I'm surprised there weren't more people pouncing on this topic, but someone has to start it, I suppose. Here we go (although something tells me VFD is going to be able to say it all a dozen times better than I can).
Being ace, from my experience, is very much like having a cool superpower in a lot of ways. You're immune from crushes and potentially embarrassing high school relationships, but you still can make great friends and have a lot of fun. I've found a lot of clarity in my life, most of which I attribute to the fact I'm ace - it deletes a lot of the social worry and stress that some friends of mine experience - partly because I don't get a head full of fog all the time; it's kind of like X-ray vision through vacuous, superfluous silliness. But possibly the least fun part about having the ace superpower is the fact that you are invisible. No one sees you on television, in books, and even sometimes in everyday life. You are so undercover that no one will ever know your identity.
And sometimes when you tell someone you're an ace superhero, they tell you it's not possible. To some people, asexuality either 1. doesn't exist, or 2. is only for plants. I put that down to high school biology and ace erasure from media.
(Sorry for the metaphor, but it's just so much fun).
Thinking back, I'm having extraordinary difficulty even thinking of characters who were confirmed as asexual. In fact, the only one I can think of is Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes. So naturally, we're going to take a gander at the BBC version.
For those who haven't watched it, I'll give a brief summary. It is set in modern London, with Sherlock Holmes as a "cold, techie, slightly Aspergerish" high-functioning sociopath and John Watson as an injured army doctor with more tenacious loyalty than most dogs, to be honest. Between them, they solve crimes (Sherlock solves, John follows doggedly), which vary in severity and what have you.
What makes it relevant to this topic is the fact that Sherlock Holmes (actor: Benedict Cumberbatch) is also asexual. Well, that's actually where things get squiffy. He's /supposed/ to be, according to various journalistic scribblings and also according to Benedict Cumberbatch himself, but it seems that co-director Steven Moffat has other ideas.
(Going to be honest right now, I don't like Moffat too much).
From an interview (which I don't suggest you read if you plan on seeing the show, as there are spoilers):
www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/2012/jan/20/steven-moffat-sherlock-doctor-whoThis is one of the reasons I don't like Moffat. According to him, people with asexuality lack the inherent ability to be interesting in any way, shape or form. Maybe I am arrogant in taking offence to that, but I think not.
Having read just about all of the original Doyle works about Sherlock Holmes, I came to the conclusion he was ace. I thought it was obvious and refreshingly so. In most circumstances, I like it when people think outside of the box - it's good and enjoyable to see someone's new take on an older text. This, however, is different, because asexuality is not in the media.
Asexuals don't get to have role models or characters that have that one trait in common with them, and just about everyone else does (this leads on, of course, to the fact that other sexualities and genders aren't "fun" or popular in media either). While it's true there's not much in the BBC Sherlock to suggest all that much about his personal life - depending on your perspective, I suppose - I was pretty irritated that it was kept purposefully ambiguous. It might make sense when appealing cleverly to a wide audience (BBC Sherlock is notorious for 'queerbating'), but it's pretty lame for ace kids who thought they'd finally get a popular ace character going about the place. The suppose the question is: is BBC Sherlock so popular because Sherlock is ambiguous, or would be able to stand on its own without having to lean on the maybe-he's-gay crutch?
I don't know the answer. Maybe you do. I like to think the general population have the capacity to enjoy a text that has an ace main character, but then, I'm not so sure.
I mean, some of those same people ask, "Not thinking about sex/acting on impulses? What do you /do/ all day?" (To which I am admittedly very inclined to answer that if most people spend all their time doing thinking about sex and alike, that explains why the world is in such a state and that someone needs to fix it, don't they? That's what I'm doing all day. Ehehehehe.)
But I'm getting side-tracked.
Ten showed me this, and I think it needs to be shared with everyone - especially if you think ace characters are boring, because that's rude and you're wrong.
acentric.tumblr.com/post/25162931617/re-moffat-and-the-fans-who-agree-asexuality-is-boringThere is also this, which is worth a read:
tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AsexualityAnd it reminded me of another big-name ace character in the media, and that would be Sheldon Cooper from the Big Bang Theory. I haven't seen much of it, but from the little I've seen, I've noticed a marked trend in characters who are supposedly ace.
They're all a bit weird.
So I'm led to wondering if asexuality isn't tacked onto the character as well, to add to the "weird, alien-esque effect of not-particularly-or-relatably-human-for-most-people", just to make them that little more bit out-there. The implication would be that you can't be ace and "normal", that being ace makes you abnormal, or being abnormal has correlation with also being ace. That's a bit mean to imply, although I can't refute it on personal experience, ehehehe.
Since I started this meandering with a metaphor, it makes sense (not really) to end with one, and so there's this, which I find endlessly amusing.
tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Quotes/AsexualityIt's not much I've written, but it's something, so natter away everyone. I'd really like to hear thoughts on this subject (since it's basically impossible to see it anywhere else).
And this, I feel, is a mindset symptomatic of a culture which completely excludes the possibility of truly deep and powerful platonic relationships. Ugh, I can't find a way to verbalize everything I'm trying to say, but I feel like shippers think that if a relationship is interesting then it has to have rex and if it doesn't have rex it's boring, while at the same time believing that a character has to eventually fall in romantic/sexual love in order for them to have a truly fulfilling character arc (which is one facet of a society that results in asexual and aromantic people internalizing a lot of erasure, dismissal and hatred)
Platonic relationships of all degrees do not have their own word - you do not "raft" them, or use any other kind of boating slang (as fun as that would be). Because of this, platonic relationships are invisible in comparison to rex ones, and that's the only real flaw I can see with shipping phenomenon - both with fans, and with media. There is no equality when it comes to categorising or expressing fan-involvement.
