This book was really influential on me and my research, and I found it really useful in helping me figure out the direction I would like to go in. The book has a very sociological approach to the topic of asexuality. It deals with topics like the social construction of sex and romance, gender, racial, and disability stereotypes related to sex and relationships, compulsory sexuality and amatonormativity, and societal attitudes to consent. These are all areas that I could cover with my own research, but with more of a focus on how these societal attitudes are reflected in media. Most relevantly to me, Chen does directly discuss media messages in parts of this book - not just direct depictions of asexual and aromantic characters, but also general messages about sex in popular media, such as how a lot of "coming of age" films and TV shows portray sex as a necessary step in becoming an adult.
This is one of my key texts for the more sociology/media studies related side of my research. While it is a pretty broad overview of a lot of issues related to the media's place in society, its breadth makes it very informative, and it has also been very helpful in finding other sources and studies that look at more specific issues in more detail. The topics covered here that are of particular interest for me are the concept of media as a "purveyor of ideology", media depictions and stereotypes of social groups, media effects on audiences, and the methods used by scholars studying these topics
I've only started reading this book but I already get the feeling it's going to be a important source, especially in terms of making my analysis more intersectional. As the title suggests, this book is heavily concerned with how issues of sexuality and race overlap.