Author Cassandra Clare announced in August 2014 via Twitter that Raphael Santiago, a minor character from her The Mortal Instruments series, is asexual. Now, this made me super happy, because representation is awesome, yet I couldn't help but think that she could have made it clear in the series. She has made her other characters sexualities very clear cut and obvious, even having one describe himself as "a freewheeling bisexual", so some clear indication of Raphael's sexuality within the series would have been amazing.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not pooh-poohing Ms. Clare's decision to make Raphael asexual, I just wish it had of been written into the books, and that we could have had more than a Twitter confirmation or announcement. Its kind of like when J. K. Rowling announced Dumbledore, Seamus Finnigan, and Dean Thomas' sexualities. Those could have easily been written into the book, even with a throwaway line, i. e. mention that Dumbledore and Grindelwald had been together, or Seamus and Dean going on a date in Hogsmeade or kissing. To me it would have been quite easy to write the characters sexualities into the book, I'm not asking the characters to dance around and scream, though that would be perfectly fine, I would just like to see clear representation. Not just an announcement after the series is complete.
I am in no way bashing Ms. Rowling or Ms. Clare, their series are among my all-time favourites and I reread them many times, I merely hope they and other authors would give us more representation than a Twitter or press announcement. We need clear, positive representation. And by positive representation, I mean to not follow or go along with the many tropes characters on the asexual spectrum are written with. These include: cold, robotic, childish, innocent, merciless, inhuman, emotionless, one-sided, 'broken', actually being celibate, faking or lying about their sexuality, and last of all being repressed. Now, these character traits are all fine and good, but when many or all exist in a supposedly asexual character they lend to untrue assumptions of asexuality, some of which are: the non-existence of asexuality, the fixability of asexuality, that asexual people are non or inhuman, that asexual people are childish or innocent, and that asexual people are merely repressed or celibate. These are dangerous and counterproductive assumptions and negative stereotypes and representation.
Recently I have been struggling a bit in writing content and deciding what is school appropriate, since this is starting as an English project. So I have taken a bit of a break to brainstorm and my best friend suggested I write a series focusing on representation, I will watch or read shows/movies/books with canon asexual characters then write or review the content and representation. This will be a weekly post series and I will post this along with the kind of posts I have been writing. I will also be properly reviewing the character Raphael Santiago in this series, rather than using him as an example for this post.
Thank you for reading! Comments, questions, and feedback are always appreciated.
