Strategic refusal of dominant frameworks as a way of knowing and asserting truth, enabling asexual and aromantic people to reject compulsory sexuality narratives.
Sor Juana's refusal to marry, conform, and surrender her intellectual life was not merely resistance—it was a way of knowing. By refusing what society demanded, she asserted an alternative truth about women's capacities and rights. For asexual and aromantic individuals, refusal operates as epistemic power: the refusal to perform sexual interest, the refusal to pursue romance on timeline, the refusal to accept that incomplete identity without these experiences. This framework legitimizes saying no as an active, knowledge-producing act rather than a deficit. Sor Juana's pensamiento (thinking) emerged precisely through what she refused to accept about herself and her world. Asexual and aromantic people exercise similar epistemic authority by refusing pathologization narratives and claiming their own frameworks for understanding desire, connection, and flourishing. Refusal becomes not absence but presence—a deliberate assertion of alternative ways of being human.
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