Stories of Non-Becoming: Non-Issues, Non-Events and Non-Identities in Asexual Lives.

In contrast to conventional models of positively 'becoming' an identity through social interaction, this article explores the inverse, negational process of 'non-becoming,' whereby actors start but do not continue along an identity career trajectory. Through cumulative attrition, interactions and encounters at key moments create an overall pattern of non-progression. Using asexuality as an example, we identify three main trajectory stages of non-awareness, communicative negation and non-consolidation, each involving interactional contingencies. With a wider applicability to other repudiated identities, this model shows how even negational symbolic social objects (non-issues, non-events, and non-identities) are constituted through social interaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]