Asexual Characters and Stories are not a “Trend”
It’s been a taxing Pride Month for fiction discourse
Of all the nasty takes to have come up on social media during Pride Month 2024 (bi people in same gender relationships are gay, bi people in opposite gender relationships are straight, bi women (but not bi men) need to leave their straight partners at home, demisexuality is just being a normal woman, hetero attracted demisexual people don’t belong at Pride but corporations are fine because visibility) I didn’t expect asexuality to be called “a trend”.
A trend.
Just in case you’re new here: What is asexuality?
In general terms, asexuality is an umbrella term for a range of experiences in which the person either does not feel sexual attraction (asexual), or where it is rare (greysexual) or under specific circumstances (demisexual, like myself — I need a pre-existing emotional bond). Then there is the aromantic orientations: aro, grey romantic and demiromantic — the same, but apply them to romantic attraction instead of sexual attraction. “Aspec” is an umbrella term to cover both.
Asexuality was identified in the 1860s though it was called monosexual. Though these days that means you are only attracted to one gender (gay or straight), back then it meant people who experienced no desire towards anyone but who still experienced sexual pleasure through masturbation.
Alfred Kinsey — the man who devised The Kinsey Scale, labelled “Sexuality X” to mean asexual people. It was shown in the 1950s that this was about 1.5% of the population.
In brief, we are not new. It’s had a word for over 100 years before my birth.
Diversity matters
I’m not sure I even need to explain why. You know why diversity is important.
Don’t you?
Great…
While there has been a massive rise in LGBT representation in the last few years, and a thriving queer indie book market, aspec people are still largely underrepresented, especially in the mainstream. We can count the number of asexual characters in mainstream media on one hand.
Don’t believe me?
- Todd Chavez from BoJack Horseman (I’ve never seen this)
- Jughead Jones in the Archie comics (not familiar with this either)
- O from Sex Education. Her character has been criticised for bad representation, including from Yasmin Benoit who consulted on the creation of the character and was unhappy at some of the creative changes they made
- Including two other characters from Sex Education: Steve whose demisexuality was a case of blink-and-you-miss-it, and Florence whose asexuality was a case of blink-and-you-miss-it
As far as books are concerned, it’s Alice Oseman. I’ve never read her stuff so can’t comment on her characters or stories. I understand her work is much loved but the fact we have one author centring our experiences shows how little representation we have.
But that’s it. That’s the extent of our mainstream representation. Even when some major characters are “asexual coded” direct acknowledgement of their experiences are rare — they are never directly called asexual. That’s mostly because sex and/or romance tends to be a heavy focus of our literature.
Bromances and womances that exclude the sex and romance tend to focus on straight people decentring sex and relationships in their lives (usually after a nasty break up). We can usually assume that they will eventually get over their breakup and find someone else after the story ends. Sex and the City dabbled with this idea a lot.
Compulsory romance and sexuality
Even outside the romance genre, many people expect to see romance — if not seeing characters getting into relationships in a story, then at least some flirtation between them.
Even characters who are clearly friends regularly get “shipped” in fan fiction and fan art. Wikipedia explains this as:
Shipping is the term for the desire by followers of a fandom for two or more people, either real-life people or fictional characters (in film, literature, television series, etc.), to be in a romantic or sexual relationship
Side note: I personally find the idea of shipping real people a bit weird, to be honest.
We call this “compulsory romance” or “compulsory sexuality.” Think Sam and Frodo couldn’t possibly be friends, and were fucking every night on their journey to Mordor? That’s shipping. That’s compulsory sexuality — the idea that it’s impossible for a deep platonic love to not involve secret or open romance or sex.
You can apply this to any characters where there was no on-page or on-screen sex or romance, and no hint of flirting.
And this is why, I think, people now see a pushback from asexual/aromantic writers and allies making a concerted effort to put us in their media as a “trend.”
It’s trendy to challenge societal norms about relationships.
It’s trendy to promote a misunderstood orientation.
It’s trendy to promote a misrepresented orientation.
It’s trendy to promote a mistrusted orientation.
It’s trendy to decentre sex and relationships.
It’s trendy to show people feeling joy in the (sometimes lifelong) singledom.
It’s trendy to show anyone valuing friendship over romance and sex.
It’s trendy not to show romance and sexual love as the highest and noblest forms of love.
It’s trendy to be indifferent to not be open about sex and sexuality.
But we’re here and we have a right to see ourselves and write about ourselves, just like anyone else. We have a right to that representation even when our existence makes allosexuals uncomfortable. Not every creative outlet is supposed to be for everyone. If it’s straight romance you’re looking for, then read a straight romance. If it’s a same sex erotica you want to read, then seek out same sex erotica. If you want to read books about throuples, find a book about throuples.
Just stop asking one of the least represented orientations in media to centre your feelings and desires.
I recently wrote a paranormal fantasy mystery called Shadows of Cathedral Lane. It features a demisexual protagonist. Click here to go to your local Amazon page.
Read more of my demisexuality articles:
