Free From Desire Podcast Asks: Is There Anything Wrong With Being Asexual?

 If you have ever watched the Netflix romcom Emily In Paris, you may draw two conclusions. First, the show warps French culture to serve its narrative needs. Second, that people in the show are either having sex, thinking about having sex, thinking about how to have sex, and finding someone to have sex with. There's truly no time and energy left for anything else -- except exquisite cuisine and world-class wines, of course.

So it's ironic that a new podcast that explores the world of asexuality does so from the perspective of a Frenchwoman who grew up in Paris.

I am not that aware of the asexuality community, but I learned a lot just from the first episode of Free From Desire and my own research.

First, asexuality is an umbrella term, and exists on a spectrum. Asexual people – also known as “Ace” or “Aces” – may have little interest in having sex, even though they desire emotionally intimate relationships. Second, Asexuality should not be confused with celibacy. Celibacy is a choice to abstain from sex, whereas for some asexuality is a lack of sexual attraction. Those who do not experience sexual attraction may choose to have sex for other reasons.

Third, it's not true that Ace people have intimacy issues: ace people are often told they're defective because they don’t experience attraction in the way others do. Some ace-identified people might choose to have close emotional or romantic bonds and others won’t – in either case, this is not evidence of them being broken or having a disorder. 

 In the superb science podcast, Taboo Science, Asexuality was the topic of its May 4th episode. It appears that great minds do think alike, as Free From Desire launched about the same time. The beginning of that podcast posits a theory that scientific genius Sir Isaac Newton could have been asexual. I'm actually not that surprised.

What’s it like to come to terms with one’s own asexuality in a society that only talks about love and sex? At the age of 35, Aline Laurent-Mayard has never been sexually or romantically attracted to anyone. Today, however, they are now a parent to a toddler named Jo.

Free From Desire documents the journey of self-discovery that led them to acceptance and allowed them to pursue their dream of starting a family via artificial insemination.

Free From Desire, produced by Paradiso Media, was an official selection in the audio storytelling program of the 2023 Tribeca Film Festival and premiered on June 7th. The French-language
version of the series previously premiered in France to mass critical acclaim and led Aline Laurent-Mayard to become the face of asexuality there. The series is a rare example of a documentary podcast produced simultaneously in two languages with a bilingual host, with editorial adjustments made to account for cultural nuances.

In this seven-episode series, Aline re-lives their adolescence and early assumptions that they would eventually feel the way everyone else does, followed by years of doubts and questions about what being asexual means. Through a memoir-style, first-person perspective, Aline challenges the stereotypes of a person living in Paris - the City of Love - and engages experts, sociologists, acquaintances and friends in a thought-provoking examination of our society’s relationship to sex and traditional coupling.

"I hope Free From Desire will get people to think about what intimacy means to them, what they really want from a relationship, in what context they want sex and how often," says Aline.

Aline continues: “I hope people will start talking about sex before they have it, that they will have the sex talk with their partner over and over again, with no taboo or shame.”

“This show is for everyone,” adds Paradiso Media’s Yael Even Or and Suzanne Colin who produced the podcast. “It’s fundamentally queer in that it questions the basic assumptions many of us hold about our sexuality and identity. It is also truly global, with a bilingual host, an international team, and guests from all over the world. We’re proud to put this unicorn out in the world.”

Aline Laurent-Mayard is a journalist, author, and podcaster. They have written for publications such as Le Monde and Slate, and published two books about gender in pop culture. 

I will confess that until these podcasts were released, I knew next to nothing about asexuality. And this is why Free From Desire is so valuable as a communications device and a conduit to understanding. After all, ignorance is too often the bedfellow of intolerance and condemnation. 

I highly recommend Free From Desire. I believe that creator / host Aline Laurent-Mayard will take us on a journey where they searches for self-understanding and self-acceptance. For listeners, it's a journey we all should make, whether we are asexual or not.

After all, it was habits guru Stephen Covey who explained in Habit # 5: Seek first to understand, then to be understood.