Next term, I will be teaching the seminar ‘Introduction to Asexuality Studies’ as part of the Bachelor’s programme in Gender Studies at Humboldt University in Berlin. And I’d like to take this opportunity to talk about why this means so much to me. A bit about me: I did my masters in Philosophy at Humboldt University, focusing primarily on feminist philosophy. During my studies, I read numerous texts and attended quite a few seminars and courses in social philosophy. I heard or read the word ‘asexuality’ about three times during that time. Not once did I come across any references to the wealth of scholarship produced by asexual people. When I wrote my Master’s thesis on consent and asexuality last year, I still thought that, apart from myself, there were perhaps five other people in the whole of Europe who were conducting academic research into asexuality – four of whom were in the UK, and none in Germany. Thanks to the Aro/Ace Research Network, which was founded in October 2025 and in which I’m actively involved, I know that there are over 40 people in Europe conducting academic research into aromanticism and asexuality, and I’m definitely not the only one in Germany.
Nevertheless, academic events on this topic are rare. I am aware of only a handful of seminars that have ever been held on asexuality and aromanticism, two of which took place in the USA. That is also the reason why I organised the workshop ‘On Asexualities’ in the first place: because we lack spaces for collectively theorising asexual experiences. It may well be that my seminar is the first on asexuality at a German university. Or perhaps it’s simply the first one in which ‘asexuality’ actually appears in the title of the event. But please feel free to correct me: I’d be delighted if such a seminar already happened and I’d simply not heard of it until now. That wouldn’t surprise me much either; after all, the other academics within the Network were invisible to me too for the longest time. All I know is that two years ago, my attempts to offer such a seminar failed. And I’ve been dreaming ever since of being able to offer a seminar like this. It seems the future is now. The point is: asexuality is invisible at universities. And that’s not only detrimental to academia, but also, in particular, to asexual people, who are thereby made to feel that their lived reality isn’t relevant enough. I know that I would have desperately needed a seminar on Asexuality Studies whilst I was still a student. And the fact that I can create this space for other people makes me proud.
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