not anything I could do about that. We're not included in the Equality Act, which defines sexual orientation as being towards either a man, woman, or both. There is no neither. So asexuality doesn't fall under that. It means that we're still medicalized in the UK. You said that before. What do you mean medicalized?

medicalized, we're medicalized. Well, in the UK, we mainly use the International Classification of Diseases as a medical manual. And in Europe as well, the US tends to use the DSM, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. And in the UK, we have one called High Proactive Sexual Desire Disorder, which pretty much means if you're not experiencing desire or attraction towards other people enough, that's considered as a medical condition. Okay, so it's seen as a disorder, not an orientation. Yes.

And so if you are to describe that to a medical professional, like their instinct would be, okay, this is something that needs fixing. And that was something we were looking at in the report because, as I said, the government's research had found that we're 10% more likely to be offered or to undergo conversion therapy. But I didn't say anything else aside from that of like, so where is the conversion therapy and how is it happening and who's it happening to?

But I had already known like anecdotally that it's a health care issue. Like it's not really a religious issue as much as it is of other orientations. And it was disproportionately impacting asexual women and people with vaginas because, you know, we go to gynecologists and we have like smear tests and all those things where they expect you to be sexually active over the age of 25. And if you aren't.

Sometimes they will then be like, well, why not? And if you give an honest answer to that, then it's like, okay, pause on whatever you came here for.

You have there's a red flag here. You have a condition. You don't seem to realize that, but you do. So that's what our priority is going to be is fixing that condition. So we're going to book you into psychosexual therapy and we're going to get you some medication and we're going to fix whatever problem this is, because obviously what you're describing has to be a medical condition. And that was very much like the path that people ended up going down.

And I noticed that within that psychosexual therapy, they definitely were not trying to make more lesbians. They were telling the people, like, you need to be sexually attracted to men. Why aren't you sexually attracted to men? Let's unpack that and let's do whatever we can to kind of coerce you or convince you that you need to be having sex with men. And that was...

kind of the purpose. And meanwhile, whatever medical problem they went there with is not being treated because they're only concerned about fixing the asexuality part. So that's the medicalization that we're dealing with. And even in the US, in the DSM, they put a qualifier back in like 2013 saying don't diagnose asexual people with this.

but we don't have that here. So I feel like that's why our conversion therapy rates are so high. I wonder if, you know, one of the reasons that, you know, also there aren't so many people speaking out about this. Well, I can understand it given the current political climate that we're in. It's something your own personal experiences point to.

is the risk of visibility. Right now, you know, we look at the campaign for trans rights and how it's been weaponized in populist politics, being framed as a threat and blown wildly out of proportion. Do you ever worry that, you know, more visibility could bring similar negative attention to the asexual community? And do you think that's a reason that there aren't many people

Yeah, I think it's a combination of things. I think people don't want to speak out because, you know, they do. There is stigma and they don't want to experience that, especially not on like a public scale. Like I know even when I've tried to do things and get other people involved, they're like, oh, but I don't want to show my face. Oh, I don't want to give my name. Yeah.

people don't empathize with a block of text in the same way as they do like a person, but people, they don't want to put themselves in that position. And I get it because we see what happens to me, but I, it does kind of make it harder. And I think that,

you know, we're kind of seeing, I feel like, the beginnings of asexuality being caught within the same kind of media backlash that we're seeing from orientations. In fact, it's very much connected. I mean, when I did the report with Stonewall, or even when I first wrote

started working with Stonewall, like the same publications we mentioned were like, oh, okay. So Stonewall, by pushing puberty blockers, has created an asexual generation of people with like botched sexuality. And thus they've now had to create a new orientation for

to justify this generation of people that have access to puberty blockers, apparently. And thus then they have used me to appeal to the youth and try to normalize it and then we can make loads and loads of money somehow is what they genuinely publish and think. Obviously. Duh.

But yeah, you can see now that then the asexual community are potentially being starting to be thrown under the bus in the same way that the trans community are. And, you know, if we're looking at the rise in queer phobia in general, with this demonization of trans people and gender and sexual minorities, how do those different versions of anti-queerness interact and grow?

feed into each other, like transphobia feeding into acephobia, for example. I think it's a similar thing to what we've seen throughout history, where it's always like, just because they start with one group...

Doesn't mean that it's just like, okay, well, we've done that now. Like, we're just going to go back to normal. It's like, no, it does have a knock on effect because what it's showing is that it's okay to target a minority group of people and demonize them publicly, take their rights away and, you

why would they then stop at one when you can kind of use the exact same rhetoric? Like the same rhetoric that they're using towards trans people is the one they used to towards gay people. I get called a groomer all the time and I'm like, it doesn't even make sense. What? What would you be grooming them for? It's like, oh,

I'm a sexual deviant. That doesn't even like what these arguments don't even make sense, but they just regurgitate the exact same things. And you're like, okay, well, we can get away with saying these things in the media. We know that now. And, you know, how do we spice up the segments a little bit more? Let's pick a new group. And I think you've also just put your finger on the reason for this anger that we see, this faux anger. As you have repeatedly pointed out, there is no consistency in the logic

If you're trying to protect women, then why are you attacking a woman for not having sex?

How are you a sexual deviant? You know, because you're asexual. Like you said, the logic isn't there. But I think you did just put your finger on what logic is there, which is that demonizing, making villains out of easy and vulnerable and marginalized groups is rewarding at this point in time. Really rewarding for certain media, certain politicians who get the clicks, you know,

get the emotion, stirring, present themselves as sort of saviors against these perceived imagined threats. That's what it seems to come down to all the time. I think definitely now that we have, like, I guess, more of a kind of clickbait-based approach

Culture, I think, you know, now that, you know, on platforms like X, you can buy the blue tick and then gain a tiny, like such a tiny amount of revenue. I'm like, you're really tweeting every five minutes in the hope of making, what, 50 pence, really? Like this is like way too much effort. But there's like a financial incentive there.

for these things. And it's almost like a cult of personality that builds around people that literally just stir outrage, like, all the time. And I think even from when I kind of first started doing this, I quickly realized that the media was kind of using me in particular as, like, the bait. Like, they'd put my picture on the front and they would...

specifically choose like a lingerie shot or something, even though I like sent them a bunch of them just like in like normal clothes. And then they'd go, she doesn't want sex. It's like the headline. So people will then comment and be like, but she looks like she wants sex. And it's like, okay, I see what you're doing here, but this is not actually beneficial for me. And no one's reading what I actually said. They're just outraged by the picture and the headline. So yeah, I feel like nowadays it's even like a lot harder to,

communicate messages that people might have been more receptive to like in the past I mean asexual activism has been happening not noticed much but it has been happening since like the early 2000s at least and it wasn't like this before do you find then that there is also that lack of visibility or that lack of support from within the wider queer community the LGBTQ plus community as well

Yeah. And I think that it's one of those things where I guess we've kind of seen a lot of them are part of the queer community. Like we kind of see like LGB Alliance and all those people that are kind of trying to almost like radicalize and cause this division and like roister in people's ears. Like, you know, if these people have a seat at the table, then you're not going to anymore. And

When I was at Pride, people literally were commenting like, "Oh my gosh, you've ruined Pride. So gay people can't go to Pride anymore." It's like, oh yeah, there's no gay people at Pride. Not one. If you look at Pride in London, there's none. No one's there. It's like, come on. - It's really good. - It's sparse. - It's like, why did they go?

So people seem to genuinely think that, okay, well, if this is including these people, then that completely takes away from all these other people. So you can't just exist in the same space at the same time, which we have been doing for a while. So I can't like a good chunk of the hate I get online is technically coming from...

people within the community, but it is the same people who are the ones that don't want trans people there. And a bit of a question mark over bi people, so I'm not quite sure about them either. Or any other letter that kind of goes beyond like the G really.

Jasmine, thank you so much for joining us on MediaStorm. Tell us where can people follow you and do you have anything that you'd like to plug? You can find me at the Yasmin Benoit. That's my username on all platforms. And if you want to find the research that I've done, you can find the Ace in the UK report on Stonewall site. And also my King's College one is called Asexuality in the UK. And you can also find that on their site as well.

Thank you for listening. If you want to support MediaStorm, you can do so on Patreon for less than a cup of coffee a month. The link is in the show notes and a special shout out to everyone in our Patreon community already. We appreciate you so much. And if you enjoyed this episode, please send it to someone. Word of mouth is still the best way to grow a podcast. So please do tell your friends.

You can follow us on social media at MatildaMal, at Helena Wadia and follow the show at MediaStormPod. MediaStorm is an award-winning podcast produced by Helena Wadia and Matilda Mallinson. The music is by Sam Fire.