The Dangers of Sexualizing Non-Sexual Characters, pt. 2

Image description: Sherlock Holmes, as portrayed by Benedict Cumberbatch in the BBC series, Sherlock. In both the original Sherlock Holmes stories and this modern adaptation, Sherlock has many aspec tendencies, but in this version, he's also sexualized, both within the show and within its fandom, ostensibly because Benedict was seen as a heartthrob; the shirt he's wearing in this picture was literally dubbed "the purple shirt of sex" by the fandom for this very reason. Today, continuing off of analysis I did a few years ago, I plan to once again talk about the phenomenon of characters with aspec tendencies being sexualized and why this can become a problem.

A few years ago, I did a post called “The Dangers of Sexualizing Non-Sexual Characters.” In it, I explored (unsurprisingly) the fandom tendency to sexualize characters who otherwise have non-sexual and/or non-romantic traits, and why I think this can be a problem. Since then, I’ve seen even more examples of why this phenomenon is such an issue – especially since it’s not just limited to characters, but also trickles over into how fandoms interface with real people as well.

In that post, I acknowledged that fandoms often allow people to explore and celebrate their sexuality, and how that’s a great thing. Things like fan art, fanfiction, and online discussions where people are allowed to explore these things in safety are all a part of this. While I would never say that these things should disappear, I do think it’s important that allosexual members of fandom communities realize the way these things can potentially impact other people. Of course, my thoughts and feelings don’t apply to all aspec people, and there are plenty of aspecs who don’t mind things like graphically sexual fan art or smut-based fanfiction. However, I believe the issue doesn’t necessarily lie with these things anyway; rather, the real problem is sexualization where sexualization need not exist, and the tendency to shout down anyone who disagrees with this practice.

As I said, I’ve experienced this a great deal more over the years as an aspec fan, and it’s one of the many reasons why I’ve largely distanced myself from most of my fandoms. This is because these instances of sexualization are not something aspec fans can simply opt out of by not reading smut or being choosey about who they follow on social media sites. Rather, this type of sexualization makes a commentary about what kinds of things – and what kinds of people – fandom spaces implicitly seem to value.

I’ve talked a lot in recent posts about how certain fandom attitudes make aspec identities seem like something that are not allowed to coexist with other identities. In my own experience, I’ve seen plenty of people in fandoms who are willing to acknowledge aspec identities exist, but treat them as something that should exist “over there” – as in, something that should not be seen or accepted alongside other content, but rather something that should stay in a niche corner where most people never have to acknowledge it. Not only is this a terrible thing from an aspec perspective, but I think it tragically limits the diversity of fandoms and the content that can be produced for them.

Like with most of the issues I talk about from a specifically aspec lens, these things don’t just affect aspec people, but rather people of all kinds, and I think it should be emphasized more heavily that unnecessary sexualization often lies at the core of these many things. These things don’t exist in a vacuum, and so I believe that not only do they have the power to make fandom spaces worse, but that these things can and will trickle into real life if we’re not careful and thus they deserve to be explored and examined. So today, I want to dive back into that topic, highlighting once more what it means to sexualize non-sexual or non-romantic characters, and the very real implications that has within our fandom spaces and beyond.

Spoiler warning! 

Dragon Age: The Veilguard (minor marketing material spoilers)

Sherlock (various)

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (various)

Star Trek: Voyager (various)

-----------------------------

A Metaphor for Aspec-ness in Fandom

I’ve been thinking about how to best describe what it often feels like to be aspec in fandom and why the idea of being separate from the rest of a fandom can be such a problem. This is something I spoke about recently when I discussed the upcoming video game, Dragon Age: The Veilguard, and its marked lack of aspec representation. The problem is not that the game chose to exclude explicitly aspec characters or aspec-inclusive features; the problem is that there seems to be an attitude that those things don’t matter as much in the grand scheme of things and thus can wait.

To me, I think this and other fandom attitudes are akin to having a certain type of dietary style or restriction and finding every type of restaurant in your immediate area doesn’t have anything for you. Are they required to cater to your specific needs? Of course not. Are you required to eat at these restaurants? No. But the fact that the choice to do so is completely out of your hands is unfortunate, and the fact that you have to opt out of all of these various restaurants just by default is an unnecessary restriction. In the same way, when fandoms prioritize sex and romance above all else, there is a sense as an aspec fan that your needs and preferences are seen as less important and thus your experience is not a priority.

Returning to Dragon Age, as I said in that specific post, there are things I can do to still interface with the game – chiefly, I can headcanon my character(s) as aspec and choose not to romance any characters. But until the game comes out at the end of October 2024, I will have no idea what capacity I even have to do that. For example, the developers have already said that the companions can and will begin their own relationships if not romanced by the player character, and based on past experience from previous games, that can potentially lead to somewhat raunchy conversations. While there are many aspec players who won’t really care about that were it to happen, I would, which would probably lead to a severely diminished experience for me. But even more than these elements of the game, the thing that has the greatest power to diminish my experience with the game is the fandom experience.

Image description: Promotional image for Dragon Age: The Veilguard, featuring the main character's cast of companions (and potential romance options).

There are many people in fandom spaces who strive to be tolerant and even accepting of aspec people, much like, in my metaphor, many restaurants attempt to accommodate various diets. But imagine if every restaurant you went to only had one very basic option to accommodate you. While this is certainly an improvement from having no options, the idea that this is all you get and you have to be happy with it would likely make you feel unwelcome. As I said in my introduction, I feel this happens a lot wherein aspec attitudes are only tolerated as long as they don’t really affect the day-to-day workings of the fandom. The minute an aspec person touches something in the fandom that is considered for “normal fans,” that’s where the problems begin.

This is why sexualizing non-sexual characters bothers me so deeply. To me, seeing aspec vibes in a character is my own version of figuring out how to customize something on a restaurant menu to fit one’s needs. In my eyes, these headcanons are not hurting anyone, just like customizing your meal isn’t hurting anyone either. But some fandoms treat this aspec customization as a major problem and even an affront to other fans, making it feel like you can only be aspec in fandom if you never dare to speak your mind. For that reason, even when fans claim that fandoms are safe places for people of all backgrounds, it often doesn’t feel like it, because there’s always an element of having to watch what you say and to whom, lest you be labeled as “not a real fan” or otherwise problematic.

How This Happens in Media

In my first post, I spoke at length about how this type of forced sexualization of a character occurs in both fandoms and in media itself. I used the examples of Dragon Age: Inquisition’s Cullen Rutherford and Star Trek: Voyager’s Seven of Nine to point out how conventionally attractive characters often get sexualized simply based on their desirability to the audience. Although I don’t want to dive too heavily into that topic again since it was the pillar of my analysis last time, I’ve recently been talking a lot more about the BBC show Sherlock and how its titular character fell into similar traps, so I’d like to use him as the example to briefly further this argument.

As discussed in my two posts revisiting Sherlock as an aspec adult, the question of Sherlock’s sexuality and sex life became a prominent feature in the show, especially as time went on, and I believe there are a few reasons for that. But the most obvious one is that his actor, Benedict Cumberbatch, was perceived as attractive, and so the character himself was portrayed in a similar fashion. To do this, the show came up with several different plotlines where Sherlock being attractive was played up, and this included people expressing an interest in him sexually, which naturally led to his sex life being an object of curiosity too.

Played on its own, I think this actually could have been an interesting question to ask of the modern setting. The original Sherlock Holmes stories take place in Victorian London and so, although Holmes is undoubtedly famous, this has very different implications than it would in the modern era where his fame is mostly internet driven (which is very meta). I think the show could – and sometimes does – explore the idea of Sherlock being internet famous and thus subject to things like internet rumors and fickleness, even of a sexual nature, without sexualizing him and his story. They could frame this as something that Sherlock learns how to use to his advantage or is forced to navigate, thus making an even more meta commentary on what fame is like in the internet age.

However, instead of this more nuanced look, later seasons of the show especially choose to just assume Sherlock would be sexual, despite evidence to the contrary earlier in the series. Despite Sherlock’s insistence that romantic relationships are boring or dull or “not his area,” the show seems to think he not only wants these things, but needs these things. Even when he seems utterly disinterested or even a little put off by sex and/or romance, there is a desire to entrench this idea that these things would “complete [him] as a human being,” despite the fact that the core relationship of the show is a deep platonic friendship, one which has sustained him when everyone else around him considers him abnormal or even freakish.

I think Sherlock’s example is especially egregious because it almost seems to imply that he’ll only be relatable to the audience and the other characters if he’s specifically not aspec. This is absurd and insulting for a number of reasons. The chief one, of course, is the idea that being non-sexual is so unthinkable that aspec characters and people alike relating to them is impossible and they must be “normalized” before such a thing can happen. In Sherlock’s case, another reason it’s so unpalatable is that, despite his “massive intellect” and occasionally off-putting personality, there actually are many things that are relatable about him. For instance, as the series goes on, we see the many ways Sherlock has been broken by his circumstances over the years and can see the way he is dismissed, bullied, and pushed aside by people who don’t understand him. Genius or not, aspec or not, I think everyone knows what that feels like, and so the idea that an audience can only relate to him if the show points out how pretty and sexually available he is feels insulting to the show’s own character building.

Image description: A scene from Sherlock episode "The Sign of Three," in which Sherlock imagines Irene Adler - previously seen in "A Scandal in Belgravia." As I discussed in my Sherlock-specific posts, despite the show trying to legitimize the idea of Sherlock and Irene having a sexual relationship, I feel that "Scandal" accidentally doubles down on his "aspec vibes," making scenes such as this feel like stretches to try and make Sherlock more "normal."

Beyond the insulting and aphobic elements, I think that’s actually one of the things that bothers me the most about the tendency to sexualize non-sexual characters, and something I discuss in another post all about the phenomenon of prioritizing sexualization over characterization. Not only does this media tendency keep characters stuck, I believe it keeps the audience stuck too, never allowing them to see beyond the idea of a character’s looks or sexual desirability. That in turn keeps aspec fans stuck, because the media never challenges anyone to see that alternate interpretations of the characters are even possible.

However, this type of forced sexualization doesn’t only happen to conventionally attractive characters. Think, for instance, of alien characters I’ve covered in the past, such as Odo from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Odo and the other Changelings we see in the series are intentionally supposed to look a little unusual, so I don’t think the intention is to sexualize them out of a desire to make them attractive. So what is the reason then? This is a recurring issue I think we see in sci-fi and fantasy media, where creators are afraid of having their non-human characters or races be too non-human, and so sex and/or romance is included to keep them from being perceived as overly different. If and when very non-human races are included, they’re in the background to give the illusion of a very different society; but when we’re dealing with characters or plot points in the forefront, those tend to be played a bit more safely.

That’s not to say that sci-fi and fantasy never strive to do something unexpected or trailblazing – Star Trek, for example, has been pushing those envelopes since day one, which is part of what makes it so impactful and long-lasting within culture. That being said, however, there are plenty of times where Star Trek could challenge their audience by encouraging them to love, accept, and even identify with characters that are very different from what might be traditionally expected and yet swerve to avoid this option. I think The Changelings, Odo, and Odo’s relationship with Kira are good examples of this, because all three of these things represent times when DS9 chose to sexualize situations that did not need to be inherently sexual.

Image description: I've discussed the Changelings' ability to "link" before on the blog and the strange way it is sometimes sexualized when it fits the writers' needs. Since Kira is a "solid," she of course can't link with Odo as Changelings do, which leads to this strange scene at the end of the episode "Chimera" in which he turns into a glittering spectrum of light and engulfs her while she looks on in wonder. This was played as if it was supposed to be somewhat sexual, which is a prime example of what I mean when I say DS9 sexualized things in Odo and Kira's relationship that were not and did not need to be inherently sexual.

I’ve talked at length about the issues with both Odo as a character and the Changelings as an overall race in other posts (and I have plans to talk about the Changelings again in future, because there’s simply so much to cover), so I won’t go into too much depth with them here. But I’d like to emphasize just why these things are such massive disservices to Odo and his character development, as well as the overall development of the show, especially when it comes to his relationship with Major Kira. Odo and Kira are long-standing friends starting from before the series begins and while I find it frustrating that the writers chose to prioritize a romantic relationship over their friendship, there are some interesting moments in their romance all the same. However, the worst ones are always the ones that try to double down on the idea of Odo’s sexual attraction towards Kira.

I think what I find most disappointing about this is that they had plenty of opportunities to establish that Odo loved Kira but wasn’t necessarily attracted to her, and going down this path might have been interesting for both characters and for the audience to experience. In the early seasons of DS9, Odo very much seems like he could be an aspec character; he seems to be an aromantic asexual one at first, but even after it’s revealed that he has romantic feelings for Kira, it would be perfectly possible to still have Odo as an asexual character, or portray him as on the asexual spectrum. For instance, demiromanticism or demisexuality could still completely fit Odo and Kira’s relationship, if it weren’t for the way Odo’s other relationships are portrayed, such as with the Female Changeling, one of the series’ main villains.

DS9, like most of Star Trek, comes so close to making interesting commentaries with Odo’s character, only to fall utterly flat at every opportunity, seemingly for no other reason than the writers couldn’t imagine Odo not being sexual, even though their own writing points to this idea. Like I discussed earlier with Sherlock, this then leads to a sort of desire to retcon Odo’s aspec tendencies and, in some cases, explain it as him “refusing to explore humanity.” Right off the bat, the idea that Odo needs to “explore” these elements of humanity is creepy and reinforces the idea that this is something all people must experience, even ones who, in this case, literally aren’t human. It serves as a distressingly good metaphor for the idea of forced sexualization and the idea that this must be added to all characters even if it doesn’t make sense.

While DS9 is a bit grittier than other Star Trek series and thus we’re not as tied to the ideas of perfect utopia as other series are, this is still frustrating for what is supposed to be the enlightened future. But even more frustrating is the way media like Star Trek tries to introduce dissenting attitudes as if to prove they have self-awareness, but don’t do anything meaningful with them. We see this a lot with the show’s non-human character or alien races like the Vulcans or the Klingons, and we see it with Odo too.

For example, in a season four episode called “Crossfire,” Odo very accurately observes that the Federation “claim to be open and understanding, but somehow they’re always convinced that they’re right.” It’s a very astute commentary, but it rings a little hollow when we consider how poorly Odo is served in this episode otherwise. This is an episode well before Odo and Kira's romance begins, and it’s hard to take this philosophy seriously when this same episode features Odo being called cold and dispassionate, or when his emotional outburst over Kira dating another man is portrayed as somehow a display of real – and, ostensibly, “correct” – emotion.

Forced Sexualization = Inherently Bad

I think it’s important to point out that writing sexual plotlines or sexual characters is not inherently bad and it’s not inherently bad writing. Including sex, romance, or the development of such for a character is not inherently bad characterization. But forced sexualization, especially of characters with non-sexual and/or non-romantic tendencies and especially for the reasons I’ve described above, is inherently bad in my opinion. I’ve seen too many instances where stories veer wildly off track specifically because of the insistent desire to “correct” accidentally aspec plotlines, and so I am convinced that this type of content is the natural enemy of good storytelling.

If you’ve read the blog for a while, I’m sure you’re used to me referencing a few of the worst examples of how sexualizing a non-sexual character leads to bad plot points. For instance, I’m almost always talking about episodes of Star Trek: Voyager like “Unimatrix Zero” and “Human Error,” both of which are episodes where Seven of Nine is pushed into romantic and/or sexual scenarios. But in my opinion, these aren’t episodes that are just bad from an aspec perspective, they’re also just bad, utilizing nonsensical plotlines and convoluted logic to justify their need to have Seven in these situations. While the acting is certainly terrific in these episodes and I can’t say they’re the worst episodes of Star Trek or even just of Voyager (I’m looking at you, “Threshold”), these episodes are marked by bad writing that stems from their bad handling of Seven’s character.

I believe these episodes and episodes like them would be more harshly regarded if it weren’t for the fact that audiences have been conditioned to accept a great deal of dissonance when it comes to romance and/or sexual storylines. While many people aren’t afraid to critique bad romances in media, pointing out major red flags when it’s needed, I think our culture and society incentivize us to see sex and/or romance as the ultimate goal of many stories and relationships. Therefore, when we see these things happen in a piece of media, we’re encouraged to accept them unquestioningly, even if they’re portrayed poorly. For another example, I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the quality of Sherlock started to go downhill around the same time that the writers seemed obsessed with correcting the idea that Sherlock himself was asexual. In that sense, I think forced sexualization is bad from an aspec standpoint, a writing standpoint, and a fandom standpoint because these plot points often ruin otherwise good pieces of media or storylines.

But more than that, no piece of media can possibly be seen as tolerant, diverse, accepting, or inclusive if this is how they choose to view their potentially aspec characters. The same is true of fandoms, and if you’ve been reading my blog for a while, you know my fandom life is (mostly) dead because of these exact things. There is nothing more frustrating as a fangirl than to have my own sense of self and sense of safety disrespected for no reason other than a fandom’s belief that sex and/or romance need to happen. In my eyes, these things point to an unwillingness to accept that not everyone lives the same type of lifestyle and an inability to respect and acknowledge that non-sexual and/or non-romantic lifestyles are just as valid.

In a way, these things are a vicious circle – society is so enmeshed in these attitudes that they naturally get reproduced over and over again in media, and this abundance of these stories further entrenches the attitudes in society. This is why I think it’s important to challenge this pattern of forcing aspec adjacent characters into relationships. I actually recently saw a Tumblr post talking about this very phenomenon, in which characters are aspec-coded and there is a deliberate effort to ignore that by both media and fans alike, and I agree with the post’s core point: this behavior is, whether consciously or subconsciously, aphobic. More to the point, it demonstrates an aphobic unwillingness to even consider life without sex and/or romance, and that’s a big problem.

Image description: Odo and Kira share a moment in the episode "Badda Bing Badda Bang"

For all of these reasons, I believe the dangers of sexualizing non-sexual characters are actual dangers. They pose a danger to good storytelling. They pose a danger to aspec representation of any kind, whether vague or otherwise. And they pose a danger to cultivating positive and diverse fandom spaces. As I said at the beginning of this post, I don’t think merely acknowledging the existence of aspec identities is enough to foster real acceptance and free exchange of ideas; if allosexual fans continue to treat aspec identities as something that should only exist at the fringe, there will be no growth. This severely limits creativity in ways that I think everyone who loves media and fandom should fear.

This is not an easy problem to fix, and I don’t doubt it will take several years and a lot of deliberate effort to change media and fandom attitudes. But I also believe there are some easy steps that people can take to begin moving in the right direction. As fans, we don’t have to accept bad writing just because it facilitates characters’ romantic/sexual relationships, and we don’t have to ignore the aspec vibes of characters’ just because it suits a narrative. Media doesn’t have to choose to prioritize these relationships over others. I think if we support the media that does this correctly and don’t try to explain these things away, we have a shot at not only telling better stories, but also making fandom spaces better for all people too.