I’ve seen people say they want stories with ace characters that aren’t about the person’s asexuality. But… I do want books/movies/TV shows with ace protagonists that focus on their asexuality, and all the posts saying they don’t want this make me a little sad. Asexuality is so underrepresented in mainstream society that when it is represented, I want it to be A Thing. I mean, not always, not every time; I definitely get the value of works about ace characters that aren’t about them being ace. But I also want some that are.
All my life I’ve consumed media that doesn’t acknowledge my existence, let alone show other people like me. So stories that are actually about experiences like mine—feeling different but not knowing you’re ace, discovering your orientation, dealing with the stress of being closeted, coming out and handling the repercussions—are exactly what I want. I understand other GSRM people getting frustrated that media featuring people like them is always about the character’s queerness, but with asexuality, it’s not like we’ve got a glut of media that focuses on characters’ aceness and everyone is sick of it.
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I certainly agree with that. I get confused when people complain that there’s “too much” fanfiction — yes, FAN fiction — with asexual characters where the plot is all about their asexuality because um, no. There is not too much. I was reading fics in a ton of fandoms — Veronica Mars, Harry Potter, Glee, Gilmore Girls, so many others, stories with gay, lesbian, or bisexual characters sometimes, even — and didn’t even stumble across the existence of the word via fanfiction. What I feel is that there is not nearly enough. Even now, searching all of the fandoms I know well, it is hard to find fics about asexuality at all. I could use media of all types — films, TV shows, books, idk… songs… fanworks, etc (and I really do mean etc) — that focus on asexual narratives, on plots all about asexuality or aromanticsm, etc, etc.
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Yeah, you misread my original post completely. Please read the comments where someone else thought I was talking about not wanting stories about asexuality (vs. ace characters) to exist.
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I really don’t think I did misread it, though? Like, I get that you’re not saying “no stories about asexuality”, you just want a broader range of stories with ace characters. But you did seem to be saying you don’t care for stories that do focus on a person’s asexuality:
“You can’t just show an ace not being sexual with someone– or, even worse, you can’t show an asexual not being sexually attracted to someone. At least, without it being a large part of the story. Sure, you could work in a scene where character A asks character B if they thought character C was hot, and B answers that they don’t like anybody. But then that kind of dialogue can’t happen in a vacuum; there needs to have been a rapport built between A and B to allow that question to happen in a way that’s congruent with the rest of the story. I generally hate scenes like this in my action adventure stories, for instance. Or my suspense. Or… most of the media I consume.”
“I don’t really want to spend time addressing anyone’s sexuality/orientation or lack thereof. I want it to be a moot point for all of my current characters.”
I hardly ever see anyone posting that they do value stories that focus on an ace character’s orientation; I see a lot more saying the opposite. Yours was one example I had on hand, but I can definitely remove the link if you feel I’m misrepresenting you.
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No you can keep it up.
I don’t value them, but I don’t DEvalue them. They aren’t without worth to me, but they aren’t interesting enough to me, by the merit of being “ace-themed”, to warrant my time and energy. In fact, quite frankly, no theme does. I like the stories that I like, and most of them don’t have much in common. So what? I like Tolkien; but I don’t have to read every book he’s written.
Ace themes in stories have value TO YOU. And that should be enough. I’m not stopping you from seeking these stories out, I’m not stopping these stories from existing. You want me, and people like me, to want what you want? That’s what I’ve got a problem with.
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Oh, I didn’t mean to imply that I think you, or anyone, should have the same attitude as me. I was just trying to say that I’ve seen a lot of people express your view, and not many express mine, and it made me sad only ever seeing people say they don’t care about the thing that I care about. Now that I’ve made this post, I’ve already heard from several people who feel the same way I do. That was all I wanted, just to know I’m not alone in this–not for anyone to change their minds.
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Agreed, especially about greyness and what that actually feels like. Where the hell is the grey overfixation on orientation, eh?
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You may have already seen me say so, but I have long been in favor of fiction where asexuality or aromanticism is central to the plot, rather than an incidental feature of the characters. I’m not very enthusiastic about mere representation, because I tend not to see myself reflected in ace characters anyway.
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It’s been nice getting some comments here that show me I’m not alone in this. And yeah, as epochryphal’s comment indicated too, just having an ace character isn’t going to be enough to make all aces actually feel represented, when there are so many different ways to be ace.
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It’s not just that. I think what Siggy was touching on was the idea that for a character to really be someone he can relates to… the character can’t just be asexual. Even if the character experiences their asexuality in a similar way as he experiences his, if the person has a drastically different life, or personality… it’s not going to be easy to “relate” to them. I don’t know. That’s how I personally feel, at least. I don’t only relate to characters for sexual orientation reasons. I relate to characters who have a similar relationship with a sibling that I happen to have with my brother, or relationship with a friend/parent/romantic partner/whatever as what I’ve experience. I relate to characters who have similar hobbies as me sometimes, or who have a strongly scientific skeptic/atheistic worldview, or who are introverted in exactly the same ways as me, or… there are an endless list of those things. I still want representation for asexuality, but it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s always going to be on a character who I relate to, and I’m not only talking about the myriad of ways there are to experience being on the ace-spectrum. You know?
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I usually don’t relate to characters in general. I’m one of those people who doesn’t particularly care whether characters are sympathetic or not. To me it’s more about conflicts and themes.
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I completely share your thoughts here. I mean, look at all the YA fiction out there that is literally only about sexual/romantic coming-of-age plotlines. Why can’t we have asexual coming-of-age plotlines? Surely that would be such an interesting area to explore, even down to the question of how does one even come of age without a romance/sexual awakening type story? That would be such an interesting question for a character to explore.
Plus, I want to see characters who are going through the same sorts of processes and questions I am. My aceness is pretty central to me, so I don’t see why it shouldn’t be for characters in books or tv shows as well.
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I stopped checking my blog notifications shortly after I wrote this post, so I’m only just now seeing your comment (almost a year later!)–but it’s nice to hear that you agree! I often feel like the odd one out about this because of all the talk I see about wanting asexuality to not be a big deal in the story. People seem to think there are stories that focus on the character’s asexuality, when there really aren’t? Not many, anyway.
And I completely agree with your second paragraph! That’s exactly how I feel. :) Anyway, thanks for commenting!
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