20th February

On Tuesday we had our materials workshop. The point of the workshop was to experiment with materials we wouldn’t usually use and see how they inspired us in our projects. I’ll admit I didn’t really connect mine with my project at all, but I still enjoyed getting to mess around with some crafting stuff.

My first impulse was to do something with collage – I even brought in some old magazines to collage with – but I feel like I’ve already done collage a fair bit, and I wanted to try something completely different. I feel like for my work I usually default to just drawing, so I wanted to do something more physical and three dimensional. I ended up being reminded of how on my art foundation I used to do a lot of sewing into photos and sewing things together, so I decided to try doing that – I ended up sewing a bunch of random objects and photos together into some kind of bizarre creature/mobile/family tree. I did also eventually get physically tired of sewing things together (it turns out that using a sewing needle to punch a hole in things that aren’t meant to be sewed is a bit rough on the old hands) and ended up doing some left-handed drawings as well.

Look at my beautiful creations everybody!!!!

It was a really interesting experience – like I said, my hands got really tired towards the end, so there was a physicality to it that I’m not used to from my usual digital work. Using the sewing needle and thread was really fiddly, especially because I wasn’t used to it. It was honestly a pretty frustrating experience at times. Despite that, I did still genuinely enjoy it. There was just something really satisfying about it – maybe it was the experience of getting to construct something, maybe it was the sensation of punching holes in things (I found sewing into the plastic straws particularly satisfying), maybe it was just the fact that I got to create something without worrying about having a point to it or making it look good. Well, ok, that’s not entirely true. By the end the workshop was setting off whatever fun little complex I have about not being good enough at creating things compared to everyone else. But it’s fine or whatever. That’s between me and my counsellor.

Positive experience overall, even if I did have to go take a little stress walk immediately after!

I did also want to mention my thoughts on the Eva Hesse documentary we watched - it was really interesting to learn about Hesse, but the thing that really stuck out to me about the documentary was the gender dynamics. Obviously Eva was in a very unique position as a woman working in an art world was mostly men. But I also found it notable how the male artists interviewed in the documentary talked about her - they all seemed incapable of praising her without mentioning how beautiful she was or how they were in love with her. It felt very much like these guys didn't know how to process having respect for a woman without making it about them wanting to get with her. Raises some interesting questions about how women, even well-respected and admired women, are treated and how they are sexualised, I think!

Shows of the week

I finished my watch of BoJack Horseman early this week - not much to add since Todd's asexuality kind of takes a back seat in season 6. There's at least one major development in season 6's introduction of yet another ace character: Maude, who ends up dating Todd and their relationship lasts until the end of the show. I don't have much to say about her - she's a very similar character to Todd but a little less over-the-top wacky, and serves as a good contrast to Yolanda. By the end of the show, Todd has finally managed to date someone who he has more in common with than just being asexual, which feels like a natural conclusion to the story. Also, Maude is notably voiced by an asexual actor: Echo Gillette.

I also watched the teen drama Heartbreak High this week, and was pleasantly surprised by it! As I think I've made very clear, I wasn't impressed by either Sex Education or Heartstopper in how they portrayed asexuality and (in Heartstopper's case) aromanticism, so I was feeling pretty sceptical about yet another Netflix teen drama. But for whatever reason, Heartbreak High managed to break the cycle! Would I call it a particularly good show? Probably not, it's very much a trashy teen drama, but my god was it compelling. I feel like I just experienced the most unhinged 400 minutes of TV I've ever seen in my life. It's the first compelling argument I've ever witnessed for the concept of 8-episode seasons. Every episode they put like five of the most insane friendship breakups and regular breakups on my screen at a rate previously unknown to science. I felt hysterical.

Anyway, off topic. The asexuality stuff specifically. I just think it's so great that they made their ace character the Australian (it's an Australian show) equivalent of a roadman who steals cars at house parties and sells drugs and whose real name is Dougie but who calls himself Ca$h with a dollar sign instead of an S hangs out with misogynist creeps who he has to learn to stand up to. Finally representation for asexual dirtbag teenagers. And I know it might sound like I'm being facetious here but genuinely I thought it was great. Ca$h was so the complete opposite of what I expected and it was wonderful.

I think his arc of struggling with his sexuality was also very well-done! They haven't actually used the term 'asexual' in the show (gonna have to keep an eye out for the second season in April) but it is pretty clearly signified, and the reporting around the show seems to concur that this is an asexual character. I thought that his attempts to make a relationship work with Darren (not asexual) was a pretty compelling story - it certainly got cheesy in places but again! Cheesy slightly trashy teen show! This is what I'm here for! And I for one think we should have ace characters in fun trash too!

Actually this is a thought I'm having as I write this, but maybe the thing I'm looking for in depictions of asexual and aromantic characters is for them to be treated the same as the rest of the characters in the show, and to fit in with the show's tone. BoJack Horseman is an absurd surreal comedy, so I like that Todd's asexuality is used as a source of absurd surreal humour. Heartbreak High is an ultra-dramatic over-the-top teen show, so I like that Ca$h's asexuality and relationships are a source of over-the-top drama. Compare to something like Sex Education, where the ace characters seem to be either there solely to educate the audience about asexuality or have the most interesting part of their personal struggles relegated to flashbacks while the other characters get to have their personal struggles in focus.

Heartbreak High transcripts here!

Just something to think about!

Reading of the Week!

Notes from The History of Sexuality: Volume 1 by Michel Foucault, or as I've been calling it, The Original You're Wrong About

• Further elaboration of the repressive hypothesis: "Modern prudishness was able to ensure that one did not speak of sex, merely through the interplay of prohibitions that referred back to one another" (p.17)
• However, Foucault's opinion is different: "Things appear in a very different light: around and apropos of sex, one sees a veritable discursive explosion" over the last three centuries (p.17)
• Acknowledges that "Without question, new rules of propriety (p.17) screened out some words: there was a policing of statements" (p.18)
• Foucault argues that most repression of discussion of sexuality was "between parents and children, for instance, or teachers and pupils, or masters and domestic servants" (p.18)
• "More important was the multiplication of discourses concerning sex in the field of exercise of power itself: an institutional incitement to speak about it, and to do so more and more" (p.18)
• "Under the authority of a language that had been carefully expurgated so that it was no longer directly named, sex was taken charge of, tracked down as it were, by a discourse that aimed to allow it no obscurity, no respite" (p.20) - basically even though explicit language around sex was suppressed, sex was still constatnly being discussed - kind of ironic!
• Overall argues that there was a "great process of transforming sex into discourse" (p.22)

Notes from my bestie Lizzy B:

• Apparently at the time this book was written the US Social Security Act included the line "[A] mutually faithful, monogamous relationship in the context of marriage is the expected standard of sexual activity" (p.65) - amatonormativity in action fr, this view also extends obviously to "abstinence-until-marriage education" (p.65)
• Basically marriage is considered "morally transformative" - this belief about marriage is seen in other contexts but is most obvious in the context of sex (p.66)
• Juicy quote about the demonisation of sex outside of marriage (that could probably also be applied to how a lot of people see sex outside of relationships - relevant to views on people who are aromantic but not asexual): "Kant suggests that unmarried sex treats another as a mere means because sexual desire takes a person as an object to satisfy an appetite (Kant writes of discarding a sexual partner 'as one throws away a lemon after sucking the juice from it')" (p.69 LOL)
• "What differentiates sex morally from massage or wrestling, for instance?" - Lizzy throws this out as a joke but legit this is like the realest fucking thing. the original "sex is rock climbing" (p.69)
• "One can judge that someone else's action is permissible, even that it has value for her (watching the Eurovision Song Contest, eating snails), without judging that it has any value for oneself" (p.73) - basically, on the point of nonmarital sex, Lizzy B says 'let's all just shut the fuck up and stay out of other people's business'
• A telling comment - Brake points out that certain arguments against nonmarital sex are unconvincing - "It does not attack sedentary lifestyles and sugar consumption as violating the basic good of health, for example. This suggests a disproportionate focus on one set of basic goods - those involving sex" (p.73) - Once again we see sex being treated as something uniquely significant
• "The fundamental question is whether humans flourish in only one kind of relationship. Where erotic love is concerned, it is more plausible to think that a thousand different kinds of flower may bloom - that is, people flourish in many different ways." - note that as far as I can tell Brake is using 'erotic' to meana 'romantic' (p.78)
• Even more relevantly for aro people - "Empirically, anthropology and observation suggest that humans can be happy in a wide range of love relationships. A Don Juan or Savonarola might flourish without erotic love. [...] By prescribing one form of relationship for all, current marriage law inhibits experiments in living and thereby limits the flourishing of some individuals" (p.78)
• Perhaps the most influential passage of Brake: Brake coins the concept of "amatonormativity", which she defines as a "disproportional focus on marital and amorous love relationships as special sites of value, and the assumption that romantic love is a universal goal" (p.88)
• "The belief that marriage and companionate romantic love have special value leads to overlooking the value of other caring relationships" (p.88)
• Amatonormativity also "consists in the assumption that a central, exclusive, amorous relationship is normal for humans, in that it (p.88) is a universally shared goal, and that such a relationship is normative, in that it should be aimed at in preference to other relationship types. The assumption that valuable relationships must be marital or amorous devalues friendships and other caring relationships, as recent manifestos by urban tribalists, quirkyalones, polyamorists, and asexuals have insisted. Amatonormativity prompts the sacrifice of other relationships to romantic love and marriage and relegates friendship and solitudinousness to cultural invisibility" (p.89) - again I looooooooove the term "quirkyalone" I think that's so fun. I need to look this shit up. Also love that even though Brake's writing is more broad she was actually openly inspired by the work of a-spec people!
• Explains that the term "is modeled on the term 'heteronormativity', which refers to the assumption of heterosexuality and gender difference as prescriptive norms" (p.89) and that "amatonormativity overlaps with heteronormativity" (p.89)
• "Violations of amatonormativity would include dining alone by choice, putting friendship above romance, bringing a friend to a formal event or attending alone, cohabiting with friends, or not searching for romance" (p.89)
• "Amatonormative discrimination is widely practiced. Its existence is not controversial. What is controversial is the claim that it is wrongful discrimination and not simply justified differential treatment - that it is arbitrary and hence, at least in law, unjust" (p.89) Lizzy give me examples pls
• Specifies that "legal marriage, sex, shared domicile, or shared property are not necessary conditions for privilege; an amorous, enduring, central love relationship is. While marriage is not necessary for privilege, it is usually sufficient for it. While amorous love, endurance, and centrality are jointly sufficient for privilege, no one of these features is independently sufficient. A brief, amorous summer fling or extramarital affair would not be privileged, and friendships may be central and enduring but still not privileged." (p.90)
• "Such amorous relationships are wrongly privileged over friendships, and their members wrongly privileged over 'singles' (by which I mean the socially single, or 'uncoupled', not the legally unmarried). Friendships and adult care networks are not accorded the social importance of marriage or marriage-like relationships, nor are they eligible for the legal benefits of marriage." (p.90)
• Does actually give some kind of explanation of what quirkyalone means - "Sasha Cagen writes that for 'quirkyalones,' 'a community of like-minded souls is essential... Instead of sacrificing our social constellation for the one all-consuming individual, we seek empathy from friends. We have significant others
• Points out that "such significant friendships, including groups of adults and shared child-rearing relationships, appear in the gay and lesbian community, African-American and Latin-American communities, among seniors, and unmarried urbanites" (p.91)

Other events of the week

• Happy Arospec Awareness Week 2024!!! I've been celebrating by trying to spread the word on social media about all the interesting academia about aromanticism I've read so far in this project lol
• And funnily enough, I'm not the only one! I've seen at least one other person who's fighting the good fight sending around academic essays about aromanticism - I've collected some here to look at later. The bad news is that I can't get access to any of them through AUB, so I guess it's time to shoot Corin another email!
• Also listened to this podcast episode about aro week and getting it recognised in Kansas! Thought it was very interesting, especially getting to hear the hosts' experience of questioning if they are aromantic! I found they had a very interesting perspective on how they think about romance.
• I've started my mission to watch some relevant documentaries with The Slanted Screen, a documentary from 2006 about portrayals of East Asian men in Hollywood. Like many of the books I've read, it discusses how Asian men have been desexualised and how films are unwilling to portray them as love interests (even though, as I learned, one of the earliest film heartthrobs was a Japanese actor called Sessue Hayakawa) and blames this on a fear of Asian men "stealing" white women (gross on many levels, obviously)
• Did a lot of life drawing, something I haven't done in about a year and a half! I was definitely struggling to get back into the swing of it at first but by the end of Thursday's life drawing session I was actually doing some drawings I was pretty happy with!

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