9th October:

FINISHED ACE BY ANGELA CHEN REREAD!!! I have even more ideas for what I can write about!!!!

• Lack of research on aromanticism and single people in social sciences – also a consideration for me in terms of finding research
• Amatonormativity
• Differences between portrayals of asexuality and aromanticism - Generally more representation of asexuality, aromanticism also seen as a subset of asexuality instead of its own thing
• The nuclear family and the assumption that everyone will eventually marry and have children - Interesting intersection with age – lack of support for older people who don’t have children to support them because its assumed everyone will have children to care for them
• Concept of hermeneutical injustice – “harm caused by being denied crucial information”, “marginalized groups lacking access to information essential to their understanding of themselves and their role in society” - p.137
• Limits of our current understanding of consent – belief that if you are in a relationship with someone you are required to have sex with them - Legal ramifications – struggle to have spousal rape made illegal
• "So long as [people] don’t know that saying no forever and for any reason and in any context is okay – sex education, sex therapy, and popular depictions of sex are incomplete and people don’t have the relevant information to fully consent” – p.140
• Also lack of nuance in discussions of negative sexual experiences – binary between rape and consensual sex that doesn’t leave room for negative experiences that were still consensual – I saw some discussions of this on social media recently, about how we don’t really have language to talk about sexual trauma outside of rape or assault - Surprisingly common experience – 2005 study – “28% of women said their first sexual experience was consensual but not exactly wanted” – Leslie Houts – But was it wanted
• alternative frameworks of consent – Emily Nagoski
• Sex and romance being socially/culturally constructed – much like how Tanizaki got me thinking about how science isn’t as objective as we tend to think of it but is influenced by its culture, sex and romance are also things that people tend to think of as completely natural and innate but are actually hugely influenced by cultural/societal factors e.g. apparently many non-western cultures don’t view kissing as a romantic action but instead see it as unhygienic
• “Sexuality of any kind never exists in a vacuum. It is […] affected by biology and culture, by our emotional state and mental health, by race and class and gender and the passing of time” – p.32
• “If sex is completely natural and biological, why does anyone need this industry of sex experts at all?” – p.153
• "Many of us learn to desire by watching other people desire” – p.172

Most importantly, this quote from Angela Chen in reference to the societal ideas about relationships: “I knew all this, though I couldn’t have told you exactly I learned or been able to point to who shared this knowledge”. I think really, the question of where people learn these ideas about sex, sexuality, romance, relationships etc. and what role popular culture plays in that should be at the heart of my research.

Sources to look at:

• Julian Baggini – “Why you should be allowed to ‘marry’ your sister” – discusses bias towards romantic relationships
• Tamara Metz – Untying the Knot
• Julia Sondra Decker – The Invisible Orientation
• Miranda Fricker – Epistemic Injustice
• Leonore Tiefer – Sex Is Not a Natural Act
• Meg-John Barker – Mediated Intimacy
• Lux Alptraum – Faking It: The Lies Women Tell About Sex and the Truths They Reveal
• Ela Przybylo – Asexual Erotics
• Anthony F Bogaert – Understanding Asexuality
• Mark Carrigan – Asexuality and Sexual Normativity

10th October

Tutorial notes:

• Look at course bibliography -> which books seem most relevant?
• Brainstorming – think of different key words to look for
• Also don’t just look at library – Google Scholar + JStor
• Think about mapping literature -> different subtopics
• What do you need to read from cover to cover and what not?
• Journal articles are good – more focused and concise
• Cross reference different bibliographies and library searches – what seem to be the key sources?

13th October

At the end of this week I feel like I now have a much clearer idea of the direction I want to take this research project, at least initially.

The common themes that kept coming up in my brainstorming were all to do with the relationship between art and reality: stereotypes and their effects, how messages in media reflect common societal ideas, how media can impact society, etc. Instead of just analysing depiction of asexuality, aromanticism, sex, and relationships in the media in a bubble, I think it will be more interesting and more productive to analyse that in relation to broader societal trends. I'm tentatively making my research question "How do depictions of asexuality and aromanticism in popular culture reflect societal ideas about sex and relationships?"

Now that I have more of an idea of the direction I want to take my research in, I have been able to put together an initial reading and watchlist. Some of the sources I want to look at are focused specifically on aspec identites, such as Ace Voices by Eris Young. Some are focused on queer theory and gender studies more broadly, such as Jack Halberstam's The Queer Art of Failure. Some others cover more general topics relating to society and stereotypes, such as Craig McGarty's Stereotypes as Explanations. I want to take quite a broad approach to the topic, especially seeing as aspec identities are not very widely-written about and I will need to look to further sources.

I've also been looking at examples of films and TV that portray asexuality or aromanticism. At the moment I'm focusing just on film and TV because I see them as some of the most widely-accessible and popular media, but I will have to look more closely at how I should define "popular culture" as I go along. One other consideration is which films and TV shows are the most important - I would like to focus mainly on the films and shows that are the most widely-viewed and would therefore have the biggest impact on the public. However, this has raised the issue that many of these examples are distributed on streaming services, which tend to be very opaque about things like viewing figures. It's a lot harder to figure out how many people watched an episode of Sex Education than how many watched an episode of a show released under the older, more traditional model of television, such as Game of Thrones.

The other exciting development of the week is that I've started building a website for my research journal - hopefully the very website you see before you now! Up until this point I've been keeping my journal in a regular word document, but I prefer the idea of having a website because it will allow me to easily create different pages for quotes, my glossary, my weekly journal entries, and anything else I may want to keep on a separate page. It'll also make it easier to link parts together. My hope is that a website will work better for me because it'll be easier to keep everything organised in a way that makes sense to me.

Now, while I could make my life slightly easier and use Wix for my website like I'm used to doing, I wanted to really push myself and try to code the website essentially from the ground up. I have some experience of HTML (though it's been a while since I last used it) and it's a skill I want to try and develop further! I'm currently able to create a very basic website, so the next step is going to be figuring out how to customise the layout how I want it!

Oh yeah, we also had a talk from futurologist Ruth Marshall Johnson. It was certainly interesting and I want to check out some of the books and articles she mentioned, but overall I didn't find any of it super relevant to my project. Still, it was an intriguing talk and it was fun to discuss with my fellow grad students!

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