A woman’s doctor’s advice that women are more vulnerable to asexuality is sparking outrage on social media, with many people expressing concern about the implication that women who experience asexualness have less responsibility to be safe and responsible.
In a video published on Friday, Dr. Susan Davis said that asexual people need to be careful with how they are perceived because they are “females, and they’re the ones that can do something about it.”
Davis’ remarks drew a slew of angry responses, including ones from a doctor who called her comments “ridiculous” and “misguided,” and a woman who wrote that she is asexual and has a husband.
Davis said she has always known that a person’s gender and sexual orientation are not mutually exclusive, and she explained that sexual attraction to men and women are not the same thing.
Davis is not the first doctor to say that women should not have to deal with sexual assault.
The National Organization for Women released a report last year stating that women face sexual assault at a higher rate than men.
In response, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the American Association of University Women issued a statement in March stating that a woman can experience sexual assault in her lifetime and that women were also victims of assault and harassment.
Davis said in her video that women with asexual experiences are “a small minority” of women, but she said that many people do not understand that a sexual orientation is not a binary.
“People think that because we’re attracted to the same gender, we can just put our hands together and pretend like it’s not going to happen,” Davis said.
Davis also said that she did not know of anyone who had experienced sexual assault or harassment from another woman, and that it is common for people to have asexual encounters with partners of the same sex.
“We don’t have a culture that teaches women that they can’t be responsible for their own actions, so we’re really not even aware of how we’re supposed to deal and we’re not even very good at it,” Davis explained.
“So I’m going to tell you one thing that women, in general, need to realize.
There are people out there that are going to do anything they can to make sure that they have an excuse for their actions.”
Davis said people need “to know that you can’t make your partner do anything you want.”