Talk:Asexuality and Fandom

Trope Page

I'm not comfortable with this trope page. :/ Unless we make pages to define Heterosexual, Homosexual, Intersexual, Transsexual, etc., this page seems out of place here. Also, I don't think sexuality (unless it's fictional sexuality like fannish interpretation of what Vulcan sexuality is like) should be defined in a fannish wiki. If this is supposed to be about the way fandom deals with the asexuality of characters or fans, depicts asexuality in fiction and other fanworks, discusses it in meta posts, then the page should be moved to Asexuality and Fandom. --Doro 10:35, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

I have a migraine at the moment, but I agree with you and have pre-emptively moved the page, as I see the page has taken the turn to being about fandom's interpretation of asexuality. -- Awils1

That sounds reasonable (though in that case maybe also consider editing poly which I cribbed the template from?). I just created a stub as I wanted there to be something on fanlore for people wondering what "ace" stood for if they ran across it in fannish discussion; the asexual fandom community page seemed not definition-like enough. -- Sk 18:43, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

Deletion Discussion

Removed: "An asexual person in a relationship with someone who isn't. Yeah, I'm in the Sherlock fandom, and I miss some good fic this way, but it just makes me too sad. Even when the fic isn't meant to be read that way, I feel sad. It's the feeling of wanting someone who doesn't want you back, even if it's not the entire relationship that's being rejected. And if the asexual person goes along with sex with the sexual person just to be nice it's even worse. Talk about being lonely and vulnerable!"

Removed because this comment is confusing. I am not sure how anon's feelings about how their own RL relationship causes them to feel sad when they read even non-angsty ace!Sherlock/non-ace!John fic are important to how asexuality and ace relationships are portrayed in Sherlock BBC fandom. One thing that anon does bring up that I think could be included in the Meta & Discussion section is the belief of some that ace/non-ace relationships don't work or can't be happy and the belief of some that compromise doesn't work or is problematic (in contrast to what is common in fic, where the relationship usually works out and there is often an element of mutual compromise).

Removed: "I just don't see that a detailed description of what two people do with their genitals has any real value. If I was writing about their digestive tracts with the same intimate detail, nobody would WANT to read the stories, but digestion is, if anything, more central to a character's life than sex is."

Removed because I believe this argument is a Red Herring and does not add to the discussion. While digestion is arguably more central to a persons' body's life than sex it can hardly be argued that digestion is usually very important to any given person's conscious life. I guess if a character had digestive issues that were central in their daily conscious experience then that would be something interesting to write about in detail, but while sex is consciously more important/central to many people it's silly to wonder why they write and want to read about it.

Related: I have not been able to find a discussion, but I believe there have been discussions about how common it is for asexual!characters to be portrayed having sex in fic and how that could be problematic. I think a quote about that would be a good to have. --User:Wrabbit 5 June 2012

Hi Wrabbit, if you could find a quote about how common it is for asexual!characters to be portrayed having sex in fic and how that could be problematic, and add it to the page, that would be great. Or any other quotes with additional viewpoints to add!

But let's keep the older quotes on the page and not delete them (though maybe you want to move them to a new section, or to the Meta & Discussion section?), as they give insight into some fans' points of view on their experience of asexuality and fandom.

Adding more quotes with different viewpoints is great and goes well with Fanlore's Fanlore:Plural_Point_of_View policy, removing ones that were already on a page is something to do more sparingly. Thanks. Sk 15:16, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

The other solution to deletion is to write a brief blurb to give the quote some context or to record your pov regarding the quote. Ex: Quote: "I just don't see that a detailed description of what two people do with their genitals has any real value. If I was writing about their digestive tracts with the same intimate detail, nobody would WANT to read the stories, but digestion is, if anything, more central to a character's life than sex is." You might want to say this: "Some fans feel that comments like these regarding asexuality to be a red herring (a type of discussion that leads away from understanding the topics rather than illuminating it). While digestion is arguably more central to a persons' body's life than sex, these fans note that is not as important to a given person's conscious life. In other words, they feel that because sex is consciously more important/central to many people, wondering why fans choose to write and read about sex as opposed to digestive issues is a pointless exercise." (or some variation of this wording). --MeeDee 16:35, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

Thanks Sk and MeeDee. I'll work on this tonight. --Wrabbit 12:18, 6 June 2012

I have replaced the two quotes that used to be in the article with three quotes that I think more explicitly and clearly capture the concerns that were first expressed by the original two... Namely The Hatstand Express quote's implied point that sex is not as important to many a/sexuals as other activities (or bodily experiences) might be and therefore overrepresented as a concern and activity when it comes to portraying a/sexual characters, and Anon's point that the trend in fanfic is to represent asexual/sexual relationships idealistically with a lack of attention to desires and emotions that don't fit into the happy ideal. Let me know if this is okay or if you think that the original two have more to offer on their own. --Wrabbit 20:35, 6 June 2012

Fanworks Examples? Y/n?

It's a really well developed page but has no examples of actual fanworks. Is it something we want to add? I read a lot of ace fics, I can think of at least five from different fandoms that would be a good representation of stuff mentioned here --Alex (talk) 13:44, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

Please do! Examples would be super. --MPH (talk) 14:29, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

Ace Redirect/Disambiguation?

Currently Ace redirects to this page Asexuality & Fandom. Of the 18 pages using that redirect, one page refers to the DW character Ace McShane, but another link refers to a fan called Ace. For that reason, I'm proposing that Ace should become a disambiguation page, rather than a redirect. Any objections? --Auntags (talk) 21:31, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

Disambig sounds good -- OfMonstersAndWerewolves (talk) 23:08, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

Adding my support. "Ace" has multiple common senses, in contrast to "bi" and "trans." Converting the redirect to a disambig page seems like a straightforward solution. Night Rain (talk) 23:13, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

Definitely a good idea - don't forget to link to Ace Rimmer (Red Dwarf) if there's a page for him! --Marcus Rowland (talk) 00:05, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

Thanks all! Ace is now a disambiguation page. Marcus, I'm sorry to say we don't have a fanlore page for either Rimmer :( --Auntags (talk) 20:07, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

No worries - I'm not a big Red Dwarf fan, just thought it was worth mentioning in case someone had done a page for him --Marcus Rowland (talk) 21:33, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

Potential Area(s) for Expansion

A possible point of expansion is the complex and often unclear delineation between asexuality (a hard-wired orientation) and being allosexual with a sex aversion (a potentially temporary state) in character interpretations. This seems to come up in discussions of Astarion. Basically, the writing of BG3 shuts down the "magic selfless ace" trope pretty hard in Astarion's romance arc, but it's possible to interpret him as either an ace character or an allo character with a trauma-rooted aversion to physical intimacy. And that obviously leads to contrasting portrayals in fanworks. Hoping to expand the Astarion article to cover this discourse at some point. But mentioning it here as a potentially illustrative example. Night Rain (talk) 22:29, 11 January 2024 (UTC)

Infobox Image: Ace Pride Flag?

Is there a fannish image that can be found featuring the ace pride flag (black-gray-white-purple)? If so, that might be a nice inclusion as the infobox image. I see we have a couple in the gallery currently that at least somewhat feature the flag or colors which we could select from as well. -- FBV (talk) 02:49, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

Just found this on Newgrounds if this is any good: https://www.newgrounds.com/art/view/eggydaxy/ace-day ? -- OfMonstersAndWerewolves (talk) 13:43, 19 January 2024 (UTC)