#Very specific Hamtaro ramble

[okayto]

If it's not too personal / troublesome — I want to write an ace character and I was wondering if you'd share some thoughts?

I will absolutely share some thoughts because I like to talk, Buddy Pal. Standard disclaimer, of course: I can only speak to my own experiences and opinions, asexuals are people and thus many and varied, etc.

So, the thing is, I didn’t identify as ace until I really, actually understood that there are people who really, actually desire sex. Sex was this thing that, much like Uggs and Napolean Dynamite and *racks brain* Hamtaro I heard a lot of people liked, I saw the theory that people like it play out in the many ads involving sex appeal (and saw lots of ads for the three aforementioned things), but it made no sense to me and no one around me really talked about it, so I figured the whole “sex is really desirable” thing was a lie made for advertising.

Apparently I was wrong.

But I don’t think that’s uncommon–to be somewhat oblivious to the reality of other people’s sexual desire. Some people feel ashamed, “broken,” or confused. Some people don’t–that’s me.

Some aces are sex-repulsed, really don’t want to have sex ever. Some don’t care, might do it with a partner because the partner wants to. Some will even like doing it with their partner–but would still be perfectly OK if they never had sex again in their lives. All these things are valid.

Aces can be romantically attracted to no one (aromantic), or, um, someone/multiple someones (heteroromantic, homoromantic, panromantic, etc). Aromanticism seems to be the most common fictional ace character I see, because it’s the easiest to portray: not interested in a relationship with anyone, period. Think Sherlock Holmes, or Jughead Jones. Nothing wrong with that, but keep in mind that aromantic aces aren’t automatically cold machines. Maybe they can feel fulfilled with friends and familial relationships. Aro-ace =/= robot.

Romantic aces seem to be rarer in fiction in the fiction I’ve read, because I think you [general creator] do have to put more effort into figuring out (if you want the character’s orientation to be explicitly shown or stated) how do you show it without possibly slowing down the story for exposition? It can definitely be done, though.

I’ve found the TV Tropes pages on asexuality useful because it lists characters from different media, along with the reason they’re listed (either explicitly stated to be ace, or the reasoning why it’s strongly suspected).

Finally: other people. Their reactions will vary. Personally, I’m out IRL to very few people because about 70% of the ones I told in person replied with a variant of “no you’re not,” “you’re just confused,” “you’re just shy and don’t want to talk about sex,” or “”you’ll meet the right guy some day” (because of course we are all assumed heterosexual unless proven otherwise). Those are bad. The people didn’t mean to give bad reactions, of course, and all came from family or close friends. Our relationships continue to be great–but I dropped the subject and all have probably forgotten about it. At this point I’m just sticking with “I’m not interested” and probably wont’ change that unless I start dating someone. (And even then, heterosexuality will still be assumed unless I date someone who’s not a man.)

The fewer positive/neutral reactions I got were along the lines of “okay,” “that’s cool,” and “that’s nice that you don’t have to deal with [specific topic from a human sexuality class we were discussing].” I like those reactions. It doesn’t need to be a big deal, I just want someone to acknowledge my statement and not tell me I’m wrong about my own identity.

I hope that helped–I’m a bit rambly because I’m going on vacation tomorrow and need to sleep.

EDIT:// because I have additional thoughts: religion and religious communities. May or may not be relevant to your story, but one thing to consider is that if a character is in a community where sex is a thing after marriage/long-term relationships is the norm, it could be really hard to bring up asexuality. Because hey, why talk about sexuality when it’s not even relevant now? And if you’re just going on a date or starting a relationship, who wants to awkwardly bring up “hey let’s discuss sex and sexuality which may or may not be relevant but not for a few years.” But the alternative is waiting and getting more attached to someone who might not be compatible–if the ace is completely sex-repulsed and Under No Circumstances wants to do the thing, for example.

And religions usually like to have something about sex, marriage, and/or baby-making. These can and are interpreted different ways–I’ve grown up in tons of Christian spaces and have met barely a handful of people who subscribe to the idea that you have to have kids or you can’t use birth control, etc. So I’m not talking fundamentalists here. But it can add additional layers of expectations or emotions.

Or the opposite–asexuality could be looked at as celibacy and romantic aces could be denied acknowledgement. That’s not necessarily a religion-specific problem either, but religion can be a factor. In 1 Corinthians 7, for example, it says that if you can stand not to marry (meaning: you won’t be consumed with unfulfilled lust), then don’t get married. Matthew 19 says there are eunuchs who were made eunuchs, and eunuchs who were born that way–generally interpreted as talking about a lack of sexual desire.

So if getting flack, a Christian could point to these and say, look, I’m ace I fit these verses, but that doesn’t cover romanticism. It’s important to note, in my experience religious people are no more or less likely to misunderstand asexuality, say stupid things, think aces are wrong/confused, etc., they just use a different vocabulary. And it’s not limited to Christianity.

#I'm sorry it got so long I just wasn't sure exactly what you were looking for #and also I have strong feelings about this but also especially about it in regards to religious communities #but different kinds of interpretation and exegesis and etc. is fascinating but a different topic and it got super long sorry #asexual #ace