A few things first. One, I am asexual and am basing this purely on my own experience. Two, this thread has nothing to do with gender, please do not drag that subject in here.
Now then, maybe I have been living a sheltered life, but is there really a need to fight for asexual rights? It just seems that ever since we stopped really worrying about bloodline, there has not been overall pressure to have sex. Now then, I can see a the benefits of offering solidarity to other sexual rights groups. Yes, there has been a recent thread on playing an agender character, but this thread is also sparked by other groups who advertise that they , among other things, asexual friendly. Have people come out as asexual and been harassed for it? Do I just live in the right place, or are we largely left alone?
I'm not ace but I have close friends who are and to them the idea of 'asexual rights' is at least partially targeted towards the over focus on sex in pop culture/media?
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We're all human beings.
I will never understand why people insist on treating other people like s&!&, or try to deny them basic human rights based on what they do (or don't do) with their own privacy or lives or on what gender they identify with.
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That's a bit of a cop out though, eventually you have to evolve.
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I just think you can't use the "we're apes what do you expect!" excuse forever.
We haven't been apes for a really, really long time. :-)
We haven't been apes for a really, really long time.
Actually, we're still apes. And resources are still limited. Until resources are completely unlimited, we will still need to compete for them -- and being more clever than the other apes is one of our most effective ways to compete.
RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 32
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The history of asexual oppression in some ways mirrors the history of homosexual oppression.
Consider the "confirmed bachelor": a term dating back to Victorian times, in that time what is the functional social difference a gay man and an asexual man, in the eyes of straight people? There's less chance of getting caught actually engaging in illegal gay sex, but the social and stereotypical associations have a broad overlap of erasure and discrimination.
Jumping forward a couple decades to the American prohibition period, pro-prohibition lobbying was largely championed by women. Some of these women would live together to get away from alcohol and men for various reasons. Whether those reasons were to leave abusive homes and relationships and/or sexual orientation, these women were openly and aggressively Not Having Sex With Men.
The line that connects asexual rights and gay rights is being Not Straight, essentially. When the dominant culture aggressively models heterosexual sex as the norm, and as aspirational, people who don't engage or are uninterested in engaging in that are punished. To the forces that enact social and physical violence on queer folks, is there really that much of a difference between the various people that don't want to have straight sex? And as people have pointed out above, the violence of straight normalcy isn't always direct physical violence (although it can certainly take that form), but can take the form of your own family essentially calling you a crazy liar instead of getting to understand and accept you. That is the need to recognize asexual rights in the face of heterosexual normalcy.
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We haven't been apes for a really, really long time.Actually, we're still apes. And resources are still limited. Until resources are completely unlimited, we will still need to compete for them -- and being more clever than the other apes is one of our most effective ways to compete.
Resources will always be limited. Even if that resource is only "how much power of control is there to grab".
We're all human beings.
I will never understand why people insist on treating other people like s+!%, or try to deny them basic human rights based on what they do (or don't do) with their own privacy or lives or on what gender they identify with.
Because we're human beings.
Because we're very clever social apes and getting an advantage over the other clever social apes in the tribe is pretty much what these big brains are for.
I dunno, Darwin and the Victorians got a lot right but I would say big brains are (also) for complex relationships and cooperation and altruism. The adaptive/selective value of those partly, largely, justifies the costs of building and maintaining an organ which is a major resource hog. Also, when I talk about what brains are for I'm not implying that evolution is teleological. I imagine you weren't either.
The history of asexual oppression in some ways mirrors the history of homosexual oppression.
Consider the "confirmed bachelor": a term dating back to Victorian times, in that time what is the functional social difference a gay man and an asexual man, in the eyes of straight people? There's less chance of getting caught actually engaging in illegal gay sex, but the social and stereotypical associations have a broad overlap of erasure and discrimination.
I disagree. The "confirmed bachelor" was (and to some extent remains) a standard heroic trope in Victorian and later fiction. The confirmed bachelors were honorable figures who put the needs of others ahead of their own. The idea that they were closet homosexuals actually dates from much later (Wikipedia, for example, dates the usage from "the second half of the 20th century.")
Examples of asexual confirmed bachelors from fiction include, for example, Sherlock Holmes (and many of the early detectives, for example Hercule Poirot, Augustus S. F. X. Van Dusen, and the Continental Op -- Philo Vance is notable precisely because it's explicitly suggested that he may be a homosexual). Many of the heroic scholars -- Professor Challenger, Abraham van Helsing, Pierre Arronax -- fit into the same category. (Indeed, in real life, faculty at Oxford University were only allowed to marry after 1877; prior to that, they were expected to be "confirmed bachelors" whose highest calling was to scholarship.)
If you look at portrayals of actual homosexuals during the period, they're generally much more flamboyantly campy and are very rarely heroic.
Of course, this all has a lot to do with negative feelings about human sexuality in general during the Victorian era. Sex was, of course, very important because the Empire needed men to go out and subdue the world, and it was very important for the upper classes to have heirs to leave Cheesecake Manor to. But one of the marks of a truly civilized and honorable person -- male or female -- was the ability to rise above base desires. Being asexual was therefore a mark of superiority, in the same way that being abstemious was superior to being a drunkard.
Resources will always be limited.
We haven't been apes for a really, really long time.Actually, we're still apes. And resources are still limited. Until resources are completely unlimited, we will still need to compete for them -- and being more clever than the other apes is one of our most effective ways to compete.
Yup. And, bearing that in mind, I still say that "until resources are completely unlimited, we will still need to compete for them."
* B can happen only after A happens.
* A can never happen.
The conclusion is left "as an exercise for the student."
I love sex. It is a major part of my life and who I am. But one of the first things I learned was that not everyone desired it as much as I did, or even with me. I mourn on some level that we could not explore this facet of life together, but the choice is theirs. Not everyone has to be exactly like me.
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This is fascinating. I have nothing to add.
Now then, maybe I have been living a sheltered life, but is there really a need to fight for asexual rights?
Depends with which kind of people you spend your time - either voluntarily (friends) or rather involuntarily (family, coworkers etc.). I can imagine parents (especially mothers) putting high pressure on their asexual child, to make sure the family line continues. Also peers can react quite negatively - for a less self-confident person any significantly 'different' lifestyle is a threat, because they feel it questions their own.
On the other hand, people with unusual traits will be more openminded. Not because they are more noble by default, but because they can relate to your potential problem of being stigmatized. I'd think oddballs (meant in a neutral way) are overrepresented here in the forum, resulting in a more positive environment for the single person.
Germany advanced quite a bit during the last decades, when it comes to inclusion. Heck, we even had a homosexual foreign minister who traveled to Arabic states - can't remember whether he took his boyfriend (husband?) with him. But right now things look grim: Neverending conservative government, raising extreme conservatives and a wave of immigrants with conservative mindsets threaten further advancement...
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I did not have any sexual urges until last year--and I just turned thirty. At the same time, while I found culture to be obnoxiously sex-dominant, I never felt specifically discriminated against for my habits. A few idiots expressed disbelief, or contempt, but I can find a few idiots that can't handle any given human habits, even common ones.
While the emphasis on sexuality within the current cultural trends has always annoyed me, I think the term "rights" is too strong. "Acknowledgement" is probably closer, and even then, I don't think most folk truly suffer for asexuality, any more than we suffer for the multitude of other quirks and disagreements people find themselves in. It would be good for people to understand the additional depths of sexuality, but it is not a case of meaningful oppression.
That makes a lot of sense.
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While the emphasis on sexuality within the current cultural trends has always annoyed me, I think the term "rights" is too strong. "Acknowledgement" is probably closer, and even then, I don't think most folk truly suffer for asexuality, any more than we suffer for the multitude of other quirks and disagreements people find themselves in. It would be good for people to understand the additional depths of sexuality, but it is not a case of meaningful oppression.
I think you summed the issue up handily. Not to offend anyone who feels like their right are violated due to their asexuality, but I have always found the struggle to be somewhat overblown.
I, for example, don't drink any alcoholic beverage. I also do not use any recreational drug. I strongly dislike coffee and tea, and any sparkling drink physically causes shivers of rejection to run the length of my body. When it comes to drinking habits, I'm pretty much a monk, and I'm quite happy with my glass of cool water.
Consequentially, I handle a lot of disbelief and incredulity from my environment. People refuse to believe that I never even tried alcohol, and when I explain that I simply feel no urge to do so whatsoever, they think I'm mad. I have often found myself feeling quite excluded in social events centered around drinking or getting high. Everyone is tipsy and giggly, and I just sort of stare at those idiots. Hack, I can never even meaningfully participate in conversations about Coca Cola (it sparkles). Drinking is at least as ubiquitous in popular culture as sex (in fact, they often go hand in hand...).
And yet, I would find it utterly absurd to claim that my rights are violated in any way, or that public awareness needs to be raised in regards to my drinking identity. I have a pretty rare quirk, and there are consequences to that, but... it's just part of being me. I am not remotely oppressed because of it, it is not in any way shape or form comparable to the suffering of any minority, ever.
And, to be honest to the bone - I don't see how asexuality is inherently different from my abstinence from alcohol.
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And just to make my point crystal clear - I am not trying to say that asexuality cannot be a source of all kinds of duress to people. I can envision a dozen unpleasant scenarios just as easily as anyone else.
By all means, I think asexuals have the right to feel frustrated with any number of daily realities, and I think them forming communities to strengthen themselves is completely acceptable.
However, I also think that not every cause of strife for every minority needs to be solved by a social struggle. Not every source of hardship for every group is the result of oppression or the violation of human rights. While I never for a moment doubt the existence of asexuals, I am skeptic about the actual need for the asexual movements I know. From my limited personal experience, they tend to be populated by people who live in spheres where social struggle is the norm - such as the wider LGBT community, for example. In those cases, I found the asexual rights movements to be not much more than people doing the same thing their friends are doing - not because of any real oppression they experience, but rather because this is what people do in our society.
And before this becomes a flame war, let me reiterate that I am referring merely to the asexual organizations I am familiar with and am not ruling out the possibility that somewhere out there things are different. I have just not seen any evidence that would lead me to think that's the case.
Something to bear in mind, though, is that a lot of quirks come with cultural baggage. For example,
I, for example, don't drink any alcoholic beverage.
There are a lot of reasons that this might be the case, but one plausible explanation is that Lord Snow is actually Muslim. Depending upon how your mind travels, this can quickly turn into the issue that he's actually one of them Sharia-toting jihadic terrorist types who are "here" to destroy our way of live, yadda yadda [I'm sure you can write the rest of the rant yourself, and if you can't, youtube can do it for you]. It's very easy to use associations and stereotypes to promote a few grams of observations into kilograms of assumptions.
Asexuality is, today in something of the same boat. While it's perfectly legitimate for someone not to be in a relationship because they don't want to be, it's also very common for someone not to be (openly) in a relationship because they are gay and fear exposure. As we-as-a-society have progressed past most of the Victorian hangups about sex -- not all of them, of course; slut-shaming is still a thing -- there are fewer and fewer reasons to be a "confirmed bachelor," which is why the phrase took on its modern (euphemistic) meaning in the last 20th century. (Another candidate is "has never married," for the same reason.)
Of course, other examples abound. People with body art are often assumed to be druggies or criminals. Women are often assumed to be bad with tools. I see the greedy Jewish banker stereotype a lot less often today, but I live in the wrong part of the world for that one.
This provides a strong reason for people in general to fight for the rights of other groups besides themselves. I like the idea that gays can't be fired for being gay -- but I also like the idea that unmarried people can't be fired for being gay, even if they're not gay. And that Lord Snow can't be escorted off a plane just because he doesn't drink and happens to speak Arabic fluently.
Now then, maybe I have been living a sheltered life, but is there really a need to fight for asexual rights?
Not really. No one notices us, we don't really need anything special from society, we don't threaten anyone elses... well anything.
I don't buy erasure as a problem or any form of oppression. Oddly enough most writers are heterosexual because most people are heterosexual. To get an asexual character you need
1) a writer that's even heard of it
2) A writer that either gets it (drumroll) or can fake it
3) To do it WELL you need to show it in the script.. for some reason. How do you bring this up in a way that feels organic? For example, is rocket raccoon asexual or does it just never come up in the movie? These days you need to show it at least twice: If a male hero turns down a beautiful woman the assumption is that he's gay or married. You'd need a second scene where they turn down some other kind of advance. Showing this on a heroine would be even harder, as "get lost" is usually a default response for any proposition.
4) You're willing to forgo an easy plot device hook. It is entirely plausible that people will do anything for love, which if you have a zany plot you're probably going to want to use as a rationalization for the character NOT saying "yeah, i've been slimed, bitten by a giant bat suspended over a waterfall and had a space wizard cut me with a laser sword.. i'm going the hell home.
5) a writing team and production staff that finds such a character plausible. Reality is unrealistic.
Have people come out as asexual and been harassed for it?
I just usually point out I'm too ugly to date and most people find that plausible.
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That's a bit of a cop out though, eventually you have to evolve.Emphasis on "eventually".
Evolution does NOT tend towards a higher state, a better end, or something grander than what currently exists. Evolution tends towards what provides more reproductive benefits. If being a nice person spreads your genes more, you get more nice people. If being a complete twit spreads your genes more, you get more twits. (the actual math on that is really complicated and in flux, but drops out to normall be act like a twit towards strangers and act like a nice person towards your family)
A few things first. One, I am asexual and am basing this purely on my own experience. Two, this thread has nothing to do with gender, please do not drag that subject in here.
Now then, maybe I have been living a sheltered life, but is there really a need to fight for asexual rights? It just seems that ever since we stopped really worrying about bloodline, there has not been overall pressure to have sex. Now then, I can see a the benefits of offering solidarity to other sexual rights groups. Yes, there has been a recent thread on playing an agender character, but this thread is also sparked by other groups who advertise that they , among other things, asexual friendly. Have people come out as asexual and been harassed for it? Do I just live in the right place, or are we largely left alone?
Yes there is. And yes it's happened. And you've been lucky. A friend of mine was threatened with bodily harm by his Rutgers roommate who got suspicious when he wasn't bringing women of his own into the dorm room, even though he had honored his roommates occasional requests to let him have the room for occasional night trysts.
It's not so much as "coming out as assexual, but not living up the same sexual lifestyle as your peers which draws suspicion... especially if you're male. Apparently since my friend wasn't a loose womaniser like his roommate, the latter apparantly thought he was either going to come on to him or rape him at night and he promised him great physical retribution if he so much as thought about it.
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In my experience being asexual, the most important issue facing aces is the invisibility one---people just don't know that there are people out there who don't experience sexual attraction. I spent a good portion of 32 years of my life wondering if there was something fundamentally wrong with me. And then I learned I was not alone out there, and it made all the difference in the world.
I still don't tell a lot of people that I am asexual, because I don't want to have the conversation with them. Most people I've told are fine with it, but they've also known me for a long time and never seen me in a relationship. I just don't want to go through the conversation of what asexuality is and isn't, and how it relates to my life. I definitely don't want to have to justify my sexual orientation to someone who's never heard of it or doesn't think it's possible. And while I don't think it's common, per se, I've read accounts of aces who have been correctively raped.
So I think the most important part of asexual activism is giving aces a place where they feel normal, rather than advocating for their rights. Because a lot of times the world DOES exclude us, whether they mean to or not. For example, I was at a work bridal shower the other day, and one of the games required that a random person tell the group their "love story." I realized that if I had gotten that item, I might have been pressured to come out to a room full of coworkers. I can't tell you the number of fun surveys I've taken that have ground to a halt for me because I couldn't tell them about my last relationship. I don't get disproportionately upset about this; when you're a member of a group that includes only 1% of the population, sometimes you're going to be excluded from common consideration. But it's really nice to know that there are people out there who experience the same things.
Also, it's worth noting that asexuality may not face much discrimination BECAUSE it's invisible. It's likely that as people become more aware of us, the headway that other members of the LGBT community have made will apply to us as well. But we won't know that until more people know about us. Historically, people are not kind and inclusive to those who are different.
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Now then, maybe I have been living a sheltered life, but is there really a need to fight for asexual rights?
Not really. No one notices us, we don't really need anything special from society, we don't threaten anyone elses... well anything.
I don't buy erasure as a problem or any form of oppression. Oddly enough most writers are heterosexual because most people are heterosexual. To get an asexual character you need
1) a writer that's even heard of it
2) A writer that either gets it (drumroll) or can fake it
3) To do it WELL you need to show it in the script.. for some reason. How do you bring this up in a way that feels organic? For example, is rocket raccoon asexual or does it just never come up in the movie? These days you need to show it at least twice: If a male hero turns down a beautiful woman the assumption is that he's gay or married. You'd need a second scene where they turn down some other kind of advance. Showing this on a heroine would be even harder, as "get lost" is usually a default response for any proposition.
4) You're willing to forgo an easy plot device hook. It is entirely plausible that people will do anything for love, which if you have a zany plot you're probably going to want to use as a rationalization for the character NOT saying "yeah, i've been slimed, bitten by a giant bat suspended over a waterfall and had a space wizard cut me with a laser sword.. i'm going the hell home.
5) a writing team and production staff that finds such a character plausible. Reality is unrealistic.
OTOH, I've talked to people who, when growing up, were overwhelmed to find some representation. Some acknowledgement that what they were living with was a real, if rare, thing and they weren't alone and screwed up and weird. "There's a name for it?"
Fiction can be great for that.It doesn't need to be in every story of course. In every adventure flick or comic. But common enough for people to come across it and...
I'm sure it would meet with the familiar chorus of "STOP SHOVING YOUR AGENDA DOWN OUR THROAT."
It's not that hard to portray. Maybe not in passing in an action movie, but there's plenty of young adult literature especially that's precisely about coming to terms with awakening sexuality and the like. No reason there can't be similar stories about dealing with asexuality.
I think it's harder than you think.
On the list of possibilities for the characters action, asexual is going to rank WAY down there. In young adult fiction you have is too young to have had it "kick in" yet, late bloomer, or author wanted to avoid the awkward subject with what are either technically minors or being written for them.
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That's a bit of a cop out though, eventually you have to evolve.
No!
I knew that coming out of the ocean was a dumb newfangled idea that will bring naught but problems...
Sure, it's easy enough to avoid or write in a coded way if an author wants. Just like ppeople used to do with gays. Then you can ignore it.
I don't think you can code it. Anything you write is going to be mistaken for something else.
OTOH, if you actually want to write about an asexual, it's easy. Just do it. I get, show don't tell, but if you take it to extremes it's ridiculous. People, especially teens do think and talk about this kind of thing. It's okay to do that in fiction.
A teen would be passed off as a late bloomer, immature or people would interpret it as a homosexual character, a dorky character, misanthropic etc.
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Something to bear in mind, though, is that a lot of quirks come with cultural baggage. For example,
I, for example, don't drink any alcoholic beverage.There are a lot of reasons that this might be the case, but one plausible explanation is that Lord Snow is actually Muslim. Depending upon how your mind travels, this can quickly turn into the issue that he's actually one of them Sharia-toting jihadic terrorist types who are "here" to destroy our way of live, yadda yadda [I'm sure you can write the rest of the rant yourself, and if you can't, youtube can do it for you]. It's very easy to use associations and stereotypes to promote a few grams of observations into kilograms of assumptions.
Asexuality is, today in something of the same boat. While it's perfectly legitimate for someone not to be in a relationship because they don't want to be, it's also very common for someone not to be (openly) in a relationship because they are gay and fear exposure. As we-as-a-society have progressed past most of the Victorian hangups about sex -- not all of them, of course; slut-shaming is still a thing -- there are fewer and fewer reasons to be a "confirmed bachelor," which is why the phrase took on its modern (euphemistic) meaning in the last 20th century. (Another candidate is "has never married," for the same reason.)
Of course, other examples abound. People with body art are often assumed to be druggies or criminals. Women are often assumed to be bad with tools. I see the greedy Jewish banker stereotype a lot less often today, but I live in the wrong part of the world for that one.
This provides a strong reason for people in general to fight for the rights of other groups besides themselves. I like the idea that gays can't be fired for being gay -- but I also like the idea that unmarried people can't be fired for being gay, even if they're not gay. And that Lord Snow can't be escorted off a plane just because he doesn't drink and happens to...
I'm not quite sure I managed to keep track of your logic. You say asexuals may be confused with homosexuals, and thus harmed by the same prejudice, simply because they never marry or show sexual interest in members of the other sex?
If this is the case, you don't need to fight for asexual rights separately. By reduction, if the global campaign for gay rights succeeds, then even if people mistakes asexuals as homosexuals, no harm will come from it.
So, if Indeed I understood your reasoning, there's still no special call for any social campaign for asexuals.
It's not that hard to portray. Maybe not in passing in an action movie, but there's plenty of young adult literature especially that's precisely about coming to terms with awakening sexuality and the like. No reason there can't be similar stories about dealing with asexuality.I think it's harder than you think.
On the list of possibilities for the characters action, asexual is going to rank WAY down there. In young adult fiction you have is too young to have had it "kick in" yet, late bloomer, or author wanted to avoid the awkward subject with what are either technically minors or being written for them.
The presentation issue is that asexuality is an absence of a trait that is does not have to be clearly visible in the first place on an individual level. Showing absence of such trait requires some sort of background, context, or simply contrast.
There are multiple reasons for a person to follow asexual lifestyle beyond asexuality as an orientation (e.g. I am no asexual but I haven't had sex with another person for about ten years now, mostly because of combination of general anxiety, social anxiety, introversion, laziness, and other factors). You can show asexual lifestyle but you have to take deliberate steps to flag it as an asexual orientation. Declining romantic or simply sexual advances from another person? Might be shy, might be not attracted in that particular person, might be not in the mood for it, might be socially inept and the apparent rejection was actually a failure to understand those were romantic/sexual advances, might be strongly interested in particular person and unwilling to get hooked with another person (I had done all of those in the past), might believe in notions of sexual chastity, might had dramatic experiences in the past, might have specific sexual orientation or preferences...
All of those are valid reasons why the presented character is not involved in the romantic/sexual activity. Or the person can be actually asexual and the listed reasons are excuses given to conform to cultural norms of sexuality. Until the character explicitly states asexuality any of those are likely alternate explanations of asexual lifestyle.
]Are you actually saying it's impossible to write an asexual character, even if the character is open and explicit about it?
I don't think it can be done well. You're going to almost have to break show don't tell.
I think it's even harder in young adult fiction. If someone says "i don't like girls and i never will" that's a really odd thing to work into a conversation, its something the character doesn't know yet, may be mistaken as characterization that the character is still immature or gay.
Are you actually saying it's impossible to write an asexual character, even if the character is open and explicit about it? You could even have the character deal with such misperceptions in character. Address the character's own confusion about their sexuality and come to terms with it.
If you aren't familiar with asexuality on a personal basis, either by being one, or knowing such a person very well, yeah, it's pretty much impossible.
You can't write about what you don't know.. at least not to any succesful degree.
Men are expected to want sex all the time. Men who do not want sex are viewed by society either as abnormal aberrations, or are assumed to be hiding some secret sexual desire or hidden agenda.
Well.. people don't reach that conclusion out of thin air..There's more than enough evidence for it being a pretty strong TREND that just doesn't apply to every individual.
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It also depends on what you mean by 'rights.' For many asexuals, it may not be as severe--a lot of what we've seen in this thread is more about erasure than other overt forms of oppression. But erasure can lead to other, more potentially serious areas, such as corrective rape (which yes, is a thing, and is exactly as horrific as you would expect). When we don't see a thing or have a context in which to appreciate that thing, it can lead to some really awful reactions should we encounter it.
Other issues are the still-recent declassification of asexuality as a mental disorder, but even still it is often conflated with Hyposexual Desire Disorder (HDD), which is still a diagnosis assigned. This may not sound severe, but for many, having any kind of mental diagnosis can lead to difficulty obtaining/keeping a job, a home, and things like that.
Erasure is both a sympton and cause of greater oppression--and it's the one we as individuals can also most easily tackle, instead of the institutionalized desire for sex we see in advertising, media, the works.
Are you actually saying it's impossible to write an asexual character, even if the character is open and explicit about it? You could even have the character deal with such misperceptions in character. Address the character's own confusion about their sexuality and come to terms with it.
If you aren't familiar with asexuality on a personal basis, either by being one, or knowing such a person very well, yeah, it's pretty much impossible.
You can't write about what you don't know.. at least not to any succesful degree.
Would you consider Tolkienian fantasy asexual? Maybe sexless is a better word? We all know these stories. They have few female characters, often none of any depth, and apparently no one in the fantasy world ever has sex. If there hints, as some think there are in LotR, the situation is strictly homoerotic or homosocial. The reader is left to wonder if the denizens of that world reproduce asexually or spontaneously generate offspring when they want kids.
Would you consider Tolkienian fantasy asexual? Maybe sexless is a better word? We all know these stories. They have few female characters, often none of any depth, and apparently no one in the fantasy world ever has sex. If there hints, as some think there are in LotR, the situation is strictly homoerotic or homosocial. You are left to wonder if the denizens of that world reproduce asexually or spontaneously generate offspring when they want kids.Are you actually saying it's impossible to write an asexual character, even if the character is open and explicit about it? You could even have the character deal with such misperceptions in character. Address the character's own confusion about their sexuality and come to terms with it.
If you aren't familiar with asexuality on a personal basis, either by being one, or knowing such a person very well, yeah, it's pretty much impossible.
You can't write about what you don't know.. at least not to any succesful degree.
I consider it the product of a Victorian mindset. I also remember the days when the word Paladin would cnjure up almost universally the image of a white English or Charelemagnian male. And that those days weren't quite that distant. Take that as you will.
But they are in the distance, far or close, at least both are behind us rather than in front.
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]Are you actually saying it's impossible to write an asexual character, even if the character is open and explicit about it?I don't think it can be done well. You're going to almost have to break show don't tell.
I think it's even harder in young adult fiction. If someone says "i don't like girls and i never will" that's a really odd thing to work into a conversation, its something the character doesn't know yet, may be mistaken as characterization that the character is still immature or gay.
Part of this comes, too, in the point-of-view of the piece. There is a real dearth of representation for asexual individuals, especially for those who aren't also neurodiverse. The asexual, autistic detective is pretty much a trope at this point, and it ends up not being great representation for either population (or for those who are part of both).
And honestly, having side characters who are asexual doesn't really fix that. Before an author (especially an author who is not ace/aro) can write belieavable ace/aro characters, they need to be able to see ace/aro people and characters. What's needed more is ace/aro protagonists, especially in YA fiction. Ones who can explore all these issues, decipher their identities, etc.
To further discuss the concept of ace rights, it's important to consider, too, the intersections with ace/aro people. East Asian men especially are desexed in media, which contributes to society's perceptions and expectations towards East Asian men. So what does that mean for East Asian male asexuals--how do you navigate that intersection? Black and Latinx men and women are hypersexed in cultural depictions--so what is specific to the Black and Latinx ace experiences? There's all sorts of things to tackle that go beyond the specifics of being ace, but are still deeply impacted by it.