Apr 4

Apr 4 “‘A sexless marriage, if we so desire’” : Disrupting Narratives of Compulsory Sexuality in Sonia Sulaiman’s “From Whole Cloth”

2026, Vol 8 Iss 2, Article, Academic

In Western culture, queer theory builds on the foundational work of Foucault, Butler, Rich, and many more literary critics, writers, and poets alike. Their arguments are instrumental to the LGBTQIA+ community because they deconstruct assumptions of heterosexuality and heteronormativity. However, these theories neglect to challenge compulsory sexuality, which is the idea that all people experience the same level of sexual desire and drive. This means that one group is consistently excluded from narratives: asexuality. Those on the a-spectrum—which also includes aromantic and agender identities, though it is not the subject of this paper—are often missing from queer conversations because their absence of attraction disrupts systematic notions of sexuality, which also inform partnerships and marriage. Sonia Sulaiman, a Palestinian speculative fiction and fantasy writer, resists exclusionary language in her work. “From Whole Cloth” is a short piece of fiction inspired from the Palestinian folktale, “The Story that Begins and Ends with a Lie.” In Sulaiman’s adaptation, asexuality does not become a victim of erasure; it lives and breathes on the page when Prince Nour and Zain connect. Their dialogue prioritizes the fictional lie, demonstrating how Sulaiman contradicts the dominant narrative of sexuality and flips expectations of intimacy, creating a new tradition of asexual storytelling.

From a historical lens, the story of asexuality has often revolved around two misconceptions: that the identity is a form of lacking, and that it has never existed. Writer and essayist Sherronda Brown argues against these claims in their book, “Refusing Compulsory Sexuality: A Black Asexual Lens on Our Sex-Obsessed Culture.” First and foremost, Brown defines asexuality as “little to no sexual attraction […] or sexual desire,” rather than describing it as a kind of deficiency with dire consequences (2). This is important because the concept of lacking implies loss, and where asexuality is concerned, loss refers to inhumanity. The earliest mention of asexuality lays the foundation of this negative portrayal. According to Brown’s timeline, it initially appeared in a guidebook written in 1855, entitled: Doctor Teller’s Pocket Companion, Or Marriage Guide: Being a Popular Treatise on the Anatomy and Physiology of the Genital Organs, in Both Sexes, with Their Uses and Abuses (Brown 152). Teller discussed celibacy and continence, and Brown explains how this medical diagnosis was seen as a contributing factor to “madness, societal downfall, and poor health” (152). Most notable, however, is the fact that this pamphlet was written as a “marriage guide,” that it enforced heterosexuality and set marriage on a pedestal, because “‘persons living a life of strict continency seldom live to an advanced age’” (153). By inciting the fear of mortality, and by forming marriage as the ultimate goal and pleasure which lengthens life, Teller suggested that lacking the desire for sex could directly be connected to individual and societal destruction, even though there was no evidence to suggest either of these assertions. His fear-mongering surrounding asexuality still linger in the present, feeding into myths about marriage as a saving grace and a stamp of social approval. As a result, he placed asexuality in the realm of the unreal; the fictional; the untruth. He crafted the identity into a lie—a lie with disastrous health effects—which then helped propagate compulsory sexuality into the contemporary world.

Another false narrative about asexuality, perpetuated by compulsory sexuality as widespread and normative behavior, remains petulantly attached to the Western collective mind: that asexuality never existed and does not exist in the modern day. Perhaps the language of the a-spectrum did not exist, but like most words and concepts, it has evolved. For instance, as Brown delineates, subsequent references to asexuality occurred in Europe within 50 years of Teller’s published guidebook. These include: “‘monosexuals’” from Austro-Hungarian writer Károly Mária Kertbeny; “‘anesthesia sexualis’” from German sexologist Magnus Hirschfeld; Emma Trosse’s “Sinnlichkeitslosigkeit,” which is a German word that translates to “asensuality,” and so on (Brown 153, 154). It is not that asexuality did not exist or has never existed, or that asexuality is a new phenomenon or an extreme political reaction to modern-day events. It is that the written history of asexuality has been shaped by a hierarchy of knowledge, by systematic erasure, by constructed truth. As long as the framework for queer theory uses the same foundations as heteropatriarchal partnership for its basis—which ignores the nuance of sexuality—a-spec voices continue to be submerged in erasure. Their experiences become lies to mainstream culture.

Sulaiman’s “From Whole Cloth” rejects familial-imposed narratives of asexual lack and erasure when the leading character, Prince Nour, meets a commoner named Zain who speaks only lies in her tales, unveiling an alternative form of storytelling. Nour reflects: “Marriage: a sword of Damocles” (Sulaiman 4). The allusion calls forth the Greek story about a court messenger who switched places with the king because he envied the power and lavish life that royalty appeared to portray, but realized that there was a sharp sword above his throne. Its looming presence suggested that death could happen at any moment. Nour’s royal status means that he has power, and will eventually be granted more, but marriage “was a threat held over him” because the thought of it “filled him with a peculiar terror that struck steel into his bones” (4, 5). This threat emerges from the people closest to him, from the rest of his family, who “pursue him with the issue […] pressing constantly for some sign, for some hope of the future” (5). They have constructed a future for him that he has made clear he does not want, evident when he once said that he “‘wanted to be celibate’” when he grew up (5). Their unending attention is an attempt to project their own desires onto him, and in doing so, they have constructed a lie around his identity, even when he has told them otherwise, even when he has been truthful about his desires. Asexuality becomes mythologized not because of Nour’s actions, but because of the family unit that adheres to heteronormative traditions of partnership, marriage, and sexuality. This is the true falsehood of the story—not Zain’s retelling of fantastical events.

The narrative of the family unit enforces compulsory sexuality, which is tied to heteropatriarchal goalposts of happiness. Although queer theory relocates sexuality for various identities, this relocation is still attached to the assumption that all individuals desire the same kind of happiness. In an essay entitled “Happy Objects,” British-Australian scholar Sara Ahmed writes that, “happiness means […] living a certain kind of life, one that reaches certain points, and which, in reaching these points, creates happiness for others” (48). These “certain points” include: falling in love, getting married, having children. Like a grocery list, these items must be checked off because they are institutional requirements for social approval and power. Additionally, this interpretation of happiness means that sexuality itself is not about love, but about reproduction. Sara Ahmed cites Aristotle’s concept of the “‘Chief Good’” in her essay, discussing how most ideas of happiness revolve around an “end-oriented” goal (Ahmed 26). In this case, the goal is marriage and childbearing. Once these “happy objects” have been attained, the identity of the self has faded into societal happiness, yet Nour’s narrative reminds readers that such goals exclude many different groups. Marriage, after all, is an action that deprioritizes personhood. If Nour were to choose not to marry and not to have children for his own sake, he would be stripped of his choice, power, and future authority. Therefore it is the lie of foundational and compulsory sexuality, not Nour’s identity, that poses the most danger to society, since it functions as a vehicle for erasure.

Aside from familial pressures, Nour also faces the lies of sexuality perpetuated by academia when his palace tutor discusses the myth of Hippolytus. As Sulaiman writes, “Just that morning, his tutor had presented him with the text of Euripides’ Hippolytus to parse” (Sulaiman 5). This action of “presenting” makes the literature seem like a gift, something bestowed on Nour in a positive light. Yet the tutor pairs this story with her own version of the tale, stating that Hippolytus’ death “‘was not for his misogyny’” but because he had “‘denied the human passions, preferring the asexual life of a devotee of the goddess. That is why he was torn apart […] he was a monster’” (5, 6). Here, storytelling serves as a mechanism of epistemic injustice against Nour’s identity, silencing his voice and warping the story to justify societal expectations of men. According to philosopher Miranda Fricker, and as reported by researcher Karen Cuthbert, “asexual people face specific harms and violences in terms of their capacity to ‘know’ [...] ‘speak [...] and be ‘heard’” because their stories and lived experiences are often “denied, dismissed, or overwritten by more ‘authoritative’ voices and discourses” (Cuthbert, “Asexuality and Epistemic Injustice: A Gendered Perspective”). To put more succinctly, a-spectrum stories have often been revised and tailored by people like the palace tutor. She speaks about literal mythology, but creates an even more confined narrative based on her own assumptions of sex and sexuality. She formulates a lie from a lie, and this demonstrates the manufactured nature of what is normally considered to be truth. Sulaiman asks her readers to question what these weaponized truths are, where they come from, and their lasting impact on non-normative queer identities. In this case, it is the lie of compulsory sexuality that has been reinforced.

Contrarily, Zain tells only lies during her story, but a moment of truth arises from the fact that she and Nour can exist in a space of joint non-conformity, rather than constructed realities which constrict and confine. Storytelling as possibility, rather than imprisonment, becomes the basis for the asexual narrative structure. For example, as Zain tells her story, the two characters become emotionally and physically close. As she speaks, Nour imagines “a wisp of blue light bright as the glint on the moon wreath[ing] the storyteller’s hands” and in his mind, watches as “the figures on the tapestries began to shift and transform” (6). Her words act as escapism for Nour. He embraces the fantastical, not because of its inherent dishonesty, but because of how it frees his mind from traditional, social constraints of storytelling and identity. This is further seen when Zain describes a rooster the size of a horse and exclaims: “ I could ride it, couldn’t I? And, so, I did’” (6). In Zain’s tale, there are no rules about what can and cannot be done. The tale itself is about adventure and exploration, remaining unconnected to sexual desire. Structurally, this story within a story becomes asexual.

Zain’s story is narratively asexual because it also unravels the language of sex, forcing readers to confront their assumptions of compulsory sexuality. When Zain finishes, “a current ran through the prince’s spine,” and “his breath caught” (Sulaiman 6). This rendering pays close attention to the body, to the physical reaction that Nour experiences. It is a thread further developed when Sulaiman describes Zain as “narrating in tableaux the words as they fell from her mouth” (6). To fall implies an involuntary letting go from a place of safety. Zain does not simply speak; she inhabits her words, keeps them close to her until the right time, until they bubble over. Even a few lines later, the prince is shown with “a flush” that “came into [his] face,” which is an involuntary reflex that often signals romantic interest (8). If one were to separate this excerpt from the context of the story, it might appear sensual in nature, because there is an assumption that to write about the body—electrical currents or impulses, breath hitching, the way the mouth moves—means the onset of romantic or sexual love, obsession, craving. However, this analysis would relegate their shared experiences to the lie that everything is built upon the desire for sex. Sulaiman shifts this “foundational truth” by weaponizing the language of sex, demonstrating how Zain and Nour can still be physically close.

Angela Chen, writer and journalist who debuted with Ace: What Asexuality Reveals about Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex, tackles the point of contention between sexual language and what this means for a-spec studies. Her accessible deep-dive into the identity delineates how, “language betrays us by making sexual attraction the synonym for fulfillment and excitement itself,” which is primarily the case where English is concerned (112). Chen states that, “better language will […] let us talk about relationships for what they are, not what they resemble” (113). Developing alternative ways of addressing deep connection, without comparison, is critical to deconstructing compulsory sexuality. This is again displayed in Sulaiman’s story because the attention to the physical body is followed by two confessions that have nothing to do with feelings related to sex. Nour jumps to his feet and exclaims that the storyteller has “‘stirred my soul,’” and Zain responds by stating that “‘it came out of my heart’” (Sulaiman 8). The symbolism of “heart” and “soul” speaks to the core of their well-being, their emotional attachment with one another after an intimate moment. Although Sulaiman writes about their physical characteristics, this is not to invite pleasure in the sexual sense, but to illuminate how fulfilling and joyful it can be to engage in meaningful conversation where both parties feel seen, and how physical closeness is still possible for those who are asexual. The explicit dialogue of both characters exemplifies this.

Decentering assumptions of compulsory sexuality means decentering the language of desire that remains at the core of the ideal social state. This is the heteropatriarchal perspective, which has infiltrated even queer theory. In the essay, “Toward an Asexual Narrative Structure,” Elizabeth Hanna Hanson argues that “asexuality has continued to receive only limited scholarly interest in the humanities, particularly in literary studies” which is “symptomatic of a wider cultural propensity toward asexual erasure” (276). This is because “an asexually structured narrative frustrates both the teleological movement toward closure and the aimless desire that may also characterize movement and change” that are “most notably motivated or occasioned by desire” (280). In other words, literary critics have often focused on the causality of stories, especially as connected to the push and pull of romantic, sexual, and marital desire, and this includes queer analyses and literary studies. There is, however, another method of study. This involves a “stasis” that can be translated to the development of an asexual literary form (287). In “From Whole Cloth,” this stasis refers to Zain’s storytelling and the way it opposes the dehumanization of a-spec individuals. Rather than remaining in a world of metaphors and allegories about heteropatriarchal values, Zain’s dedication to the fantastical elements of her story—all the lies of her story—allow for escapism, freedom, and joy. This brings about movement in the piece itself, despite a lack of sexual desire.

Asexual spaces and narratives are often seen as negatively static, but scholars argue that they actually offer greater agency for individuals of various identities. In an anthology republished in 2024 by professors CJ Cerankowski and Megan Milks, asexuality is explored in the vein of “dis-identification,” or refusal of compulsory sexuality (Jukes 192). Amidst the literature that does feature a-spec characters, these figures often maintain the burden of refusal and explanation for their non-feelings. They maintain the burden of adhering to a sexual code that does not belong to them. Dis-identification creates problems because the repetition of “no” becomes the only lens through which the identity is seen. Yet as scholar Joe Jukes states, “What comes after dis-identification, however, might not be singularly conceived of as a space of refusal, but more elaborately, a negative geography,” and he argues that negative geographies are “active and indefinite” (193). When sexual desire does not become the center of the plot and character development, intimacy is still the most important movement on the page, but in an alternative way: queered but static. It detaches from the hierarchy of sexual undertones, from the assumptions of what a relationship should or should not look like. Seeing beyond the “dis-identification” of asexuality means seeing it as resistance, as a force of agency. After all. asexual folks can still be lesbian, gay, biromantic, trans. Asexuality, or the “negative geography” of asexuality, becomes a form of migration, a kind of movement towards freedom from “compulsory anything” that can be applied to queer theory at large.

If literature reflects our everyday realities, then it is vital to expand definitions of partnership, intimacy, and queerness, because asexuality—if truly understood—has the potential to transform the sociopolitical landscape. Angela Chen’s Ace highlights how, “the goal of ace liberation is simply the goal of true sexual and romantic freedom for everyone” (188). However, asexual communities are subject to the same biases, misogyny, racism, and lack of diversity as other identities. In Ace’s author’s note, Chen points out that her book is, “meant to be a big-picture exploration of ace issues,” but continues to be, “deliberately limiting to the people that psychologists call WEIRD: Western, educated, industrialized, rich (or at least middle-class), and democratic” (xi). To truly challenge heteropatriarchal, sexual, and marital norms, a-spectrum people must make safe spaces for people from all identities and classes, from all races, ethnicities, and nationalities, to share their experiences. Sherronda Brown’s book includes a chapter that highlights Black asexual experiences, since there are few outlets that affirm intersectionality. Brown states firmly: “If we cannot envisage and honor a genuine Black asexuality because Blackness and the Black body are hypersexualized, because anti-Black logics relegate the Black asexual to a space of distinct impossibility, then we are not free” (172). Although compulsory sexuality needs to be deconstructed, this deconstruction should not come at the expense of marginalized communities. This is why Sonia Sulaiman’s “From Whole Cloth” stands out for its explicit depiction of asexuality, but also because of its roots in Palestinian storytelling that disrupts the white, Western and/or European gaze.

Sexual liberation, especially among queer people, is an important conversation to hold within the confines of a society that prioritizes heteropatriarchal romance, sexual intimacy, and marriage. Yet asexuality often exists on the outskirts of queer and sexual liberation, because the mythologies surrounding asexual individuals often sexualize them in a similar heterosexual tradition. “From Whole Cloth” by Sonia Sulaiman removes these expectations and frames intimacy from a different perspective. Prince Nour and Zain choose to move forward with marriage, but in a way that they are comfortable with, that does not bow down to familial or academic pressures. They engage in union, but without blurring the boundaries between themselves. This freedom to define their own relationship based on their absence of sexual desire contradicts many of the myths that compulsory sexuality has created around the a-spectrum. Asexuality is not simply a rejection of sex. It is an inclusive act, one that values the individual, rather than assuming a single experience for everyone.

Works Cited

Ahmed, Sara. “Happy Objects.” biblioteca-alternativa.noblogs.org/files/2012/12/Sara-Ahmed_Happy-Objects.pdf. Accessed 23 Apr. 2025.

Brown, Sherronda. Refusing Compulsory Sexuality: A Black Asexual Lens on our Sex-Obsessed Culture. North Atlantic Books, 2022.

Cerankowski, KJ, and Megan Milks, editors. Asexualities: Feminist and Queer Perspectives.Revised and Expanded Ten-Year Anniversary Edition, Routledge, 2024, Taylor & Francis Group. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003178798.

Chen, Angela. Ace: What Asexuality Reveals about Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex. Beacon Press, 2020.

Cuthbert, Karen. “Asexuality and Epistemic Injustice: A Gendered Perspective.” Journal of Gender Studies, vol. 31, no. 7, 2022, pp. 840–51, https://doi.org/10.1080/09589236.2021.1966399.

Jukes, Joe. “Toward Asexual Geographies.” Asexualities: Feminist and Queer Perspectives. Revised and Expanded Ten-Year Anniversary Edition, Routledge, 2024, Taylor & Francis Group. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003178798.

Hanson, Hanna Elizabeth. “Toward an Asexual Narrative Structure.” Asexualities: Feminist and Queer Perspectives. Revised and Expanded Ten-Year Anniversary Edition, Routledge, 2024, Taylor & Francis Group. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003178798.