How NOT to introduce an asexual character
Oct. 16th, 2017 01:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rainwatersparkSort of a sequel to my previous post, since the same book I was talking about there provoked this post as well.
(Content warning: discussion of sexual assault in a fictional context)
In the aforementioned book, there is a character who is described as uninterested in sex and possibly even repulsed by it. When he is introduced to his love interest, during their first meeting, said future love interest gropes him and, when the protagonist has an extremely negative reaction, the love interest gives a half-hearted, backhanded apology.
You might be thinking—as I did—that, first of all, this is not a good way to set up the love interest as anything other than a massive dick (no pun intended). And there's a whole other post to be written about how it's disturbing that many readers are conditioned to view things like unwanted kisses/groping as not even rising to the level of sexual assault when they do.
But the part I wanted to talk about in this post was why this interaction between these two characters was written in this book. Because my very strong impression was that the protagonist gets sexually assaulted by his "love interest" in order to establish his asexuality/sex repulsion.
That is not okay.
Using sexual assault to establish a character's sex repulsion/asexuality is horrifically unimaginative and harmful to ace-spec readers who may be reading your story. There are so many other ways to convey sex repulsion without victimizing your ace-spec character and conveying harmful ideas about how sex must be present in a relationship and the allosexual love interest won't be able to "help themselves" from sexually assaulting the sex-repulsed character.
I don't know what else to say other than don't? Do this??
(Content warning: discussion of sexual assault in a fictional context)
In the aforementioned book, there is a character who is described as uninterested in sex and possibly even repulsed by it. When he is introduced to his love interest, during their first meeting, said future love interest gropes him and, when the protagonist has an extremely negative reaction, the love interest gives a half-hearted, backhanded apology.
You might be thinking—as I did—that, first of all, this is not a good way to set up the love interest as anything other than a massive dick (no pun intended). And there's a whole other post to be written about how it's disturbing that many readers are conditioned to view things like unwanted kisses/groping as not even rising to the level of sexual assault when they do.
But the part I wanted to talk about in this post was why this interaction between these two characters was written in this book. Because my very strong impression was that the protagonist gets sexually assaulted by his "love interest" in order to establish his asexuality/sex repulsion.
That is not okay.
Using sexual assault to establish a character's sex repulsion/asexuality is horrifically unimaginative and harmful to ace-spec readers who may be reading your story. There are so many other ways to convey sex repulsion without victimizing your ace-spec character and conveying harmful ideas about how sex must be present in a relationship and the allosexual love interest won't be able to "help themselves" from sexually assaulting the sex-repulsed character.
I don't know what else to say other than don't? Do this??
