Asexuality in Fiction and Films

[Bard King]

What about Philip from The Pillars of the Earth? Ken Follett described him as "one of those people for whom sex isn't important".

[Starr]

I had seen Wiki list Ronald Niederman from the Millennium Trilogy as asexual but somehow I think it is wrong info but I haven't read The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest so I'm not sure.

[Kangaraa]

I had seen Wiki list Ronald Niederman from the Millennium Trilogy as asexual but somehow I think it is wrong info but I haven't read The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest so I'm not sure.

I have read it, just finished the last one actually.

I don't think you get to know Niedermann enough to judge if he is asexual or not. He is a main character but he is always secondary whenever he appears. I would say there is evidence that he is asexual but the only problem I have is that you never know if he does feel sexual attraction and ignored it/is celibate (as a well trained underling) or if he is asexual and doesn't feel the attraction at all.

I admit when I was reading the books, I didn't know about asexuals and so wasn't really paying attention. There may have been a line here or there that pointed to him being one way or the other. He did seem confused about sex but that could have been for many reasons.

[seneca]

This is old, but there was an old pulp hero named Doc Savage. He was the smartest and strongest man in the world. Yet, it was stated early that women would never be part of his life. Hung around with male friends on his adventures, but never any innuendo between,them either.

[Guest]

Also: Spock, perhaps? Although in the 2009 movie, he and Uhura had a thing going on, but wasn't he pretty asexual in the original show? I wish I could remember more clearly, but I haven't seen the show in ages.

Nah, I wouldn't count Spock. In Trek canon (at least before the reboot movie), Vulcans, including Spock, do have a strong sex drive, it's just that all of them firmly suppress most of the time and just experience it flaring up explosively in a mating cycle every seven years, called the pon farr. To see Spock, himself, in the throes of this sexual "blood fever", watch the classic episode "Amok Time" (surprising enough that an episode with such a sexual theme, even if it's not in any way handled explicitly, made it past the TV networks' radar back in the 60s... ;)). It's also at least sttongly implied in the 3rd movie (ST III - The Search for Spock) that fastly-maturing reborn/resurrected Spock experiences pon farr several times while alone on the Genesis planet with Saavik (a small scene with Saavik stating she's pregnant with Spock's child due to this allegedly was in the early script of "ST IV - The Voyage Home", but cut from later versions and thus not present in the finished movie).

You can never be sure with Vulcans because of this.

Although, in terms of pon farr, that would be more libido or a biological mating drive than attraction, so theoretically you could have a Vulcan who still goes though this, yet doesn't seek a mate or get attracted, and be asexual, correct?

The two that spring to mind for me are Sheldon Cooper from The Big Bang Theory (no coincidence I have him on my avatar ;)), and Lt.Cdr. Data from Star Trek (the latter being an android, it's not too surprising he doesn't have a sex drive... but he does have two quotes over the course of the show saying "I'm fully functional, programmed in multiple techniques" (explicitly talking about sex, while being seduced by a crewmate) and "but I have no sexual desire" (talking to a holographic version of Sigmund Freud, no less)... so, put those two together, and it sounds ace enough. :P)

But he had a relationship of some sort with Tasha Yar. I can't remember if attraction was involved, but he was fond of her, as he always kept the hologram of her after her death. ''We were intimate'' he said of it. And keep into account the emotion chip. Did that give him attraction? I can't remember either........

Although, at face value, I would definitely agree he is for the most part asexual.

I remember first watching Star Trek Voyager and expecting The Doctor to be asexual, him being a hologram and all that. I was initially disappointed when I was proved wrong. But other Emergency Medical Holograms could be asexual, potentially, as they don't ''extend their programming'' like The Doctor by being in his circumstances.

(On a side note, The Doctor is one of my favourite Star Trek characters and who I personally identify with mostly.....)

[Guest]

You can never be sure with Vulcans because of this.

Although, in terms of pon farr, that would be more libido or a biological mating drive than attraction, so theoretically you could have a Vulcan who still goes though this, yet doesn't seek a mate or get attracted, and be asexual, correct?

Gotta say, you have a point there. :)

But he had a relationship of some sort with Tasha Yar. I can't remember if attraction was involved, but he was fond of her, as he always kept the hologram of her after her death. ''We were intimate'' he said of it. And keep into account the emotion chip. Did that give him attraction? I can't remember either........

Although, at face value, I would definitely agree he is for the most part asexual.

Yeah, I remember the hologram thing. :) I'd still put him as ace because his dialogue with the Borg Queen in the 8th movie makes it clear from the amount of time he mentions that he only had sex with Tasha that one singular time (while under the - highly illogical/plot holey to affect him in the first place - "drunkenness virus"), and with nobody else afterwards (despite his short-lived partnership with Jenna de Sora in the 5th season episode "In Theory"). It's not too unlikely (though, admittedly, speculative) that before getting seduced by the Borg Queen, Tasha may have been the only person he had sex with, ever, so that would make Tasha special to him even if she's otherwise just been a close friend of his.

[Miss Behavin']

So far, Sherlock Holmes in Elementary has stated outright that he's sex-repulsed, although with a libido, but he hasn't attempted to describe his sexuality with an orientation. It'll be interesting to see where this goes, but he definitely has potential to be openly asexual.

Honestly, with Moffat at the helm, my hopes are pretty low right now, he's just a bit of a dick really. Maybe Mark Gatiss will have a moderating influence!

This is the CBS show with Lucy Liu as Watson, not the BBC one that's written by Moffat.

The CBS show is actually had several surprisingly progressive moments (not just compared to the BBC Sherlock, but most other broadcast TV shows) and it's really not an adaption of the Sherlock miniseries, it's very much its own adaptation of the original Arthur Conan Doyle characters.

[Miss Behavin']

Also: Spock, perhaps? Although in the 2009 movie, he and Uhura had a thing going on, but wasn't he pretty asexual in the original show? I wish I could remember more clearly, but I haven't seen the show in ages.

Nah, I wouldn't count Spock. In Trek canon (at least before the reboot movie), Vulcans, including Spock, do have a strong sex drive, it's just that all of them firmly suppress most of the time and just experience it flaring up explosively in a mating cycle every seven years, called the pon farr. To see Spock, himself, in the throes of this sexual "blood fever", watch the classic episode "Amok Time" (surprising enough that an episode with such a sexual theme, even if it's not in any way handled explicitly, made it past the TV networks' radar back in the 60s... ;)). It's also at least sttongly implied in the 3rd movie (ST III - The Search for Spock) that fastly-maturing reborn/resurrected Spock experiences pon farr several times while alone on the Genesis planet with Saavik (a small scene with Saavik stating she's pregnant with Spock's child due to this allegedly was in the early script of "ST IV - The Voyage Home", but cut from later versions and thus not present in the finished movie).

You can never be sure with Vulcans because of this.

Although, in terms of pon farr, that would be more libido or a biological mating drive than attraction, so theoretically you could have a Vulcan who still goes though this, yet doesn't seek a mate or get attracted, and be asexual, correct?

The two that spring to mind for me are Sheldon Cooper from The Big Bang Theory (no coincidence I have him on my avatar ;)), and Lt.Cdr. Data from Star Trek (the latter being an android, it's not too surprising he doesn't have a sex drive... but he does have two quotes over the course of the show saying "I'm fully functional, programmed in multiple techniques" (explicitly talking about sex, while being seduced by a crewmate) and "but I have no sexual desire" (talking to a holographic version of Sigmund Freud, no less)... so, put those two together, and it sounds ace enough. :P)

But he had a relationship of some sort with Tasha Yar. I can't remember if attraction was involved, but he was fond of her, as he always kept the hologram of her after her death. ''We were intimate'' he said of it. And keep into account the emotion chip. Did that give him attraction? I can't remember either........

Although, at face value, I would definitely agree he is for the most part asexual.

I remember first watching Star Trek Voyager and expecting The Doctor to be asexual, him being a hologram and all that. I was initially disappointed when I was proved wrong. But other Emergency Medical Holograms could be asexual, potentially, as they don't ''extend their programming'' like The Doctor by being in his circumstances.

(On a side note, The Doctor is one of my favourite Star Trek characters and who I personally identify with mostly.....)

Incidentally, I'm watching TNG right now, as I'm typing this...

I do agree that Data would be asexual - I feel like the intimacy with Tasha was kind of like "I like this person, and she really wants sex and I don't mind, so why not?" kind of situation.

[Vincentara]

What about Rorschach from Watchmen? Or, does he just have a negative view about sexuality due to his mother being a prostitute?

[lizzie.ann]

I like to think that Daria Morgendorffer was a romantic asexual. She clearly had crushes on guys in the show, but showed no interest in having sex or even going very far with guys. One of my friends in the Daria fandom had said to me (I think jokingly) that she wouldn't have kissed Tom so passionately if she were asexual, but who knows. On that note, Quinn sorta came off as the same, the way she loved getting men's attention but had no interest in even kissing them.

Oh my god. Daria was absolutely a romantic asexual. I have been firmly convinced for years.

[phistory]

How about Remedios from "One Hundred Years of Solitude" by Gabriel Marcia Marquez? It's been a really long time since I read it (and when I did read it, I was still kind of too young to understand it), but from what I can recall she seems really ace.

[Thoughts For Otter]

Matt Smith's Doctor (Doctor Who) is asexual. http://www.kasterborous.com/2011/07/smith-doctor-prefers-chess-to-sex/

Bart and Ernie were declared to have no sexual orientation by Sesame Street after people tried to petition for their marriage. http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/bert-ernie-sexual-orientation-sesame-street/story?id=14285027

I tell myself in a cheating way that this just makes them homo-romantic asexuals, but it's up to you.

Haruhi, the protagonist of the anime Ouran High School Host Club, for the duration of all the anime and most of the manga could be speculated as asexual or possibly aromantic. The latest updates of the manga shares that she has married one of the male members of the character cast. Whether or not this says/confirms/denies any speculation about orientation, it does affirm that she is just more hard-headed than aromantic...

[HybridZizi]

So I'm writing my final essay for my Diversity in Film class and I wanted to do it on how asexuality is portrayed in film. The problem is that it generally isn't, at least no from what I can find, so I need to adjust the topic slightly to fill the required pages. I'm currently planning to just do a rant on why it should be in film more often and why people respond poorly to the idea. For example, I'm going to write about the response to Brave and how everyone threw a fit because she didn't have a love interest (and also how they jumped straight to 'she must be a lesbian' even though she never showed interest in girls either). Basically I was just wondering if anyone knew of any other movies that either could imply asexuality or make the character sexual even when they shouldn't be (for example, Sherlock Holmes).

[Robin_]

I know that it isn't a film but have you considered Dr Sheldon Cooper from The Big Bang Theory?

[5_♦♣]

Alan from the hangover movies is Asexual. I haven't seen either the original or the sequel though, so...

[ace_of_wands]

Asexual characters on film:

Severus Snape

Sherlock Holmes (not the recent films)

Doctor Who

I can't think of any asexual female characters..I'll get back to you on that.

[Mimizuka]

There is a documentary about asexuality on Netflix called (A)Sexual. Also Lars in Lars and the Real Girl can be somewhat considered asexual.

[Melorian]

I don't think Snape was asexual - it was just that the only person he could love was dead.

The films don't really portray Sherlock Holmes as having a love interest, I suppose it depends on how you see Irene Adler, I saw her as being a very close, special friend but not actually as a love interest per se. Maybe I am interpreting it wrongly.

And Dr Who isn't human (technically) so I don't know if he really qualifies.

I can't think of any film that has an asexual character in it though.

[Notte stellata]

The Olivia Experiment is about a girl who thinks she's asexual and goes through some self-discovery process. I haven't seen it (it seems to be only shown on movie festivals) but from this thread there seem to be mixed comments.

[Carpet Monster]

I wouldn't have necesarily thought Merida was asexual, she is only a child in the film and just doesn't want to get married to three pretty horendous choices. I don't think there is really enough information. Just because there is an absence of sex in a film doesn't make the characters asexual.

Alan in Hangover was said to be asexual in an interview, which I find a bit insulting, he obviously has a bit of a mental handicap.

[HybridZizi]

I wouldn't have necesarily thought Merida was asexual, she is only a child in the film and just doesn't want to get married to three pretty horendous choices. I don't think there is really enough information. Just because there is an absence of sex in a film doesn't make the characters asexual.

Alan in Hangover was said to be asexual in an interview, which I find a bit insulting, he obviously has a bit of a mental handicap.

I'm not so much saying that she is asexual. Just that everyone jumped right over the idea that she might be to declare her a lesbian because having an ace character is just so unthinkable.

And the fact that so many of the ace characters in existence seem to be somehow handicapped is a point that I'm going to be making.

[p /o/ p?]

Slight spoilers if you haven't seen The Man Who Fell to Earth.

The one that pops into mind is Thomas Jerome Newton (David Bowie) in The Man Who Fell to Earth. He may not be explicitly asexual (he's an alien), I did feel a connection with the character in that regard though. There is a very good argument that he isn't asexual and that his sexuality is based on being around a foreign species (he has a family on his home planet, does not indicate that sex is used for reproduction on his home planet). See it if you haven't.

[Ombrella]

I don't know if any of you have played Dragon Age 2, but you can enter into a hetero-romantic non-sexual relationship with the Chantry brother Sebastian. I guess you could argue that it's nonsexual because of his vows, but Leliana from the first Dragon Age is a Chantry sister and has no such qualms about sex.

Either way, a non-sexual relationship is pretty crazy for a Bioware game.

[Tengu]

In the RCN space opera series by David Drake, there's a character named Adele Mundy. She is definitely asexual because Drake has her thinking thoughts like "I've never understood the human desire to copulate" or "She never had the desire to engage in sexual dalliances like her captain".

What's kind of funny is that I didn't really associate myself to that character in that way until just now when I was thinking about this thread. I've been reading this series for nearly fifteen years, and it never occurred to me that I was as asexual as this character that I really liked. I really must have had my blinders up...

[Tengu]

When I was growing up, I used to watch a few situation comedies. The shows that i really enjoyed things like The Cosby Show, Diff'rent Strokes, Family Ties, etc. They were shows that you could watch with the entire family.

During the 90s and most of the 2000s, I hardly watched any TV (I was hooked on computer games, compuserve, the use net, the web, etc.) It wasn't until recently that I came up for air and started watching The Big Bang Theory because I had a some friends that suggested I would really like the situations in the show. It was that show that got me to identify the fact that I was missing a sex drive compared to other people. I really enjoy the show, but I noticed i didn't get a bunch of the humor because a lot of it revolves around sex or the lack of sex when related to Sheldon.

After I started watching that show, I started watching examples of other sitcoms, and it seems like most seems to have a significant percentage of jokes and gags that revolve around sex.

The only show I've found that might trace it's roots back to the shows I liked back in the 80s might be The New Normal. I think it's a fun show with a modern spin. The acting isn't as good as the shows I remember (Michael J Fox, Bill Cosby and Gary Coleman rocked), but I like the writing.

Does anyone else have any opinions about current shows and it's sexual content, and shows that don't have much of it's humor based on innuendo and double entendre?

[Sally]

I watched Raising Hope last night with my 10-year-old grandson and was very embarassed. He didn't seem to be and I don't think that's because he didn't know what they were talking about. Yeccchhhhh.

[The Great WTF]

Call me weird, but I love sexual innuendos when done right. I like the balance of sexual jokes with nerd jokes that I find in Big Bang Theory and I remember really enjoying Friends, though I haven't seen it in years. Thanks to the pervert squad I call brothers, sexual jokes don't go over my head very often. I tend to find myself the butt of a lot of sexual jokes, though, mostly because of my lack of brain-mouth filter and hilarious inability to realize I've said something that might be taken that way until I've already said it.

My pet had me start watching How I Met Your Mother last night. While it had it's fair share of innuendo and sex jokes, it didn't seem to absolutely fill the storyline as much as some other sitcoms I've seen. That might have something to do with the fact that it's supposed to be narrated by a father telling his children about his quest to find The One and not just a one night stand. Then again, I was mostly focused on the video game I was playing at the time so I might have missed some of it.

Random side thought of literature nerdiness: Sex jokes proliferating a story aren't actually that new of a thing, when you think about it. It's more like they've had a resurgence after the more "conservative" eras that came about in the mid-1900s. Look at Romeo and Juliet (much as I hate that play), for example. There's an entire scene pretty much devoted to two characters making random sexualized jokes at each other. Greek lore was full of jokes and stories relating to sex, sexuality, and people being stupid about sex. And I swear I had more to say on this but my cats just started trying to climb the wall next to my desk to catch a fly and it's completely blown my train of thought out the window.

[Guest]

How I Met Your Mother is a fun show - but does have a fair bit of sex in it. Barney, one of the main characters, at one point had a story line about his 200th sexual partner and his character is usually trying to pick up girls for one night stands use em and leave em style, the married couple is very sexually active, etc. It's a big part of the script. But, it also has the other characters like Ted who while enjoying sex is ultimately after true love.

I don't think there are many current day shows that aren't at least partly sex based. Even the teenage shows / family shows have sex as a big part of it. Because it is a large part of many peoples lives, it is a huge issue with teens, it is something important for the majority of the population. Even ABC family shows (which are supposed to be all squeaky clean) have a lot of sex in them nowadays. I was actually surprised at Melissa & Joey's amount of sex for a FAMILY show.

But, then, going back and watching a lot of the older shows / old movies (like 50s old) I notice a lot more sex in those than I did when I was little. It's just a lot more subtle.

[phistory]

I realize that it's been done for a few years now, but Corner Gas is a prime example of a sitcom that doesn't rely on sex for its comedy. I don't have any problems with sex-related humor though, but I do agree that they're kind of overdoing it on TV at the moment.

[Miss Behavin']

Well... I definitely pick up on way more nerd jokes than sex jokes on Big Bang Theory, but I'm guessing from the laugh track that I'm just missing some of the sex jokes?