Sexuality in the Media

[meridian_rose]

Two things I've posted elsewhere, one about "Supergirl", talking about asexual representation and a lesbian character, and one about "The Librarians" and why a bisexual character is a family friendly character.


SUPERGIRL
posted to Tumblr

I'm glad I'd already seen the Alex Danvers storyline mentioned on Tumblr before it aired in the UK. Because that whole coming out dialogue about not being "built that way" sounded exactly like an asexual coming out. It was wonderful to hear. I felt a real connection with it, even though I knew what was coming.

Because Alex isn't coming out as an asexual person but as a lesbian.

And yes, we need more gay/lesbian/bi or pan sexual characters and it's great we're getting a lesbian romance.

And yes, Alex can still be on the asexual spectrum. Grey-asexual or maybe demi-sexual, which might explain why it's only Maggie she's fallen for, having not experienced sexual attraction before.

But to have a character like Alex be asexual, homoromantic even, biromantic perhaps, but truly not feeling any sexual attraction would have been amazing.

I've talked elsewhere in the past about the types of characters who get labelled as asexual without canon confirmation and the incredible rarity of asexual characters in mainstream media. Alex would have been different. There's a cult following for superhero shows and she would have been a far more visible example of a canonically confirmed asexual character than previous ones.

Alex, a kickass female, a character who adores her sister, a woman you can go for drinks with. An otherwise pretty;“normal”, especially for superhero shows, well-liked character, who isn't awkward or puritanical or any of the usual negative things associated with characters who get labelled asexual. It would have been amazing. And I would be thrilled if she was also revealed to be grey-a and not much into sex even though she loves Maggie.

What will it take to get a decent asexual character on a truly mainstream or cult show?

THE LIBRARIANS
Posted to Tumblr

We’re having some The Librarians discussions over here [at thelibrarians_tv], and I’m about to post my comment about episode 3.08 but I just want to vent here too. We FINALLY get to see Cassandra (left in picture) kiss a woman (on the right). Cassandra has only ever shown interest in female guest characters and even though this episode had her throw herself at older male character Jenkins* pretty much out of the blue as far as I can see, the episode ended with her kissing a female character (a WoC too, since the character was a South American vampire?)

YES. Of all the things I liked about this episode and all the things I didn’t, this was a big tick in the like column.

And yet on Facebook I couldn’t face going through all the comments but there were at least three in those I did look at for this episode that hated it.

Their complaints?
* It’s no longer a “family show” - as if gay romance is adult. (It never ever occurs to these people that their own child(ren) might be gay/bi and this could be a way for them to learn they are not “wrong”; I worry that these sort of parents would try to beat the gay out of their kids or disown them)
* It’s okay for m/f characters to kiss but not for f/f characters and when someone called the poster out on this the OP snapped back “You know why” with something about being ignorant/obtuse? Because Teh Gayz kissing is different somehow!
* It’s no longer “wholesome” and when it was pointed out that this show that has things like killer clowns and vampires the OP got huffy about not liking gay romance and refusing to watch if it was included. “wholesome”=shit I like, “gross”=shit I don’t like. Ugh.

Why is this still an issue? WHY?

On the other hand asexual representation is like hen’s teeth and would go down like a lead balloon too. Sometimes people just suck.

Sexual orientation is not a choice, sexual orientations are all equal, seeing representation of various orientations is not going to “turn” your child into a different orientation (but might save them from shame and years of repressed feeling).

*I have no problem with age gap relationships, in fact the opposite, only that I like a bit of background before a canon ship rears its head, and we have zero non-het characters in canon and I’d truly love to have Cassandra as a lesbian, though I’d be okay with bi/pan once we’ve established she does have sexual attraction to more than one gender.