Content warnings: Discussion of sex and compulsory (hetero)sexuality. References to sexual violence.

Every so often, someone reblogs a post onto my tumblr dashboard praising Everyone is Beautiful and No One Is Horny, an essay by R.S. Benedict about how Marvel movies don't have enough sex in them, and I have to unfollow them.

Ostensibly, the essay is actually about how the United States' current obsession with thinness is caused at least in part by the country's reaction to 9/11, and it admittedly makes some worthwhile observations about fatphobia and body standards in Hollywood. However, as you can probably gather from the title, it largely ignores these more cogent points in favor of emphasizing that more sex is good and less sex is bad, in media as in life.

I'm asexual and sex-repulsed. I'm sure you can see where this is going.

I don't think Marvel movies need more sex. I think some movies are enhanced by sex scenes or romance plotlines (treated as equivalent by Benedict) or erotically charged metaphors, and others are worsened. I think some movies are so unpleasantly (or blandly) written and shot that it infects any scene inside them, and sex scenes are incapable of adding or removing anything from them. I'm frankly not interested in organizing every movie Benedict references into one of these categories.

I am interested, however, in articulating why I find Benedict's discussion of real life sexuality irresponsible. Everyone is Beautiful and No One is Horny blames the supposed sexlessness of movies on the supposed sexlessness of real life, which must be a bad thing:

This cinematic trend reflects the culture around it. Even before the pandemic hit, Millennials and Zoomers were less sexually active than the generation before them. Maybe we’re too anxious about the Apocalypse; maybe we’re too broke to go out; maybe having to live with roommates or our parents makes it a little awkward to bring a partner home; maybe there are chemicals in the environment screwing up our hormones; maybe we don’t know how to navigate human sexuality outside of rape culture; maybe being raised on the message that our bodies are a nation-ending menace has dampened our enthusiasm for physical pleasure.

An entire paragraph of reasons why people are having less sex, lacking in the creativity to think of a single reason that could actually be a good thing. No understanding of how discussion of rape culture might mean people are having less sex because they actually want the sex they are having, rather than feeling pressured into it. Or how the increasing awareness and acceptance of LGBTQ+ sexualities may reduce the sex had by younger generations as they wait to pursue the attraction they actually feel, rather than pushing themselves into the heterosexuality expected of them. No acknowledgment at any point in the entire essay that some people simply don't want to have sex.

When I had sex, it wasn't because I had any actual desire for it. It was because I had internalized that sex would make me a more mature person, a better partner, and I was desperate to be those things. I refused to acknowledge that my lack of desire was caused by asexuality and deliberately misinterpreted its origins as my childhood medical trauma, my lack of proper sex ed, my obsessive fear of sexual violence: things that slot nicely into Benedict's argument. I had bought into the lie – the lie that Everyone is Beautiful and No One is Horny is built on and spends its nearly three thousand words peddling – that sex is an essential, core part of humanity, and without it, people are missing something fundamental.

Once I realized that I was lying to myself and started making peace with my identity, I have been happily doing my part to reduce the sexual activity of zillenials. According to Everyone is Beautiful and No One is Horny, that's a bad thing.

I'm tired of reading writing about sex that believes there's a universal human experience and sex is part of it. Sex is neither an inherent moral good nor an inevitable fact of life. Sex in life, as in media, depends. It can be fun and fulfilling. It can be scary and unpleasant. It can be boring. The list goes on. It stings to see an essay pretending otherwise get lauded as progressive for reguritating the shit that kept me in the closet.

I know it's possible to talk about sex in media, even the desire to see more sex in media, without dehumanizing people who don't like having it. I see my friends and other writers I respect do it all the time. I just wish more people bothered to. I want to live in a world where the topic comes up and I don't have to brace myself for having my existence dismissed at best and treated as a societal evil at worst, where it's a reasonable assumption that the author understands sexuality is different for everyone.

In the meanwhile, though, I'll try to make that space for myself and keep unfollowing people on tumblr.