Atheism and asexuality: a historical comparison

This is part of my "Fantastic Primer" series, in which I imagine explaining asexuality to an atheist audience and atheism to an asexual audience, as a tool to explore intersectionality. Please read the introductory post, which explains the premise.

When I first became aware of the atheist and skeptical movements, they were the only social movements I was really familiar with.  But to really understand what's going on, it helps to participate in at least one other social movement for comparison's sake.  Here I compare the history of asexual and atheist movements over the last decade.

A brief overview

I can trace asexual communities to the HHA mailing list in the late 90s, and then the AVEN forum in 2001.  On its front page, AVEN defined "asexual" as "someone who does not experience sexual attraction", framing asexuality as an orientation, rather than a dislike of sex or a political stance against sex (as it had been framed by some other communities).  At first this definition was only a guideline, but as AVEN grew, it solidified into the universally accepted definition.  AVEN was by far the biggest asexual community for a long period of time.  Only in recent years (since 2011 or so) has Tumblr emerged as a major alternative community.

To speak of the atheist community history is to reveal my biases.  Even if I sample from many atheist communities, it is but a small corner.  What I know: Apparently galvanized by 9/11, there were several bestselling atheist books in 2004-2006.  Wired published an article in 2006 which profiled several of the authors (sometimes called the four horsemen), and coined the phrase "new atheism" (a label that has always met mixed reception).  In 2007-2011 I remember that the biggest ongoing dispute among blogs was the so-called "framing wars".  The issue was, are atheists too angry, and do they need to frame themselves more diplomatically?  But in 2011, there was "Elevatorgate", which caused a much bigger divide between atheists who are more or less feminist.

There are some interesting parallels.  Both had seeds planted in 2001 (9/11 for atheists, the founding of AVEN for asexuals).  Both grew in response to media attention around 2004-2006 (bestselling books for atheists, major TV appearances for asexuals).  Both communities are fundamentally part of the internet age.  And since 2011, each community is involved in a sort of bipolar split (the feminist schism of internet atheism, and the tumblr/AVEN split for asexuality).

A difference in size

The most obvious difference is that the atheist community is far larger and more fractious than the asexual community.  Among the consequences:

• Atheists have much more offline activism and community building.  In my experience, many atheists offline aren't even aware of the major discussions among internet atheists, whereas many asexuals offline are so aware of the internet communities that it's common to exchange screen-names at meetups.
• Kerfuffles among atheists are far nastier and more common than anything I've ever seen in asexual communities.  I often think the biggest kerfuffles in asexual communities are ho-hum.
• Asexual communities have been much more coherent than atheist communities.  The history of modern asexuality is primarily the history of one large forum, plus a few offshoots. Modern atheist history consists of literally thousands of blogs, YouTube channels, podcasts, forums, offline groups, and who knows what else.  The asexual community is the unusual one here; I don't know of any other queer identity which has ever been so centralized.

External pressures cause internal struggles

It seems laughable now, but in 2008, the atheist "framing wars" were a big deal.  A lot of people felt that atheist writers weren't being sufficiently diplomatic towards religious people, independently of whether the atheist writers were right on the matters of substance.  Many social movements deal with the "tone argument", but I've never seen it fleshed out in such depth as on atheist blogs.  Why was this such a big deal?

My explanation is that it came from external pressure on atheists.  Atheists are stereotyped as angry.  This simple stereotype causes a cascade of conflict.  Some atheists proudly embody the stereotype, rebuking the idea that anger is wrong.  Some atheists are not very angry, but thought to be angry anyway.  Some atheists cringe at other atheists' anger, because they're afraid of reinforcing the stereotype.

A loose parallel in asexual communities was the conflict over definitions.  The primary external pressure on asexuality is the way people erase and delegitimize it.  People inside the community think that only if they have the right definition and present it the right way, they could relieve some of this pressure.  In the early 2000s, there was an alternative community to AVEN, called the Official Asexual Society.  This community held to a stricter definition of asexuality, requiring members to not like sex or masturbation, and for this to be reflected in a history of abstinence.

As AVEN hit mainstream news in 2004, it became clear that the stricter definition was not an effective path to legitimacy.  The Official Asexual Society changed its name to the Official Nonlibidoist Society (because "asexual" had been soiled by AVEN's mainstream attention), and it eventually died in 2007.  This led to another cascade of conflict, as the former members of the Official Nonlibidoist Society moved to AVEN and brought along very negative attitudes towards sex, but that's another story.

Social justice divisions

"Elevatorgate" describes an incident in which atheist activist Rebecca Watson was propositioned on an elevator.  Later in a vlog, she mentioned the incident and said, "Guys, don't do that."  This led to a lot of backlash and counter-backlash.  Entire blogs and forums arose dedicated to hating Rebecca Watson.  Most prominently, Richard Dawkins dismissed her problem as unserious by comparing it to the plight of Muslim women.

There had been plenty of arguments over feminism before, but I knew this one was a big deal when the offline atheist groups started talking about it.  Elevatorgate is widely regarded as the beginning of a divided community.  Not many people talk about the elevator incident anymore, but the lines are still drawn, and feminism and social justice are bigger sources of conflict and bitterness than they ever used to be.

By comparison, the "conflict" between asexuals on Tumblr and AVEN is not really a conflict at all.  The main difference between the communities is just the format: tumblrs vs forums.  But more differences spontaneously appear; Tumblr is reputedly more social justice-y than AVEN.  Tumblr asexuals certainly seem to talk more about race and LGBT issues.  And some tumblrites criticize AVEN for being sexist, racist, transphobic, ableist, or otherwise not up to standards.  I've been watching this carefully to see if it emerges as a larger conflict.

The lesson I would draw from this is that feminism and social justice are common sources of conflict for social movements.  Your movement is not unique.

I think the reason is that social justice demands to be intersectional.  You may argue that social justice movements should be separate from other movements to prevent community division (just as we would keep vegetarianism and gay rights separate, even if some people advocate both).  But while a separate social justice movement can fight for national policies, it would be powerless to fight for change within other social movements.  There is only one group of people who can fight for minority inclusivity within the atheist community, and that is the atheist community.  Likewise for the asexual community and any other community.

Disclaimer: I am a biased source, and this history does not attempt to be objective.  With respect to the framing wars, I've been pro-anger (although not angry myself).  I've taken the social justice side of the current atheist schism.  I am mostly on Tumblr, but have no ill will towards AVEN.

The Fantastic Primer series:
1. Introduction
2. Why I don't trust you
3. Yes, I'm one of those atheists
4. A skeptically-oriented Asexuality 101 
5. Atheism as minority, atheism as political cause  

6. Atheism and asexuality: a historical comparison
7. Why atheism and asexuality taste great together