Ep 147: Asexual Representation feat. Repl(Ace) the Media

Listen to Ep 147: Asexual Representation feat. Repl(Ace) the Media here.

SARAH: Hey what’s up hello. Welcome to Sounds Fake But Okay, a podcast where an aro-ace girl (I’m Sarah. That’s me.)

KAYLA:… and a demi-straight girl (that’s me, Kayla)

ZAINE: I’m demisexual panromantic Zaine on behalf of Repl(ace) the Media campaign. Hi.

SARAH: talk about all things to do with love, relationships, sexuality, and pretty much anything else that we just don’t understand.

KAYLA: On today’s episode: asexual representation.

ALL: — Sounds fake, but okay.

SARAH: Welcome back to the pod.

KAYLA: M’ilky way.

SARAH: Oh. That’s a choice.

KAYLA: I was going to do milkshake but I’ve already done that, so I was like, “what else starts with milk?” 

ZAINE: I’m mildly confused.

KAYLA: It’s a terrible segment.

SARAH: It’s a terrible bit that we do. 

KAYLA: I think it’s funny when it’s like m’lady, but you do other words that start with “m” and it started as a joke and we still do it when we have guests on which I think Sarah’s way of torturing me because it makes me embarrassed about my own bit that Sarah hates. It makes me look stupid.SARAH: You’ve never told me that you don’t want to do it when guests are on so.

KAYLA: I mean I don’t but I also feel like if I don’t do it, the listeners will get mad at me cause they love it now and it’s just my fault at this point.

SARAH: Would you say it’s “m’y fault?” 

KAYLA: No and I’d like you to go away and I guess we should start the podcast now.

SARAH: Yeah let’s do that now. Kayla, what are we talking about this week?

KAYLA: This week is our final episode of Auguest even though we’re going to have guests on throughout the months but August is almost over. Anyway, our last guest is Zaine who is from the Repl(ace) the Media campaign so we’re going to be talking about the media and ace representation in the media and erasure and all of that stuff today.

SARAH: Zaine do you want to just start us out by telling us a bit about the campaign?

KAYLA: And you, obviously.

SARAH: Yeah we also care about you.

ZAINE: Yeah that features in. So, the campaign kind of started off as a mini project I was going to do on my own because I was working on a story about an ace siren and I got really frustrated because there are not a lot of ace characters in the media - be that writing, be that shows, anything really. There isn’t even ace-specific music because everything is so focused on sexuality and romance and all of that. So the point of the campaign is to kind of give us that representation that we don’t get from the world. Reclaiming our space in the media, which is why it’s Repl(ace) the Media — also because I love a good pun. So, I’m not sure if you’ve had the same experience but most of the aspec people that I’ve spoken to grow up with this feeling like they’re broken because everything in the media or when you just go to school and everyone’s talking about crushes and attraction and sex and all of that, and you’re like, yeah I’m going to lie about this random person I have a crush on because I feel weird. So the point of the campaign is to essentially make sure that aces who are still in the closet or people who haven’t figured out that they’re ace or aspec in any way, feel welcome to the community so that they know that this is a thing that exists and that’s valid. But it’s not just to offer that kind of support, it’s also to bring attention to that community for people beyond because I think ace representation really really helps with other aspects of society as well. Like not just for making sure that people know we exist and we’re here and how they should respect us in our identity. But I think with how heavy the focus is on sex and the whole concept of “sex sells” it leads to a lot of issues in society such as rape culture or over-sexualization of underage teens and stuff like that. I think that it inherently stems from this concept of how sex is natural and it’s something that you need to go for. I’m basically just rambling now.

SARAH: No it makes a lot of sense.

ZAINE: That’s the general idea behind it. 

SARAH: It would be a lot better for everyone — whether ace or not — if we looked at things in society more through a bit of an ace lens, because everything is so sex - you must do it, you must have it, you must have a good time. KAYLA: Having the option for younger kids to grow up and realize you don’t need to be super sexual or romantic if you don’t want to. It’s like giving representation to gay or bi kids to be like oh it’s not just a man and a woman. You can grow up from a young age understanding that instead of having to — when you’re older, having this giant a-ha moment like now everything you thought you knew is broken and gone. It’d be so much easier if you started from the beginning.

ZAINE: Absolutely. You know there’s a lot of work being done with sex education and things like that including queer aspects into it and I’m so so happy they’re doing that. But, no one really talks about asexuality in that context. And most of the sex education talks do go as in “this is important, this is natural, you need to have sex” — that’s sort of what’s focused on. No one really talks about “hey there’s the flipside,” where you don’t really need to do it and that’s perfectly normal. And you see that’s not what happens, especially when they portray the trope of the nerdy boy who’s never been with someone and everyone ridicules him for being a virgin. I think that inherently stems from the same principle because you’re pressuring kids into having sex because they’re seen as outcasts if they don’t do that.

SARAH: And once the kid has sex he’s cool. He’s popular now. Okay well.

ZAINE: Yeah I don’t really get that.

KAYLA: Yeah sex-ed is - sex is - weird. Sarah texted me two days ago and was like, “everyone says that sex is really beautiful but it’s not.”

SARAH: It’s objectively not.

KAYLA: It’s objectively two people throwing their bodies at each other, being sweaty, and making weird noises.

SARAH: The noises is what really gets me, it’s the noises.

ZAINE: How is that beautiful?

KAYLA: It’s not. I told Sarah. As someone who has sex, it’s not. 

ZAINE: For me, it’s the body fluids. Little thing about me - I didn’t know people used fanfiction to masturbate until last year. I found out when I was at uni and it just completely blew my mind. You know there’s cliches in M-rated fanfiction where they talk about being wet and cum and all of that, it just makes me-

KAYLA: It’s just a lot of fluids. It’s sweat and it’s probably some spit. And people are like, “yeah this is really cool and sexy.” But if you really think about it it’s kind of really ugly and gross. And everyone’s disgusting, including me.

SARAH: And you can enjoy it and have a great time and still acknowledge that it is not beautiful.

KAYLA: I’m someone who has a partner and I have sex and let me tell you a thing. I enjoy it but it’s fucking disgusting. I hate it. 

ZAINE: I feel like there’s this idea that you need to like every aspect of it. And you don’t. You can like the pleasure side of it but you can also not like the sweat, the sound, the fluids, the whatever. You don’t need to like the entire experience. But what also really pisses me off is the way people talk about sex and think about it. I’m sure you might have seen other people address this but not having sex means you’re immature because you’re not ready for society or whatever? And it makes absolutely no sense because I don’t understand how sex has anything to do with maturity.

KAYLA: Yeah it’s just an activity.

SARAH: And there are plenty of people who have sex who are immature. 

KAYLA: Pretty much everyone probably.

SARAH: Even as young kids they’ll be like “I did something stupid and I’m pregnant” — I would say that’s not a super mature behavior if you’re not ready for that in your life. But somehow sex makes you mature — I think even more so the inverse is true that not having sex makes you immature. Well, how?

KAYLA: I think the big thing that people don’t realize that not having sex is an option. In sex-ed they talk about it like, “you all will have sex” or “you all need to be careful or you’re going to get pregnant.” So they either teach celibacy which is stupid, or they do the correct thing which is safe sex which is great. You should teach safe sex. But the idea that we’re all growing up with the idea that “oh your three-year-old daughter is really pretty, she’s going to get in trouble one day” or “you’re 15 and you’re in sex ed, you nasty person.” What if I’m not nasty. Why do you just put on us - through sex ed or the media, every teen media - that everyone is fucking all the time? So it’s just like, I guess this is what we do. There is very rarely a character who is a teenager who doesn’t have sex and isn’t sad about it. Somehow that’s the whole plot. Woe is me I don’t have a boyfriend or I’m not having sex. It’s fine — go play video games.

SARAH: Get a Slurpee!

ZAINE: I know they had an ace character on Sex Education recently, which I was extremely happy about even though it didn’t have as much attention or focus. I was like, “yes! Someone acknowledged it!” It’s there it exists — which I feel like is really important, especially when you’re young and you’re growing up trying to figure out who you are, and no one really talks about asexuality, even within the queer community cause we get a lot of hate. I know my coming out story is basically people telling me, “oh no you’re not straight, you’re bi” “okay cool!” And then it went to pan. And then I was like, I don’t know what the difference is. And I was venting to an online friend of mine on Tumblr and I sent her about 80 messages and the only thing she replied with was “no.” And I was like, “what?” and the response was, “no, you’re ace.” And I was like, “Well that makes sense.” The reason I couldn’t stick with any one identity is because I was like, “but it’s still sexuality.” And I just couldn’t connect the dots in my head.

SARAH: And if we had more representation, you might have been able to do that without sending your friend 80 messages and having them just respond with “no.” 

ZAINE: (laughing) Yeah!

KAYLA: I think that’s something you’d do to me, Sarah. Say no. 

SARAH: I do think especially with Sex Education that as a specific example — I think it’s very powerful to have it on that show because on one hand that may be a show that a lot of people who already do identify as ace already maybe comfortable watching depending on where they fall on the sex-positive to sex-repulsed spectrum. But, I think that it is really good just generally - I mean that show it’s called Sex Education. It’s explicitly about teenagers coming into their own and their sexualities. The fact that asexuality was specifically highlighted matters.

ZAINE: What I absolutely loved about that episode even though it didn’t have a lot of focus on it is how the person goes to Otis first, who’s giving sex advice to students and she tries to explain it to him. And he’s like “no it’s okay you’ll feel it eventually” and he basically tells her what society tells all of us. And later on his mum’s like, “no — this is a thing that exists, you’re very valid” — which I think is really, really important because it presents a parallel because this is what people and society say on a regular basis. But that’s wrong. There’s this thing and this is valid and this is an identity you can claim and it’s just such a small scene but it made me so happy.

KAYLA: And I think it’s good that it wasn’t perfect from the beginning - it wasn’t like she went to Otis and Otis was like, “oh you’re ace and that’s super dope” and that was the end because that’s not what happens in the real world. So to be able to show “oh there is a misunderstanding, let’s all learn about that and the process that people go to” - that makes it a lot more realistic.

SARAH: And Otis, who is a well-intentioned character — fucked up

KAYLA: Yeah it’s not like he was being a dick on purpose. He just didn’t know.SARAH: Ignorant.

KAYLA: Other than Sex Ed, do you have a favorite media representation of asexuality either that they’re canon ace or that you headcanon that was a big moment for you?

ZAINE: I’m not entirely sure – this was several years ago and I for the life of me can’t remember what it was called. But I was reading a manhwa and it was I think a Boys’ Love manhwa - and there was this character who was childhood best friends with the protagonist and I had this headcanon whilst reading the entire story that he’s ace. And towards the last chapters of that particular series, they revealed that he actually is ace and I have never been happier. I think that was my first instance of someone actually admitting this is a thing and I was reading it, and I was like, “oh my goodness, this is amazing” especially because Asian-produced content where we don’t talk about sex generally as it is, much less the concept of asexuality because I know this is something I’ve discussed with friends of mine in India and Pakistan and it’s this concept of oh you’re not allowed to want it when you’re little but then when you get married, when you get older, it’s a thing you’ll start wanting.

SARAH: It’s a switch. 

ZAINE: Yeah, which again leads to the whole concept of “you’ll want it when you mature,” kind of like a trapped cycle of sorts. What about you guys? Do you have any headcanons or representations you really like?

SARAH: I’ll go first because Kayla I think knows I’m about to say.

KAYLA: But it’s also mine — oh never mind.

SARAH: I have two.

KAYLA: No don’t take both.

SARAH: You’re going to have to come up with something else. 

KAYLA: I don’t want to.SARAH: Katniss Everdeen in the Hunger Games could not be more aro-ace to me. My experience with that was that I read that before I knew what asexuality was. So I didn’t have the vocabulary for it, but I remember reading it and being like, obviously she’s not in love with either of them. She loves both Gale and Peeta but she’s not in love - she’s not capable of that. That was what my brain told me, even though I didn’t have the vocabulary for it. And now I’m like, she’s totally aro-ace. 

KAYLA: I recently rewatched both the first movie and the last movie actually, and rewatching the first movie especially, it was like after we had done an episode with another podcast specifically about Katniss, we talked about it and thought about it a lot. Then I rewatched the first movie and I was like “Jesus Christ - the way she talks about things!” And Sarah sent me some quotes from the book about her being like, “wow Peeta’s so good at faking this love thing - that’s crazy.” She didn’t even realize he had a crush - that’s how fucking ace and aro she was. Wild.

SARAH: I recently reread part of the second book because I’m apparently a masochist and I was like, it seems like it lines up with where the United States is right now and every time there was an aro-ace Katniss quote, I would take a picture of it and send it to Kayla.

KAYLA: It’s so wild there’s so much in there.

ZAINE: That’s adorable.

SARAH: Alright Kayla, I won’t say the second one. What is yours?

KAYLA: Okay. We can share it because I know it’s yours too. It’s Jo March from the 2019 adaptation of Little Women. We did a whole episode about it.

ZAINE: I haven’t seen it.

KAYLA: Oh my god, you have to. It’s so good. I cried. Sarah and I both saw it, separately, which was sad. It’s also the first movie I went and saw by myself. Wild. But we both sobbed the whole time because she’s not out as aro-ace. It’s set way back in the day when being gay and being ace was not a thing. But especially in that adaptation of the movie the way that she talks about things and her relationships and the fact that in this adaptation of the movie she doesn’t end up marrying a stupid man for no reason -

SARAH: Or it’s unclear whether she does or not.

KAYLA: She definitely does not.

SARAH: Not to spoil the whole movie but to be fair, the book’s been out for a hundred years. Basically the way it’s represented in the book is in the end she marries this guy for love or whatever. 

KAYLA: This random dude too - who came out of fucking nowhere, it’s ridiculous. 

SARAH: The way it’s presented in the movie - the whole point of the movie is that she’s telling the story about her family and her childhood and she’s trying to get the book published.KAYLA: It’s like a biography.SARAH: Kind of. When she’s talking to the publisher, the publisher’s like, “no she needs to marry the guy at the end” and she’s like, “why?” And he’s like, “Well she either has to marry a man or she has to die.” And she was like, “alright, fine, but I’m only doing it for the money, to get it published.” That was basically her reasoning. And I was like, “I respect that girl.”

KAYLA: So this adaptation of the movie shows the real life of this character right up against the real-life she’s portraying in the book. So they show this scene where she goes to this guy in the rain and they fall in love and you’re like, “ugh so annoying!” And all of a sudden she’s in the publishing house and she’s like, “that’s how the book ends I guess,” and you’re like, “oh thank god that wasn’t real.” But she has this whole speech about feeling alone and not feeling like everyone else. This whole very, very aro speech, and I sobbed.SARAH: I cried for the entire movie because I was like, “that’s me! Me! That’s exactly what my experience is.” She has a conversation with her sister when her sister’s getting married and she’s like “I don’t want you to get married. We can just run away.” And her sister’s like, “But I want to get married.” 

KAYLA: She does not understand the concept of someone else wanting to get married. It’s just the most aro-ace thing in the world, it’s so good.

ZAINE: I mean, you get married for tax benefits and you get free cuddles. It’s great.

KAYLA: That’s so true.

SARAH: Taxes. Cuddles. That’s it. Marriage is for no other purpose.

ZAINE: So I have a joke with one of my friends where she keeps saying we should get married for exactly those reasons. When we say friends with benefits, we mean something completely different. I want cookies. I don’t know what you’re talking about. 

SARAH: The benefit is friendship.

KAYLA: Friends with the added benefit of also being friends. That’s it. 

ZAINE: It’s super extra magical friends, it’s great. 

SARAH: That’s all you can ask for really.

ZAINE: That’s actually how I define queerplatonic relationships. A super magical do-it-yourself relationship.

KAYLA: I mean like, basically. 

ZAINE: Yeah, they’re great.

SARAH: Wow I just got distracted thinking about Little Women.

ZAINE: I put up a story last night about people having specific characters that they like or they headcanon and a few people mentioned Jessica Rabbit. So I wanted to see what you guys thought about it because I got into a conversation with someone about it and they had some really interesting views which I think feeds into the kind of themes we wanted to talk about. But I want to hear about your opinions first.

KAYLA: I actually watched the movie that Jessica Rabbit is originally from a couple months ago. It’s this very weird 80’s movie that’s a mix of cartoon characters and actual human beings. The whole plot makes no fucking sense. Whoever wrote the movie was on something. But when I was watching it, I remember I’d heard people talking about Jessica Rabbit as ace so I was very interested in it. I do kind of get it because she’s portrayed as a very sexual character. Huge tits. Ass everywhere. Then she’s accused of having an affair with some guy but she was backstabbing him. She wasn’t actually having an affair. She’s married to some real ugly dude. But the way she talks about her relationship with her husband or whoever is very not sexual at all. She was like, “no I wasn’t having an affair with him. Weird.”

SARAH: I was trying to stab him in the back.

KAYLA: Even the relationship I feel like she has with her actual partner doesn’t come across as that sexual. She just looks like a sexual person and uses that to her advantage. “Yeah I know I’m sexy looking so I’m going to get you to do what I want” because I don’t actually want any of this. Goodbye.

SARAH: I’m not as informed on the Jessica Rabbit situation but I’ve got the gist. I think it’s definitely a case of reclaiming, dude you can look as hot or as sexualized — in this case it was probably men who were drawing her — but you can look however you want and you can still be aspec. There are no rules, which I know is a lot of the backlash that people like Yasmin Benoit have gotten. She’s a lingerie model and people are like, “well you’re not ace, you’re just doing it for attention.” No, it’s like you can do whatever the fuck you want. It doesn’t matter.

KAYLA: It is a great opportunity to reclaim Jessica Rabbit because so many people see her as the most sexual cartoon character - super sexual, weird men are like, “so hot! I love this cartoon!” Which first of all, weird. She’s a rabbit cartoon. Not that I’ve never been attracted to a cartoon character. Some of them are hot — Sarah’s like “what the fuck.” Anyway, I do think that Sarah’s right. This is a good opportunity for us to be like, “no I want that, and it’s actually not that sexual.” So, fuck you, but not really, because no thanks.

ZAINE: That’s actually what I got into with a user on Instagram about because we were talking about it because they mentioned that it’s one of their favorite representations but they feel iffy about it because she is really sexualized as a character. And that comes with other issues that I’ll get into later but I really like the fact that she’s portrayed that way — super attractive, super sexual. You know this concept of if you’re asexual you don’t really care about what you look like or what you do around people? I’ve seen a lot of shows where there’s this really annoying trope of people who don’t take care of themselves or are just really lazy being compared to people who are asexual. That’s just the butt of the joke. And it’s so infuriating because the way you look has nothing to do with what kind of attraction you experience. So it’s the fact that a character that’s presented in a really sexual way, and it’s like, “no I don’t want it.” And that’s perfectly valid. Just because we’re ace, doesn’t mean we’re not sexy.

SARAH: I feel like a lot of the representation of — not representation of asexuality — but representation that characters that asexuality is thrust upon by the non-ace community are always “this is just a guy who lives in his parents’ basement and he doesn’t take care of himself and he’s not cute.” And okay, he could be ace but he could also be a super hot popular kid and also be ace. There’s no rhyme or reason. That’s part of the reason that the “this is what asexual looks like” hashtag has been important in making clear that aces looks like all sorts of things. I don’t necessarily look like an ace person because what the fuck does an ace person look like?

KAYLA: No you look like a gay person. You dress so gay.

SARAH: I give off gay vibes. But it’s important to see that we look like human people. It’s not like there’s a certain way to be ace or present aceness. 

KAYLA: I feel like that’s even a big thing for people who are ace and are in the community. I feel like I have this implicit bias that I grew up with - oh yeah if someone is ace or someone doesn’t like sex then someone probably doesn’t wanna have sex with them and they’re ugly. That’s an unfortunate stereotype that I grew up with drilled into me.

SARAH: Oh you’re ace because no one wants to have sex with you because. You’re just an incel, that makes you ace. Like what?

KAYLA: Or the idea that you dress for other people. If you don’t want to have sex, you’re probably not going to look good. As much as I’m in this community, I can admit that that’s still a bias that I find myself having. Sometimes I’ll see pictures of people that are ace or look through the “this is what asexual looks like” hashtag and I’m unfortunately surprised when people are attractive. I’ll find myself in my mind going, “oh!” And what the fuck - why did I just think that. Even being asexual is so ingrained in our mind, and it’s so stupid.ZAINE: Yeah, there’s this thing I read years and years ago, which was how when we see something and our immediate response is something negative that we then backtrack on it’s because our first response is what’s been conditioned into us, which is absolutely terrifying. Because it’s not even that we’re being prejudiced against other people — we have the same prejudice within our community, which is so fucked up. It reminds me of this conversation I had with someone. This really weird guy was hitting on me and was trying to ask me back to his place or whatever. And I was like, “no I’m ace” and his response was “what a shame, maybe you haven’t found the right person yet.” And there’s countless stories like that of people saying that to people and I don’t need to have sex to know I don’t want it.

KAYLA: And the fact of saying, “what a shame” - I’ve seen people say that to Yasmin or other people, “oh but you look attractive, what a waste of your attractiveness.” Well, I can use this for other things. Or, I could not use this at all and just be hot for no reason. It’s not a waste!

SARAH: You’re not attractive to attract other people necessarily. Genetically in terms of evolution maybe. But in terms of the way we live our lives here in the 21st century. 

KAYLA: Stupid. Stupid. It also reminds me - going back to asexuality thrust upon characters - it reminds me of the whole Sheldon Cooper situation. And Amy, whoever was his girlfriend on the show, for the whole show it was like, oh he doesn’t like sex, Amy doesn’t like sex, they’re both very sex-averse. But also, they’re probably on the autism spectrum but it’s never really talked about. But he’s this nerd so he’s asexual, so who would want to have sex with him anyway. It’s this very complicated and not very great representation of someone who might be ace completely but wrapping it up with his probably being autistic and that he’s a nerd that’s maybe not cute. It’s so messy.SARAH: It all gets wrapped up in disability and with just generally people who are non-neurotypical, if you’re asexual you must be those things. First of all, there’s nothing wrong with being those things and you can be those things and also be asexual. But being those things doesn’t make you asexual and being asexual doesn’t make you those things. There’s not a correlation here. 

ZAINE: What really annoys me is how there’s still mental health professionals who look at asexuality like it’s something wrong with the person. And it’s absolutely insane. You also see a lot of discourse within the queer community about how aces don’t experience any form for prejudice or whatever the heck. That’s a different problem. But I feel like everyone sort of forgets that asexuality wasn’t removed from the DSM as a mental disorder until 2013 and there’s still a lot of people who believe that it’s something gone wrong in one of those syphosexual stages of development, which by the way are complete bullshit. 

KAYLA: Trueee.

SARAH: Even on the topic of it being “removed” from the DSM, it’s still just in there - there’s the asexual exception, like, “you could have this, unless you’re asexual.” Who decides that?

KAYLA: What if I don’t even know what asexuality is? And I can’t identify that I’m part of that exception? It’s so stupid. SARAH: You may be a person who may not be asexual who is experiencing a lack of sexual whatever for other reasons. That doesn’t mean it’s a problem that needs to be fixed.ZAINE: Yeah. Just, people.SARAH: Everyone has different levels of whatever. Who cares?

KAYLA: It makes me wish that representations like Sheldon would be more explicit. Because if they had said, “yes he is asexual and he is on the autism spectrum, he can be both and it’s fine” instead of constantly making it the butt of jokes, that could have been really good. Instead, they were like, “well we’re going to make fun of him for probably being autistic and for probably being asexual. And in the end, he’s going to have sex and like it and we’re just going to change it.” What?

ZAINE: Yeah I hate that trope of okay, this person shows absolutely no interest, then they meet someone and they’re like, “oh yes this is what I want.” It feeds into the narrative of “you haven’t found the right person yet.”

SARAH: Sure that person might be gray or one of the umbrella sexualities where that does happen but we shouldn’t ever assume that that’s ever going to happen. I identify as aromantic and asexual - you can’t just throw a person at me and be like, “oh this person will fix you.” Uh, no for starters. Second of all, no.

ZAINE: I think the problem starts from the idea that it is something that needs to be fixed because no, it’s perfectly normal. 

SARAH: Zaine had to step out for a second and that’s why there’s a weird pause here okay byee

ZAINE: What were we talking about?

SARAH: I don’t know but while you were gone, Kayla started talking about dump-truck asses. 

KAYLA: I didn’t. Not really. I didn’t really. There’s this meme about how every mom in Pixar has a dump-truck ass and me and my boyfriend think that meme is funny. So he just texted me about he was thinking about dump-truck ass. That’s it. That’s the whole thing.

SARAH: That’s all there is.

ZAINE: The height of romance.

KAYLA: Yeah, you know this is it.

SARAH: That’s the update from some allos over there.

KAYLA: That’s the allo update.SARAH: Thank you for the allo update.

KAYLA: Should really just be a regular segment with a short update of what the allos are up to and why we are not them. 

SARAH: Anyway. Where were we?

KAYLA: I’m just going to switch topics. Do you have any thoughts about the whole Riverdale Jughead situation because I know a lot of people are pretty pissed about it. And I don’t know much about it because I didn’t watch it and I didn’t read it. Do you have any thoughts?

ZAINE: Yeah, so I did read the comics ages ago, so I don’t remember actually reading about it in detail or comprehending it the same way. This was before I was like, “oh hey this is a thing.” When the show came out - and I actually recently binged it, because, lockdown. And it really did frustrate me because again it’s the concept of something that they felt that they could erase because it’s not important to his character. And it’s not just that they didn’t mention that he’s aromantic/asexual, they completely changed his character. He’s shown to have a very sexual relationship and he’s just very romantic and things like that. And obviously a whole spectrum and people can still be on it but the way it’s portrayed in the show - you wouldn’t think it’s someone who’s aro-ace at all. And it’s honestly very frustrating and upsetting and I think the only reason they went with that is so that they could pair him up with Betty because Archie and Veronica had to end up together. Again, it’s because they’re like, “oh sex sells. This is something the public wants.” Yeah, but what about the rest of us who don’t want that? We’re important too. 

SARAH: For me, as someone who — I technically work in Hollywood as an assistant — but someone who’s trying to become a writer in Hollywood, I understand why they did that because it makes it easier on them storywise. Oh, you can just pair him up with Betty, all good. Easier doesn’t mean better. There’s a lot of ace erasure or not even considering including ace characters because that makes it less interesting because they don’t have romantic/sexual relationships with everyone. Well, first of all, you’re downplaying the importance of platonic relationships because those can be just as interesting. Also, who the fuck cares. You can still get really interesting relationships and really interesting storylines from these characters even if they’re not having sex with someone.

KAYLA: I feel like a lot of it is just laziness. The writers are like, “oh we know how to write romance and sex, so we’ll throw the characters together and call it a day.” You’re not a good writer then, probably. 

SARAH: You could have those characters have sex even if they are ace. Because they might be sex-positive. It’s not completely exclusionary. 

ZAINE: It’s something that a lot of people don’t like acknowledging in essence what asexuality is. It’s the lack of sexual attraction and sexual attraction and sexual action are two different things. I will probably spend the rest of my life screaming attraction not action to as many people who will listen to me because there’s a reason we call it a spectrum. There’s so many identities. You have the major ones, like gray-ace or demisexual or asexual, but there’s so many identities in between. There’s also people who’ll also fall somewhere on the spectrum that we don’t have a word for as of yet. And it’s perfectly fine and valid. You don’t need a sexual relationship to make things interesting. If you don’t know how to write it, you could always write a sex-positive character. You could write them having one night stands or you could write it as, “oh hey this is a character who felt like it and then changed their mind.” And it doesn’t just give us representation it also features into other themes and topics. Okay, respecting if a person wants to stop in the middle of sex because they’re revoking their consent. But it’s pure laziness. They just don’t want to write these characters. That’s why we have so many tropes, because it’s difficult to write 3-dimensional characters. It’s easy to be like, “we’re going to go with this cliche idea of this character who has these issues and that’s why they have sex blah blah.” Damn it, that’s why we need more ace writers. You need to bring asexuality to Hollywood. We’re counting on you.

SARAH: The thing with me too is that I don’t want to write specifically about asexuality. But I am going to put aspec characters in everything I do. Whether that’s explicitly talked about or whether it’s just in my head, it’s like, I know I’m writing it this way and this is how it’s going to be. Yeah, it’s important to have stories and characters about being aspec but it’s also important to just have aspec people in other stories. 

KAYLA: And not have it be the whole plot.

SARAH: Yeah just have it be a part of them in the same way that straight people in TV and movies and books - their relationship aspect is a part of them. Not everything has to be a romantic comedy.

ZAINE: Again, it’s really lazy writing. Because they’re like, “Hey there’s this time span we need to fill somehow. Oh, you know. They just get horny.” And that’s it.

SARAH: Horny on main.

ZAINE: Basically, everyone.

KAYLA: Going back to what Sarah was saying about how it doesn’t have to be the main plot of the story, I’m just very excited when we finally get to a time when we have enough representation and we have enough stories about asexuality. It’s okay for it to be not a huge plot point, or be a random character. I feel like that’s somehow more powerful to be an ace person and be reading some random book and all of a sudden some character’s aspec. And you’re like, “oh my god - this isn’t a big deal to the story necessarily but this is just very natural and no one made a big deal out of it. But this is a big deal to me and because it’s portrayed that way it makes it seem completely normal and just part of this world.”

SARAH: It normalizes it for everyone else.

ZAINE: Yeah that’s one of the things I liked about the manhwa I mentioned earlier. I’m going to spend all night trying to look for it. It was in the last chapters. It was the protagonist’s childhood best friend and he randomly mentioned it in passing. And the protagonist is like, “oh wait, is that what that means?” and he’s like, “yeah,” and he’s like, “cool.” And they move on to other conversations. It was so nice and casual and all of the little things I thought I was imagining in my head throughout the story were actually there and they actually meant that. And it’s great because you have representation and it matters and I feel like when people are like, “oh hey, this is a character and this is representation” that’s not representation, that’s just tokenism because you’re not developing the character, you’re not giving them any importance beyond, “okay there’s this one character, you know they’re aspec, you don’t know anything else about them, but they’re there. So we’ve done our part.”

SARAH: This is the aspec character.

ZAINE: Basically.

SARAH: It’s nice when the breadcrumbs actually take you somewhere rather than just “oh yeah we have the representation here so all you aspec people should buy this or watch this or whatever” and it’s like, no that led me nowhere. You just put some little things there that are still palatable to allos and it’s just no, that’s not how it should be.

ZAINE: Yeah. Sorry, this is going way way back but I just remembered, cause I wanted to mention this. When we were talking about Jessica Rabbit and people who are ace can be sexualized, something I noticed with our campaign is when we were discussing content and one of the things we’re doing in reclaiming media is redrawing comics or scenes from movies and stuff to show them in more of an aspec-positive light. And one of our artists, Saffron, who is such a blessing - they’re adorable - they’ve been doing redraws of comic book characters like Starfire and Poison Ivy and their focus is about how all of these characters are very sexualized in their costumes and things like that. And a few nights ago we actually got into this conversation about how most female characters in comics or graphic novels are drawn the same way and have the same kind of costume, which is just anything that’s overly revealing. So what they’re doing is redrawing them in a way where it shows more natural outfits or outfits that compliment whatever ability they have. And it just really got me thinking because it’s just really really true and as part of the campaign because we want to help all of society as well it’s because sex has been established as so necessary in our society that we feel the need to sexualize every single character. You see, freakin’ fish with boobs just because the world’s like, “no this is a man and this is a man and this is a woman and this is how it should be.” No this is a fish! It makes absolutely no sense.

SARAH: Why did Taylor Swift in the movie Cats have boobs? If you’re going to give her boobs, give her 8 boobs because she’s a cat. 

ZAINE: I haven’t seen Cats. 

SARAH: Taylor Swift’s character is the only character that has boobs. It doesn’t make sense.

KAYLA: She is supposed to be the sexy cat. And that’s how they decided to make it known I guess.

SARAH: I was going to say that I’ve seen a lot of GIFsets and comparisons recently of Harley Quinn in Suicide Squad and Harley Quinn in Birds of Prey and the way she’s portrayed in those movies and how Suicide Squad is directed by a man and Birds of Prey is directed by a woman and there is a marketable difference. You can tell. She can still be a sexual character without being sexual for the male gaze. That’s important too cause as an ace writer, I can still write characters that are sexual it’s not like I can’t. But it’s about the way they’re portrayed and why they’re portrayed the way they are.

ZAINE: This spoken word poetry piece which is called “Fantastic Breasts and Where to Find Them” - it basically starts off as Harry Potter fanfiction. And one of the lines in it is how the person likes their porn because it’s part of a bigger story. And I really like that idea. Okay, these characters are beyond just their sexual desires. Because we were talking about 3-dimensional characters and it’s just really really fitting. Also, I just wanted to mention that spoken word poetry piece because it’s brilliant. Yeah because all of these things feed into how we raise our children. Not just teenagers in school talking about feeling left out but you know when kids are growing up and you see cishets talk about five-year-old kids about how they’re going to be heartbreakers or they’re going to be in trouble. You’re essentially putting kids in a sexual or romantic context against their will. And it’s, why do we do that? We only do that because society believes that’s a necessary function for existence and it’s just (sighing).

SARAH: I feel. And in the creation of media too. If sex or sexuality that isn’t aspec - if it fits in the plot if it makes sense in driving the story forward, by all means, include it. I’m not against it. Don’t include it if it’s not necessary. Don’t force it in just because sex cells. If it makes sense in the story, by all means, include it. But don’t include it just because you feel like you have to. 

ZAINE: Yeah, it’s not necessary. Furthering the plot, I understand. But if you’re just writing a relationship to be entirely sexual, you’re essentially just showing people toxic relationships. And you do see that in a lot of media where it’s all they really do is have sex. Something I don’t get is the concept of hate sex or anger sex or break up sex. Anytime something happens, they have to have sex. It just doesn’t make sense.

SARAH: Had a good day? Sex. Had a bad day? Sex. Had an angry day? Sex. 

ZAINE: Yeah, and a lot of time, they just throw sex into it and people don’t communicate. No! Don’t do that. You need to talk, you need to communicate. And that lack of communication again is how you see relationships being portrayed, any kind of relationship. And it’s what you’re picking up on -  okay this is what the general public believes - is essentially in a toxic relationship. And it’s really fucking bad.

SARAH: And sometimes a dysfunction is like, we’re supposed to see it as dysfunctional. But sometimes it’s like, this is a relationship and this is normal. Nuh-uh. Let’s maybe not be recommending this. 

ZAINE: Yeah.

SARAH: Alright. Kayla do you have any other questions?

KAYLA: If you maybe want to share what the campaign is working on now or what people can do to get involved in the whole reclaiming and replacing the media movement?

ZAINE: Yeah, we’re currently working on a few of the comic redraws. Like I mentioned, Saffron’s currently doing Poison Ivy and it’s a beautiful work in progress. We have this collection of writings that’s going to come out, which is called “Conversations with Asexuality” and it’s going to talk about coming about, discovering the ace community, it’s going to talk about sex, masturbation, any specific topic that people might want to hear about. We also have music that we’re doing rewrites of that we’re going to produce. We are a bit behind schedule because I’ve been horrifically sick so I haven’t been able to be as active and keep everything in control. It might be a little later than what we’d intended but I am really excited for it because so much music out there is about sex. I can’t count the number of times I’ve listened to a song and then realized afterwards that it’s about sex.

SARAH: Cake by the Ocean is the biggest letdown. I want it to be about cake. It’s not about cake.

ZAINE: One of my friends told me about Watermelon Sugar being about oral sex and I was like, “it’s not about watermelon?”

SARAH: I watched the music video and I was like, “this seems very sexual.” 

ZAINE: I didn’t see the music video. I just really like watermelons! So I was singing along to it. And one of my friends mentioned how it’s weird and I was like, “oh dear god.”

SARAH: That song is a bop. I will just believe in my head that it’s about watermelon and it’s fine. Harry would understand.

KAYLA: He would.

ZAINE: As for getting involved with the campaign, we’re open to any kind of content that people might want to share or want us to produce. When I started, the end goal was to be this safe haven of aspec content that you can just go into. One of the things one of our teams is working on is creating this comprehensive booklet about aspec identities and experiences and it’s so many resources that we’re looking into and compiling. It’s exhausting but I think it’s worth it and really good. One of the things we’re looking to do is collaborations with different aspec people or promote their work based on whatever they’re doing if they want us to do that. There’s this really cool video we recently found and we reached out to the creator. It’s super sweet - I don’t want to spoil it - but yeah, we have a bunch of things in the works. I’ve just not been on top of things. But fingers crossed. We are excited and working on it.

SARAH: Fair enough. 

KAYLA: Yeah, that sounds super exciting.

SARAH: And glad you’re doing better too. That sounds awesome. Kayla, what is our poll for this week?

KAYLA: An open-ended poll about people’s favorite or most impactful aspec representation or headcanon in the media. 

ZAINE: That would be cute.

SARAH: Yeah. I’d like to know. Fantastic. Alright. I will go ahead and do my beef and juice first because Kayla’s busy writing that down. My beef is that I woke up this morning and water in my apartment did not work. My juice is Repl(ace) the Media. It sounds like they’re doing some awesome stuff and that’s very exciting. Kayla, what is your beef and your juice?

KAYLA: My beef is that there’s this virus on my computer that’s ruining my computer and especially Google Chrome. And I downloaded antivirus and the virus is so bad that it has to keep redeleting it every five minutes. It’s really slowing stuff down and I’m getting tired of it. My juice is that I started rewatching Sailor Moon last night and I used to watch it all the time as a kid and I loved it. So I was like, I’m just going to watch it. And it’s just very wholesome. And is it weird that she’s 14 and she looks that sexual? Yeah. Yeah. And so that’s a whole thing. But it’s very good.

ZAINE: See when you started talking about the virus, I genuinely thought you were talking about the pandemic until you mentioned your computer. 

KAYLA: It might be the pandemic in my computer at this point, I have no idea.

SARAH: Who knows. Alright, Zaine, what is your beef and your juice this week?

ZAINE: Ooh, what is my beef? I’m trying to think of something that is not serious and sad.

SARAH: It can be serious and sad. I say things that are serious and sad stuff all the time. Don’t worry about it.

KAYLA: It’s true.ZAINE: My beef is just toxic and abusive parents really. It was really bad last night. But, my juice is I started painting my room, which is fun. I’m making a really intricate mural which incorporates a lot of my favorite things and my little brother is helping me paint it. 

KAYLA: Fun!

ZAINE: Yeah, we worked on it for 3 hours and it was sweet and adorable and it made me very very happy.

KAYLA: So pure.

SARAH: Excellent. You can find our poll, tell us about your beef, your juice on our social media, we are @soundsfakepod everywhere. We also have a Patreon if you’d like to support us there. You can support us in our attempts to get all of our episodes transcribed for accessibility, baby. We can be found on patreon.com/soundsfakepod. Our $5 patrons are Jennifer Smart, Asritha Vinnakota, Austin Le, Perry Fiero, Dee, Quinn Pollock, Emily Collins, Bookmarvel, Changeling MX, Derrick and Carissa, Simona Sajmon, Jamie Jack, Jessica Shea, Ria Faustino, Daniel Walker, Livvy, Madeline Askew, Lily, James, Corinne, AliceIsInSpace, not Lily James - Lily comma James comma James, AliceIsInSpace, Skye Simpson, Brooke Siegel, Ashley W, Savannah Cozart, Ashlynn Boedecker, Harry Haston-Dougan, SOUP, Amanda Kyker, Vishakh, Jacob Weber, Rory, and we have a new $5 patron - I believe it’s Amberle Istar. I’m not sure if I’m pronouncing that right. If I’m not, please yell at me. Thank you so much for your contributions, friend. 

Our $10 patrons are Kevin and Tessa who would like to promote @DirtyUncleKevin, @tessa_m_k, Arcnes who would like to promote the Trevor Project, Benjamin Ybarra who would like to promote Tabletop Games, anonymous who would like to promote Halloween, Sarah McCoy who would like to promote Podcast From Planet Weird, my Aunt Jeannie who would like to promote Christopher’s Haven, Cassandra who would like to promote their modeling Instagram @liddowred, Doug Rice who would like to promote "Native" by Kaitlin Curtice, Maggie Capalbo who would like to promote her dog’s Instagram, H. Valdís, Purple Chickadee who would like to promote Initiative: Eau, Barefoot Backpacker who would like to promote the Biggest Book of Yes. 

Our $15 patrons are Nathaniel White - NathanielJWhiteDesigns.com, my mom Julie who would like to promote Free Mom Hugs, Sara Jones who is @eternalloli everywhere, Dia Chappell who would like to promote the Underrealm series by Garret Robinson, Andy A who would like to promote Being in unions and IWW, Martin Chiesel who would like to promote mental health and Dragonfly who would like to promote the fact that we have such a long patrons’ list. Thanks you guys for all of your support. And that’s not including the $2 patrons. Whew. That’s a lot to read but we appreciate all of you. Zaine, where can we find you on the interwebs?

ZAINE: You can find our page on Facebook, we also have a group chat that you can join, it’s really cute. It’s just ace memes and everyone’s super lovely and there’s lots of stickers. We also have an Instagram account, a Twitter account, we’re also on Tumblr but we don’t really interact because no one really uses Tumblr. People kind of reblog and leave it at that. We’re mostly active on Instagram and Twitter - so that’s pretty cool. The handles are mostly just acethemedia or replacethemedia because usernames are just weird. Everyone on the team is super lovely and just really excitable so even if you want to drop by and have a chat with someone or share some cute memes, please do. It would make us really happy.

KAYLA: I’ll put the usernames in the description of the episode so everyone can go find it through there too.

ZAINE: Yeah that would be lovely, thank you.

SARAH: Everyone hit up Repl(ace) the Media. Well thank you so much for joining us for that lovely conversation. Thanks for listening, tune in next Sunday for more of us in your ears. 

KAYLA: Until then, take good care of your cows.