Netflix teen shows are trying to let ace characters come out and explain themselves

polygon.com:

Until my early 20s, I believed I was a “normal” sex-haver. I assumed any guilt or repulsion I felt after intimacy was a universal experience. It wasn’t until a year ago that, after hearing me mention that I had repeatedly dissociated after kissing various Tinder dates, my friend said: “You know what asexuality is, right?” I stuttered, offended; of course I knew what it meant, but only in that “jock calling the nerd asexual because he won’t ever get laid” way. She called my bluff and showed me a video from an asexual YouTuber who echoed many of my secret opinions about dating and intimacy. This set me on the path to find as many video essays about asexuality as possible, which explained that I wasn’t broken or in need of the “right person”; my love would just come from somewhere besides sex. Any blueprints for where I might find it or what that love might be instead were a mystery, as I quickly found that asexual representation in media is an absolute travesty.

There’s no easy way to show an identity based around the lack of something rather than its presence, but when you start throwing out SpongeBob as my LGBTQIA+ rep, I know it’s not a serious conversation. Good asexual (aka ace) characters do exist — Bojack Horseman’s resident goofball Todd Chavez is beloved by many for his swagless slacker schemes — but most rely on negative stereotypes that perpetuate the myth of inhumanity among those who don’t build their love lives around sex.

Asexual people in media are represented as dispassionate outcasts who avoid close relationships; they are cold and calculating celibates (like Sherlock Holmes), or they force sex upon themselves to fix their perceived inadequacies (like Olivia from whatever the hell The Olivia Experiment