Pride Month: My Top 5 Asexual Icons

The world is going through very tough times at the moment and there's a lot to make us cry, but there are always things that bring us joy in the midst of despair. For me, one of those things has been the successful crowdfunding of Asexual Myths & Tales (the follow-up to last year's Asexual Fairy Tales) right in the middle of Pride Month. 

So, what better time to share my top five asexual icons. Just to clarify, I don't mean by this that I necessarily believe all these people and characters are historically/canonically asexual, but that to me they symbolise something about my asexuality; they are somehow poster people for my identity. 

  • The Virgin Mary
"Pearls and Roses" by Anna Hopkinson

Trust me, as a Christian with both Protestant and Catholic friends and relations, I've heard all the arguments back and forth about whether Mary really was a lifelong virgin. To me, it matters less from a theological point of view than it does from a personal viewpoint. The words, "Virgin ever, after as before," from Alma Redemptoris Mater gave me great comfort at a time when I was struggling to reconcile being an asexual wife and mother. I have always identified with Mary from a young age - which perhaps should have been an early clue to my identity!

  • Legolas

"It was just me, Legolas and the Virgin Mary." These were the words of frustration I wrote in 2005, after discovering that most virgins were still sexual. Whatever your opinion of the character, the androgynous, sexless figure of Legolas in Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings film trilogy kickstarted a rebirth in my soul and a journey of self-discovery no less adventurous than the quest of the Ring.
  • The Lady of Shalott
"The Lady of Shalott" by John William Waterhouse. Public domain.

We had this picture on the wall in our English department at school and I was always drawn to it - another early sign. When I read the poem, the eponymous Lady became the figure in literature I most identified with her. She has turned up many times over the years, in my poetry, songs and short stories, notably "The Ice Queen and the Mer-King" in Asexual Fairy Tales.
  • Sir Galahad
"Companions of the Grail" by Anna Hopkinson

I've always been convinced that Sir Galahad is asexual and that his relationship with Sir Perceval's sister (Pearl, as I call her in Asexual Fairy Tales) is a kind of queer platonic relationship. I wrote about all this in story form in "Companions of the Grail", my retelling of an episode from the Quest of the Holy Grail.

  • Farinelli
"Elizabeth and Farinelli" by Kirsty Rolfe

All the castrati are asexual icons to me. But Farinelli (Carlo Broschi 1705-1782) is the most famous and seemingly the most well-adjusted. He came from a higher social background than most of the boys who were castrated at a young age to preserve their soprano voices and sent to train in rigorous conservatoires. Perhaps the fact that his journey was less rags-to-riches than most (although as a top-billed singer he commanded huge fees) helped preserve him from the rock star behaviour of some of his contemporaries. I do find it likely that he was in fact asexual. I have been working on a novel project about the castrati for many years; and I was delighted to find Farinelli as a character in "The Rose of the Alhambra", a tale I have retold in Asexual Myths & Tales.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

In Praise of Hairy Women

Image
Who doesn't love Lettie Lutz, the Bearded Lady character in The Greatest Showman, who sings   the iconic anthem, This is Me ? Yesterday, my daughter took me to a singalong version of the film for a Mother's Day treat, and we both belted out This is Me at the tops of our voices. Both Lettie and the song have become symbols for anyone who feels marginalised or different. It so happens that last week I watched another film about a hairy woman, the very beautiful Norwegian coming-of-age film,   Løvekvinnen , or The Lion Woman, based on a book by   Erik Fosnes Hanson.   It tells the story of Eva Arctander, who is born in a small town in the early 20th century and struggles to find her place in the world. Especially, it concerns her relationship with her stationmaster father, widowed at her birth. I loved this film - which I watched on Netflix - and I definitely want to see it again. One of my best reads of last year was Orphans of the Carnival by Carol Birch, based
Read more

Beauty and the Beast: King of the Wood

Image
She asked for a rose.  Her father reaches out to pluck one.  Suddenly, a Beast appears, furious, accusing him of theft.  The penalty is death.  Or the surrender of his daughter. But why such a harsh penalty for plucking a rose?  Much has been said - or invented - on the possible meaning of the rose.  When the last petal falls, the Beast's fate is sealed eternally.  It is the first thing he has learned to love.  It symbolises virginity; the plucking of the rose mirrors the deflowering of the daughter; the aristocratic Beast is excercising his  droit du seigneur  over Beauty, the merchant's child. But why should the plucking of a flower carry such a heavy penalty?  And why does the same motif occur in other fairy tales?  For example, Rapunzel , in which the father must sacrifice his child as payment for picking herbs from the Witch's garden. One answer may lie in ancient mythology.  Most ancient polytheistic religions have sacred groves, where it is forbidden to break the bra
Read more

A Day with the BBC

Image
"I write asexual fairytales" - BBC How often does an opportunity like this come up? "The BBC are running a special week on Bradford, across all media. Send us your stories." My home town. On the BBC. And it coincides perfectly with my crowdfunding campaign for Asexual Fairy Tales . I can't send the email fast enough! Which is how it happens that - on an unusually springlike morning - a shiny, black vehicle containing camera equipment turns up on my street of small, back-to-back houses, with an operator and a reporter, ready to start filming. I have warned Louise from BBC News how small my house is, and have been assured the camera will be a small one. Obviously, she meant small by BBC standards. Still, the cameraman is unfazed by the fact that one camera and stand fills up practically all the available floor space. We squash in, just as we always do with friends and relatives. And, as it's a nice day, we film some stuff on the front step, and in the
Read more