COURTESY OF JULIE DECKER
W
HEN JULIE DECKER was 19, a male friend
tried to “fix” her by sexually assaulting her.
“It had been a good night,” said
Decker, now 35 and a prominent
asexual activist and blogger. “I had
spoken extensively about my asexuality, and I thought he was listening to me, but I later realized that
he had just been letting me talk.”
As she said goodbye to him
that night, the man tried to kiss
her. When she rejected his advance, he started to lick her face
“like a dog,” she said.
“‘I just want to help you,’ he
called out to me as I walked away
from his car,” she explained. “He
was basically saying that I was
somehow broken and that he could
repair me with his tongue and,
theoretically, with his penis. It was
totally frustrating and quite scary.”
Sexual harassment and violence, including so-called “corrective” rape, is disturbingly common in the ace community, says
Decker, who has received death
threats and has been told by several online commenters that she
just needs a “good raping.”
“When people hear that you’re
asexual, some take that as a challenge,” said Decker, who is currently working on a book about
asexuality. “We are perceived as
“When
people hear
that you’re
asexual, some
take that as
a challenge,”
says activist
and blogger
Julie Decker,
who fights
against
“corrective
rape” for
the asexual
community.