Asexuality in fiction
From AVENwiki
This list is for fictional portrayals of asexual or suspected-asexual characters. For non-fiction, see Asexuality in non-fiction.
Please expand this list!
Contents
Literature
- Please note: when noting specific characters of interest, anyone listed with [SA] next to their name refers to those who are believed to be Asexual. Their sexuality may or may not (have) be(en) confirmed by the author.
- Please note: any stories marked with [ TW ] (trigger warning) may involve content that some people may find upsetting. Please take care when viewing.
- Please note: any stories marked with [ 18 ] may involve content unsuitable for young or squeamish readers. Please take care when viewing.
Novels
Title | Author | Genre | Teaser | Character(s)* | Language(s) |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
A Clergyman's Daughter | George Orwell | Historical Fiction | Teaser | Dorothy Hare | English |
A Room With A View | E. M. Forster | Romance | Teaser | Mr. Beebe [SA] and Cecil Vyse [SA] | English |
All Souls | Javier Marías and Margaret Jull Costa (Translator) | ? | Teaser | Unknown | English, Spanish |
The Bachelor Brothers' Bed and Breakfast | Bill Richardson | Humour | “A pair of endearingly eccentric bachelors--in their fifties, and fraternal twins--own and operate a bed & breakfast establishment where people like them, the "gentle and bookish and ever so slightly confused," can feel at home. Hector and Virgil think of their B&B as a refuge, a retreat, a haven, where folks may bring their own books or peruse the brothers' own substantial library. An antic blend of homespun and intellectual humor, Bachelor Brothers' Bed and Breakfast is a place readers will want to return to again and again.” | Virgil [SA] | English |
The Bone People [TW] | Keri Hulme | Mystery | “Set on the South Island beaches of New Zealand, a harsh environment, the novel chronicles the complicated relationships between three emotional outcasts of mixed European and Maori heritage. Kerewin Holmes is a painter and a loner, convinced that "to care for anything is to invite disaster." Her isolation is disrupted one day when a six-year-old mute boy, Simon, breaks into her house. The sole survivor of a mysterious shipwreck, Simon has been adopted by a widower Maori factory worker, Joe Gillayley, who is both tender and horribly brutal toward the boy. Through shifting points of view, the novel reveals each character's thoughts and feelings as they struggle with the desire to connect and the fear of attachment.” | Kerewin Holmes [SA] | English |
The Book of Disquiet | Fernando Pessoa | "Autobiography", Literary Fiction | Teaser | Character | English, Spanish, German, Italian, French |
Bridge to Terabithia | Katherine Patterson | Children | “Discover the beloved Newbery Medal-winning story of Jess Aarons and Leslie Burke. Join Jess and Leslie as they form an unlikely friendship and create the imaginary land of Terabithia. There they rule as king and queen, until a terrible tragedy occurs that helps Jess understand just how much he has learned from Leslie.” | Unknown | English |
Carrie Pilby | Caren Lissner | Young Adult | Carrie would rather stay in bed than deal with the immoral, sex-obsessed hypocrites who seem to overrun her hometown, New York City. She's sick of trying to be like everybody else. She isn't! But when her own therapist gives her a five-point plan to change her social-outcast status, Carrie takes a hard look at herself—and agrees to try. Suddenly the world doesn't seem so bad. But is prodigy Carrie really going to dumb things down just to fit in? | Carrie Pilby | English |
Case Histories: A Novel | Kate Atkinson | Crime Fiction | “Cambridge is sweltering, during an unusually hot summer. To Jackson Brodie, former police inspector turned private investigator, the world consists of one accounting sheet - Lost on the left, Found on the right - and the two never seem to balance. Surrounded by death, intrigue and misfortune, his own life haunted by a family tragedy, Jackson attempts to unravel three disparate case histories and begins to realise that in spite of apparent diversity, everything is connected…” | Amelia [SA] and Philip [SA] | English |
The Cider House Rules [TW] [18] | John Irving | Genre | Teaser | Character | English |
The Collector [TW] [18] | John Fowles | Horror, Thriller, Fable | Ever since he first saw her, Frederick Clegg has been obsessed with Miranda Grey. The repressed, introverted butterfly collector admires the beautiful, privileged art student from afar until he wins the Lottery and buys a remote country house, planning to bring her there as his "guest". Having abducted and imprisoned her in the cellar, he soon finds this reality is far from his fantasy and their tense, claustrophobic relationship leads to a devastating climax. | Ferdinand Clegg | English |
Crampton Hodnet | Barbara Pym | Comic Novel | “Formidable Miss Doggett fills her life by giving tea parties to young academics and acting as watchdog of the morals of North Oxford. Anthea, her great-niece, is in love with a dashing upper-class undergraduate with political ambitions. Of this, Miss Doggett thoroughly approves. Anthea's father, however, an Oxford don, is tired of his marriage and carrying on in the most unseemly fashion with his student Barbara Bird - they have been spotted together at the British Museum! Miss Doggett isn't aware, though, that under her very own roof the lodging curate has proposed to her paid companion Miss Morrow. She wouldn't approve of that at all.” | Barbara [SA] | English |
Darkly Dreaming Dexter [TW] [18] | Jeff Lindsay | Crime | Meet Dexter Morgan, a polite wolf in sheep's clothing. He's handsome and charming, but something in his past has made him abide by a different set of rules. He's a serial killer whose one golden rule makes him immensely likeable: he only kills bad people. And his job as a blood splatter expert for the Miami police department puts him in the perfect position to identify his victims. But when a series of brutal murders bearing a striking similarity to his own style start turning up, Dexter is caught between being flattered and being frightened -- of himself or some other fiend.” | Dexter Morgan | English |
The Dwarf | Pär Lagerkvist | Genre | Teaser | The Dwarf | English, Swedish |
Forbidden Colors | Yukio Mishima | LGBT, Fiction | Teaser | Yuichi | English, Japanese |
Geek Love | Katherine Dunn | Fiction | “Geek Love is the story of the Binewskis, a carny family whose mater- and paterfamilias set out–with the help of amphetamine, arsenic, and radioisotopes–to breed their own exhibit of human oddities. There’s Arturo the Aquaboy, who has flippers for limbs and a megalomaniac ambition worthy of Genghis Khan . . . Iphy and Elly, the lissome Siamese twins . . . albino hunchback Oly, and the outwardly normal Chick, whose mysterious gifts make him the family’s most precious–and dangerous–asset.” | Miss Lick [SA] | English |
Herland | Charlotte Perkins Stetson Gilman | Feminist Science Fiction | Teaser | Character | English |
The Hyannis House | Gordon Mathieson | Mystery, Romance | “A US Senator from Cape Cod, Massachusetts is murdered and any of three people soon become suspects. There is however, a second murder in Boston, that ties into the first, and complicates the case for detectives. It isn’t until a former college sweetheart of the Senator’s wife comes into the scene that clues pop up in strange places. Although bizarre, these begin to make sense in solving the murders. There is a forbidden romance and love story embedded in the mystery and makes the reader question who the real murderer might turn out to be.” | Character | English |
Infinite Jest | David Foster Wallace | Tragic Comedy | Teaser | Character | English |
Jude The Obscure [TW] | Thomas Hardy | Genre | Teaser | Character | English |
July, July | Tim O'Brien | Genre | Teaser | Character | English |
The Kreutzer Sonata | Leo Tolstoi | Genre | Teaser | Character | English, Russian, German, French |
The Left Hand of Darkness | Ursula K. Le Guin | Science Fiction | Teaser | Character | See Wikipedia |
Lily White | Susan Isaacs | Genre | Teaser | Character | English |
Namedropper: A Novel | Emma Forrest | Genre | Teaser | Character | English |
No Touching | Aileen Deng | Genre | Teaser | Character | English |
Operation Hurdler, and Operation Outside Hitter | Michael Bilka | Genre | Teaser | Character | English |
The Pavilion of Women | Pearl S. Buck | Genre | Teaser | Character | English |
Scenes From A Holiday | Caren Lissner | Genre | Teaser | Character | English |
Seethings | Michael Forman | Genre | Teaser | Character | English |
Sexing the Cherry | Jeanette Winterson | Genre | Teaser | Character | English |
Sherlock Holmes Mysteries | Sir Arthur Conan Doyle | Genre | Teaser | Character | English |
The Son | Jo Nesbø | Crime Fiction | Teaser | Character | English, Norwegian |
To The Lighthouse | Virginia Woolf | Modernism | Teaser | Character | English |
What Happened to Lani Garver | Carol Plum-Ucci | Genre | Teaser | Character | English |
The World According to Garp [TW] [18] | John Irving | Genre | Teaser | Jenny Fields | English |
The Wrong Boy | Willy Russell | Genre | Teaser | Character | English
|
Romance
Title | Author | Plot | Characters* | Language(s) |
---|---|---|---|---|
Ace | Jack Byrne | Plot | Character | Language(s) |
Fenton: the Lonliest Vampire and Fire & Ice (Lost Realm Book 2) | Kate Aaron | Plot | Character | Language(s) |
Fireland: Jimmy Loves Rob | Sam Burke | Plot | Character | Language(s) |
The Heart of Aces | Sarah Sinnaeve, Esther Day, Stephanie Charvet, Flavia Napoleoni, Rai Scodras, Mursheda Ahad, Chelsey Brinson, Madeline Bridgen, Andrea R. Blackwell, A. J. Hall, Kari Woodrow | Plot | Character | Language(s) |
The New Boy | Maddy Linehan | Plot | Character | Language(s) |
Science fiction and fantasy
Title | Author | Plot | Characters* | Language(s) |
---|---|---|---|---|
Ann Marie’s Asylum (Master and Apprentice Book 1) | Christopher Rankin | Plot | Character | Language(s) |
Bone Dance | Emma Bull | Plot | Character | Language(s) |
Cat's Cradle | Kurt Vonnegut | Plot | Character | Language(s) |
Deadeye Dick | Kurt Vonnegut | Plot | Character | Language(s) |
The Deed of Paksenarrion: A Novel | Elizabeth Moon | Plot | Character | Language(s) |
Diaspora | Greg Egan | Plot | Character | Language(s) |
Distress | Greg Egan | Plot | Character | Language(s) |
Dragonlance Chronicles Trilogy | Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman | Plot | Character | Language(s) |
Dragonlance Legends Trilogy | Margaret Weis | Plot | Character | Language(s) |
Dragonlance: The Raistlin Chronicles - The Soulforge, Brothers in Arms | Margaret Weis | Plot | Character | Language(s) |
Escape From Furnace: Lockdown, Solitary, Death Sentence, Fugitives, Execution | Alexander Gordon Smith | Plot | Character | Language(s) |
The Fire's Stone | Tanya Huff | Plot | Character | Language(s) |
Fool's Errand, Golden Fool and Fool's Fate | Robin Hodd | Plot | Character | Language(s) |
Geektastic: Stories from the Nerd Herd | Holly Black and Cecil Castellucci | Plot | Character | Language(s) |
Golden Witchbreed | Mary Gentle | Plot | Character | Language(s) |
Good Omens | Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman | Plot | Character | Language(s) |
Halfway Human | Carolyn Ives Gilman | Plot | Character | Language(s) |
I, Robot | Isaac Asimov | Plot | Character | Language(s) |
The Metabarons: Aghora the Father-Mother & Immaculate Conception | Alexandro Jodorowsky | Plot | Character | Language(s) |
Mindtouch | M. C. A. Hogarth | Plot | Character | Language(s) |
The Oathbound, Oathbreakers and Oathblood | Mercedes Lackey | Plot | Character | Language(s) |
Obsidian and Blood: Servant of the Underworld, Harbringer of the Underworld, Master of the House of Darts | Aliette de Bodard | Plot | Character | Language(s) |
Ombria in Shadow | Patricia A. McKillip | Plot | Character | Language(s) |
Perdition | A. R. Rickaby | Plot | Character | Language(s) |
Polymorph | Scott Westerfeld | Plot | Character | Language(s) |
Proud Man | Katharine Burkedin, Daphne Patai | Plot | Character | Language(s) |
Quicksilver | R. J. Anderson | Plot | Character | Language(s) |
Rose of the Prophet Trilogy: The Will of the Wanderer, The Paladin of the Night, The Prophet of Akhran | Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman | Plot | Character | Language(s) |
Sourcery | Terry Pratchett | Plot | Character | Language(s) |
The Tropic of Serpents | Marie Brennan | Plot | Character | Language(s) |
When the King Comes Home | Caroline Stevermer | Plot | Character | Language(s) |
White Mars | Brian Wilson Aldiss | Plot | Character | Language(s) |
White Queen | Gwyneth Jones | Plot | Character | Language(s) |
Wings of Destruction | Victoria Zagar | Plot | Character | Language(s) |
The World of Wreckers | Marion Zimmer Bradley | Plot | Character | Language(s) |
The Wraiths of Will and Pleasure and Wraeththu | Storm Constantine | Plot | Character | Language(s) |
Short stories
Title | Author | Plot | Characters* | Language(s) |
---|---|---|---|---|
Accepting Me | Jo Ramsey | Plot | Character | Language(s) |
Aye, and Gomorrah: And Other Stories | Samuel R. Delany | Plot | Character | Language(s) |
"Bicycle Repairman"/A Good Old-fashioned Future | Bruce Sterling | Plot | Character | Language(s) |
"One of the Boys"/Superheroes | Lawrence Watt-Evans. John Varley & Ricia Mainhardt, eds. | Plot | Character | Language(s) |
"Start the Clock"/The Year's Best Science Fiction 22nd Annual Collection | Benjamin Rosenbaum | Plot | Character | Language(s) |
Featuring asexual or suspected-asexual characters
- Susan Isaacs - Lily White (sexual main characters lead asexual relationship)
- Caren Lissner - Carrie Pilby (Carrie Pilby)
- Caren Lissner et al. - Scenes From A Holiday (Carrie Pilby, see novella titled "Carrie Pilby's New Year's Resolution")
- Tim O'Brien - July, July (Marla Dempsey)
- George Orwell - A Clergyman's Daughter (Dorothy Hare)
- Banana Yoshimoto - The Lake (Nakajima; asexual relationship)
Movies
Year | Title | Reason | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
1987 | Withnail and I | The film ends with Withnail saying "Man delights not me, no, nor women neither, nor women neither."[1] (These words are in fact originally taken from a quote from Shakespeare's Hamlet, act 2, scene 2.[2]) | Directed by Bruce Robinson |
2006 | Sherlock Holmes (Most versions) | Sherlock Holmes is generally considered asexual. | - |
2010 | Inception | Ellen Page plays Ariadne. Unusually for a female character, she isn't a romantic interest and she expresses no desire for other characters in the film. Joseph Gordon-Levitt's character, Arthur, tricks her into a kiss once, to which she seems unreactive. | Directed by Christopher Nolan |
2004 | Mysterious Skin | Brian Lackey, who was sexually abused as a child. He shows no interest in sex or romance, and seems repulsed when a female character abruptly tries to kiss, touch and undress him. Another character describes his "vibe" as "kinda weirdly asexual."[3] His memories of the abuse are strongly repressed until the end of the movie, as he believes he was abducted by aliens and not sexually abused. | Directed by Gregg Araki |
Television Shows
Year | Title | Reason |
---|---|---|
2006 – present | Dexter | The title character, a serial killer, feels emotionally divorced from the rest of humanity and has no interest in romance or sex.[4] |
1963 – 1989, 2005 – present |
Doctor Who | The Doctor's sexuality is ambiguous; his relationship with Rose Tyler has been described as "a love story without the shagging".[5] |
2010 | Huge | American show, character Poppy (played by Zoe Jarman) is the girl's cabin leader. She self-identifies as asexual in season 1, episode 5.[6] |
2002 – present | Ouran High School Host Club | Haruhi Fujioka, the main character, has no interest in romance and prefers platonic relationships despite being surrounded by attractive males and females.[7] |
1992 – present | Shortland street | New Zealand TV Show - character Gerald is asexual.[8][9] |
2007 – present | The Big Bang Theory | American sitcom, character Sheldon Cooper expresses asexual tendencies. |
1985 – 1992 | The Golden Girls | American sitcom, character Rose never thought about sex before she was married and when her husband wanted to have sex for the first time she didn't really understand sexual desire. She has never orgasmed. |
2006 | The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya | One known asexual character, Yuki Nagato, and an anti-romantic character (titular). The show doesn't feature any relationships except for platonic ones, although the narrator character does experience some sexual attraction himself.[10] |
2010 | Sherlock | Holmes says having a girlfriend is "not really my area", he considers himself "married to [his] work", and tells Watson, "I am flattered by your interest, [but] I am really not looking for anyone." Steven Moffat said in an interview 'He's happy being Sherlock Holmes... other people might have a problem with him being asexual, he doesn't have any problem with it, he's fine.'[11] |
2014 - 2015 | Sirens | Voodoo, one of the EMTs has canonically said that she is asexual. The other EMTs refute the theory that she "hasn't met the right person" by saying that she met Johnny Depp and only thought that he wore too much makeup. |
2015 - present | The March Family Letters | Webseries. When asked if she had a crush on Laurie, Beth asked, "You do remember that I'm ace, right?" Jo responded by saying "that doesn't mean you're aromantic." Beth made no further comment on her romantic orientation, only saying that she was not interested in Laurie. |
See also
External Links
- TV Tropes article on asexuality
References
- ↑ Withnail & I on Shitespace
- ↑ Hamlet Text and Translation - Act II - Scene II on eNotes
- ↑ Mysterious Skin Script - Dialogue Transcript on Drew's Script-O-Rama
- ↑ Dexter - on AVEN Forums
- ↑ Doctor (Doctor Who) on Wikipedia
- ↑ Huge (TV series) on Wikipedia
- ↑ TV romantic cliches *clenches fist* - on AVEN Forums
- ↑ Shortland Street Asexuality Storyline - playlist on YouTube
- ↑ Shortland Street on TVNZ
- ↑ The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya - on AVEN Forums
- ↑ Sherlock – Audio interview with Steven Moffat on Geek Syndicate