Book Review: Ace and Proud: An Asexual Anthology

Ace and Proud: An Asexual Anthology by A.K. Andrews
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

In my 37 years of existence on earth, I have heard about women who are labelled as 'frigid'. I have heard of men who are disinterested in physical intimacy. But it's the first time I'm learning that they may have an altogether different sexual orientation, thanks to this book. So far, I knew of only two sexual orientations- straight and gay. This is the first time I came to learn about the "Kinsey Scale" which graded sexuality on a 0-6 scale, with 0 being fully heterosexual and 6 being fully homosexual. There's even an "X", which stands for asexuals.

This book is a project of AVEN (Asexual Visibility and Education Network), which was founded in 2001 by David Jay for asexuals. This anthology is a collection of stories written by asexual writers from around the globe. I got to know the nuances of sexuality, like differences between "heterosexuality" and "heteroromantic" or terms like "demi-girl" from this book. This whetted my interest in further academic studies on the subject of sexuality and I ended up reading some very informative articles in various websites. The book may not have great literary value, but it offers great insights into the lives and behavioural patterns of asexuals.

Sexuality is very much a part of our lives. I think we should all learn more about it as our views on sexuality are mostly restricted to socially acceptable norms.

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