Television's Alarmingly Normative Representation of Asexuality

I am not attracted to men, and whenever I say that, people assume that I am gay. I know that this will happen, but I don't intend to be deceptive. Rather, this is how I test the waters before coming out to someone in a more direct and specific way. I first get them accustomed to the fact that I am not straight, and I see how they react. And then I tell them that I'm not attracted to women either. I look them in the eye, or I look down at the table, and I tell them that I am asexual.

And I just replicated that very process with you. For me, what really works about it is that it situates my sexual orientation within a queer context. The asexual community has not been around for very long, and most people do not know that it exists, so placing my identity within a familiar context helps people to understand and accept it. Plus, I myself feel disconnected from the asexual community. The majority of my queer friends and role models reside elsewhere in the LGBTQIA+ alphabet, as do the characters in books and movies who I relate to and enjoy the most. 

Golden Boy by Abigail Tartellin, which has an intersex protagonist, absolutely destroyed me in the best way possible, and I paused my tv to scream when Shunsuke came out as bisexual on Terrace House. (This was mostly because Terrace House is among the straightest shows I have ever seen, and I was moved that they finally acknowledged the existence of queerness.) I have been deeply affected by iconic gay stories like Rubyfruit Jungle and Moonlight, but we asexuals do not have titles like these at this point. We have not yet made a dent on the culture. We are the new kids, and we need some time to develop our oeuvre.