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| Asexual flag. Image source. |
This post is part of the January/February 2026 Carnival of Aces. The topic is "second glance."
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[content note: it's about consenting to sex you don't like]
It's a common piece of info I've often seen in "asexuality 101" resources. "Some aces do choose to have sex, for various reasons. Like, curiosity. Or, because it feels good. Or, to please their partner."
And way back when, that was also a reason for me. But now my thinking has changed on this. Having sex just because your partner wants to is much more complicated than the breezy way it's presented in Asexuality 101. It is, quite possibly, a bad idea.
When this is discussed, it's in this sort of context: Suppose there's an ace person in a relationship with an allo person, and the ace partner wants it to be a sexless relationship, while the allo partner wants it to be a sexual relationship. Or, it could be that one partner wants to have sex more frequently than the other wants it. Or, one partner wants to do a certain sex act, and the other partner wants to never do that particular sex act.
It doesn't have to be about asexuality at all, really. This could be any situation where someone agrees to have sex they don't want, in order to "please their partner."
So, is this a bad idea?
Well, it very much depends on what you mean by "don't want."
It could be that "don't want" means that the entire thing is a bad experience. It's gross, it's painful, it feels degrading and violating. Or, it could be that "don't want" means you think sex is fine, whatever, but you'd rather watch youtube right now, meh. Or, it could be that "don't want" means you really like to have sex with your partner, you like it a lot, but you don't really feel like doing it right now. (It could even mean that initially you didn't want to, but after a few minutes, you got into it and ended up enjoying it.)
An entire spectrum of what "don't want" might mean- and it's very possible that your own feelings aren't quite clear to you, and you don't even know exactly where you are on that spectrum.
My own experience was, I had vaginismus, so vaginal sex was painful. And I grew up in a conservative Christian/ complementarian environment, where women are taught that sex is going to be bad, it might be painful, women don't like it, but you HAVE TO do it for your husband, because men need it. And that this is what we should expect marriage to be. Regularly having unwanted sex.
(A note about terminology: Purity culture and complementarianism are part of the same ideology. Purity culture is the part for young, unmarried people, which says you should not ever have sex, and you should repress yourself as much as possible. Complementarianism is the part for married people, which says the husband is the leader and the wife needs to submit, and the wife has to have unwanted sex because men's "needs" are so important.)
So in this situation, my interpretation of "aces who choose to have sex to please their partners" was... this experience has some bad parts, like the fact that it's painful. And some good parts, like how I love my partner and I like to see him happy. So, the good outweighs the bad. So, I tell myself, overall I like it.
Yeah this is what I'm saying is a bad idea.
In the ace community, people talk about the concept of "compromise" but I don't think this is quite the same thing. "Compromise" seems to mean that the allo partner wants to have sex, the ace partner does not, and so they compromise by having sex. (???) At least this concept of "compromise" seems to include a more honest awareness of, like, "I don't like this, but it's the cost of being in this relationship." Whereas I had the idea of sacrifice- love is about sacrifice, marriage is about sacrifice- and so, it's normal that when you love someone, you allow yourself to be in situations which are very unpleasant or painful, if it brings pleasure to your partner. And that you actually like when that happens, because your happiness at seeing your partner's pleasure outweighs the rest.
Yeah, so this concept of "sacrifice" is a bad idea. Especially as it applies to sex in a long-term relationship, which is supposed to be about intimacy. If one partner is enjoying it, and the other one is in pain... Either the one in pain hides it and pretends everything's fine- so, this is not intimacy. Or the other partner knows that they are enjoying their partner's pain, oh gosh, so they're *enjoying* using and hurting their partner? Oh gosh, you don't want a partner like that.
There's something I found out, about allosexual people (ie people not on the asexual spectrum). I came across this idea when I was reading the book "Let's Talk About Love." (Maybe I'd heard of this before, but the way it was talked about in this book made an impression on me.) There's a character in this book who wants to have sex when he is in a relationship, because he sees it as a way of expressing his love to his partner.
And there have been times where I talked to people about asexuality, and they said they have a need for sex in a relationship, and I suggested that someone in this situation, whose partner didn't want to have sex, could just masturbate. And they said, no, it's not the same, they don't want to just masturbate, they want to have sex with their partner. But they were unable to explain why, in a way that I could understand.
Well, I think maybe I get it now: For people who like sex, they want to share that enjoyment with their partner. It's just the same as if you see a funny meme on the internet and so you want to share it with someone. Laughing about it together is even better than laughing by yourself. For people who like sex, they want to enjoy it together with their partner, because they love their partner. They want their partner to have a good time.
(Okay, people have plenty of other motivations for having sex, but I'm specifically talking about long-term, loving relationships here- and I suspect this motivation is very common in that context. Please note that purity/complementarian culture teaches that people can ONLY have sex in marriage, which is presumably a long-term, loving relationship- so it's quite shocking that they never mentioned this as a motivation for sex.)
I don't think I ever heard this view of sex, when I was in purity culture/ complementarian Christianity. In purity culture, people have sex because they're just so attracted to their partner, and their desires overcome them and they don't even know what they're doing. In complementarianism, sex is about men's needs. Men have needs, and a wife must meet all of her husband's requirements, or else he'll probably go watch porn or cheat on her, men are like that. I don't think I ever heard that someone might view sex as "I want us to enjoy this together, because I love you."
And so when I heard people saying that they have needs and they want to have sex with their partner, and that masturbating wasn't going to cut it, I heard it as "not only do I need to get my genitals stimulated and have an orgasm- the dictionary definition of sex- but I also need my partner to be there, having an unpleasant time, while I use their body, or else it doesn't meet my needs. My needs are really inconvenient and arbitrary like that." I heard it through this complementarian, "what do I need to do to be a good enough wife" lens. Where sex is a burden, and then additional burdens are piled on top, whatever additional little quirks your partner has about their sexual desires/"needs."
In complementarian ideology, there are all these sexual things you have to do, to be a good enough wife. And even if you can endure through the pain and check all the boxes, it's still not good enough, because you have to enjoy it. Or else your husband will feel bad, and then the sex will not meet his needs, and you're not a good enough wife. So there's another burden to pile on top- not only do you have to have sex you don't want, you also have to pretend you're enjoying it.
But wow, now I think what they actually meant- the people I've talked to who say sex is important to them, and aren't from a complementarian background- is they want to share their enjoyment of sex with their partner, and they wouldn't want to be in a relationship where they couldn't do that.
I think that, for most people who like sex, they want their partner to enjoy it too. They don't want to just use their partner. If you meet someone who just wants to use you, and doesn't care if you are enjoying it or not, don't have sex with them. Complementarian Christianity claims that all men are like this, but it's not true! Men are better than that! But if you happen to meet a man like that- because they do exist- definitely don't have sex with him!
So let's get back to the aces having sex "to please their partners." I caution that this might be a bad idea, but I don't want to say you should never do this, or that if you're choosing to have sex for this reason then you're wrong, and your consent doesn't really count as consent. I'm not saying anything like that. I think this "pleasing your partner" could be a useful stage to go through. Temporarily. It was for me. I don't think you should be required to have a complete detailed list of the reasons you are consenting to sex, and you have to make sure none of them are "problematic." No, nothing like that. It's totally possible that your own reasons are unclear to you, and you kind of learn by going through that process. Believing that it's worth it to have painful sex to "please your partner" might be a useful phase to go through, so then you learn that it's not.
Honestly, I think there are 2 different directions it can go. It's not sustainable in the long term, to consent to sex that you don't like. It will get better by resolving in one of these ways:
- You learn how to do it in ways that actually feel good. Maybe at the beginning, you were doing it wrong. Maybe there's something you don't like at first, but eventually you change and you like it. Or, if the problem is about vaginismus or something like that, you can get treatment for it. So, in summary, you keep having sex, but it's no longer a bad experience for you.
- You stop doing the sex acts that you don't like, and only do the ones that you like. Yes, here's a wild idea- say no to anything that you strongly dislike! Say no! Build a sexual experience out of only things that you like. For example, if vaginal sex is painful, then don't do vaginal sex. Oh, but somebody is going to say "well if you are not doing penis-in-vagina, then it's not really sex" okay so what? Why do we care what society thinks "counts" as sex? You're not going around publicizing what you're doing, right? It's only between you and your partner- so it doesn't matter what other people think, all that matters is what you and your partner think.
I know I'm kind of talking about this in an over-simplified and overly-optimistic way, and the reality is that some relationships aren't compatible because of these sexual differences- but at least we should start with the goal of "this should be something that we both enjoy" rather than "sex is defined as [whatever] so that's the standard I have to meet in order to be good enough for my partner."
Or, I should say, I'm lucky in that this got better for me, but I can't guarantee that. I can only talk about my own experience- I don't know if other people have had similar experiences or not.
So... here's my point: For aces who choose to have sex, our reasons can be complicated and confusing, and sometimes not even clear to our own selves. I don't want to say some reason is "wrong"- it should be your own choice, based on what you know of your self. But, "to please your partner" is maybe not a good reason? At least, it's not as simple as it seems when you see it on a bulleted list in an "Asexuality 101" presentation. And also not as simple as it seems when you hear it in a complementarian Christian setting, and they teach that wives will have to have a lot of unwanted sex, that's just what marriage is.
(Some of my older blog posts are written from that perspective, with the underlying assumption that a key motivation for sex is the indirect benefits of making one's partner feel good- and I still think those blog posts are good, but they're coming from a perspective that is limited and incomplete.)
Again, it depends on how bad your experience of sex is- are you actually dreading it, or do you feel like "eh sex is fine but I am just not that interested right now"? This has huge significance on the question of whether or not "pleasing your partner" is a bad idea. And you might not even know what your own feelings are, or where to draw the line. It might be something you have to figure out from experience.
I just want everyone to understand their own feelings and be able to make a good decision for themselves.
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See also, these posts from Siggy:
20 narratives of aces who like sex
Take it from a sex-favorable ace: you don’t need to have sex
I’m not enthusiastic about enthusiastic consent
Related:
The Great Sex Rescue: Transaction
Separating Vaginismus From Asexuality
This May Be The Most WTF Christian Article On Sex I've Ever Read
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