Understanding Asexuality

Note that I am not merely referring to high art here. Examples of asexual characters (or characters who have an asexual aura) help drive fiction in the popular media, with some of it, of course, far from being considered high art. Indeed, perhaps the most important examples are ones found in the popular media, as those venues have a wide appeal to psychological and social forces common to most, if not all, people.

A prime example of asexuals in low art is the title character in the TV program Gilligan’s Island. This program ran for three years in the late 1960s, but the relatively short stint on TV belies the popularity of this program, as it was very successful in reruns for many years. Thus, it had a large appeal, at least for a segment of the population. Other than the title character, Gilligan, the male characters on this TV program—the Skipper, the Professor, and even Mr. Howell—projected an asexual aura at times, but Gilligan was essentially asexual. Although physically mature, he evinced little sexual desire or attraction.

Why was he portrayed so? The simple answer, I believe, is the writers knew that this type of character portrayal had appeal for preadolescent boys—indeed, a large portion of the audience for this program may have been boys—who could identify with Gilligan, in part because of their own asexuality or, more accurately, presexuality. A sexual Gilligan would not have appealed to their sensibilities, and perhaps even threatened them. Also, his asexuality made good fodder for the type of humor in which this show reveled: One of the female characters, the movie star Ginger, was very sexual, at least for that time in TV-land, and thus her overtures to Gilligan made for comedic tension.

Today there is a character on TV who is Gilligan’s sexual equal: Sheldon, from the popular show The Big Bang Theory. He is, of course, Gilligan’s intellectual superior by light years, an academic nerd of epic proportions, but the humor of this show partly derives from a similar dramatic/comedic tension: the character’s asexuality brushing up against a sexual world.

Another character with an asexual aura who predates Gilligan and also may outlive Sheldon is Jughead Jones, Archie’s male sidekick in the popular comic series created in the 1940s. Jughead is consumed with interests (hamburgers, mostly) other than the usual teenage preoccupation of finding and keeping mates. In the modern incarnation of this series, there has been a suggestion that Jughead is gay—for instance, a male character “comes out” to him (IBNLive.com, 2011, April 2)—but I expect that the original writers wanted Jughead presented asexually. Thus, although the “asexual” word likely did not creep into the writers’ editorial meetings (at least those in the early years), Jughead was likely created as an asexual (and aromantic) contrast to Archie, who was girl crazy.

As mentioned, women have also often been portrayed in art and the popular media as asexual—for example, the iconic virgin. Such icons are presented in high art (e.g., religiously inspired art of the Virgin Mary) to highlight virtues, but also in more popular fiction to increase tension and drama. For example, iconic asexual female characters seem to occur with regular frequency in dramas or comedies—perhaps a naïve ingénue or a nerdy, priggish librarian (complete with thick glasses). These portrayals may enhance the dramatic/comedic arc of a story, because these asexual female characters may likewise brush up against a sexual world. They also offer a glimpse, or at least a fantasy, of an asexual character possibly becoming sexualized. No doubt such glimpses, if they are realized, have a titillating appeal to some heterosexual male audiences.

That asexual characters seem to be of a “type” or routinely have certain characteristics—such as the asexual “man-child” (Gilligan), the intellectual nerd (Sheldon), the asexual prig (the librarian)—may speak to our expectations of how asexuality often manifests itself in people in the real world, even if these expectations are often distorted stereotypes.