In 2021, I came out online as asexual. At the time it felt like a big deal. Here was a piece of me that finally made sense. I loved having words for experiences that had remained ambiguous or even seen negatively in my head. This was the byproduct of researching for months, doing everything to make sense of who I was. It made things that were invisible suddenly omnipresent. That was if I knew where to look. However, the initial months of scouring the internet for community only proved to make me feel isolated. Where were the other asexuals? Did we even have good media representation?
As dumb as it sounds, the simple answer is that it does get easier. Expecting everything to work out immediately was always the most difficult time. The months of believing “nobody understands me” and somehow believing that you’re a unicorn even among The LGBTQIA+ Community’s rich acronym are so overwhelming that I don’t think for me coming out was going to suddenly make me smile. I needed to find something and, for as impersonal as it was, I found it in patches everywhere. They taught me codes and signs to look out for. Slowly you see beyond the caricature and find some humanity underneath.
One of the common refrains that emerged was the need to read Alice Oseman. She remains more well-known for the “Heartstopper” series. At the time, it had yet to become a Netflix series and remained queer readers’ personal secret. As I looked for books to read about my new identity, knowing who Oseman was provided at least some guiding light. Sure, the comic series focused more on gay, bisexual, and even transgender characters, but it was a start. As viewers in 2023 will know, asexual characters would appear eventually.
Then there was “Loveless.”
For everything that I have found endearing about Oseman’s style elsewhere, I knew that tracking down “Loveless” would be my best bet for finding asexual fiction. There are undoubtedly dozens of other writers currently writing phenomenal literature around the ace perspective. In a better world, I would be more in touch with each and every one of them. However, “Loveless” was the type of text that seemed to speak to the widest group of people, producing something symbolizing a shared language. I remember sharing on a Spacey Aces YouTube video that one of the happiest parts of last Christmas was receiving the book as a gift. Better yet, it came from big box retailer Wal-Mart. As much as I could suggest that mom and pop stores are more ideal, having “Loveless” in this market suggests a validation that strictly ace literature could be sold en masse.
Sure, I still found “Heartstopper” available tenfold over “Loveless,” but the sentiment gave me confidence. I put it on the shelf for when I would finally be ready to see what it was all about. It would be months, Spring Break 2023 in fact, until I gave myself the time to indulge. By then I had a stronger grasp of asexuality as it related to me. I even had ways of connecting my experiences to the media I read, basically finding “coding” in odd corners. In some respect, it was my way of carving out a niche, something that could give me hope if I ever had a bad day.
As a young adult novel, it wasn’t exactly the most difficult to read. In fact, I am over a decade removed in age from the protagonist. Most of Oseman’s characters are on the younger side, teenagers finding their identity and learning to navigate a digital world that feels somewhat foreign to me. This is not done in a freakish way, but I can’t help but recognize some distance between a Millennial Ace and a Gen-Z Ace. We all share certain ideals, but our upbringings do inform different things. Still, Oseman writes these characters with a sense of optimism and hope that seems a bit unreal to me, somebody who looks back at a time before gay marriage and, sadly, a level of homophobia that rivals today and sometimes even beats it. Oseman’s work defines a world that I’d love to live in, where people resolve their issues with rationality and vulnerability. When the outside world gets too scary, she’s there to make you feel less alone.
From the opening pages, “Loveless” resonated in a way that made me feel in safe hands. With the protagonist at a campfire event, she is pressured into a social activity. She doubts her own attraction, believing that she must kiss somebody before the night is over. There needs to be evidence that she isn’t “broken” in a sense. She needs to be like everybody else before graduation thrusts her into the more adult world of college and even more promiscuous situations. It goes comically awry, leading to self-exploration which is a journey not unlike many stories I’ve heard of on social media. It’s one even I’ve faced to a less collegiate extent.
Something to admire is that Oseman is not writing strictly about asexuality in the boring black-and-white details. While she shoehorns in every detail somewhere, this is a story about one individual. The protagonist has a life outside of sexuality and in fact, gets into different conflicts along the way. There’s pop culture discussions. People text on their phones late into the night. There’s parties and even the falling out of friendships. An acting club takes an interesting turn that grounds a lot of the tension in something driven by more platonic passions. It’s essentially a story about being in college and experiencing certain value changes along with self-discovery. I hesitate to say more because I do believe there’s value in just reading.
But still, the interiority of the character is something that launches the book into a special class. The protagonist has an active social life that has never-ending highlights. They are not the most popular kid nor is there any heightened sense of action. What is here is the story of someone who is normal to a fault, managing to connect with a crowd who is unsure what the future holds for them. As an asexual, that just happens to include the reality that maybe sex and marriage aren’t top priorities. There’s disappointment that comes with it. For those willing, there’s even experimentation and awkward revelations when nothing clicks. Oseman has a gift for making these exchanges funny and uncomfortable but also relatable.
I think from here, an issue tends to be that most media is not keen to drop the word “asexual” into the story. It is often at best coded and, in a lot of trendier cases, rewritten later on to give “frigid” characters more of a happy ending. Oseman posits that it is possible to happy without having to settle for the sexual and romantic tropes that have been normalized. It takes a long time to break free of their mystique. It takes a long time to not feel inadequate and like you’re doing life wrong. Like with “Heartstopper,” Oseman’s biggest goal is to encourage readers to embrace themselves and this different way of thinking. She does what the coded texts don’t. She gives the protagonist (and by proxy, the readers) the language necessary to continue their journey. There’s a whole scene of quoting definitions. The back of the book even links to resources like AVEN. If you only know asexuality from “Loveless,” then there’s a good chance that it won’t seem so barbaric.
There needs to be some clarity for a second. I recognize that this is a discussion largely about how “Loveless” is an asexual text. Oseman is also aromantic and the book does a great job of exploring that side. However, because I relate more to the ace side, I am choosing to focus on that. I am unfamiliar with the struggles of aromanticism and recognize that they’re even more in need of great media representation. With that said, I think you can come out of either side and feel some pride that, yes, this is who you are. You’re asexual. You’re aromantic. It’s not a terrible thing. Your allosexual friends will not disown you because it disinterests them. I even think Oseman manages to reflect on these labels in such a way that it’s not isolating among friend groups. There are ways to engage with people with active dating lives without seeming strange.
Again, I don’t know that I necessarily relate to “Loveless” on a literal teenage girl level. However, I can recognize the uncertainty with which a character lives. There’s the isolation of navigating a world that never truly felt like it accepted you. There’s moments of isolation that cause you to act irrationally, maybe even pushing people away. You’re left without words and just this vague feeling that is against the grain. Oseman captures it beautifully and I think has created a text that gives hope. There’s a reason that it is one of the most discussed things related to asexuality that I’ve seen in the past three years. It may not tell my story, but the motivations are undeniably familiar. By having someone else say they relate to “Loveless,” I have been able to find a community with a lot less effort than the glossary I started with.
As we continue through Ace Week 2023, I am reminded of how far I’ve come on my journey. I’m also aware of how far we can still go. If “Loveless” does one thing right, it provides hope for those still looking for purpose in this world. It’s a guiding pathway for those who feel lost and need a sense of “What is asexuality?” You hand them this book and hope that something clicks. I can’t say it was my first step, but even with these many taken, it has enlightened other things for me. Even the fact that it was sold at Wal-Mart was enough to make me feel seen. Yes, it’s crass rainbow capitalism that is fading out of fashion, but it doesn’t mean it isn’t popular enough to be considered marketable. Every time I see a “Heartstopper” at Target, I feel that hope staying alive. Someone will find it and maybe have an easier time than I did.
I continue to support Alice Oseman as she continues her ascension. I recognize that Heartstopper as a series doesn’t appeal to everyone. It’s not the most provocative take on queer love that anyone’s seen. However, I still root for an aro-ace writer to make it on Netflix and hopefully make the world a more tolerant place. Given that this season ended with a character discovering their own ace nature (with the Angela Chen book, no less), it gave me hope that this language will soon be on a playing field on par with more popular queer texts. More than anything, I have felt less alone in the asexual community over the past few years. There’s more hope that if Oseman can succeed, then why not more? I’m looking forward to finding out.
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