i really do have love to give – a photo essay exploring racialised ace identity, by audrey chan

“i thought there was something deeply wrong with me.” in this photo essay on asexuality, audrey chan dives into the performativity of compulsory sexuality, the possibility of love and attraction beyond sexual relations, and the unspoken discomforts that exist in between. the photo essay is accompanied by an interview between audrey and deputy editor-in-chief michelle moira mei ling firth.

[image description: a white church-tower with black trimmings and a turret sit in front of a pale blue sky]

can you tell mx a little bit about yourself and your work? 

my name is audrey, and i’m 21 at the moment. my name is also ​亭僡​ –– a name that few people address me by, but one that feels far more honest. i split my time between hong kong, my hometown, and Kjipuktuk (halifax, nova scotia), where i identify as a newcomer to/ guest in so-called “canada.” 

i have a difficult time seeing my photography as “my work” –– it almost seems to be the opposite of work! for me, it’s a site of play, magic, feeling, and meditation. a lot of self-understanding and healing takes place during my photographic process, which i’ve discovered is much more defined by a manipulation of time rather than a documentation of it: the most worthwhile part of photography to me is the meaning-making that actually follows the creation of the image. i’m always looking to draw non-chronological connections between subjects scattered across different timelines, time zones, and spheres of my life. for that reason i don’t share or even look at my photographs until i have had enough time to properly forget about how i once related to them. it’s a process that allows me to toy around with temporality and location, and to swirl about in them by constantly distorting and rearranging the archive of the self –– i refuse to be dragged along by a fixed narrative! it feels incredibly rewarding when i can get my images to converse with one another: being able to identify parallels between photographs that were taken at home and ones that weren’t has been a very restorative practice to me over the years. it offers a sense of continuity; it bridges two fractured worlds together, however momentarily.

[image description: two arms overlap, pressed down onto the surface of a bed to support the bodies of two individuals]

[image description: two people sitting on a bench turn around to face the camera, they have soft smiles on their faces and are wearing winter attire. in the background there is a shimmering pale blue lake, soft clear blue skies, and deep green trees in the distance]

how does your experience as a racialised ace person drive your work? 

the nonverbal, intuitive aspect of photography has been a great source of solace to me as someone who has struggled with cultural displacement for a lot of my life, specifically with regards to the aphasia and resulting alienation from community that language barriers can produce. i think this translates a lot into my chosen subject matter, which is namely the inanimate, the quiet, and the secretive. when i have my camera out i’m always trying to make pictures by listening to what isn’t being said –– or, to put it more poignantly, what desperately seeks expression, but lacks the vocabulary to do so. 

in a similar vein, this photo essay seeks the expression of something abstract that i haven’t fully grasped within myself yet. reaching into the depths of asexuality as viscerally and empirically as i can recreate it, this collection of pictures is, as angela chen writes in her book, ​ace,​ “for everyone who has wanted to want more.” 

[image description: a nude portrait taken in the mirror, with the camera covering the photographer’s face. in the background, purple-grey shadows dance on white curtains]

what do you hope to communicate through this photo essay? 

i really do have love to give​ grapples with the tensions between the performativity of compulsory sexuality and the possibility of love and attraction beyond sexual relations. the title comes from a line in ​magnolia​ (1999) which i encountered once, years ago, and have never really been able to forget: “i really do have love to give! i just don’t know where to put it!” i couldn’t understand why these words meant so much to me back then, but i am finally starting to get a sense of it now. 

[image description: in a softly lit room, a group of people sit together on several sofas, facing one another, side-on to the gaze of the camera. one of them turns around, leaning their upper body on the sofa, to look into the camera]

what role do you feel your art has in expressing or coming to terms with your ace identity, and your disclosure of ace identity? 

half staged, this photo series reflects on the algorithmic social interactions that ace people reiterate in order to move through an allosexual world –– that is, with a contrived, adopted fluency in matters pertaining to sexuality. someone who appears to be conventionally sexually attractive means absolutely nothing to a lot of ace folks who have little or no sexual attraction to others, but it is much easier to comply with these sentiments as either part of small talk, or as a safety net that protects us from unnecessarily disclosing our sexuality (or, rather, our lack thereof). with sex being all-pervasive in mass media, and as a result, everyday conversation, it is exhausting to have to assert, validate, and explain ourselves as asexual people every time the topic of sex comes up. that said, so is the routinized performance of allosexuality that presents as an alternative. most times, these discomforts are left unspoken, and by extension, erased. with this in mind, this photo essay attempts to bring these feelings of discomfort to the fore: both in its subjects, and in its audience.

[image description: two people stand facing each other at night, under the bright light of a street lamp. they face each other, and away from the camera]

[image description: a person gazes into the camera, squinting their eyes. they are wearing a leather jacket, and a beanie with hand-sewn patchwork. the image is in black and white]

the other photographs in this series are left unposed, and posture themselves as a recognition of my asexual presence. by involving myself in these pictures –– by making myself seen –– i protest this aforementioned erasure of asexual identity. in these photographs, the camera’s gaze is suspended in an equilibrium with that of the subject in a shared moment of mutual confusion, embarrassment, and scrutiny. i think that there is also an element of relief from the brutal honesty that comes out of photography like this, where both subject and photographer become engaged in an act of hyper-visibility: i am able to inspect their most minute reorientations towards my presence through the viewfinder, though such an exchange only achieves its significance through my own ‘coming out’ as an ace individual in the first place. the vulnerability and collaboration that characterize these unposed pictures remind me of a recent conversation i had with someone who is also on the ace spectrum. in speaking about their relationships informed by their asexuality, they observed that intimacy negotiation is foundational to physical intimacy itself, and that it can, at times, even serve as a replacement for the latter. i found this tangent particularly interesting when reflecting on my relationship to myself as both subject and photographer in the self-portrait i have chosen to include here. i’m very grateful to have had insights shared with me regarding the desexualized nude, as opposed to the crude, shameful naked body, and how the reception of the body as the former is based largely on consent and autonomy, just like this particular photograph. as chen argues in a​ce,​ the chinese woman’s body is either hypersexualized, fetishized, and infantilized as submissive in popular culture, or is seen as prude, completely lacking in sexuality, and timid. this photograph experiments with transcending both of these categories imposed on chinese women’s bodies by the white gaze through asexual identity. 

[image description: on a laptop screen, two people are on facetime, one smiles widely, the other rests their head on their hand. the image is in black and white]

[image description: two hands, of two different people, coming from opposite directions, rest alongside each other on the arm of a chair. sunlight drapes across the hands, the corners of the image are in deep shadow]

at any rate, it was in that same conversation that we discussed the implications of our shared queerness and gender nonconformity as it relates to our asexuality (it is worth clarifying here that sexual attraction, sexual desire, and romantic attraction are all independent from each other –– which is something i have only recently learnt! –– and all operate on some form of a spectrum. people who don’t experience sexual attraction can still have libido and can still experience romantic attraction. there are also folks who don’t experience romantic attraction, who usually use the term “aromantic,” but it is important to note that not all aromantic individuals are asexual). the self-work of unpacking internalized homophobia and transphobia that we have to do on the regular establishes existential rituals of ever-evolving shapeshifting –– rituals that inform how we relate to ourselves, our loved ones, and our environment in a fluid way, i.e., being open to renegotiation at all times. in the same way, asexual relationships –– romantic, platonic, familial, or otherwise –– require radically constant communication and boundary-setting, for there is so much about them that fail to meet the expectations of cishet, patriarchal, allocentric norms (not to mention the allocentricism in queer community). this photo series features depictions of functioning queer ace/allo couples as a direct negation of these norms, and makes visible the possibility of love and attraction beyond them. 

another piece that ties into queerness here is the impacts of religion on asexuality, as a good friend of mine asked me about not too long ago. while the social constructs of virginity and purity are lauded as virtues within the catholic tradition that i grew up and was schooled in, what would it mean for someone to feel queer romantic attraction under these circumstances? i don’t have the answers, but it is something worth thinking about. 

these pictures further tackle the fears of physical intimacy that my experiences with being ace and being femme-presenting have conditioned in me; all too often it seems to be associated with an ulterior motive, and is, as a result, insincere, untrustworthy, and something to be wary about. locating where these fears originate has been a challenge, but processing these effects of allosexual and heteropatriarchal norms also led me to my reclamation of many forms of intimacy that remain abundant in the ace world. in line with this understanding, these photographs show the blurred lines between uncertain touch as a source of danger and consensual touch that potentially gives way to comfort. 

[image description: two people sit on a bed, with one kneeling, and the other resting on them. their arms are draped around each other. they gaze into the distance, relaxed. the image is in black and white]

to circle back to the title of this project, “i really do have love to give! i just don’t know where to put it!” there are a lot of stereotypes out there about asexual people: we are robotic, prude, damaged, frigid, weird, and inexperienced. we are unwanted. we are not enough, inadequate, unworthy, selfish, and lonely. there is the idea that love without sex is wrong, or unhealthy. the idea that “you just haven’t met the right person yet.” the idea of allocentric monogamy as the ideal. the harm that these ideas do is truly inexpressible –– ​i thought there was something deeply wrong with me for a very long time. 

in spite of that, with the completion of this project i know that i am slowly, but surely, learning where to put my love in the ways that i know how, because there is so much of it that i have to give. 

here is a short list of resources that have helped me understand myself more over the past little while. i hope they can help you understand the scope of compulsory sexuality too, regardless of how you relate to the ace spectrum. 

● the asexual visibility and education network

● storyhive’s asexual: a love story

● gal-dem on asexual awareness week

● yasmin benoit on redefining what it means to wear lingerie

● the anarchist library’s the short instructional manifesto for relationship anarchy

●  justaroacethings instagram

●  alexis and lilian on what being asexual feels like

●  buzzfeed photo series on asexual experiences

● ace: what asexuality reveals about desire, society, and the meaning of sex​ by angela chen

[image description: the top of a white church building, draped in warm sunlight, against a warm blue sky]

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audrey chan (they/them) is a hong kong-born, queer, and non-binary settler living and learning in unceded Mi’kma’ki. currently a student at the university of king’s college studying contemporary philosophy and cinema, audrey is interested in the intersections between visual documentary, queerness, race, migration, and spirituality. you can find more streams of consciousness on their blog, more visual experiments on their portfolio, and more of both on their instagram at audrey1.0.