asexual fictional character(s)?

[snow_splat]

Okay, so apologies if this topic has been posted into the ground. I'm a n00b. ;)

One of my favourite TV shows of all time (laugh if you want :P) is Xena: Warrior Princess. A lot of people have suggested that the characters Xena and Gabrielle are in a romantic, asexual relationship. The series depicts them as soulmates and life partners; they have a kid together, hug/touch/kiss/declare their love for one another many many times, but there's no sex or even an allusion to it between them - while there blatantly is with other characters in the show.

What other (potentially) asexual fictional characters are out there?

[l'héros]

I've always thought of Bilbo and Frodo Baggins from Lord of the Rings as asexual. Gandalf, of course, too, but he's a bit different.

[Amcan]

The search function is your friend. Also we have two posts on this on the first page of the library forum (in fact they are are near the top of the page). It's not hard to find them:

http://asexuality.org/discussion/viewtopic.php?t=23520

http://asexuality.org/discussion/viewtopic.php?t=19739

[Remote]

I think I've found one of the earliest asexual characters to appear in a TV show - Lawrence Kirbridge from a 70's period drama called Upstairs,Downstairs. He loves his wife but has no desire to sleep with her. He wants to have a purely emotional relationship without any physical aspect. However, she is unable to live without sex and ultimately they seperate. The character is presented as inherently asexual though there is a suggestion that in his case it is linked to a highly refined 'artistic temperament'.

[Usernamecolonasterisk]

I would say that Moss from the IT Crowd could be asexual. But that programme isn't really focused on romantic relationships the way, for example, Coupling does, so it may just be because it's kind of irrelevant.

[citadel]

Mulder and Scully! The relationship of perfection. (Except when they had that alien baby in the end.)

Holmes and Watson.

The Doctor is supposed to be asexual, too, but I've never watched Doctor Who, so.

[AVENCakes]

The Doctor is supposed to be asexual, too, but I've never watched Doctor Who, so.

The Doctor is a Time Lord, so he's not human. I've only watched the recent ones, and in it it seems like he always has a female "companion" with him, and she generally falls in love with him- but he doesn't seem to look at her like that, though I swear that with Rose he got jealous of the guys she liked a few times and when she "died" he acted like they killed someone very, very important to him. So- he might be asexual, but it's hard to tell.

In the one I saw last night, it got weird, because {SPOILER ALERT} he turned human and had a relationship with a human woman and he loved her and wanted to marry her and all that. But then he went back to being a Time Lord and, well, he asked the woman to be his Companion, but it didn't seem like it was the same relationship.

I dunno, it's all very confusing to me.

[Jean Claude]

Hardcore Whoovians will argue that the Doctor is asexual, and have theories that Time Lords aren't created through sexual reproduction...

However, with the relaunch of Doctor Who in 2005, Russel T Davies (the series producer) said that he wanted to gently explore his sexuality.

[AndAPickle?]

Dexter! (one of the many reasons I love him)

[Eddie7]

Obligatory Arthur Martin post.

[Grimme]

I've often thought that Sherlock Holmes is asexual. As a fellow who lived his life with logic as his be-all-and-end-all, he didn't have time for nor was interested in romance. He may have fallen in love with a woman in "Scandal in Bohemia" as he always revered her and kept a photograph of her in his desk thereafter, but he would never speak of it as love (such emotions are too trivial for a logical man such as himself :P).

[no exit]

Hardcore Whoovians will argue that the Doctor is asexual, and have theories that Time Lords aren't created through sexual reproduction...

Well, it's not just fan theories, that information comes from the books! It's just a matter of whether you consider the books canon or not.

I haven't read them, so I don't have strong feelings about that . . . but I do consider him pretty asexual, which doesn't preclude him feeling love for a companion.

[andym25]

Greg Egan is a sci-fi writer from Perth who plays around with gender and sexuality a bit in his characters.

He has a book called Diaspora in particular that has a lot of characters that are software-based and can redefine themselves at will. A bunch of them are asexual, not identifiably gendered etc. Keeping the whole historical "sex" thing going between software beings is treated as quaint and regressive by a lot of them, although there are various kinds of merging sans bodily fluids that go on.

The book is also very good and has IMO a devastatingly bleak final section, if you're into the hard stuff and don't mind the occasional digression into topology (Greg Egan is also a mathematician)!

andy

[AndAPickle?]

Both Jeeves and Wooster.

[Cygnus]

I think in the Full Metal Alchemist manga and anima Col. Mustange is Asexy.

[EmmaRose]

- The Doctor. I don't care what you all say, he IS asexual. A romantic asexual, to be sure, but asexual all the same.

- Jeeves and Wooster, both of them. A romantic friendship if ever one existed, but still asexual. I mean, really: can you EVER picture Bertie getting it on with anyone of any gender? I didn't think so. It just seems wrong somehow. And Jeeves is maybe a bit more believable, but not really. It's obvious that he harbours some romantic feeling for Bertie (he is always getting him out of those engagements after all,) but I can't really see him ever actually trying to do anything physical with Bertie or anyone else, for that matter. I don't know, maybe it's just because he's so guarded, but Jeeves just really doesn't come across as a sexual to me. And I doubt Bertie even knows what sex is.

- I wouldn't consider Xena or Gabrielle asexual, but I would consider them to be in a romantic friendship with each other, definatly.

- Same goes with Frodo Baggins and Sam Gamgee. Sam isn't asexual, but he's not lusting after Frodo, even though Frodo means the world to him. I do think that Frodo is asexual though, and so is Bilbo, although I don't know if that is just how they are or if the Ring had an affect in this.

-Sometimes I wonder if Radar from MASH is asexual. He sometimes seems like he wants to loose his virginity, but it seems more like he wants that because that is what society expects of him more than him actually wanting it, you know?

- I forgot Mr. Bean. Haha.

[pico_the_great]

Seconding Dexter. This is an awesome thing in the show, and I'm wondering if it'll continue to the second season.

Sherlock Holmes has always struck me as A, and I'd even argue about Irene Adler - to quote

To Sherlock Holmes she is always the woman. I have seldom

heard him mention her under any other name. In his eyes she

eclipses and predominates the whole of her sex. It was not that

he felt any emotion akin to love for Irene Adler.

and

...and how the best plans of Mr. Sherlock

Holmes were beaten by a woman's wit. He used to make merry

over the cleverness of women, but I have not heard him do it of

late. And when he speaks of Irene Adler, or when he refers to

her photograph, it is always under the honourable title of the

woman.

I wouldn't call it love - there's admiration in there, for someone smarter than him, and there's respect, and there's incredulity; I don't think love comes into it. He seems aromantic - obvs. he's capable of forming friendship bonds (Watson, eg), but romantic ones, notsomuch.

[KAGU143]

The Fool/Amber/Lord Golden -

a literary character in the trilogy of trilogies by Robin Hobb.

[lillylovelost]

A third for Dexter! I love Dexter. When he talked about sex in the pilot and his no interest in it, I was happy!

I'm also writing a tv pilot with a girl who is asexual in it. She's a romantic asexual. Her older sister has a kid with an ex husband. Her younger sister is a total sexual being.

[iff]

in the book "on chesil beach" by ian mcewen, the characther of Florence is asexual (though that could count as a spoiler

in "atomised" by michel houellebecq (which is also a film), michel djurzinski is asexual

both of which are main characthers

[AndAPickle?]

A third for Dexter! I love Dexter. When he talked about sex in the pilot and his no interest in it, I was happy!

I'm also writing a tv pilot with a girl who is asexual in it. She's a romantic asexual. Her older sister has a kid with an ex husband. Her younger sister is a total sexual being.

You should read the books. He's wicked A in the books. Heavy on the wicked.

Also Data. :D And how I love him for it!

[nick007]

Am I the only one who thinks the Man With the Yellow Hat from Curies George is asexul??

[badlydrawngirl]

Am I the only one who thinks the Man With the Yellow Hat from Curies George is asexul??

The Man in the Yellow Hat was so asexual! Good one.

[SorryNotSorry]

I think if Mr. Spock was a real guy, he'd be A. The Star Trek encyclopedia sez he was engaged to a female Vulcan named T'pring, but for some reason, the union didn't pan out. Experience has shown me that guys who are all logic, really suck at dating or hitting on women.

Not to be outdone, before I began writing my novel, I thought long and hard about Lewis Carroll's Alice and L. Frank Baum's Dorothy Gale, and christened my story's character Vera Quenby Stilwell. She's very girlish but also very intelligent (come on, how many young ladies do you know who like to wear white skirts and tights, and read science books?), and is an outcast. Oh, and she's A. I think the lovely Vera may do wonders for teenage girls who feel excluded, if I can ever get this mother into print! :?

[JokeyFairbobbin]

...someone mentioned the Doctor? :P I think the Doctor cares about people (Rose, for example), sometimes very deeply, but not so much in a romantic way. The episode where he becomes human- his relationship with that woman was definitely romantic, and there were a lot of references to his ability (or the lack thereof) to fall in love, but there wasn't much mention of the sexual aspects of that relationship (but I guess we're just supposed to assume that duh, all romantic relationships include sex, right?).

I think it's interesting that a lot of apparently asexual or aromantic characters are aliens, robots, or fundamentally nonhuman in some other way (like Mr. Spock and Data). I think a lot of sci-fi and fantasy authors throw in characters like that to suggest that the ability to feel a certain way towards another person is an innately human ability, and to explore how this helps or hurts human progress in general (Data and his emotion chip, anyone?). Sex drive just seems to get caught up in there with love most of the time.

[newgirl]

We need to see more books(romantic,nonfiction,fiction,sci-fi),TV show and Movies with asexual characters.I love reading love stories and that's why i inform people about virgin characters in books and i would like to have a list for asexual characters.

[Tanri]

SpongeBob!

[Lani]

I remember the days when the Disney Channel kids were all asexual. But now that Disney's moved onto shows like Hannah Montanna and The Suite Life of Zach and Cody, there are always weird almost-sexual remarks made about the female characters on the shows.

Disney's misogynistic now.

[l'héros]

SpongeBob!

:lol: True, asexual in the biological sense, even !

[EmmaRose]

...someone mentioned the Doctor? :P I think the Doctor cares about people (Rose, for example), sometimes very deeply, but not so much in a romantic way. The episode where he becomes human- his relationship with that woman was definitely romantic, and there were a lot of references to his ability (or the lack thereof) to fall in love, but there wasn't much mention of the sexual aspects of that relationship (but I guess we're just supposed to assume that duh, all romantic relationships include sex, right?).

Your icon makes me LOL. :lol:

But yeah, I mostly agree with what you said. I guess there must have been a sexual side to his relationship with that woman when he was mortal because in the little flash forward thing it showed them having a child, but I think that, in general and under normal (well, as normal as they can be for him) circumstances, the Doctor is asexual.

Also, I think he does feel romantic feelings for Rose, just not sexual.