#ThisIsWhatAsexualLooksLike: Exploring Asexual People's Resistance through Social Media

Asexual people often face rejection from friends, family, and peers due to misconceptions. These misconceptions emerge from compulsory sexuality, a system of power that centers and enforces people having sex, sexual desire, and sexual attraction, while oppressing those who do not. Using a sample of sixty-eight Instagram posts with the #ThisIsWhatAsexualLooksLike hashtag, I examine how asexual people present themselves in ways that defy compulsory sexuality and other systems of power to generate asexual and intersectional resistance. I find asexual people resist invisibility, invalidation, and misconceptions through online representation, showcasing their existence, joy, and connection to others as forms of resistance. Further, asexual people of color resist the colorblindness in the asexual community and asexual people resist exclusion from the LGBTQ+ community. I demonstrate the need for an anti-racist asexual community and for other fields to consider compulsory sexuality as a system of power in their work.