With queer characters finally having their moment in the media, why are ace characters constantly forgotten about?
BY GRACE CROWLEY, IMAGE BY NETFLIX
“Headcanoning” is something you are probably familiar with if you grew up queer and on the internet. Headcanons are traits that fans give characters to add to their interpretation of them. There is no explicit evidence to support these traits, but fans believe them to be true anyway. Some very popular headcanons are Eloise Bridgerton being a lesbian, Supernatural’s Dean Winchester being bisexual and, probably the most popular of them all, BBC’s Sherlock Holmes being asexual.
Headcanoning still happens but with more recent positive queer representation in media, the need for it is widely decreasing. Thanks to the work of shows like The Bisexual and The Sex Lives Of College Girls, many queer people can access media they can relate to, but this still isn’t the case for asexual people. In a world where representation finally matters, why is it that asexual people are left out?
A harmful and unfortunately common misconception about asexual people is that they are simply choosing to be celibate. The confusion between this sexuality and a lifestyle can be invalidating. It makes it seem as though it’s a choice, which we know sexuality is not. Because of this, many people don’t understand asexuality and don’t feel it is relatable enough of an experience in the mainstream – unlike sex-driven narratives.
These stories are everywhere – think Bridgerton, A League Of Their Own and Queer As Folk. Hollywood creates films centering sexual relationships as they think this is the only thing that sells. Only now are we getting very diverse love stories, and non-sexual relationships on screen are somewhat new territory. The problem then is that by not making narratives about them, the industry seems to not care about them. It sends the message that sex sells, and diversity does not.
The reality however is completely different. Viewers are hungry for diverse stories! There are a few canon asexual characters in TV now, most notably Isaac Henderson. Heartstopper debuted at number one on Netflix in 2022 and every series since has been met with the same success. In the most recent series, viewers watched Isaac confirm being asexual, which fans had speculated about excitedly for months. As well as this, the fourth series of Sex Education introduced the new character Sarah ‘O’ Owen, an asexual sex therapist. The series followed her rivalry with Otis which made her a central character.
As well as this, Gen Z has had a serious shift in thinking when it comes to sex on screen in general. According to a UCLA study, nearly 52% of young people want more platonic relationships on screen. This only further disproves Hollywood’s understanding that sex is the only thing that gives media value. Gen Z has grown up with unrestricted internet access and has consumed ineffable amounts of content. We know what sex is and we know how it happens – now we want to watch things where that isn’t the focus. Creating more meaningful asexual stories would validate a huge group of people’s identities whilst still having mass-market appeal.
So we know why people don’t understand asexuality, but what do we do to change that? Like everything, there must be well-informed, accessible media for people to understand a topic. There are thousands of remarkable fanfictions on Wattpad and Archive Of Our Own tagged “asexual”. If these voices were given a bigger platform, asexuality wouldn’t still be so misunderstood by allosexual people and would normalise desire outside of sex. We have to make space in the arts for these narratives and understand what asexual relationships look like.
Ace communities have worked for the LGBTQIA visibility we have today, and we cannot stop until everyone sees their stories on screen. Asexual stories have been headcannoned for long enough – it’s time asexuality is explicit!
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