I have never questioned being allosexual. I experience sexual attraction to all kinds of people and it is often sudden and overwhelming, towards people I do not know at all as well as towards those I know well. Given that, it may seem strange that I am so fiercely defensive of asexual people in conversation, particularly when they are infantilized or their ability to consent to sex is called into question based on their lack of attraction to others. Though I endeavour to be an ally to a wide range of groups I don’t belong to, it is true that I react the most emotionally when I personally relate to their struggles.
The vast majority of full service sex workers have sex with people they’re not attracted to, at least some of the time. I am attracted to very few of my clients, so arousal and sexual desire don’t factor into my reasons for sleeping with them at all. Almost all of the sex I have is for reasons other than my attraction to another person, with my concerns being related to money instead. Being driven by my desire for money makes my consent no less intrinsically valid than if I were driven by a desire for another person’s body. This gives me a visceral understanding that asexual people who do choose to have sex are also capable of consent, choosing sex for reasons other than attraction, and I feel a certain kinship with them.
Of course, there are plenty of asexual people who do not have sex at all, some being sex-repulsed and others entirely neutral to it. Asexual people who have sex with others for closeness, intimacy, and even physical pleasure in the absence of attraction, were my gateway to feeling this affinity as an allosexual sex worker who also has sex without attraction.
From the first moment I recall knowing what asexuality is, I remember the dismissive comments of others towards asexual people. Peers told me that asexual people who do not have sex are broken, whilst insisting that asexual people who do have sex are lying about their lack of attraction for attention. There were those who treated asexual as a synonym for celibate, refusing to acknowledge the orientation itself and reducing the sexuality to the lack of an action. These are all acephobic ideas, built on a fundamental misunderstanding of asexuality as a sexuality. In the same way that some people are attracted exclusively to men or to women, or to people regardless of gender, there are those who are attracted to no-one at all or have a limited attraction which places them on the ace spectrum. This has nothing to do with action.
No matter how many clients I fuck, I do not suddenly become attracted to them. It cannot be argued retroactively that I must have been attracted to them because I let them kiss me or penetrate me or perform oral sex on me of a dismal quality, since these allowances were made for payment rather than interest. Money has no magical property which makes it an exception here – if I were having sex because I loved someone and wanted to make them happy, or to conceive a child, or to feel physical pleasure, this reasoning would still apply. There are those who have sex primarily as a result of arousal that is formed by attraction, and there are those who have sex for other reasons.
Strangely, the same people who insist that someone who has sex must not truly be asexual often have no difficulty grasping the idea that I would not be attracted to my clients. In my case, having sex is not used as evidence of my secret interest in my sexual partners, because my clients are assumed to be uniquely repulsive and I am assumed to be traumatized. People believe that I am not attracted to my clients, in a way they do not believe asexual people aren’t attracted to those they might sleep with. I am exempted from the assertion that sex is evidence of attraction, because I am viewed as the victim of a sexual transgression.
All of this makes me furious. Not only are asexual people frequently pressured into sex by their partners and friends and broader society, in a manner that is just as real as the pressure placed on me by a need to earn money to pay my rent, but we’re all autonomous people who are capable of making choices for reasons outside of pure coercion. I’m not asking to be assaulted when I put up an escorting advert and asexual people aren’t asking to be assaulted when they suggest having sex to a potential partner.
I remark on these similarities not only when I see how asexual people are treated in general, but particularly when I speak with asexual sex workers whose experiences with clients are almost exactly the same as my own. They, like me, are not attracted to their clients, and through that shared starting point it becomes much easier to comprehend how they feel about sex the rest of the time. Many people will view an asexual sex worker as a walking contradiction, though if anything I think they’re often better suited to the job than those of us who are allosexual and take it on – their view of sex is unlikely to have to shift the way mine did upon starting sex work, to get used to sex without attraction.
Every time I hear someone argue that an asexual person is lying about not feeling attraction due to the way they dress or behave, I gain the knowledge that they are no ally to sex workers either. How could they possibly believe that wearing certain attire is evidence of desire for sex and understand that I do not enjoy my job or desire sex with clients?
When I see someone insist that asexual people who have sex with their partners are being abused, because they couldn’t possibly consent on the basis of wanting to make their partner happy or as a way to be close to them and release endorphins, I know they will pity me over the way I sell sex. Won’t they say that having sex for money negates my consent, in the same way they believe offering sex as a way to attain intimacy and closeness does?
Asexual people deserve respect on their own merits, as people whose sexuality is regularly disregarded. It is also worth noticing that those who disrespect asexual people are also a danger to all kinds of sexual minorities, sex workers included. I can’t have my solidarity with asexual people torn from me by any kind of rhetoric, because the way I relate to sex and attraction has been irrevocably shifted by selling sex. I urge other sex workers to consider this, too.
Jack Talks About Sex Work 