Spectrum

Condoms, acrylic paint
4 feet by 3 feet

I created this piece to challenge the notion that all asexual people don’t have sex and/or have no relationship with sex. A common problem asexual people face is infantilization, or the thought that asexual adults are childish and immature. Asexual people experience little to no sexual attraction, which others sometimes interpret as wanting nothing to do with sex, including all sexual content, thoughts, and objects. However, this is false. Asexual people have sex, asexual people have sexual fantasies, and asexual people own and use sexual objects such as condoms. Asexual people also do none of these things. Thus, I used 96 condoms to create the asexual flag. Like sexuality itself, the behaviors and desires of asexual people exist on a spectrum. Within the asexual flag, which represents the asexual community, I symbolically created this spectrum by completely opening some condoms, slightly tearing others, and leaving some completely untouched. This represents the idea that some asexual people are comfortable with sex, some feel more neutral, and some are repulsed. Some asexual people have sex often, some have it seldomly, and others do not have it at all. Some asexual people watch porn, others do not. Some asexual people are part of the kink community, and others are not. A failing of this piece is that it is phallocentric. Obviously, neither penises nor condoms are required for sex, but I used it as a sexual symbol to communicate my ideas.