This aspec rep trope feels aphobic
An ace trope with conversiony vibes and better alternatives
I first noticed it while reading comics on the WEBTOON app. There were a surprising number with asexual-spectrum characters as parts of the main romantic pairing… But their ace-spec experiences looked more like conventional, problematic romance tropes around fetishizing virginity and finding “the one”––the only one they ever would be or could be attracted to––than about anything that resonated with me as an ace-spec person.
Just this year, I’ve read three queer romance novels that I can list as examples of this trope as well:
How to Sell You Blood and Fall in Love, by D.N. Bryn
Something Fabulous, by Alexis Hall
The Charm Offensive, by Alison Cochrun
You’d think I was reading queer romance novels full-time to have run into this trope so many times, but it’s just that prevalent. It’s probably even the vast majority of aspec (asexual and aromantic spectrum) representation combined when it comes to main characters in romance works. While I know there are some aspec people who feel seen in these works, I personally feel violated, and politically I think they’re doing the exact opposite of what aspec romance should be doing: Replacing compulsory sexuality and compulsory romanticism with new ways of imagining ourselves living happily.
(Note: I love all the listed authors’ work and I’m only quarreling with this one harmful aspect of it.)
What the trope is
Here’s what this trope looks like, in each of the novels listed above:
You start with two main characters who are destined by the logic of the novel to end up together. One of them seems to be asexual and aromantic––they’re in their late 20s in I think each of the novels I mentioned above, but they’ve never been sexually or romantically attracted to anyone, despite in most cases having made extensive attempts at dating and trying to force themself to feel that way.
There’s a slow-burn where they develop feelings for their allosexual fellow romantic lead, who’s been attracted to them the whole time. Once they get into a sexual and romantic relationship, their feelings are 100% as strong as those of any allo romance lead (or about 300% as strong as most real people’s). They can have a consistent, long-term romantic and sexual relationship in which they have normative and highly pleasurable sex on a regular basis.
The WEBTOON variations on this trope tend not to have all these features, but they do consistently portray a character who’s only attracted to one person, whether they started the comic out that way or developed that attraction through the same slow-burn. In both novels and comics, there may be a sense that the aspec character is trapped with and dependent on their love interest because they’ll likely never be able to find someone they have feelings for again. This may be stated explicitly and be part of the driving force in the plot, causing them to get back together with someone despite compelling reasons not to do so.
Why this trope feels so violating
Most aspec people I personally know have felt (and often continue to feel) various forms of attraction and desire that are similar to sexual and romantic attraction, or are those forms of attraction but are weak and/or short-lived. Many, including myself, have repeatedly harmed ourselves trying to pursue normative sexual and romantic relationships due to socialization that says those are the best thing ever, or are required to be a full human/adult in our society. That harm takes severe forms, such as:
Repeatedly consenting to (or more-or-less going along with) traumatic sexual encounters
Constantly feeling undesirable and unworthy as a member of society for not having a partner or being repeatedly rejected by partners for not having the “right” types of romantic feelings
A friend who was hospitalized for an eating disorder relating to obsessively trying to become desirable (and therefore worthy) as someone who will never be validated as desirable by sexual partners (since there’s no one this person could enjoy sex with)
The trauma from well over a decade of attempting to comply with compulsory sexuality and romanticism lives in my body, and I see its life in the bodies of people I love.
In order to stop re-traumatizing ourselves and living in a chronic state of anxiety and inferiority, we have to stop trying to fit ourselves into compulsory sexuality and/or romanticism. Anything that encourages us to continue that internalized abuse is at least distantly akin to conversion therapy and does direct harm if we’re not able to defend ourselves from it. This trope––seen over and over again in queer romance novels and comics––is repackaging the narrative we’ve already been told over and over from a heteronormative and allonormative lens, that we just have to keep trying and meet the right person, that to get a “happy ending” we need a normative romantic and sexual partner and the ability to feel sexual pleasure, but sticking a demisexual or other aspec pride flag on the deadly poison that is that narrative. This is why it’s violating. It’s hitting us where we’ve already been kicked while flying our own banner.
In How to Sell You Blood and Fall in Love, the actual text of the novel even has the character questioning their orientation but telling themself (and being told by a loved one they confide their situation in) that because they experience aego sexual and romantic desire through fanfiction and strongly want to feel those things for a real person, there must be someone out there for them. Unfortunately, the narrative completely confirms this, instead of doing something more complicated that I was holding out hope for, such as having the character fall in love romantically but not experience normative sexual desire yet work it out with their allosexual partner as an example of a good aspec partnership that’s queer in a way that simply being same-gender isn’t. This idea, that someone who’s distressed at being ace can’t be ace, is prevalent even among aspec people sometimes and is pushed institutionally by the DSM, which Sherronda J. Brown points out in Refusing Compulsory Sexuality has a carve-out around pathologizing low desire for people who identify as ace––not people who are asexual, only those who identify that way. Many psych professionals seem to believe that “true” asexuals are not distressed by being asexual, and that distress is a sign that you need treatment, i.e. conversion therapy that remains legal for asexuals even where it isn’t for lesbian, gay, and bi/pansexual people. To have a well-written, otherwise lovely aspec romance completely confirm this aphobic and harmful myth is galling.
What aspec fiction needs to look like instead
There’s a boundless space of aspec experience out there, and so much diversity that it stuns me with its nuanced, complex beauty every time I read or listen to other aspec people’s stories or think about my own experience of being with the reverence it deserves. But what I’m seeing is the most-common aspec rep falling into that tiny sliver of aspec experience that’s the most romantically and sexually normative, reinscribing the exact norms we’re fighting against for our survival and wellbeing. We need to move beyond that.
Challenging compulsory sexuality and romanticism
The biggest thing that aspec fic needs to do, even more important than having aspec characters, is dismantle and replace the socialization that makes those of us who can’t perform normative sexual and romantic roles hurt and hate ourselves for it.
For that reason, I actually consider fiction like The Queen’s Gambit on Netflix an example of good aspec fiction, even though there are no (known) aspec characters. The main character has sexual experiences that aren’t portrayed as the best feeling anyone could ever have, which helps to loosen the grip of compulsory sexuality on the ace-spec viewer. She doesn’t end up with the person she has a romantic crush on, nor with any of the people she dates or hooks up with along the way. Yet she has a happy ending, supported by her exes and other platonic friends––creating an alternative to the compulsory romanticism that “rewards” so many heroes of non-romance stories with a kiss or a romantic commitment once they slay their dragon. And it even seems to portray the complexities of orientation in a way that resonates with me as an aspec person: Her love interest is (in one interpretation) gay, but becomes overcome by his aesthetic, intellectual, and emotional attraction to her and in what he calls a “confused” state attempts to sleep with her.
But you can do this with actual aspec rep as well, and even in the romance genre: Loveless by Alice Oseman is a platonic love story and coming-out story with an aroace lead who discovers and accepts her identity; This Doesn’t Mean Anything by Sarah Whalen is a romance between an asexual character and a (probably) graysexual love interest; and even the third book in Alexis Hall’s series whose first installment has this trope seems slated to be about an allosexual aromantic character who was always super into romance finally coming into her own after accepting that she doesn’t have romance in her future. What I most would like to see is stories about people navigating the complexities of intimacy in a wide range of ways, including ones with ace-spec characters in non-normative sexual relationships and aromantic characters who form partnerships both with people who do and don’t have romantic feelings for them. (It’s not romance, but shoutout to Rebecca Schaeffer’s YA horror series Market of Monsters for having an aroace second lead and an aspec first lead end up together in a queerplatonic relationship that they negotiate through frank conversation.)
There’s also just so much untapped potential for storytelling around the ace experience. For example, the comic Don’t Fall For Flint by crunchysporks has an ensemble cast united by the farcical premise that they’re almost all in love with the most attractive boy in school, the titular Flint, who’s heavily aroace-coded (and seems to suspect that identity internally but be wrestling with it) but who’s also a people-pleaser. It’s unclear how much his constant flirtation is sheer accident, stemming from typical aroace obliviousness to unrelatable sexual and romantic attractions, vs a conscious but reflexive people-pleasing response. The allo characters develop their friendships with their aroace crush while starting to spark romances with one another in a truly delightful and heartwarming way that I wish would become a romantic comedy trope.
Demi/gray romance leads
Demisexual/demiromantic characters absolutely deserve a space in fiction. One series with a demi romantic lead that I recommend is Novae by KaiJu. This neatly avoids the weird virginity trope vibes, and the “corrective romance” for an aroace character, by having the demi character start out having had one past relationship. A number of other queer comics I’ve read identify certain characters as demi from the start (and I love the ones who are only demiromantic or only demisexual, not both, since those give nuanced and interesting views on love, dating, and sexuality!). You can’t run into much of the problematic stuff if you start out with a character who knows they’re demi or who doesn’t know that label but has past experiences with sexual/romantic attraction and/or partners.
I’m not demi or the less-common type of gray-ace portrayed in these stories that could completely enjoy normative sex with the vanishingly rare right person (rather than us more-common gray aces who experience some degree of desire but not enough to sustain a normative sexual relationship), so I can’t advise on how to write about people who think they’re ace discovering that they’re demi. However, I can draw a line and say that since it’s overdone and at the risk of reinforcing harmful tropes, you probably shouldn’t do it unless you’re drawing on your own experiences. If you’re just trying to include aspec rep, think about all the other kinds of aspec people out there and try to write an actual aspec relationship, not someone’s once-in-a-lifetime exception that makes them completely fit into compulsory sexual and romantic norms as long as they stay with this one person who they can feel that for.
And if you do want to write a story drawing on these experiences as real experiences, don’t let internalized genre conventions co-opt your reality to support all the problematic stuff. You can duck compulsory romanticism and sexuality by having things go wrong, and not in a way that gets fixed in the third act before the couple rides off into the sunset. You can portray happy endings that don’t involve being coupled and sexually active. You can have a first relationship be just as doomed as most relationships are. I think you should shy away from any virgin fetishization and the idea that two people are destined to be together––unless you’ve really gotta have these kinks, it’s clearly problematic when the part that’s “romantic” is that someone’s inexperienced or has no real choice to say no.
Conclusion
Aspec people should be centered in conversations about asexual and aromantic representation, and if representation is hurting us, it’s bad representation. It would be outrageous if the majority of queer romances had a character who was initially presented as homosexual turn out to be bi and pursue the one other-gender partner they’re attracted to like their future happiness depended on their ability to grab this one chance of fitting into heteronormativity. Aspec romances shouldn’t be about fitting into allonormativity. Most of us don’t, never will, and most importantly need narratives to give us permission to stop trying.
That said, part of why I’m so honored to be part of the aspec community is that I believe deeply that dismantling romantic and sexual norms and replacing them with many kinds of love and community will help everyone, allos including. I believe it’s vitally necessary to let go of the idea of the romantic couple as the survival unit in order to replace capitalism with sustainable communities of care. The best aspec fiction will honor all of who we are, leading us to better understand ourselves outside these systems of oppression, and give us models for how to build a better life as we struggle to keep the real world livable.