Breaking the mould and remaking the law: an interview with asexual activist Yasmin Benoit
Yasmin shares her experiences advocating for the asexual community while navigating issues of intersectionality as a black, aro, ace woman in the modelling industry.
Trigger warning: this article discusses themes of acephobia and racism.
As a lingerie model and asexual activist, Yasmin Benoit’s social presence appears contradictory at first glance. But, as she explains in conversation with Tamzin Reynolds, the two sides of her career aren’t mutually exclusive. With the asexual community systematically ignored and discriminated against—from misrepresentation in the media, being classified as a mental disorder, and going unrecognised by the UK equality act—Yasmin’s activism is long awaited, and she’s got legal recognition for asexuality in her sights . . .
Images from a shoot Yasmin did with Playful Promises, which was the first asexual-themed lingerie campaign.
Tamzin: Your modelling career came first, so how did the asexuality activism come about?
Yasmin: I fell into it because it wasn't anything I was aiming to do. I was modelling and studying for my sociology degree when I first mentioned asexuality on my platform in late 2017. There wasn’t much representation in the space of black asexual people in particular. I thought, “I can't complain about that as a black asexual person when I'm here with a platform and I'm not actively doing anything about it.” Things gained momentum, and it reached a stage a year later when I thought, “okay, it seems like there is a gap here. People want me to do this.” I felt I was being called to action.
Was this when you helped set up International Asexuality Day?
An event run by Deliveroo, which Yasmin spoke at in 2022.
I was one of the co-founders of International Asexuality Day in 2021. I'm also on the board of AVEN (Asexual Visibility and Education Network) and have been since 2019. I’ve had a lot of other projects too, using people's attention and interest to get the ball rolling in different capacities.
For people who don't know, can you explain the terms asexuality and aromanticism?
“The most widely accepted definition of being asexual (or ‘ace’) is experiencing little to no sexual attraction towards anyone, regardless of their gender”
The most widely accepted definition of being asexual (or ‘ace’) is experiencing little to no sexual attraction towards anyone, regardless of their gender. To be aromantic (‘aro’) is experiencing little to no romantic attraction towards anyone, regardless of their gender. You can be asexual and be aromantic, which is what I am, but that's not a given. There are a lot of people who are asexual and not aromantic and people who are aromantic and not asexual. Everything exists on a spectrum, which is why we have terms like ‘grey asexuality’ or ‘grey aromanticism’ for those who feel they fall in the middle. And sometimes the frequency of sexual attraction isn’t about how often you feel it, but how many people you're able to feel it towards, which is where demisexuality comes in. There are different ways to fall under the asexuality umbrella.
Asexuality wasn't something that was talked about in school. When I saw asexual representation in the media it was usually someone on the sidelines or lacking empathy. Why do you think this is, and what are the consequences?
Asexuality tends to be conflated with those things because, in our (Western) culture, we swing between extremes. We came from a very puritanical period, then we had the sexual revolution in the 1960s, and then it swung far back the other way with Section 28.¹ And now we’re placing sexual and romantic attraction of all types on such a high pedestal as being the epitome of human connection . . . It’s an overarching theme in popular culture—even in the TV sitcom ‘The Big Bang Theory’, the character Sheldon doesn’t ‘get’ people and so he doesn’t experience sexual attraction. But once he becomes a more tolerable person, he's suddenly all over Amy Farrah Fowler. It’s as if sexual and romantic attraction are what make people human.
Consequently, there’s a tendency to think there’s something wrong if you don’t experience sexual attraction—it’s a personality flaw or hurdle that you haven’t overcome, or it’s symptomatic of something darker. I think ‘sociopath’ is one of the top ten things I get called on the internet. It has real-life consequences.
“there’s a tendency to think there’s something wrong if you don’t experience sexual attraction—it’s a personality flaw or hurdle that you haven’t overcome, or it’s symptomatic of something darker”
Definitely. Personally, I feel freed from all of that. I see allo-sexual people who get really stressed about not having a romantic relationship. There's an unhealthy culture tied to it where we’re taught that you need a romantic partner to complete you as a person and that that is the ultimate goal in life in spite of our other achievements. That isn't healthy for anybody.
Staying with what’s healthy, asexuality is still classed as a mental disorder in psychiatry. What are the dangers of pathologising it?
The National LGBT Survey of 2018 found that asexual people were 10% more likely to be offered or undergo conversion therapy compared with other sexual orientations, so we're one of the most vulnerable sexual minority groups. Yet the government hasn’t banned conversion therapy. We're also not a recognised sexual orientation under the Equality Act,³ so we don't have any legislative protection. I know of many asexual people who have undergone some form of conversion therapy, usually through their General Practitioner or gynaecologist. It’s assumed that you need curing.
It's obviously important to speak about sexual wellness, but you’re saying the asexual experience is rarely part of the conversation. How can we expand the definition of sex to be more inclusive?
“We’ve been repairing the damage done to queer sexuality by section 28, but perhaps we can be more inclusive by not defining everything in relation to whom you’re having sex with, how, and how often”
Presently, we are in a phase where we associate personal liberation and wellness with sexual liberation, and we're defining ‘sexual liberation’ as having lots of sex in particular ways with particular people. We need a paradigm shift—I don't think there's anything that one individual can do. We've been repairing the damage done to queer sexuality by section 28, but perhaps we can be more inclusive by not defining everything in relation to whom you're having sex with, how, and how often.
Repairing that damage is so important, and it’s common for people to reduce LGBTQIA+4 identity to sexual acts, but because asexuals don't align with that perception, recognition of asexual identity can become sidelined all together. On that note, do you always feel welcome within the LGBTQIA+ community?
Yasmin holding an asexual flag at London Pride in 2022.
Personally, I do. I've been going to Pride since I was 14, which was when I first met asexual people and saw an asexual flag, and a lot of my work ends up being within the queer community. But when I talk about that online, the reaction is very different. There is definitely division within the queer community—there are gay people who don't like bisexual people, there's transphobia and racism, and, of course, there is acephobia too. As always, people are a lot louder when they can say it from behind a screen, so I encounter the most backlash from within the community online. But it's never been bad enough to stop me wanting to be in the community and continue my work there. More people are accepting than not—it just doesn't always look like that if you don't have the opportunity to interact in real life.
What's it like being at your intersection as a black ace aro woman?
I think that's the more complicated intersection than being ace in the queer community. For me, being black in the queer community isn’t much of an issue, but being black in the ace community is. It's a largely white community, while I’m unambiguously black. Often the reason people don’t believe I’m asexual is because I'm black. I also get a lot more vitriol as a public figure and have experienced racism to the point where I don't feel as comfortable in the community as people would expect—given what my job is and how I talk about it.
I have even been shamed for the perceived sexuality that I have by white ace people. Also, when it comes to racism in those spaces, there’s the wider issue I see in the queer community: some people think that if they fall into any marginalised box then they don't have to put effort in to be non-discriminatory because there's this attitude of, “well it's not going to be me, it's going to be some wacky conservative over there. I'm super liberal, so I don't need to read the books or do any work internally because I'm oppressed, too.” So, it has been quite contentious navigating the community being black. And I haven't found a way to make it easier yet.
It's seen as a juxtaposition to be asexual whilst having a career as a lingerie model. How do you navigate that, and what impact does this reaction have on women and members of the ace community?
It's strange because it's perceived as a running theme in my activism, but it wasn't intentional. I was just working as a model and started mentioning it, but I didn't think it was going to be contentious that I was doing both. I thought we’d moved past thinking that women only wear clothes because they want a man to want to sleep with them, or that if you're a certain sexual orientation you should dress in a certain way. But, having received this backlash for years, I now know I was wrong. That mentality is damaging for everybody, but it’s particularly harmful for women to assume that everything we do is done with the intention of wanting to appeal and be sexually attractive to men.
Yasmin at Cambridge University, after speaking at their Cambridge Women in Business event.
It ties into feminism because a lot of the criticism I get comes from feminists saying, “shouldn't you be free as someone who doesn't experience sexual attraction? Shouldn't you be free of appealing to the male gaze?” Which is ridiculous because I want to look in the mirror and feel satisfied. People wear clothes, do their hair, and wear makeup because it feels good and to express themselves. It shouldn’t be controversial.
Looking forward, what would you say to someone who thinks that they might be ace or aro, but they haven't come out yet or perhaps can't come to terms with themselves?
My advice is don't worry about it too much. People feel the pressure to give themselves a label, but your sexuality is only one aspect of who you are. Don’t feel like you need to fit the label.
That probably seems ironic coming from me given that my job is talking about asexuality but I'm not talking about it because it's a huge part of who I am—it’s a job and that's what I'm asked to talk about. I'm a big advocate for there being many other facets of yourself that probably need as much attention and your sexuality isn’t the be-all and end-all. So don't worry about it too much.
“we’re taught that you need a romantic partner to complete you as a person and that that is the ultimate goal in life in spite of our other achievements. That isn’t healthy for anybody.”
And what can allies do to help the ace community?
One of the most helpful things is doing some self-analysis. When people first hear about asexuality, they're like, “whoa I don't get that. I don't see how you could experience romantic attraction but not romantic sexual attraction, or: how you could still have a libido and experience arousal, but not be sexually attracted to people?” But once you start to unpack yourself you realise everyone experiences the same label differently.
Finally, can you tell me about your Stonewall research?
On International Asexuality Day in 2022 I launched the United Kingdom's (UK) first asexual rights initiative in partnership with Stonewall. We're producing a report into asexual discrimination in the UK, specifically focused on healthcare, education, and the workplace, because those are areas that would be covered and protected by the Equality Act if we were included. The goal is to get some tangible data in the form of case studies, collected through focus groups, interviews, and other forms of research, and then get that in front of policymakers, organisations, and anyone who could impact the legislation or put provisions in place to give the community the protection that we don't have. We’re in an awareness stage now, which is fine, but there's a step to come after the awareness and, without legal provisions ready and in place things don’t always go well, as we’ve seen with the trans community. We hope it’ll come out this spring.
You can find Yasmin’s website at www.yasminbenoit.co.uk and follow her on Instagram and Twitter.
Yasmin holding an asexual flag at a Pride event in 2022.
¹ Section 28 of the Local Government Act was enacted in May 1988, and prohibited the promotion of homosexuality by local authorities—the organisations responsible for schools and social care.
² “Allo people experience sexual and romantic attraction, and do not identify as on the ace or aro spectrum. Allo is to ace and aro spectrum identities, as straight is to LGB+ spectrum identities. It is important to use words that equalise experience, otherwise the opposite to ace and aro becomes ‘normal’ which is stigmatising.” — Stonewall List of LGBTQ+ terms
³ The Equality Act brings together multiple pieces of legislation into one single Act to provide a legal framework protecting the rights of individuals and advancing equality of opportunity for all. It makes it illegal to discriminate against people because of a ‘protected characteristic’. These characteristics are: age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex, and sexual orientation. Asexuality is not currently included as a protected characteristic.
⁴ LGBTQIA+ includes people of all genders and sexualities, such as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, questioning, queer, intersex, asexual, pansexual, and allies.
