Been thinking today about where some of the wires get crossed when aro and/or ace people talk about wanting more low-to-no romance stories and other, allo queer folks get mad at us for it--because while some of it is just plain hatred of aspec folks, I'm absolutely willing to consider that some of it is more unintentional lateral striking out--and I think I'm stumbling into something I want to articulate. Not that it's an entirely new thought, or even something I've never considered before, but something I haven't quite framed this way in the past.
Because, like, okay. It's 2026. There's rising queerphobia of all stripes--which is undeniably one reason I'm thinking about the lateral violence of it all, and we'll circle back to that--but the media environment of today does still makes it more possible than ever before to find and enjoy queer fiction. And this is critical to what I'm about to say next, so I hope those of us that grew up in times where that was not true can sort of table our thoughts on what things were like when we were kids.
My point it, if I'm an adult who isn't in the closet (and even if I am in the closet, plausible deniability is higher than it was pre-2010 or so!), I can go see a gay movie. I can go buy a gay book. There are members of the community, like kids/teens or people in unsafe situations that might not have that freedom, but at the very least, finding the gay media isn't the hard part for anyone. Heated Rivalry is one of the biggest TV shows of the year (and the books that it's based off have since seen a huge jump in popularity, too), queer romantasy is flourishing, and even classic queer media is getting revamped (pun intended) in series like the Interview With the Vampire TV series. And if, for whatever reason, none of the current professional stuff is doing it for you, Ao3 has approximately 8.4 million M/M stories and 1.7 F/F stories--which isn't the greatest ratio for the femslash fans, but is still nothing to sneeze at. And that's not even getting into the many gay podcasts and audio dramas, self-published books, comics (indie and otherwise), and other, nicher options. Long story short, if you only want to watch, read, or listen to media with prominent gay characters in it, you can establish a very healthy media diet, with everything from fun, trashy romance to acclaimed TV miniseries to weird podcasts to RPG actual plays, and everything in-between. This has very much not always been the case, so it's really cool we're here!
As an aro/ace person I... can't do that with stories about people like me. Like I really, seriously can't do that. I guess if I was content to enjoy less media, maybe, but I love stories, which I'm sure a lot of people on this website can relate to. And I love participating in fandom, too, so sometimes I do want to be into something that's big enough for me to chat about it with other people, or get more than a handful of kudos on my fanfic. So at the end of the day I don't limit myself, and that's honestly a good thing! It's great to be into things about characters who don't exactly share your identities, too.
But like. This year I've bought* exactly one book with an actual, canonically aro and/or ace character in it--the short story collection Tales From the Folly, which is a part of the Rivers of London series and features the aro/ace character Thomas Nightingale. (*I say bought, because I'm yet to actually read it--I'm sorry, Thomas!). That's it. I've enjoyed various other stories, but as far as ones with people like me go, I've gotten my hands on exactly one. And it's not for a lack of trying! There just... hasn't been much on my radar. This is a huge reason I've gotten so excited about Project Hail Mary recently--it doesn't have any canonically queer characters, and the original author definitely didn't intend to write the main character in a way that resonated with so many aro/aces. But it's a story without any canonical romance of any kind, where as a result, I can watch a fun movie and pretend for a little bit that Ryland Grace is like me. There are so few aro/ace characters that most of what we get. Playing pretend.
This is where I think some of the wires are getting crossed. When people hear someone like me say "I'm really exhausted by all the emphasis on romance and shipping in fandom," I think what some of you are hearing--because it's historically been true, and we're at a scary time in the world where it feels more and more like it's threatening to become true again--is "I want there to be fewer gay stories." When what I'm really saying is "I want there to be more aro/ace stories--or at least stories where I can pretend the main character is like me." And to even further hamper understanding, when aro and/or ace folks say we want stories about people like us and we hear other, allo queers object, what we aspecs often hear is "I think people like you aren't worth telling stories about"--even though many of you have valid reasons for liking the stories that you do, too.
I think that those of us who belong to older generations (especially millennials and above) can all probably relate to what aspecs are experiencing here on some level. There was a point in time where gay books were extremely limited, and gay characters in TV and movies were unheard of. Even as things crept in a more progressive direction, the Bury Your Gays tropes meant not everyone could enjoy the stories those characters showed up in. That was really hard for a lot of people, and I never, ever want us to go back to that. But I do think it's important to acknowledge that gay media just isn't at that point right now. Media with actual aro/ace characters in it.... kind of still is. It's different, because society is in a very different place, and also cishet people have historically demonized aromantic and asexual people with very different tropes--the heartless villain incapable of love, the cold lover that the protagonist abandons to be happy with someone else, the boring stuck-up prude, etc. And there are people, especially in the indie sphere, who are making some good stuff. But at the end of the day, I have a lot fewer choices than you do. Which is why it really hurts to get told that my headcanons and readings of canon--which are most of what I have--are actually problematic.
Anyway. None of this is groundbreaking. It's been said before, by people more eloquent and more persuasive than me, and it'll probably be said again. It just feels worth reiterating, considering some of the blowback I've been getting to expressing this sentiment. Because I really do think a lot of us want the same thing--for everyone to be able to enjoy whatever kind of stories they like most about people like them. (Without losing sight of the fact that media can be a great way to understand the experiences of people of other experiences, of course). When the scales are so unequally weighted, however, it gets really messy to talk about.
So instead of projecting our own fears and insecurities onto each other and letting them dominate the conversation--let's actually talk about it.
Pulling these tags out because I think they further articulate some of the points I was trying to make here really well:
#There definitely is a suspicion and resentment towards the idea that stories with No Romance are valuable#because many many people hear ‘there shouldn’t be all this gay shit’#And then they treat you like that’s what you said#Treating stories without romance—or with main ace and aro characters—as a cowardly in-between step#between Straight Media and Gay Media#as if they just weren’t brave enough to make it Actually Gay#rather than welcoming it as something with real value in itself#And yeah it comes from real fear because there ARE a lot of conservatives in the world saying there shouldn’t be all this gay shit#but then there are people who treat this as the ONLY thing anybody is saying so anything that reminds them even a little bit of that#is suspicious. And a lot of those people haven’t fully shaken off the 2014 attitude that aces and aros are Just Straight People Really#It’s rooted in real fear but then it turns into uncalled-for viciousness about their fellow queer people who are Being Queer Wrong#I also think… there’s a lot of fear that someone who is very similar to you but reached a different conclusion is Judging You#by a lot of people self conscious about their place in society#That causes a Lot of the lateral cruelty between ace people and gay people (via @specialagentartemis)
As someone who is alloromantic and allosexual, I suspect that another factor in play here is that allo people may not know what aro/ace/aroace stories look like.
Like, you mentioned PHM as an example of a story that doesn't have romance or sex in it, not because the characters are canonically aroace but because those just weren't parts of the story, and said that it was better than nothing because you could at least pretend that the characters were aspec.
And I think a lot of allo people tend to think that an aro story is just a story that doesn't have romance in it, and an ace story is a story that doesn't have sex in it, and from that viewpoint it seems like you're advocating for taking things away from stories.
But--I'm assuming--a story with actual aro or ace representation is a story that adds something, namely a character who is canonically aro or ace. And--again, I'm assuming--it would not have to be a story about Aroace Alice and Her Aroace Struggle, although it could be that; but it could equally well be just be about Alice and reflect the ways in which being aroace affects her life an an international spy or dinosaur hunter or college professor having a midlife crisis or whatever Alice's story is about. But either way, it's not a story-without, it's a story-with.
And I think that may be an important distinction in this conversation.
This is a reasonable insight and so I hope you don't take my "yes, but" here as an outright refutation! But I'm thinking that in emphasizing representation specifically, I may also have unintentionally downplayed another hugely important aspect of all this, particularly when it comes to interactions in fandom, which is that even stories without explicit aromantic representation can have hugely important implications and resonances for aromantic people.
I guess the simplest way to put it is like. A story like Ursula K le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness doesn't exactly have trans "representation" (in that transness is a social and cultural phenomenon separate from the speculative gender system she explores in the novel), but it does nonetheless have a lot to say about gender, in a way that definitely resonates with some trans/gnc people. Specifically, it shines a light on gender in a way that is of interest to people who want to have important conversations about the topic, and that makes it important and/or interesting to many queer folks. And in the same way, stories without explicit aromantic representation can absolutely say some very important things about relationships, particularly platonic relationships, especially when they show characters choosing to prioritize and value explicitly or even implied-to-be platonic connections.
So to return to my example above, I liked Project Hail Mary in part because I felt like I could pretend the protagonist was like me. But while the movie doesn't actually have anything explicit to say about aromanticism or the experience of being aro, it does ask another really interesting question -- namely "What if you were someone who was always sort of isolated and didn't have a lot of connections, and then you made a friend (who, it should be noted, already had a bond with a romantic/reproductive partner) who cared about you so deeply that they made it clear they valued you just as much as their partner?"
That's aromantic catnip! And not just because it's sort of a fun wish fulfillment fantasy, but because it raises super important questions about who gets to be significant to you and what it looks like to have friends who also have romantic partners that still value you. And so even though it's not a story with explicit aromantic representation, it's chock full of aromantic resonances.
And this is exactly where things get snarly with fandom. Because aro and/or ace people are in a weird position where there are very, very few characters that represent us, but there are still some stories that feel important to us all the same. So we don't really get to "claim" them as ours, but it still hurts when all the fandom wants to do is to seemingly erase the themes that feel so significant to us by making those stories romantic or sexual after all. To other queer people, it looks like we're getting upset over nothing -- that's not that character's canon identity, so why do we feel like we get to lay claim to them? But what we're really struggling with is watching stories that genuinely have interesting things to say about relationships get interpreted in a way that erases that -- and especially in the absence of actual canon aromantic and asexual characters, that really hurts.
I don't know what the answer to all this is. Obviously it's not particularly kind (or feasible) to tell other queer people they're never allowed to insert queer romance into stories that don't have any. But when the ratios are so skewed in favor of the people who do want to do that, and so skewed against those of us who would rather we talk about the stories as-is, it really starts to feel like nobody cares about us, and that our narratives aren't seen as important, or valid, or even queer -- not just in fiction, but in real life, too.
So yes, what I'd really love to see is more canonically aromantic and/or asexual characters, doing things aromantically and asexually and written by authors who want to explore experiences like mine. But I'd also really like to be able to point out that there are already stories about experiences like mine out there, and that's something that other queer people are actively erasing.
