Asexuality and Aromanticism
It’s come to my attention that a lot of you don’t know what asexuality (ace) and aromanticism (aro) are, which is very sad, because it’s called LGBTQIA+ for a reason. Contrary to popular belief, the A doesn’t stand for ally, that’s stupid. Being an ally doesn’t make you part of the community, it just means you support the people in it, which is basically the bare minimum. These two sexualities can be hard to understand, so I’ll do my best to explain them, although I’m not personally aro, so I will be focusing a lot more on the ace part of this essay, since I have personal experience with it.
What are asexuality and aromanticism?
Asexuality and aromanticism are two very different things, but they can be combined, forming the label aroace. To put things simply, an aro person doesn’t feel romantic attraction (but they can feel sexual attraction), while an asexual person doesn’t feel sexual attraction (but they can feel romantic attraction), and aroace is the combination of both, so a lack of both sexual and romantic attraction. However, asexuality is a very broad spectrum. Picture this: every sexuality is a dot. Just a simple dot. They’re all the same: every lesbian dot likes women, every gay dot likes men ecc. but in the distance there is a line. A line with a few little groups of dots on it. This is the ace spectrum. All the dots in the different groups are aces, but they're not the same. They have one big thing in common, and a little something to distinguish them. We can represent these differences in a few groups, which I narrowed them down to six, so as to not make this essay too long. This essay has to end at some point:
Aromantic asexual: like I said before, these people don’t feel romantic and sexual attraction towards any gender, or they’re just not interested;
Romantic asexual: personally this is the alignment I’m a part of, and it means I don’t feel sexual attraction, but I do feel romantic attraction. So, while I would like to have a girlfriend, I don’t want to have sex with her. Using technical terms, I’m what they call a homoromantic asexual (or lesbian ace, but that’s not 100% accurate): I can fall in love and have crushes on people that are the same gender as me, but sex is a big no no. On the flip side of the spectrum, there’s alloromantic asexuals: people that are romantically attracted to the opposite sex, but not sexually. This can be applied to any other sexuality: panromantic, biromantic ecc.;
Demisexual: these people only feel sexual attraction after they’ve formed a deep connection with the person they’re eventually attracted to;
Aceflux: someone who’s sexual attraction fluctuates between no attraction, some attraction and a lot of attraction;
Aegosexual: they like it as a concept. They enjoy watching sex scenes and reading smut, but don’t want to participate in it;
Lithosexual: someone that feels sexual attraction only for someone that doesn’t reciprocate those feelings.
We can then sort out these aces into three bigger boxes:
Sex repulsed ace/Apothisexual (like me): these people find sex disgusting. Personally, I just don’t understand how people find it pleasurable to have sex, and I have absolutely zero interested in trying it out. And to those that say: “how can you know if you’ve never even tried?”, all I have to say is: “how do you know you don’t like being on fire if you’ve never tried? Maybe you’ll love it. Go on, set yourself on fire. Or eat a worm. Or stick your hand up a cow’s rear-end. You understand how stupid that sounds now, right?”.
To make things simpler, this is something an apothisexual might say: “why would you have sex when you can dance to portuguese songs and drink milkshakes?”. On to the next little box!;
Sex neutral ace: it’s pretty self explanatory. They don't not like having sex, but they also aren’t particularly interested in it. It’s kind of like this: “yeah, sex is cool, but have you tried playing videogames?”;
Sex favourable: they like sex more than some things and less than others, or they like them an equal amount. “Sometimes I prefer to have sex, other times I’d rather watch a movie, I like both equally”.
Aromantic is also a line with groups of dots, instead of just one dot. Like before, I’ve narrowed them down to six:
Aegoromantic: someone who isn’t interested in romance, but likes it as a concept. They like to read love stories and ship characters in their favourite shows, but they themselves don’t want to participate in romantic activities;
Aroflux: these people may experience their romantic orientation as fluctuations between experiencing and not experiencing romantic attraction, or that attraction is being experienced as altering degrees;
Cupioromantic: they desire a romantic relationship, but don’t feel romantic attraction. Kind of like being hungry, but none of the food in the kitchen is appealing (I think);
Demiromantic: these people only feel romantic attraction after they’ve formed a deep connection with the person they’re eventually attracted to;
Frayromantic: basically the opposite of demiromantic. At first there’s some romantic attraction, but once they know the person well, that attraction disappears;
Grayromantic: they feel very little romantic attraction. Like being slightly peckish, but not hungry.
Okay, that’s the more complicated part done. Phew. Alright, time to talk about me!
My personal experience as an asexual
I’m going to start by saying it wasn’t easy to figure out. Sexuality can easily be difficult to understand, but a lack of it is even more complicated, especially when it’s barely talked about. Everywhere I go, I see sex: movies, books, Tv, comics, music… It’s literally inescapable. Even when I’m at school I hear people talking about sex. So not liking it, or being uninterested in it, didn't even feel like it could be an option, given how ingrained it is in our society. Even in the LGBTQ+ community it’s often frowned upon. It’s true that ace and aro people make up an infinitesimally small part of the world’s population (only about 1%), but that’s still a lot of kids, teens and even adults that struggled to figure themselves out and accept themselves. I was sixteen or seventeen when I stopped questioning whether or not it was normal, and I still find myself wondering if I’m not just confused or plain wrong, even though I know I’m not. I can’t explain how annoying it is to watch a great movie and then BAM! LOOK! NAKED PEOPLE! I will keep saying that “Game of Thrones'' is overrated until the day I die. I was expecting dragons. I ended up spending most of my time watching it skipping all the sex scenes and feeling sorry for all the women actresses that had to walk around naked throughout half the show. I feel angry and saddened when I remember how many people watch that series just so they can look at Emilia Clarke's nude form, especially when she said it was terrifying to film those scenes. So far, the only films I’ve watched that had high amounts of nudity in them, that I thought weren’t ruined because of it, are horror movies, like “Midsommar” and “Titane”, because it actually had a point to it, and wasn’t just eye-candy. Even adverts have provocative imagery in them. I’m sorry to inform you, advert people, but I don’t care if a hot woman is drinking the concoction you’re trying to sell. However, I would like to know what it tastes like.
I also don’t understand how some people are so comfortable when it comes to talking about their sex life. I’ve heard stories about people going into HEAVY detail about how they make love and stuff, and frankly, I’d rather talk about literally anything else. I’m just glad my friends aren’t like that. I’m glad that they took their time to listen to me explain what asexuality was, because they’d only ever heard of it. That’s more than what most would do. It’s not an easy topic to understand. But listening helps a ton. Hearing other people’s experiences and points of view, can open your eyes to a whole new world, or universe, even. And even if you just can’t understand it, you can still be supportive. Support isn’t equivalent to understanding. It means that, despite the fact that you don't understand, you still love and cherish the people around you. Because, after all, it doesn’t really matter, does it? It’s not like the human race is going to go extinct because a few people don’t want to dance the devil’s tango. Besides, people that think like that, are the same ones that will call you a whore for having sex, and then make fun of you when you don’t. They just want an excuse to hate, which is very sad, but at the same time, I’m struggling to give a frick, to be honest. Pun intended. Speaking of puns, let’s talk about some less depressing stuff now, shall we?
Aro+ace representation and asexual humour
Representation is very important. For instance, “She-ra and the princesses of power” helped me a great deal when it came to understanding that I liked women romantically, and not men. If I had seen asexual characters in the stuff I watched, it probably would’ve taken me less than 16-17 years to figure out I was a part of that community. Even in 2024, there’s barely any aromantic and asexual representation in the media. Now, obviously I haven’t watched or read every single film, show, book and whatnot of the planet, so I won’t be talking about every single fictional character that’s on this spectrum. Although, even after looking it up, I didn’t find much. Anyway let’s start with the canonically ace characters I know.
Todd Chavez
Todd Chavez is one of the main characters of Netflix’s animated series “Bojack Horseman”. He lives with Bojack and doesn’t really do much at first, or at least, nothing particularly interesting or impactful, but he will have his moments as the show progresses. He is a very well-written character, especially when it comes to his sexuality. Most times, characters in movies, series or whatever it is you’re immersing yourself in, already know their sexuality. It’s rare to see the journey of someone discovering their sexual and/or romantic interests in TV, but that’s exactly what we get in this show. Todd doesn’t know who he is. Not yet. He dated a girl when he was a teenager, Emily, but when they were about to have sex for the first time, he got scared and ran away, although that was because her father was about to walk in on him and Todd thought he was a mob boss. Eventually, Emily broke up with him, because of his addiction to the “Decapathon” video games.
They are reunited as adults, and Emily tries to start a romantic relationship with him, but everytime she does, he feels more and more uncomfortable without knowing why. Eventually, they talk about his aversion to her advances, and after Todd explains how he feels, Emily suggests that he might gay, to which he replies: “I’m not gay! I mean, I don’t think I am, but, I don’t think I’m straight either. I don’t know what I am. I think I might be nothing”. What I love about Emily is that, after hearing this, she doesn’t act angrily or annoyed or anything like that. She just tells him that it’s okay, and they keep being good friends. He finally realises that he’s asexual in season four, and he comes out to Bojack, who is luckily supportive. He says it feels good to finally say it out loud, so he repeats a few times and at the end of the episode, we see him go to an asexual meetup. That’s it, that’s the end of the episode, as well as the end of his journey of self-discovery and acceptance.
This is easily the best ace representation I’ve seen, and I’m glad that the creators decided not to make him aromantic as well, as those two sexual identities aren’t mutually exclusive. It’s also nice to see a show that doesn’t shy away from talking about lesser-known and/or pretty complicated topics, which “Bojack Horseman” is especially good at.
Esperanza Cruz/Spooner
Esperanza Cruz is one of the more recent additions to the misfit team “legends of tomorrow”. She was kidnapped by aliens as a child, and by the legends as an adult. Because the aliens messed with her head, she assumes that her lack of sexual attraction is one of the things the aliens messed up about her. Luckily, she talks about this with another legend, Zari Tarazi, who knows about asexuality and explains it to her, making sure her friend and teammate understands that it’s a perfectly normal thing to feel and that she’s supported. After hearing this, Spooner seems, at first, a little surprised, but it soon morphs into relief and happiness. All it took for her to find acceptance was a quick chat. Naturally, it isn’t always that easy, but it can be that simple. Ignorance isn’t always bliss.
I love how she mentions that asexual people can still fall in love and be in a romantic relationship, since many people assume asexuality and aromanticism go hand in hand, which they don’t. Unfortunately, the series she’s in got cancelled, so we’ll never know if the writers were going to explore this side of her a bit more. Either way, representation is representation, and Spooner is a perfectly good example for anyone who doesn’t, or does, know about the ace spectrum. It also shows how useful labels can be. I know a lot of people don’t like them, or don’t think they’re necessary, but I've always found them to be very helpful. Sometimes, knowing that what you feel is felt by other people, and even has a name, can be exactly what you need to figure yourself out. And if you’re an overthinker like me, who likes to sort everything into little boxes in their head to make things easier and more organised, labels prove to be extremely useful.
In the title of this section, I mentioned humour. In the same way that every community has their own particular sense of humour, so does the ace one. It mostly consists of jokes about being able to duplicate ourselves like asexual plants, and about our love for cake, dragons, garlic bread and the colour purple. Although my favourite ace memes are the ones about invading Denmark and ending our family's bloodline. That’s pretty much it. Oh wait, I forgot to mention the jokes about us being invisible according to society. We have those too. Okay, time to talk about aroace characters, because I couldn’t find any that are just aro.
Lilith Clawthorne
She’s a witch in an animated show called “The Owl House”, created by the incredibly skilled Dana Terrace. It’s never explicitly said, but the creator did confirm it, and it’s pretty obvious to anyone with a functioning brain. She’s a character that was originally evil, and ended up getting a redemption arc and joining the main cast, which was done very well and made total sense, which, surprisingly, doesn’t happen often. Anyway, that’s pretty much all I have to say, since her sexual orientation isn’t talked about in the show, but it’s still more than most shows and movies have done.
Alastor
Alastor is one of the main characters of the Amazon Prime Video MA (mature audience) rated show “Hazbin Hotel”, set in hell. He is also known by his nickname: “The Radio Demon”, in fact, he speaks through a cane-like microphone that makes his voice sound really cool. Regarding his aroaceness it’s also not explicitly said but, to be fair, he died in 1933, when these terms didn’t exist. It is hinted at when his best friend calls him, and I quote: “an ace in the hole”, which confirmed his sexuality, while also being a really funny moment.
Well, that’s it. These are the only ace, aro and aroace characters I’ve seen in the many forms of entertainment I consume, which is pretty sad. There is a book called “Loveless”, by Alice Oseman which I recommend to anyone that’s interested in learning more about this topic. Hopefully, in the near future, there will be more representation for this side of the LGBTQ+ community, but for now, all we can do is wait.