This article examines how women consciously choosing asexuality might inform both radical feminist politics and anarchic concepts of positive and negative liberty. By resituating some of the lesser-known narratives of the 1960s’ and 1970s’ radical feminist movement (e.g. Valerie Solanas’ SCUM Manifesto and Boston’s Cell 16 and No More Fun and Games), asexuality is shown to disrupt key intersections between sexuality and the state, particularly institutions that control reproduction, pleasure, and women’s bodies. Using interview data with Cell 16 members, content analysis of early radical feminist writings, and theoretical and historical analyses of separatism, the piece argues that, by removing themselves from sexuality, women can take a more anarchic stance against the entire institution of sex, thereby working toward more nihilistic, anti-reproduction, anti-family goals that severely disrupt commonly held assumptions about sex, gender, and power.

Albelda R. and Tilly C. ( 1999 ) Glass Ceilings and Bottomless Pits: Women’s Work, Women’s Poverty. Boston, MA : South End Press .

Google Scholar

Allen A. ( 2008 ) Feminist perspectives on power . Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, URL (accessed 3 June 2009 ): http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/feminist-power/

Google Scholar

Andrews TJ , Ybarra VD and Miramontes T. ( 2002 ) Negotiating survival: Undocumented mexican immigrant women in the Pacific Northwest . The Social Science Journal 39(3): 431 - 449 .

Google Scholar Crossref | ISI

Atkinson T-G ( 1974 ) Amazon Odyssey: The First Collection of Writings by the Political Pioneer of the Women’s Movement. New York : Link Books .

Google Scholar

Baumeister R. and Tice D. ( 1998 ) The Social Dimension of Sex. Boston, MA : Allyn and Bacon .

Google Scholar

Berlin I. ( 1969 ) Four Essays on Liberty. New York : Oxford University Press .

Google Scholar

Bogaert AF ( 2004 ) Asexuality: Prevalence and associated factors in a national probability sample . Journal of Sex Research 41(3): 279 - 288 .

Google Scholar Crossref | Medline | ISI

Bogaert AF ( 2006 ) Toward a conceptual understanding of asexuality . Review of General Psychology 10(3): 241 - 250 .

Google Scholar SAGE Journals | ISI

Brents BG and Hausbeck K. ( 2005 ) Violence and legalized brothel prostitution in Nevada: Examining safety, risk, and prostitution policy . Journal of Interpersonal Violence 20(3): 270 - 295 .

Google Scholar SAGE Journals | ISI

Buhle MJ ( 1998 ) Feminism and its Discontents: A Century of Struggle with Psychoanalysis. Cambridge, MA : Harvard University Press .

Google Scholar

Califia P. ( 1994 ) Macho Sluts. Boston, MA : Alyson Books .

Google Scholar

CNN ( 2004 ) Study: One in 100 Adults Asexual, 14 October. URL (accessed 15 April 2009 ): http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/science/10/14/asexual.study/

Google Scholar

Densmore D. ( 1968 ) On celibacy . No More Fun and Games: A Journal of Female Liberation 1(1).

Google Scholar

Diamond L. ( 2003 ) Was it a phase? Young women’s relinquishment of lesbian/bisexual identities over a 5-year period . Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 84(2): 352 - 364 .

Google Scholar Crossref | Medline | ISI

Dunbar R. ( 1969 ) Sexual liberation: More of the same thing . No More Fun and Games: A Journal of Women’s Liberation 3: 49 - 56 .

Google Scholar

Dunbar-Ortiz R. ( 2002 ) Quiet rumours: An introduction to this anthology . In: Dark Star (ed.) Quiet Rumours: An Anarcha-Feminist Reader. Oakland, CA and Edinburgh : AK Press/Dark Star , 9 - 10 .

Google Scholar

Echols A. ( 1990 ) Daring to be Bad: Radical Feminism in America, 1967-75 . Minneapolis : University of Minnesota Press .

Google Scholar

Foley S. , Kope S. and Sugrue DP ( 2002 ) Sex Matters for Women: A Complete Guide to Taking Care of Your Sexual Self. New York : The Guilford Press .

Google Scholar

Gerhard J. ( 2000 ) Revisiting ‘The Myth of the Vaginal Orgasm’: The female orgasm in American sexual thought and second wave feminism . Feminist Studies 26(2): 449 - 476 .

Google Scholar Crossref | Medline | ISI

Glover R. ( 2010 ) Can’t buy a thrill: Substantive due process, equal protection, and criminalizing sex toys . Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology 100(2) Forthcoming.

Google Scholar ISI

Goldman, E. ( 1896 ) Anarchy and the Sex Question, 27 September. URL (accessed 1 April 2009 ): http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/anarchist_Archives/goldman/sexquestion.html .

Google Scholar

Goldman E. ( 1911 ) Anarchism and Other Essays, 2 nd edn. New York : Mother Earth Publishing Association .

Google Scholar

Grudzen CR and Kerndt PR ( 2007 ) The adult film industry: Time to regulate? PLoS Med 4(6): e126 .

Google Scholar Crossref | ISI

Haavio-Mannila E. and Kontula O. ( 1997 ) Correlates of increased sexual satisfaction . Archives of Sexual Behavior 26(4): 399 - 419 .

Google Scholar Crossref | Medline | ISI

Jeffreys S. ( 1990 ) Anticlimax: A Feminist Perspective on the Sexual Revolution . New York : New York University Press .

Google Scholar

Johnston J. ( 1973 ) Lesbian Nation: The Feminist Solution. New York : Simon and Schuster .

Google Scholar

Jong E. ( 1973 ) Fear of Flying. New York : Holt, Rinehart, & Winston .

Google Scholar

Koedt A. ( 1973 ) The myth of the vaginal orgasm. In: Koedt A , Levine E , Rapone A (eds) Radical Feminism. New York : Quadrangle Books , 199 - 207 .

Google Scholar

Laumann E. , Gagnon J. , Michael R. and Michaels S. ( 1994 ) The Social Organization of Sexuality: Sexual Practices in the United States. Chicago, IL : University of Chicago Press .

Google Scholar

Lorde A. ( 1993 ) The uses of the erotic: The erotic as power. In: Abelove H , Barale MA , Halperin DM (eds) The Lesbian and Gay Studies Reader. London : Routledge , 339 - 343 .

Google Scholar

MacKinnon C. ( 1982 ) Feminism, marxism, method, and the state: An agenda for theory . Signs 7(3): 515 - 554 .

Google Scholar Crossref | ISI

MacKinnon C. ( 1987 ) Feminism Unmodified: Discourses on Life and Law . Boston, MA : Harvard University Press .

Google Scholar

MacKinnon C. ( 1989 ) Toward a Feminist Theory of the State. Boston, MA : Harvard University Press .

Google Scholar

Millet K. ( 1970 ) Sexual Politics. New York : Simon & Schuster .

Google Scholar

Milligan MS and Neufeldt AH ( 2001 ) The myth of asexuality: A survey of social and empirical evidence . Sexuality and Disability 19(2): 91 - 109 .

Google Scholar Crossref | ISI

Prause N. and Graham CA ( 2007 ) Asexuality: Classification and characterization . Archives of Sex Research 36(3): 341 - 356 .

Google Scholar Crossref | ISI

Presley S. ( 2000 ) No authority but oneself: The anarchist feminist philosophy of autonomy and freedom . Social Anarchism 27. URL (accessed May 4, 2009 ): http://library.nothing-ness.org/articles/SA/en/display/338 .

Google Scholar

Roberts C. , Kippax S. , Waldby C. and Crawford J. ( 1995 ) Faking it: The story of ‘‘Ohh!’’ . Women’s Studies International Forum 18(5-6): 523 - 532 .

Google Scholar ISI

Roberts D. ( 1998 ) Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction, and the Meaning of Liberty. New York : Vintage Books .

Google Scholar

Scherrer KS ( 2008 ) Coming to an asexual identity: Negotiating identity, negotiating desire . Sexualities 11(5): 621 - 641 .

Google Scholar SAGE Journals | ISI

Schoen J. ( 2005 ) Choice and Coercion: Birth Control, Sterilization, and Abortion in Public Health and Welfare. Durham : University of North Carolina Press .

Google Scholar

Sherfey MJ ( 1970 ) A theory on female sexuality. In: Morgan R (ed.) Sisterhood is Powerful: An Anthology of Writings from the Women’s Liberation Movement. New York : Vintage Books , 197 - 205 .

Google Scholar

Singer J. and Singer I. ( 1972 ) Types of female orgasm . The Journal of Sex Research 8: 255 - 267 .

Google Scholar Crossref | ISI

Solanas V. ( 1996 ) The SCUM Manifesto. San Francisco : AK Press .

Google Scholar

Sprecher S. and Regan PC ( 1996 ) College virgins: How men and women perceive their sexual status . Journal of Sex Research 33(1): 3 - 15 .

Google Scholar Crossref | ISI

Taylor I. and Jamieson R. ( 1999 ) Sex trafficking and the mainstream of market culture . Crime, Law, and Social Change 32(3): 257 - 278 .

Google Scholar Crossref | ISI

Tribe LH ( 2004 ) Lawrence v. texas: The ‘‘Fundamental Right’’ that dare not speak its name . Harvard Law Review 117: 1894 - 1895 .

Google Scholar Crossref | ISI

Van Hightower NR , Gorton J. and DeMoss CL ( 2000 ) Predictive models of domestic violence and fear of intimate partners among migrant and seasonal farm worker women . Journal of Family Violence 15(2): 137 - 154 .

Google Scholar Crossref | ISI

West J. ( 2000 ) Prostitution: collectives and the politics of regulation. Gender , Work and Organization 7(2): 106 - 118 .

Google Scholar Crossref