The Rise of Asexual Representation

from jughead to spock, todd chavez to sheldon cooper - let's talk about the history of ace representation on screen!

**content warnings: this video contains brief mentions of sex and child abuse**

Additional research and scriptwriting by Yaz Coonjah and Isabel Moncloa Daly

[Ellaliluleloka]

My experience being Ace is like... Imagine the entire world is obsessed with Hiking. And it's a nice activity I guess? Its fun to do and all but I don't go out of my way to do it and I feel bored seeing people talk about it constantly as if that's the most important thing in the world.

[jackriver]

Just commenting to say that Jean saying "sex doesn't make us whole, so how could you ever be broken" makes me cry every time I see it

[asterismos]

"Asexual as nonhuman" trope ties in really well with the "non-binary as non-human" trope. I think on one hand it's nice to see humanized and well-developed characters not automatically fall into human ideas of gender and animalistic sexuality, but on the other hand why is this almost more common than human representation. Gender and sex don't make you human, they're just things that many humans happen to have but plenty don't.

[vigilantesam]

i think that if there was better ace representation, there would be more people who realize they're asexual. personally, i realized i was aspec because i started reading through asexual headcanon tags on ao3 and related a lot. representation is important!

[sannh]

Something that happens many times is that a character will be called asexual, but is actually an aroace who doesn't want an intimate relationship. Outside of the queer community, people have never heard of the words "aromantic" or "queerplatonic." Even inside the non-aspec queer community, people think that more-than-friendship relationship=romance. But something I am worried about is that media writers will amplify the idea that aroallo= predatory and/or will sleep with anyone.

[madgds]

Hollywood's "sex sells" motto is probably the main reason for the large lack of ace representation currently. Most producers/directors feel like the audience won't be interested unless there's sex or romance involved in their main characters' storylines so we get missed opportunities like with Otis and Sheldon.

[dragonetafireball]

Semi-regular reminder Cole Sprouse would have been fine with Riverdale Jughead being ace and The CW where aware he’s ace but they didn’t want it in the way of shipping so they kicked the can down the road saying they might do it in later seasons to shut people up then turned around and said he was too established as allo when people started bringing it up more.

[asterismos]

I think asexual representation could really be improved by having separate aromantic representation (or ya know....any aromantic representation!) because I am so fed up of having to tell people that I AM NOT ASEXUAL when they know I'm aromantic, and I'm sure the issue goes both ways.

[monster-enthusiast]

I was on r/asexual the other day and someone was asking who people's favorite ace character was (and another post asking for examples of ace characters) and the top comment was Todd and then just a bunch of characters that are just headcannoned as ace and not actually intended to be or confirmed ace.
Like... that's nice and all but none of those are actually ace. I'd bet most of creators don't even know what being Asexual is. Like you just know it was coincidental.
It annoys me so much when people say their favorite ace character is someone that isn't even ace! They just don't show any on screen desire for romance! It's just super disheartening.

[rikospostmodernlife]

I found this somewhere as an image and i'm going to transcript:
_"Being asexual is like being born without a sense of smell but everywhere you go people are spraying perfume in your face and when you tell them to stop and tell them it's irritating and you can't smell the perfume anyway they get huffy and respond with_ ``dont lie to me; I can clearly see you have a nose. Everybody has a nose therefore everybody smells things and besides maybe you just haven't found the right scent yet.`` _and then you want to scream."_

[davidhibbs]

Natalie Wynn, a trans woman and one of my favorite Youtubers, said that being born one gender and living as another comes with many inherently funny situations, but cis people don't know what they are. I feel the same is true of ace people. Living as an ace in a highly sexual world is honestly a comedic goldmine. But non-ace people suck at portraying them because they lack the personal insight into those everyday funny situations. Often we're just a punchline. There's a difference between being in on the joke and being the joke itself.

[spacecloud]

I was so confused about being Ace for so long. I thought I couldn't be because I still had some kind of sex drive, it just wasn't really directed anywhere specific. For the majority of the time, I didn't even know what Asexuality was and I grew up in a conservative Christian household, so I just thought that my lack of interest in sex was only tied to the perception of virtue and purity that I grew up with.

[ely]

Making the character of Otis asexual would have also gone against the stereotype that ace people are frigid sex-hating people, or are just too naive to understand sex. This been said there are members of they asexual community that dislike sex, and there is nothing wrong with it, my point is that having a health knowledge of sex is useful for everyone, ace people included.

[littlestpineapple]

Part of what feels so charged about ace rep is that it's practically nonexistent AND it can be erased at basically any time. For me, that's particularly true for aroace rep, which is even harder to find and easier to negate. I spent so long knowing I was ace and assuming that romance would eventually happen for me. Partially because that's how it worked for all the ace characters I'd found, partially because aromantism seemed both terrifying and monstrous. Going into Critical Role knowing that Cad was aroace was honestly revolutionary and I'm not sure I would have managed to finish coming out otherwise.

[TiBunCosplay]

With all those historical quotes lining asexuality up right alongside homosexuality and bisexuality is proof we Aces DO in fact belong in the LGBTQIA community. I get told so often that we don't belong, or we can only belong if our romantic orientation is gay/bi/etc. It'll be great having some actual historical references to fall back on in defense of our inclusion. While I personally fit into the LGBT in ways other than being Ace (I'm biromantic and nonbinary) it gets on my nerves when I keep seeing my fellow Aces being brushed off and excluded by other LGBT folk.

[Timbeon]

The massive lack of asexual representation in media is probably a big part of why I latched onto The Outer Worlds so hard when I played it for the first time, major character Parvati Holcomb is a bi ace woman whose asexuality is a major aspect of her storyline, and while going through it, you have the option to say your player character is asexual too, and if you do, her sheer relief at finally meeting someone else like her and finding out she's not alone is... one of my favorite moments in any piece of media, ever.

[sharks]

The most ace experience of my life was my mum saying 'what's that' to my coming out.

If people don't see us in media it's difficult for them to see us in life

[breebird]

This video was incredible. I'm so glad you brought up Otis from Sex Education in potential ace rep section cause that is also a hill I would die on. He gave off huge ace vibes in the beginning out the show and having him figure out his asexuality while giving sex advice at school would have been so incredibly compelling. And all of it would have lead up to him finally having honest conversation with his mother. UGH!!

[saera]

The thing in Sex Education that made me so irritated was that Jean never said to her son in the first season, "hey, you're valid even if you never want to masturbate ; asexuality and any other orientation is valid". Because he obviously didn't know what asexuality was when talking to Florence, so he didnt learn that from his mum like he learned about all the other sex-related stuff. So it was annoying that a) Otis seemed ace and then 'got over it', and b) that his mum the sex therapist only seems to bring up asexuality when it's like the clearest, most stereotypical and perfectly articulated case of asexuality ever. Not that Flo's situation was bad, but the reality can be more complicated and confusing than that-- it would have been great to see Otis be ace too to show that.

[angelal]

The lack of any basic knowledge of ace stuff is so frustrating, especially because it means that all of us have so little room. Explaining ace stuff is very important but also as a sex-repulsed aroace person, it's super dehumanizing to continually explain my existence in disclaimers that don't apply to me. Its already pretty alienating to go through life as a person that doesn't do sex or romance in a culture that's obsessed with them. To have to also explain my identity to every random cishet gen-x co-worker with caveats that some aro/ace people DO still have sex and relationships is exhausting. Like it's important, but it sucks. Can we just have some basic representation already?