[Sootmouth]

It's been a long journey for Gerald Tippett, the popular hospital receptionist in New Zealand's homegrown medical soap opera, Shortland Street. But last week, he finally stumbled across the concept of asexuality on the Internet and came out as asexual to his girlfriend.

Below is a link to selected scenes from the asexuality storyline.

http://www.youtube.c...ser/sootmouthnz

I'll hopefully be adding further episodes as they become available.

Happy viewing!

Chris

[Islander9]

Thanks Sootmouth! Really good to see an asexual character on national tv (must admit to not watching 'shortland street' before, but we'll
keep an eye on it from now on-

[Sammie]

Awesome!
I watched the clips and I'm thrilled. They're really dealing with the prejudges about asexuality. The idea that there's a cause, the S.O. not excepting it, the difficulty of talking about it without getting emotional.
"He says he's asexual"
"A sexual what?"
We've all heared that one before.
This is great visibility.

[HD Ready]

I literally just did a youtube search and was going to post up the links to the episodes but you beat me sootmouth *shakes fist*

It's pretty interesting to watch the progression of Geralds character and the reactions of his friends and girlfriend. To the point of trying to fix something that's "wrong" and trying to pinpoint what is wrong. Even the characters having a shot at internet diagnosis, and kind of dismissing it as something crap because it was on the net.

[Sammie]

I got so emotional when he tried to break up because of his asexuality. I've been there. The feeling of "So... I'm asexual, I can't deliver, so I'm useless to her now. She's better of without me." Its the darkest moment.

[XTriformisX]

Tbh, I can't see how they can make it that his innapropriate parents are the ones who made him asexual, as he didn't actually know it was innapropriate. If someone is abused and knows full well it is wrong, fair enough that that's the reason, but looking at that clip, he thought it was normal and wasn't affected by it. So I hope they make it so his asexuality is just who he is, and that the parents thing is made a separate issue.

[Skylark]

Hah, this was both frustrating and interesting. It's definitely a soap opera, all right. They always make every situation as complicated as can possibly be. But on the other hand, it's nice to see asexuality in the media. I do agree with everyone else in that I hope they don't make it seem as if it's caused by abuse, though.

[Coleslaw]

If they make it do to abuse, I will SCREAM! It'd be one foot waaay forward and then two steps waaay back.

However, I'm really looking forward to seeing how this will play out... They're doing a great job with the whole coming out story process, and, soap opera, I know, so it might end with something like, "You can't be asexual because you were abused. Asexuals are naturally born that way... But we can try and help you get through it" just to ensue with the more drama... Iunno. I really hope they keep him asexual and the abuse part is explored but goes no where.

[jaybird721]

Seconded [or thirded? or fourthed? or...]!

I suppose even if he is Repressed Because of Childhood Sexual Abuse we have still gotten a little visibility, but that's still a cheap out. I certainly hope they keep up with a more honest exploration of his character and sexuality...

[Cicero]

Hehe, 'I keep a stash of travel mags under my bed, it's kind of like my porn'

[asexual1976]

Yay for visibility !

The storyline so far was fairly balances and fairly realistic.
However I agree that they'll most probably end up making him a sexual abuse victim so that they can cure him.
After all , it's a soap opera .... and I doubt the TV public is ready for an aseuxal relationship yet.

[SlightlyMetaphysical]

Wow. It's all there on-screen, all that stuff that the vast majority of us relate to. That bit where he reads 'Asexuality is the sexuality of people who do not experience sexual attraction", that bit that appears on the AVEN front page and that I call the magic words, I could remember how it hits you right between the eyes. Does anyone know how they reasearched this?
Oh, and 04, when he goes through that phase where he quickly goes from a-positive to antisexual just to explore all that amazing new territory. So been there. If it's truly realistic, he'll calm down soon.
Gosh, I hope they conclude that it's not been caused by anything obvious. As far as I can see, that's the way it's going, but who can tell.

On a random tangent, I accidentally loaded up all the videos at once. It was terrifying. Like the worst kind of auditary hallucination *shivers*

[Sootmouth]

Skylark, on Jul 22 2008, 03:42 AM, said:

Hah, this was both frustrating and interesting. It's definitely a soap opera, all right. They always make every situation as complicated as can possibly be. But on the other hand, it's nice to see asexuality in the media. I do agree with everyone else in that I hope they don't make it seem as if it's caused by abuse, though.

I can't honestly see them making abuse the cause (he says, with his fingers crossed and muttering prayers under his breath). It would be such a copout and would run directly against all the (generally) positive media coverage that asexuality has had here in New Zealand.

Then again...

(Shuts eyes and tries not to think about it).

Chris

[Cicero]

Has there been a lot of coverage of asexuality in NZ then? I know the community there seems quite active. Would the general public be familiar with it?

[Sammie]

SlightlyMetaphysical, on Jul 22 2008, 12:23 AM, said:

Does anyone know how they reasearched this?
Oh, and 04, when he goes through that phase where he quickly goes from a-positive to antisexual just to explore all that amazing new territory. So been there. If it's truly realistic, he'll calm down soon.

Yeah, it IS veyr much like a real asexual might go through discovering his/her asexuality.
Maybe they lurked on the website a long time, or just have an asexual writer on staff putting in his two cents?

[Sootmouth]

Cicero, on Jul 22 2008, 06:29 PM, said:

Has there been a lot of coverage of asexuality in NZ then? I know the community there seems quite active. Would the general public be familiar with it?

The general public might not be too familiar with it I suppose. But I wouldn't be surprised if Shortland Street first got the idea for this storyline from the pretty positive profile article that appeared in one of our major Sunday newspapers last year.

And for a punishing rundown of our activities, including another recent article in the other major Sunday newspaper, please see http://www.asexuality.org.nz/news.htm

[Cicero]

Thanks for the link, that's a really good site, really easy to see what's going on.

[Coleslaw]

The fan's comments on their message board make me feel like, well, crap. "Just come out as gay already" and "Enough of the abuse. Just have sex and stop whining" and the like. We have a lot of work to do...

[jaybird721]

*sigh*

I really hope they keep pursuing this - we could really use some legitimacy here, especially with responses like that.

[Sootmouth]

jaybird721, on Jul 27 2008, 04:23 PM, said:

*sigh*

I really hope they keep pursuing this - we could really use some legitimacy here, especially with responses like that.

I don't think we should worry too much about what appears on these message boards. Shortland Street has a young demographic and so their message boards are bound to have idiotic responses from posters wanting to shock.

In terms of visibility I've always been much more concerned about the asexual message reaching asexuals than non-asexuals, and that is something that this Shortland Street storyline can achieve in a much more effective manner than any strategy AANZ could possibly come up with.

[Islander9]

Thanks Sootmouth for the (can one say 'usual'?) excellent job!
Yep, we do have broadband way out in the wopwops, but I actually took it off Youtube via addresses given.
Probably wont make me watch "Shortland Street" again (I can honestly state those were the first full extracts let alone
episodes I've ever watched) but let no-one outside of ANZ despise the power of our longest-running indigenous soapie...
the mailboard is of a young demograpgic (hell, they've grown up with it!) who do tend to be less than subtle with commentary,
but v. obviously the show's writers have done their research: like everyone here, I do hope they dont opt for the 'aww, he was sexually abused as a kid sooo"
but that is most definitely*not* the message that has gone out to the public at large - just, asexuals exist and we asexuals are OK with that-

[Ily]

Thanks so much for posting this! America is SO behind!

[Sootmouth]

Just uploaded the latest episodes. There's a great line near the end of episode 12:

Mum: But it's just not possible, not liking sex.
Gerald: I'm not the only one, there are hordes of us! Go google it or something!

[jaybird721]

I love the dialogue... it's amazing, really, compared to American soaps. I've seen precious few of them [usually 10 seconds while channel surfing as I try to figure out whether something decent is on] and whenever a character opens their mouth I want to shake the writers.

[GoAllyGoGo]

I'm not all the way through the clips yet, but where I'm at Morgan is really annoying me. She just can't accept it and she's so suspicious of his parents. Ugh. Anyways, thanks for posting these!

[Coleslaw]

Kay. I'm officially the happiest "asixsual" in the world, after watching the newest ones.

Why is New Zealand so much cooler than Canada/the US?

[GoAllyGoGo]

So... is this the first ever out asexual on TV? I wish American TV would have one. I finished watching the storyline and I feel so happy. I want more! I also kind of want to show it to everyone I can, but should probably refrain from that.

[Hound]

That's an interesting storyline. I hope they keep doing it as well as they are right now.

[jaybird721]

Awesome, they didn't chicken out! I hope they keep with it...

[amum]

Thanks heaps for all this work. I was so excited to see 5 more episodes to watch. Looks like Gerald is pulling through. I wish he was real!!!

I so agree with you that this is the better visibiliby than anything we (AANZ) could achieve on our own but no doubt a result of your hard work to date. Yay!

But why aren't we being swamped by NZ As?