| CARVIEW |
This zine is available in three formats: 1) a PDF for reading digitally, 2) a PDF intended for printing and folding, and 3) a webpage for reading online.
]]>Crossposted to Pillowfort. Preview image created using Arrow Tips by Don and Janet, licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.
Let me begin with a story: Earlier this month, I was contacted by a journalist who had been referred to me by Liza Blake. The journalist had a question about the origin of the word “aromantic,” which year it was from, and the context of those conversations where the identity emerged. As part of my reply, I told them about a 2002 post on the Haven for the Human Amoeba, which fortunately has been saved by Laura so that people don’t have to just take my word for it.
Looking back on it, I have some reservations about that exchange, but not because anyone was in the wrong. I’m glad Liza Blake referred that journalist to me, and I’m glad they chose to contact me, and I’m glad I happened to have the answer.
At the same time, I wish I had more than just that answer. I would like to have more things to link on the development of aro history than just that one post — and while I’m grateful that Laura took and shared that HHA screenshot, I see that post as just one fragment of a larger narrative. A person looking for information about the context of that HHA post or how aromantic identity spread from there isn’t going to get any of that from looking at just one post alone. So in light of that, I thought the Carnival of Aros theme this month was the perfect prompt to put out a call for more and better aro reference materials.
Here are some examples of the sort of thing I’m calling for:
- An infographic or diagram about 2000s-2010s aro discourse/blogging/community formation
- A polished text post timeline or detailed summary of 2000s-2010s aro discourse/blogging/community formation
- A pamphlet or zine on 2000s-2010s aro discourse/blogging/community formation
…with the major caveat that these materials should actually be good and worth recommending to people.
If you know of something that fits the bill and that hasn’t come to my attention yet, great! I am inviting you to tell me. If you don’t know of anything that fits the bill, then this post is an invitation to go looking and possibly start working on something of your own. You can find some starting points here. Ideally the next time someone comes to me with an aro history question, I’d like to have more on hand than just the 2002 HHA post and Aro Throwback Hour.
]]>Crossposted to Pillowfort. Preview image: Wooden Gate by Samuel S, licensed under CC BY 2.0.
There are two prominent perspectives I’m used to seeing about aces and orientation: the who-not-how mantra and the romantic/sexual dyad. The romantic/sexual dyad is that old familiar x-romantic y-sexual template — every ace is expected to have both a sexual orientation and a romantic orientation, fitting neatly into that format. The who-not-how mantra reacts to the romantic/sexual dyad by emphasizing gender and dictating that aces should center “who” they’re into over “how” they’re not. Despite the loud clashes between these perspectives, both of them typically define orientation by attraction, which I used to do but have since drifted away from. Here’s how I look at it instead:
Sexual orientation works like a form of shorthand for a compatibility gate. By “compatibility gate” I mean a threshold or filter for preemptively ruling people out. For example, if a person is only willing to consider potential sex partners who share a common language with them, who live nearby, and who share their interest in long-term partnership, those are all compatibility gates. They don’t guarantee that someone will be compatible with that person; they just preemptively rule out a lot of people who aren’t. The same could be said about preemptively ruling out a given gender — or, conversely, indicating which genders aren’t ruled out. It doesn’t tell you everything, but it can provide a rough starting point before you get into the nitty-gritty details.
Likewise, sexual incompatibility is one of the things that people can express by describing themselves with ace identities. A lot of aces — not all, but a good number — are drawn to ace identities because they are sexually compatible with no one. Even for those whose preferences are more complicated than that, identifying as ace can filter out those who are looking for someone more sexually consistent or motivated.
This view of orientation as a compatibility gate is a part of why I do not identify with orientation types other than sexual orientation. It’s not that I’m endlessly compatible with all people on all other fronts — certainly not — but my compatibility constraints around socializing, partnership, and touch do not follow the kind of patterns that lend themselves to this kind of shorthand. As I’ve said before, the assorted forms of attraction I experience do not orient me. My actual preferences and priorities have more to do with seeking people who share or mesh with my personal interests, my communication style, my outlook on the world, my baseline moral principles — things which are not only ill-suited to an orientation label, but which are already recognized as their own categories, independent from the role that “orientation” is generally expected to serve.
The one exception to that, arguably, is romantic orientation. “Romantic orientation” as a concept is salient for aces because sexual orientation is generally seen as a preemptive compatibility gate for dating, so if aces aren’t ruling out everyone (or nearly everyone) as potential life partners, they have to go out of their way to say so. Romantic labels have become the popular shorthand for how to do this. Unfortunately, “romantic orientation” is necessarily hitched to the concept of “romance,” which is not really the keystone of how I think about affection or partnership. That’s why when it comes to “orientation” as an identity construct, I prefer to focus on sexual orientation.
Overall, labeling a sexual orientation can act as a concise way of referring to that initial gate ahead of sexual compatibility. Calling yourself sexually straight or gay or bi communicates something (more or less) about which gender filters do or don’t apply. The same could be said of identifying as asexual. A single word or phrase can’t convey everything all at once, of course, but it shouldn’t need to. Hashing out all the specifics is what conversations are for.
Related reading:
]]>Update March 21st, 2024: the AACAU has now updated the report and posted an apology.
Would you be okay with allowing everything you and your community have ever done to be forgotten, like it never even happened? I wouldn’t.
I don’t want ace community advocacy to be nothing but a sandcastle. That’s what it comes down to. I don’t think our conversations, debates, insights, projects, and accomplishments should be so ephemeral that only five or ten years down the line, you hear someone saying “how come nobody’s done this?” about something you’ve already done.
This post is about that kind of breakdown in community memory, but it’s also about why it matters. In this post I’m attempting to patch a memory gap about conversations that have already been had before — important conversations about objectifying rhetoric, poisonous community dynamics, and the search for unassailability. Ignoring those conversations runs the risk contributing to activist burnout, stifling our stories, and creating a treacherous environment for survivors of violence and abuse.
Crossposted to Pillowfort. Preview image: Candle Lights by Esteban Chiner, licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.
Why Is Nobody Talking About This?
When I recently read parts of the AACAU report on asexuality, discrimination, and violence, one of the things to stick out to me was a part that asks how come information on this subject is so hard to find. The reason this stuck out to me is because that information is out there, and work has already been undertaken in this area, and the report doesn’t talk about that. Whether or not this was an unintentional omission, this reflects (and contributes to) a gap in community memory.
For reference, here’s that part of the report:
How could so many people be suffering but I hadn’t been able to find these statistics anywhere? How could these numbers be so high and there was barely anything when you googled it? Why wasn’t there a pamphlet with this stuff on?
–Introduction to the AACAU Report on the Asexual Lived Experiences Survey (2023)
Reading those words, I thought back to how, nearly a decade prior, an asexual activist named Queenie published a post called Here Goes Everything. Here’s a relevant excerpt from that post:
Writing my Challenges Faced by Ace Survivors series took months, but how much impact has it really had? I still regularly see people who profess to being ace activists making exactly the sort of problematic statements I deconstructed, and it’s very rare that anyone who isn’t a survivor calls them out. Sure, people are willing to say they support survivors, but only when a survivor speaks up about how isolated and unwelcome they feel, rarely when other aces are actively making survivors feel unwelcome. Has my writing about sexual violence and asexuality changed things for the better, or have I just made myself uncomfortably vulnerable so that people can point at me and say, “No, but look, aces are oppressed!” or prove how “supportive” they are?
This is why, when I see people complaining about how nobody talks about asexuality and sexual violence, I have to laugh. If I don’t, I’ll cry.
–Queenie, Here Goes Everything (2014)
If you’re finding barely anything when you google this subject, that’s not because it’s not out there. The Resources for Ace Survivors website has existed since 2014. Discrimination against asexual people has a Wikipedia page. The subject has been covered in several academic thesis projects and in the Ace Community Survey. Aces & Aros has a printable handout. The list goes on. I understand wanting more than that, but with things like these in mind, my question isn’t “why is nobody talking about this?” Instead my question becomes “why are you calling everyone who’s already talked about this a nobody?”
When advocates speak dismissively of everything that’s come before them, I worry about the effect that has on their peers. One of Redbeard’s recurring laments is the difficulty in recruiting people to become activists, and to that I’d add its counterpart: the difficulty of staying involved in activism, especially without the support of your community. Activists already face a high risk of burnout even without people looking at what they’ve worked to accomplish and writing it off as “barely anything.”
Regardless, if there’s going to be a section on what hasn’t been done yet, summarizing what work has already been done in this area would have been a perfect opportunity to help spread the word and connect people to resources they might not have otherwise known about. The AACAU Report passes on the opportunity to do this — instead telling readers there’s no point in looking because there’s nothing much to be found — and proceeds to repeat a form of harmful rhetoric that was already being challenged in 2014, as if none of those conversations ever happened.
The Search for Unassailable Abuse
The AACAU report designates a certain subset of its abuse reports as “sceptic-proof” — in other words, unassailable. Unassailability has been a subject of conversation in the ace community for years now, and if you’re familiar with those conversations I expect you to see the problem here.
The excerpt below is from Section 4.0.2, “Calculating a meaningful statistic”:
I felt that when citing a statistic for how many asexual people have experienced violence in their relationships that I needed to have a clear definition. […] I have called this new group “Sceptic-Proof.” The criteria for inclusion are one or more of:
– Experienced physical violence;
– Experienced forcible sexual violence and/or violently coercive sexual violence;
– Experienced 3 or more coercive control behaviours (including verbal sexual coercion)
This framing precisely echoes the sort of thing that was being critiqued all the way back in 2014. The year 2014 was the year that Queenie hosted a Carnival of Aces on the Unassailable Asexual, for which Here Goes Everything was one of the entries. In that piece Queenie wrote this:
It’s bizarre that, based on my experiences navigating ace spaces as a survivor, I can formulate a list of criteria for a “proper” ace survivor, a list that is part victim-blaming and part Unassailable Asexual with dashes of self-loathing and erasure and invalidation. It’s ridiculous that I feel the need to frame my senseless, violent experiences in such a way that they can be Useful to the Community while shoving my other experiences – the ones that don’t fit into that perfectly useful narrative – under the rug, never to be spoken of in polite company. […] How can we tell our stories when we feel such intense pressure to frame them the right way, to be the right kind of assailable ace, to be Useful to the Community?
This pressure to turn our worst and most painful experiences into argument fodder is part of what I aimed to highlight in The Glossary & The Gristmill — a post about how our own community is contributing, in part, to why it feels like certain stories can’t be told. While I have every reason to believe the AACAU intended nothing of the sort, the possibility of this effect is something I am calling for the community to proactively avoid.
We have already been pointing this out for years, and I refuse to just let this community forget. I will try and mend the gap in community memory — but I can’t do it entirely by myself. I need you to remember. I need you to pass on that memory, too. Take the needle here, make a stitch in the fabric there, and pass it to your left. We need a communal remembering, sewing together the past and the present, so that the work being undertaken today can be informed by what came before.
For an alternative source of statistics on asexuality, discrimination, and violence, for now I would recommend the Ace Community Survey’s 2019 Report (Section 8: Negative Experiences) and 2020 Report (Section 5: Sexual Violence & Section 7: Discrimination).
Related Reading:
]]>Crossposted to Pillowfort. Preview Image: Pencil and Paper by Thomas Eagle, licensed under CC BY 2.0.
Why do a survey?
The first step to designing a good survey is to make sure that the survey format is the right tool for the job. Frankly, sometimes I get the impression that someone is running a survey when they’d actually be better served by something else, like a discussion thread or a call for submissions. Take a moment to ask yourself — given what you’re looking to accomplish, is a survey the best fit for your goals? For example, if you’re interested in gauging quantity, frequency, or proportions, then a survey could be a good fit.
If so, keep reading for some more specific advice on survey design.
General Advice
Present background information on the survey up front. Respondents should not be left wondering who’s running the survey, whether it’s being carried out for academic purposes, how soon it will close, or how to get in contact with you if there’s an issue. Make sure to put all this information directly into the survey itself, not just a social media post where you’ve shared the survey link.
Consider which type of question/answer format is best for each question. For instance, this involves deciding whether a question should be single-answer only or whether there should be the option to select multiple answers. There are pros and cons to each route. Multiple-answer responses can make it more difficult to crunch your data, so make sure you’re up to the challenge. On the other hand, questions that are single-answer-only can be very limiting for the respondent, so these warrant extra consideration. For example, instead of an answer set of simply “A” or “B,” you can present an answer set of “A,” “B,” “Both,” “Neither,” and “Unsure,” even in cases where both or neither don’t seem logically possible. It is better to have an answer slot with a 0% response rate than to unintentionally alienate your respondents and skew your data.
Keep the options short and simple. Generally speaking, the more long-form/full-sentence text you put into a set of answer options, the more specific they will be, and the more specific they are, the more options you’ll need in order to be comprehensive. In my experience, these more detailed and extensive answer sets can end up feeling more restrictive to the respondent and can raise the chances that none of them will be a good fit.
Include at least one free-write/text box section. For instance, it’s common to have a “feedback” question at the end so that your respondents can alert you to any shortcomings or qualifiers you might not have thought of. These can be helpful for interpreting your data and allow respondents to provide context or additional information. Even if you end up setting that information aside, it’s better to create the opportunity for them to be heard than to risk someone feeling frustrated and overlooked. I strongly suggest at least one of these at minimum. For a longer (multi-page or multi-section) survey, it can be even more helpful to place a free-write box at the end of every section, so that respondents can elaborate during the course of the survey. In the past, I have been told in respondent feedback that this is an ideal distribution of free-write boxes, and it’s a setup I prefer as a respondent as well.
Present content warnings, if necessary. For example, warn your respondents if there will be questions about interpersonal violence or negative experiences. If your survey is long enough to have multiple sections and covers multiple subjects, you might consider gating such sections to make them optional.
Consider cross-survey comparisons. Are there any other surveys you’d like to compare your results against? Try copying some exact question and answer sets. By using the exact wording from other surveys, you’ll be able to directly compare your results to their results. This is especially good for comparing across different samples, different demographics, or different years.
Do a test run. Make sure you’ve practiced using whatever survey creation tool you opt for, and input a handful of responses so you can see how the results will display on your end. If you input enough write-in answers, you may see why survey makers don’t like write-in answers on multiple-choice questions. Having a test version allows you to invite others to test your survey and give you feedback, too.
Have a plan for data analysis. What steps are you going to take for compiling and presenting the results? How are you going to present the free-write input, if at all? Are you going to use the automatic graphs from your survey software or make your own? If you plan to use the automatic ones, what are you going to do when write-ins or disproportionate answers mess up the legibility of the graphs? Whatever your strategy, try to plan ahead. For instance, when running the gray survey, I set up formulas and graphs ahead of time in Excel, and then when the survey closed, I was able to slice and plug in different data groups with those steps already out of the way.
Common Mistakes
Setting unnecessary questions as required instead of optional. Requiring an answer to any given question is a decision to be made with care. In my experience, it’s best to reserve these for important gating questions, such as “Do you agree to participate?” or “This next section pertains to [sensitive topic]. Are you willing to answer the questions on this topic?” When it comes to ordinary data collection questions, you may think the answers you’ve provided are fully comprehensive and that nobody could possibly have a reason not to pick one — often this just means you haven’t thought of the edge cases, which may frustrate some of your respondents.
Too many free-write options on list questions. Your respondents will love it, but Future You will suffer for it. You will get people who write in an answer that was already elsewhere in the survey, people who write full-sentence reflections for what was supposed to be a one-word answer, people who answer an entirely different question than the one you asked, and a whole mess of variations that make it difficult to take a tally and compile your statistics. Do yourself a favor and design your answer sets to minimize the need for these. The best middle-ground I’ve found is to design very minimalistic list questions and then provide a separate question with a text box for people to say more, if they choose. However, this does add to the pressure to make your questions adequately comprehensive and optional. Including an option like “None of the above” or “Other” is always important.
Asking yes-or-no questions that do not allow for any leeway. Including an option for “unsure” is important, but at the same time, that may not be enough for respondents who want to express certainty about an answer other than yes or no. Besides making questions optional, another way I’ve dealt with this problem is to include an option like “I have a different answer” or “My answer is more complicated than yes or no.”
Assuming that identification with one term equals identification with another term. This is one of the problems I run into the most with identity surveys. For example, I’ve encountered surveys that simply assume my identification as “ace” means identification as “asexual” (no), that my identification as “ace” means identification as “a-spec” (no), and that my identification as quoiromantic means identification with the aromantic umbrella (once again, no). I share this frustration with others who’ve also had certain identities assumed of them, such as bisexuals who are expected to answer to “m-spec” and non-aces who are expected to answer to “allosexual.” Wherever possible, try to collect this information separately rather than making assumptions that one identity entails another.
Assuming that everyone who identifies with a term necessarily shares a certain experience (or lack of experience). The main way I’ve seen this come into play is when a survey maker tries to helpfully “define” a certain term, thereby interfering with data collection. For example, imagine a survey that asked “Are you asexual (i.e. colorblind)?” This question poses a problem for everyone who is colorblind but not asexual or asexual but not colorblind.
Assuming that everyone who shares a certain experience (or lack of experience) identifies with the term you associate with that experience. Similar to the above, imagine the survey question was just “Have you experienced colorblindness?” but then in the survey results, the analyst writes “This many respondents reported they were asexual” as a way of summarizing the results on colorblindness. This approach is the opposite of helpful, in that it over-extrapolates from your data and shows that you cannot be trusted to report on your results faithfully to what was actually said.
Assuming that a certain term or experience is mutually exclusive with another term or experience. For example, those who view the term “ace” as excluding gray-asexuals might prevent me from indicating identification as both ace and gray-asexual. This forces me to misrepresent my identity in order to take the survey. In many cases, respondents confronted with this demand may prefer to just quit, which shrinks and skews your survey sample.
As you can see, there’s a lot of different points of frustration that I’ve run into as a survey respondent and plenty of issues I’ve run into as a survey maker, too. With that said, I hope that reading this post has provided some helpful insight into the process. If there’s anything I missed, feel free to leave a comment below.
Related Reading:
- “Cat Person or Dog Person?” Survey Explained
- Another Bad Aro Survey
- Miscellaneous posts by Kate, James, and me
Crossposted to Pillowfort. Preview image: Smoke Plume by William Warby, licensed under CC BY 2.0.
Efforts at Divorcing QPRs from Ambiguity
One of the ways you can tell people are thinking of “queerplatonic relationship” very narrowly is when you see them contrasting it against whole new terms to take its place. That’s how you end up with hair-splitting efforts like saying that a soft-romo relationship “is somewhere in-between a QPR and a romantic relationship” or that appromour is “differentiated [from queerplatonic partner] by the fact you may feel something oddly similar to romantic attraction and/or even partial or fleeting romantic feeling.” These characterizations position these terms in a way that shrinks the range of what “queerplatonic” is allowed to encompass, without due consideration for ambiguity.
More recently, as discussed here, there has been explicit discussion about ambiguity as a threat to the concept’s integrity. This December 2022 post appears to have emerged out of personal experience with miscommunication, which unfortunately is a normal type of relationship problem. In this poster’s phrasing, though, instead of relaying that personal experience, they focus on attempting to correct and corral people toward a more absolutist outlook, as indicated in a followup post where they wrote, “Some definitions need to be ‘rigid.'” Another poster’s addition asserts that if you use “queerplatonic” for “the kind of friendship that blurs the lines of romance and friendship,” you’re guilty of “appropriating.”
This one person’s formula for QPRs, requiring 1) commitment and 2) “no romantic attraction,” not only sidesteps the issue of defining “commitment,” but it also fails to account for
- a relationship involving a person who is ambivalent about whether or not to consider their feelings “romantic”
- a relationship involving a person with romantic feelings and a person without romantic feelings
- a relationship where the participants are indifferent about whether what they are doing is “romantic” or not
…which are significant exclusions if you know much about where this word comes from and how it got off the ground.
Ambiguity Has Always Been Here
Conversations about ambiguity are where the term “queerplatonic” emerged in the first place. As I’ve discussed before, the term “queerplatonic” comes from a conversation between Kaz and Meloukhia (aka S.E. Smith) on Dreamwidth in 2010. In that post, Kaz talks about ambiguous murky feelings, railing against “neat little restricted boxes,” and breaking down categorization systems. That is the context in which Smith introduced “queerplatonic.”
The same theme of murkiness extends into the subsequent uptake of the term. For instance, Sciatrix, one of the earliest adopters who was there from day one, has spoken of her QPRs as “fuzzy gray-areas” and having an “agnostic” (indeterminate) status in relation to the romantic/nonromantic binary. Over on Tumblr, Aromantic Aardvark characterized QPRs as “the ‘mix and match’ of relationships,” which means “forging your own definition.”
Of course this does not mean that “queerplatonic” excludes the simply-and-straightforwardly-nonromantic. Early on Smith did describe the concept as “not romantic in nature,” point blank. What I aim to highlight here is the original breadth of the term and how flexibility isn’t just some later misunderstanding. Even this early post says that “rather than being rigid; it’s fluid!”
To impose rigidity on QPRs is to exclude some of its earliest adopters from a part of their own lives. People who find the romantic/nonromantic distinction to be personally opaque, irrelevant, or inapplicable, like Sci and Kaz, have always been a part of this conversation. They helped bring this concept into being, and to deny that facet of this term’s origin story is as disrespectful to those people as it is a denial of the facts.
]]>This image is free to repost and distribute. If you do so, I would prefer if you would include the transcript and a link back to this post, where possible. Transcript under the cut.
Transcript:
2010 – Gathering Storm: Drama Group ONTD_Feminism on LiveJournal began featuring ace material as a launchpad for harassment.
2011 – Spread to Tumblr: Anti-ace blogging expanded its reach, promoted by Tumblr blogs like “Privilege Denying Asexuals.” Harassment efforts continued to escalate.
2012 – Trolling in the Tags: Irrelevant & hostile posts were flooding the main ace tags on Tumblr to the point that Hezekiah proposed the #ActuallyAsexual tag to use instead.
2015 – Community Erosion: Anti-ace blogging thrived in the Tumblr environment, driving many aces away from the community.
Today, many more newly-identified aces don’t realize how far back these things go, which is why there have been efforts to repair community memory. As a whole, looking back on this history points to the importance of substantial safeguards against harassment.
]]>Crossposted to Pillowfort.
You may notice I have not included a link here, and that’s on purpose. The post was originally written in response to a Tumblr post which has since been deleted, and my own blogging style has changed a lot since then, which can make some of my older posts feel awkward to look back on. I don’t consider it my best work.
So you can maybe understand my surprise at the fact that over the past nine years, that post is one of my most popular posts of all time. For context, The Ace Theist is a small blog that doesn’t get a lot of traffic, so it’s absolutely outlandish that this little post from 2013 got over 12,000 views in the year 2016 and over 19,000 views in 2021. It’s been my most-viewed post by far in 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2021, and it’s still on track to be my most-viewed post of 2022. Something has attracted people to this post in droves. Why is that?
I don’t really know, but I can come up with some guesses.
The original post has a direct, clear title that promises to explain “why I wear an ace ring.” Apparently this is a good title and topic for attracting clicks. And you know what? …Admittedly, I can’t think of many other posts of its kind. Among aces, ace rings are common, and ace blogging is common, but it’s not so common for aces to blog about ace rings, you know? I can think of Sennkestra’s own Why I Wear An Ace Ring and In Praise of Pins, and that’s about as much as I know about. So if anyone else has thoughts on that topic or wants to put together a primer… it looks like there’s an audience for that.
I don’t think it’s just the topic, though. In order to explain why I wear an ace ring, I have to explain what ace identity means to me and why I would be motivated to wear that on my sleeve (or rather, on my hand). In the time since publishing that post, I have received many comments from strangers who found something about my explanation resonated with them.
Ace rings may not be the novelty to me now that they were then, but I still wear mine. For the most part, I don’t have to think about it. It’s something I’ve thoroughly incorporated into my habits, the same as carrying my sunglasses and keys. Wearing it is still a a choice, though, and that’s a choice that I’ve kept making for about nine years.
I still wear an ace ring because it symbolizes a community that’s been indispensable to me. The ace community has taught me a different view of the world, supported me through painful personal conflicts, welcomed perspectives that are hard to come by elsewhere, and served as a source of solace to me on a topic that’s otherwise been a site of painful alienation. That’s not everyone’s experience, but I’m not talking about everyone. I’m talking about me.
As important as it’s been, this is a relationship that’s also very physically removed. There are so many aces I’ve spoken to that I’ve never met in person at all, and for most of those that I have, it’s rare that we’ve ever been in the same room together. In light of that separation across space, I feel all the more reason to hold onto a physical token of that relationship and carry it with me.
I still wear an ace ring because it gives tangible form to a relationship that has so often been abstract, long-distance, and digitally mediated. I still wear an ace ring because that connection to other aces feels important. I still wear an ace ring because it cheers me to catch sight of them on others and, in video calls, catch sight of my own.
Like I said before, it’s not about proclaiming that we’re different. It’s about carrying a reminder that there are others, somewhere, who are the same.
]]>Crossposted to Pillowfort.
What I mean by an “aro reading” here is evaluating the place of romance in the story and interpreting it in relation to the aromantic umbrella. This includes looking out for romance aversion, romantic inexperience, and a preference for nonromantic relationships—which are not definitional of, but can be prominent bases for, aro identities. Here I am not arguing that these characters are “aro” per se, but that there is noticeable overlap with experiences that lead people to identify as aro.
Talking about the place of “romance” in Elementary is warranted because this is such a recurring subject of discussion on the show. The show implicitly defines “romance” as a particular (committed, monogamous, emotionally-involved) way of conducting sexual relationships, and it makes a distinction between romantic and nonromantic ways of doing sex, explicitly discussed as such by the characters.
The show’s treatment of romance invites an aro reading of both its individual characters and the primary relationship between the two leads. Sherlock Holmes is characterized as someone who only very infrequently dates people, who is generally suspicious of romance, and who frequently has sex that’s got nothing to do with romance. Joan Watson is characterized as someone who makes an effort to go on dates but ultimately realizes that romantic scripts are distasteful to her. In contrast to their scattered, short-lived romantic entanglements, the show centers on the relationship between the two of them, which grows into a committed partnership while remaining nonromantic.
Here I am picking out this element specifically to talk about because I want to see more storylines like this. It’s not just an incidental friendship that ultimately takes a backseat to romantic partnership—this is the core centerpiece of the show, and I want to share what that can look like.
But before I get to that, let me tell you about these two as individuals—and I think you’ll see why the aro comparisons are relevant here.
Sherlock’s Characterization: “I usually cheer the end of any marriage”
Sherlock’s characterization with regard to romance shows him engaging in infrequent, short-lived romantic relationships, expressing a disdain for romance, and preferring nonromantic sexual relationships. What I mean by that is one-off sexual encounters and sexual relationships that are not emotionally involved, which the characters themselves contrast against what they think of as “romance.”
Overall, Sherlock deals in romance reluctantly and infrequently. He has three romantic entanglements depicted in the show, and that’s actually less than it sounds because two of those relationships are so peripheral and short-lived. I’ll count them off for you:
1) The most prominent of these three is his relationship with Irene, introduced as backstory in Season 1. I don’t want to get into spoilers here, but let’s just say it doesn’t work out.
2) In Season 4, Joan realizes that Sherlock has taken a romantic interest in side character Fiona, and she encourages him to ask her out, in spite of his reluctance (S4 E12). Sherlock and Fiona then begin dating, mostly offscreen. Fiona appears a few episodes later for a temporary breakup subplot (S4 E18). In Season 5, Fiona briefly appears again in an episode where Sherlock decides to break up with her (S5 E6).
3) In Season 6, Joan encourages Sherlock to try dating again. Toward the end of the episode, Sherlock asks out Athena, a woman he’s often had sex with, on a first date (S6 E19). This subplot is dropped and never followed up on again.
And that’s it. Across seven seasons, this is the extent of Sherlock’s romantic involvements—a past relationship that ended in disaster, a brief romantic excursion with a side character, and one first date that doesn’t go anywhere.
Compared to romance, Sherlock is much more enthusiastic about sex. Across basically the whole show, he has multiple one-night-stands and recurring sex partners. His preference is for sexual relationships that do not “progress beyond the physical” (S1 E8), and his dialogue makes an unmistakable distinction between sex (which he’s into) and romance (which he’s generally not).
In general, Sherlock’s attitude toward romance and marriage is one of aversion and disdain. Sherlock says that “romantic love is a delusion” and calls himself “post-love” (S2 E3). He calls marriage an unnatural arrangement, a ruse, and a charade (S2 E6). As he tells Gregson, “I usually cheer the end of any marriage” (S2 E6).
This attitude is consistent enough that it’s remarked on by other characters. For instance, while criticizing how Sherlock treats Kitty Winter, Joan says, “I know how you feel about romance. You think love is stupid” (S3 E6). In another scene, Marcus interrupts him in an attempt to preempt “one of your ‘down with love’ speeches” (S5 E12). In Season 5, Sherlock surprises his friends by suggesting that Tommy Gregson get married, which strikes everyone as a very out-of-character thing to say. However, Sherlock’s advice is not for any sentimental reason, but solely so that Gregson’s partner can access his health insurance. As Sherlock puts it, “Gaming the insurance industry is what marriage is for, right?” (S5 E3).
These characterization choices can be compared to certain narratives in aro communities. This is a character who prefers nonromantic sexual relationships, who is generally averse to romance, and who engages with romance only very infrequently. I think stating simply that he “is” aro would give people the wrong idea (especially if they don’t make room for grayness), but there’s clear overlap here with some of the reasons people might identify as aro.
Joan’s Characterization: “I’m not feeling anything I’m supposed to be feeling”
Compared to Sherlock, Joan goes on dates with more people and acts more open to romantic relationships, but her attempts to pursue romance lead her to realize that it’s not what makes her happy. Like Sherlock, she seems to prefer short-term sexual encounters. The real difference between the two of them in this respect is that it takes her longer to realize it.
The first two seasons show Joan intermittently going on dates with various people, but nothing sticks. In Season 1, a friend sets her up on a blind date with a side character who only appears in one episode (S1 E4). In Season 2, that same friend gives her a subscription to a dating site, TrueRomantix (S2 E3). Joan goes on some dates arranged through the site, but overall, it doesn’t go well (S2 E12).
Season 3 is when Joan begins dating Andrew. This is her longest-running romantic subplot of the series, and the portrayal of that relationship highlights how uncomfortable she is with going through the motions of a conventional romance.
Partway through the season, Sherlock suspects that Joan is interested in straying from Andrew, and he gives her some advice: “Your romantic inclinations are not a flaw to be corrected. They’re a trait to be accepted. I know you, Watson. You’ll never be happy within the confines of a, quote unquote, ‘traditional relationship.’ And […] it pains me to see you try to fit into one simply because it is the default mode of polite society.” Joan insists that she’s happy with Andrew, and Sherlock counters, “Or would you be happier without him? Alternatively, with him as an occasional sex partner and confidant?” (S3 E7).
This relationship lasts for a few more episodes before Joan hits a breaking point. After meeting one of Andrew’s parents, Joan vents to Sherlock and realizes that this relationship isn’t working for her.
Joan: Andrew’s father was so amazing. He was warm, and welcoming, and obviously so thrilled that I was dating his son. It went about as well as you could possibly imagine.
Sherlock: And yet?
Joan: [visibly stressed] I didn’t want any of it. I just didn’t feel comfortable. I mean, Andrew is smart, he’s kind, he doesn’t dress like a high school student who just got expelled. What is wrong with me? I’m not feeling anything I’m supposed to be feeling.
Sherlock: I’m an expert in many things, but love is not one of them. I do know, however, it cannot be reduced to a checklist of traits. You know, you might have to accept the fact that whatever your relationship with Andrew means, you just don’t want it.
Joan: Then what do I want?
Sherlock: I don’t know.
Joan faces up to her feelings about dating Andrew, and by the end of the episode, she resolves to break up with him (S3 E13).
Sometimes aro vibes can be subtle, but this is more like an airhorn. Despite Joan’s best efforts to make a romantic relationship work, she finds that the associated scripts are at odds with what she’s comfortable with and laments, “I’m not feeling anything I’m supposed to be feeling.” There’s ample basis for comparison here to aro experiences of feeling indifferent to or uneasy with conventional romance.
The Relationship Between Sherlock & Joan: “I wish there was a more appropriate word”
The main relationship arc of the show is the relationship between Sherlock and Joan. Joan is initially hired on at the start of the show to help Sherlock stay sober after rehab. Although they start out at odds with each other, the two begin to appreciate each other and decide to become partners—a relationship that stays unwaveringly nonsexual, which the show treats as also nonromantic. In this section, I provide a tour of this main relationship arc to demonstrate its trajectory and its resonances with the concept of the queerplatonic.
Queerplatonic is a concept from the ace community referring to a non-normative combination of relationship elements. Conventionally, the expectation in contemporary Western culture has been that people will put romantic-sexual relationships first, with their other peers diminished as “just” friends. A relationship which defies categorization by this binary can be called queerplatonic. Since its emergence in ace contexts, the concept has also been popularized in aro communities—and while not all aros are interested in them, I consider them relevant for thinking about departures from romance-centered narratives.
Even just looking at Season 1 alone, Elementary presents a creative array of nonromantic intimacies. Here I’m referring to things like helping a person stay awake (S1 E3), asking for help with a moral quandary (S1 E7), sharing secrets (S1 E7), bringing someone breakfast in bed (S1 E10), waiting with someone (S1 E9), and using a meaningful echo of another’s words to communicate that you’re going to miss them* (S1 E12).
* When Joan thinks their time together is coming to a close, she tells Sherlock, “I’m gonna miss this. Well, maybe not… this [gesturing to a corpse], but… this. Working with you. I think what you do is amazing.” In a later scene, Sherlock tells Joan, “I’m gonna miss this. Erm, maybe not… this, so much…. but this. Working with you. I think what you do is amazing.”
The first pivotal transition in their relationship happens in Season 1. Mid-season, Sherlock makes Joan a proposal: “Stay on permanently, not as my sober companion, but as my companion.” He goes on to reference “what you have been to me, and what I believe you can be to me—a partner.” Explaining his motive for the offer, he says, “I am… better… with you, Watson. I’m sharper, I’m more focused… Difficult to say why, exactly” (S1 E16). Joan decides to accept this offer, and they become increasingly close as partners.
That partnership is subject to volatility but never leaves any doubt about its emotional importance. By the end of Season 2, Sherlock has become attached enough to Joan that he’s upset when she wants to move out. Joan insists that she can still work with him while keeping her own place (S2 E23). This is technically true, but a rift has begun forming between them that brings a temporary end to their partnership, and that breakup is narratively dramatic without contradicting how much they still mean to each other. While talking to an AI program about love, for instance, Sherlock names Joan as an example of someone he loves (S3 E4). Joan and Sherlock do end up working together again, and later in Season 3, Joan decides to move back in with him (S3 E15).
Over time, Sherlock and Joan’s relationship has become increasingly more than just a professional partnership. A scene in Season 6 reveals that Sherlock has already written Joan into his will several years ago (S6 E18). As he says to her in Season 5, Episode 4:
When you and I first started I quickly recognized your merits, both as a detective in your own right and in that you facilitated my own process. I’m better at the work I do because of you. But over the years the relative importance of those two values has flipped. I now value the work that we do, first and foremost, because I do it with you.
Other characters in the show also recognize them as partners, not just coworkers. Marcus Bell jokingly refers to Joan as Sherlock’s “better half,” which is usually a way of referring to a man’s wife (S2 E2). When talking about the possibility of Sherlock getting evicted, Sherlock’s brother Mycroft refers to Joan as Sherlock’s partner, not just his roommate (S2 E8). Later in that season, Sherlock and Mycroft even have this exchange (S2 E22):
Mycroft: You’re not sure you can do what needs to be done without her. This is more than just a case. Without her to keep you focused, to keep you settled…
Sherlock: Is that what you think she is? hm? A simple counterbalance?
Mycroft: I think she’s the person you love most in the world.
In other episodes, both Sherlock’s father Morland (S4 E24) and Tommy Gregson (S7 E13) use similar language. In Season 5, Joan and Sherlock are even invited to become godparents to a friend’s child (S5 E16).
Amid all this, the show never wavers in its commitment to presenting their relationship as nonromantic and nonsexual. In those rare moments when the show acknowledges the possibility of sex or romance between them, it does so only to mock or negate the idea. For example, Sherlock’s first words to Joan are “Do you believe in love at first sight?”—but then it turns out he’s quoting from a movie as a test of his memorization skills, something revealed and played off as a gag (S1 E1). It’s a jerk move on Sherlock’s part, of course, but this helps set the tone of the show. Later in the season, a woman puzzles over Sherlock’s relationship to Joan and asks her, “Do you want to sleep with him?” (S1 E23). In conjunction with other insulting comments, this comes across as both a failure to respect Joan and a failure to understand her. In Season 6, Joan has this conversation with a side character (S6 E8):
Kelsey: So you swear you and your partner never slept together.
Joan: [casually] No. Never.
Kelsey: [confused, searching] And… you’re not… a lesbian.
Joan: No.
Kelsey: Sorry, it’s just—he’s hot, you’re hot, you’d make a great couple.
Joan: …You would be surprised how often we don’t hear that.
Moments like these may be taken as references to how, outside the show, people have continuously discussed the possibility of a Sherlock/Joan romance. Before the show had even premiered, people speculated that making Watson a woman would pave the way for a M/F romance. Even several seasons into the show, an interviewer characterized it as a will-they-or-won’t-they relationship and point-blank asked the actors, “Will they boink?” In response, Jonny Lee Miller (who plays Sherlock) answered to the contrary, part of the original vision for the show was that “they never become romantically involved.” Likewise, Lucy Liu (who plays Joan) affirms that Rob Doherty is “sticking to his guns” about staying close to the source material in that respect. So inside and outside of the narrative, it’s clear the people making the show have intentionally distinguished this relationship from a romance—and that, by doing so, they’re going against the grain.
A lot of this comes across in the characters’ dialogue, but if there would be one visual to represent the queerplatonic resonances here, it would be a certain scene from Season 4. Sherlock retrieves a ring from a secret compartment, and while sitting down—physically lowered in the frame—he passes that ring to Watson (S4 E22). This moment visually parallels the classic marriage proposal, without actually being romantic in context. In a way, it’s a simultaneous echo of and departure from romantic symbolism, which itself encapsulates the oddity of their relationship.
Toward the end of the show, the relationship between Sherlock and Joan takes a new turn with the adoption subplot in Season 6. After an inciting incident early in the season, Joan begins looking into adopting a child (S6 E4). A few episodes later, when Sherlock learns about her plans, Joan asks him how he would feel about “having a kid around,” then immediately clarifies “I would not expect you to co-parent or anything. The baby would be my responsibility.” Sherlock tells her, “For you, Watson, I’d make adjustments” (S6 E8). From here Sherlock tries to be supportive of Joan’s efforts to adopt. He researches child-safety locks, and he cleans up a dollhouse he had previously been using to reproduce crime scenes (S6 E13). Joan assures him he’s not obligated to join her in parenting, but Sherlock doesn’t see things the same way: “Short of us dissolving our partnership, I’m not capable of not being involved. Not as the child’s father, but as its mother’s friend” (S6 E13). They also go on to have this cute exchange:
Joan: Have you thought about what you want to be called by my kid? I mean, assuming I get one.
Sherlock: [makes a confused face like he hasn’t thought of that]
Joan: I was thinking “Uncle Sherlock.”
Sherlock: Yeah well, I’ve been called worse. I’d also settle for “Detective.”
Joan: [dismissive] My child is not calling you detective.
Sherlock: Well, “Uncle Detective,” then.
Unfortunately, things take a severe turn for the dramatic in the season finale. Long story short, Sherlock has to flee the country under the understanding that he and Joan might never see each other again. This is the episode where Sherlock finally says it to Joan’s face: in an emotional moment, he refers to the two of them as “two people who love each other” (S6 E21).
Okay, let’s pause here.
While I don’t think authorial intent is completely determinant, I want to share what the showrunner Rob Doherty had to say about this scene. When an interviewer prompted him with “It very much read as a platonic love. Was that what you intended?” Doherty answered, “Oh yeah, absolutely. […] I wish there was an even more appropriate word than ‘platonic.’ It’s fraternal.” His remarks here are demonstrative of how “platonic” can contain, but does not necessarily express, this particular degree of intensity.
That scene from Season 6 finale is not the last these characters see of each other, but even after that point, their relationship continues to have its challenges. Toward the end of Season 7, a new threat drives Sherlock out of Joan’s life again, and there’s even a time skip where the two of them fall out of touch. When they reunite in the finale, it’s revealed that they’ve both been keeping secrets from each other. This is understandable given their established characterization, but also makes for some drama before they reconcile. And frankly, I appreciate that Sherlock and Joan continue to be portrayed as flawed, vulnerable people who don’t always get it right and whose relationship remains dynamic, complex, and story-worthy.
This core relationship that unfolds over the seven seasons of Elementary is one that’s relatively unique on television. Unlike The X-Files, unlike Bones, unlike so many other shows of its kind, they did it. They made it through the whole show without a kiss or a sexual/romantic relationship between the two leads, all while portraying Sherlock and Joan as each other’s life partners. Sherlock’s initial interest in partnering with Joan was that she made him better at detective work, but over time, the bond between them grows and deepens to the point that that their work as detectives becomes secondary. At the end of the show, when the future of their careers becomes uncertain, Sherlock tells Joan, “As long as we’re together, what does it matter?”
Conclusion: Encore
I have written this analysis because I want more stories to explore relationships like these. I want people to see what a fictional depiction of a mature, adult friendship can look like—and that it can be dynamic, dramatic, and interesting enough to carry an entire show. I have tried to contextualize this reading with notes on Sherlock and Joan’s individual characterization, as two people who, each in their own way, are depicted as at odds with conventional romance. With that said, my investment here is not in proving that any one specific character “is” aro, individually. My priority lies in demonstrating that the core relationship—this atypical partnership between Sherlock and Joan—presents a worthwhile template for how to write something of its kind.
]]>The survey collected 1,404 responses in total.
Crossposted to Pillowfort. Preview image: Shadows & Fog by Adam Baker, licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0.
I’ve separated the survey data and my notes into sections below. The sections I recommend the most are Meaning of Gray Identities, Naming the Umbrellas, and Perspectives & Prejudice. I am open to hearing what else people are interested in seeing with this data, so leave a comment below to make a request.
- All Responses
- Meaning of Gray Identities
- Meta:
- Responses by Identity:
- Perspectives & Prejudice
- Experiences with Communities
- Anti-Ace/Aro Blogging
- Comparing Gray-Ace & Gray-Aro
- Broad vs. Specific Definition of Sexual Orientation
If you like, you can also download the full spreadsheet of responses. You can use this file to run your own data analysis, view graphs, or browse the free-write answers.
Note: be advised that I’ve left almost everything as is, including various free-write commentary that I don’t agree with (such as identity policing, wrongful terminology, antigay dogwhistles, etc.). The only things redacted are email addresses, usernames, and other information specific enough to be personally-identifying.
Thanks again to everyone who helped make this project possible. Let me know your thoughts in the comments below, and if you can, please help spread the link to these results!
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