Happy Pride, y’all! I’ve talked about my identity as an aro-ace writer before, but this year in particular, I wanted to explore it again… But in a way to help other authors craft realistic aro-ace representation in their books. Aromantic and asexual representation in literature has come a long way, but there’s still one challenge I see repeatedly: people hear “aro-ace” and immediately imagine a very specific type of person. Someone who feels nothing romantically. Someone who wants nobody sexually. Someone detached, robotic, emotionless, or incapable of meaningful partnership.
Those misconceptions couldn’t be further from the truth.
Aromanticism and asexuality are incredibly diverse experiences. If you’re writing an aro-ace character, understanding that diversity is the difference between creating a nuanced person and creating a stereotype.
Starting With a Definition
Asexuality refers to someone who experiences little, rare, or no sexual attraction. Aromanticism refers to someone who experiences little, rare, or no romantic attraction. You might notice that those definitions do not say that asexual individuals don’t have or enjoy sex, nor do they imply that aromantic people can’t be in or enjoy relationships.
They don’t say aro-ace people don’t experience love. They say that aro-ace people feel little, rare, or no attraction. The most important thing to explore and understand when writing about this identity is that attraction and desire are not the same thing.
An asexual person may desire sex while rarely or never experiencing sexual attraction. An aromantic person may desire a committed partnership while rarely or never experiencing romantic attraction. Those distinctions matter.
And to put those distinctions into a specific example, I’ll discuss my aro-ace identity. I’m demisexual and cupioromantic, meaning I feel physical attraction only after establishing a deep emotional connection. Romance actively grosses me out, but I crave companionship and want a committed partnership. And, perhaps importantly, I did not know where I fell on the asexual spectrum until I was in a (read: my one and only, since I was too grossed out to truly date around) relationship. I thought I might have been closer to a sex-favorable apothisexual until, after a couple of years, I looked at my partner and thought, wait, he’s kinda adorable. Yes, as an adult in a committed relationship, I discovered exactly where I fell on the ace spectrum. I had known since childhood that I was ace, but finding my definition took me some time.
The Aro-Ace Spectrum Is Broad
For me, having a specific definition to summarize how I experienced attraction was incredibly validating. It took my lived experience and made it something legitimate, something human that other people also experience. As such, whenever I explore aro-ace characters, I always have an idea of where they fall on the spectrum. And there are, indeed, many identities under the aromantic and asexual umbrellas, including:
- Cupiosexual: Does not experience sexual attraction but desires sexual relationships.
- Apothisexual: Does not experience sexual attraction and does not desire sexual relationships.
- Demisexual: Experiences sexual attraction only after developing a deep emotional bond.
- Fraysexual: Experiences attraction initially, but that attraction fades once a strong emotional bond develops.
- Cupioromantic: Does not experience romantic attraction but desires a romantic relationship.
- Apothiromantic: Does not experience romantic attraction and does not desire romantic relationships.
- Demiromantic: Experiences romantic attraction only after forming a deep emotional connection.
- Desinoromantic: May experience crushes or romantic interest without experiencing what they would describe as full romantic love.
Every one of these experiences is valid. Every one of them may manifest differently in a character. And they’re just scratching the surface when it comes to definitions! The Oxford LGBTQ+ Society does a great job of diving deeper, and I do recommend doing your research if you’re going to write an aro-ace character. Because, as you should know by now, not every aro-ace individual experiences absolutely zero romantic or sexual attraction. There are shades to these identities, and truly, exploring them can only make your character more complex.
Sex-Favorable and Sex-Repulsed: Layers to Rare Attraction
So for aro-ace individuals, attraction may be experienced, though infrequently. When it is experienced or when they enter a relationship, there will also be something like a comfort level they’ll be operating within. One of the most common misconceptions about asexuality is that all asexual people are sex-repulsed. Some are, but many aren’t.
An asexual person can be:
- Sex-favorable and enjoy sex.
- Sex-indifferent and feel neutral about it.
- Sex-averse and generally prefer not to engage.
- Sex-repulsed and find the idea actively uncomfortable or distressing.
When you’re writing an asexual character, it’s important to remember that sexuality describes attraction, not behavior. An asexual person can have sex, just like an allosexual person (someone who’s not on the asexual spectrum) can choose not to have sex. Behavior and attraction are not interchangeable.
Romance-Favorable and Romance-Repulsed Exist, Too!
The same distinction exists for aromantic people. Some aromantic people love the idea of relationships while some dislike them. Some enjoy specific forms of companionship while rejecting traditional romantic expectations. Some are romance-repulsed but still choose to build committed partnerships.
That may sound contradictory at first, but it isn’t.
For example, I am cupioromantic. I do not experience romantic attraction the way most people describe it, but I still desire a committed partnership. I am also romance-repulsed in certain ways. Traditional romantic gestures, expectations, and cultural scripts often don’t resonate with me. In fact, they downright gross me out at times. I can’t read romance, and I often find myself skimming past or skipping sections in books that are too gushy.
Yet I am in a long-term relationship of more than a decade.
Because relationships are not built solely on attraction, one can be aromantic and in a relationship. Especially for aro-ace individuals, relationships are built on trust, shared values, devotion, communication, mutal choice… The list goes on and on. And as you might imagine, my partner started as my best friend, and my love for him is rooted in that same love I’ve always had for him. It’s just deeper now. As I was researching resources for this article to help me explain something as abstract as romantic attraction, I actually found one Reddit thread that I think beautifully defines what I personally do not experience:
“I would describe romantic attraction as being separated into two types or phases: infatuation and love. Infatuation is characterized by being generally very selfish, almost drug-like in many ways, shallow, and fleeting. Love is more selfless, long-term, and deep. Infatuation always starts first, and then if things go well it creates the circumstances for love to happen. I do personally believe that aromantic people are entirely capable of experiencing love in the same way alloromantic people do, it’s just that they lack the infatuation that will drop-kick most people into being in love and shape that love in certain ways.”
For me, that’s it, one hundred percent. I don’t feel that upfront or even ongoing infatuation, and all the swoony banter and gift-giving associated with it absolutely does not resonate with me whatsoever. But you know the comfortable warmth of a loved one’s presence? That kind of intimacy where you’re comfortable enough to just sit in silence together and bask in how good life is? That’s what I do feel, like any allosexual can relate to.
People often assume that if someone doesn’t experience romantic attraction, they wouldn’t want a partner. As you now know, that’s simply not true. My partner is my favorite person in the world, but if he ever starts waxing poetic and getting mushy, I… would probably panic and leave the room, to be honest. He knows I’m romance-repulsed, and I also am aware he is not. As a result, I do engage in behaviors that typical romantically-geared individuals would, like buying him flowers because I know it makes him happy. It’s a little unconventional, but it works for us.
Love Is Bigger Than Romance
One of the most valuable things writers can do is broaden their understanding of love. Do you have a pet that you just adore? They’re YOURS, you’re BFFs, and you want to live with them and love on them nonstop? Like, if you could make one wish, it would be for them to live forever because they’re just perfect?
That’s an example of how intense, passionate love can exist without feeling sexual or romantic in nature. And it is passionate. My cat, Linus? He gives me the worst cute aggression. I smother him in kisses every single day, and I just want to smoosh that itty bitty face. He’s the cutest, most perfect little nugget in the world, and he’s mine. (Well, he was my birthday present to my partner, so he’s technically his. But he’s ours. And therefore mine. Lemme drop an obligatory Linus photo before we move on.) (Also, obligatory pet parenting note… “gifting” a pet should be like a proposal. All parties should be on the same page about the event and path forward. It’s only the timing and Linus’s personality/color/absolute adorableness that was a surprise.)
Anyway, aro-ace people can and often do form relationships, and they DO experience love… It’s just not necessarily the swoony love we most often see in literature. That doesn’t mean it’s not passionate, devoted love. And it’s absolutely a form of profound human attachment.
The Linus example is a bit extreme, but it is a useful framework for understanding how love can exist independently of romance or sex.
We aro-ace folk experience love. We just don’t necessarily experience it through the same lens that literature traditionally prioritizes.
Don’t Forget Platonic Love and QPRs
Modern storytelling often places romantic relationships at the top of a hierarchy. In these stories, it’s not unusual to see a “touch her and die” trope while not having the same protectiveness over the character’s friends. Friends often become less important than partners, and platonic bonds are frequently viewed as stepping stones toward romance.
But many aro-ace people experience friendship-based relationships as equally important — or more important — than traditional romantic ones.
This is where concepts like queerplatonic relationships (QPRs) become valuable.
A QPR is an intentionally committed relationship that exists outside conventional expectations of friendship and romance. What’s so beautiful about this type of relationship is that it’s really just a word dreamed up to describe serious, committed relationships aro-ace individuals may enter. Like, step aside Miriam and Webster, we get to define this one, because the exact shape of a QPR varies from person to person.
Some QPRs involve living together and raising children. Some are physical, with handholding and kissing and sex and such, and some aren’t. What matters is the commitment, significance, and mutual understanding between the people involved.
When writing aro-ace characters, consider whether the most important relationship in their life actually needs to be romantic. Sometimes the answer is yes. Sometimes it isn’t. Sometimes, that important relationship will even look like normal romance to the untrained eye, but the characters within it have their own definition they’ve privately discussed.
What Attraction Can Feel Like
When I met my partner, he said he didn’t like French toast. (Crazy, I know.) And then he moved in with me and realized he loved the way I made it.
Selective or rare attraction can feel a bit like that for some flavors of the aro-ace spectrum… Thinking you don’t like French toast until you meet the one person whose recipe just does it for you. Both romantic and sexual attraction can be felt selectively like that, though that’s certainly not the case for all aro-ace folk. But for some, like demiromantic and demisexual individuals, realizing they like one “random French toast recipe” is how they realize which specific labels resonate best with them.
And, as I mentioned previously, having labels to define how I experience attraction really helped me grasp and make sense of my identity. Of course, bold strip aro-ace folk and people on different parts of the spectrum may not “like French toast” at all, and with their particular identity, that will never change. So please don’t take this analogy to mean that people will “grow into” eventually being closer to what allosexual people may consider to be the norm. But for aro-ace people like me — people with identities like demisexuality who only experience attraction very infrequently and under specific circumstances — the right “French toast recipe” can spark that rare attraction. Because again, these identities are about experiencing little to no attraction, not never feeling anything ever.
How This Looks in Fiction
One of my own aro-ace characters is cupioromantic and demisexual. She’s especially important to me because way back when I conceived the Industrialized series about 15 years or so ago, I wanted to see an identity like mine in literature. For the first time ever. I was so sick of the knight in shining armors and lovable bastards that were making my fellow readers fall in love with “book boyfriends.” I desperately wanted to see an aro-ace character build a life partnership that trascends infatuation, so Saida Merymut was born.
Saida does not experience primary attraction (or attraction based on someone’s appearance or surface-level traits). Instead, she develops desire and attraction through emotional connection, trust, and shared values. Without those things, any definition of a relationship cannot happen for her.
She can fall deeply in love, though it’s more like an elevated best friendship than the traditional infatuated love we see in literature. She can experience sexual attraction. Neither happens immediately.
Unlike many romances we see in literature, Saida’s ideal relationship isn’t built around butterflies, swooning, or instant chemistry. It’s built around devotion and the feeling of finding “my person.”
The relationship she’s drawn toward is essentially a deep friendship that gradually becomes something more significant because both people choose to make it so. Because love blossoms naturally and comfortably, with no traces of infatuation, with a steadiness that she and her partner agree is unique and mutual and exclusive.
As a result:
- She wants a committed partnership because she values companionship, not because someone makes her swoon.
- She has had sex outside a formally defined relationship because she genuinely loved the person involved, and she needs that deep emotional connection to feel sexual attraction.
- She has also been in relationships with no kissing and no sex because she wasn’t in love with those partners.
- What matters most to her is communication, trust, and devotion, not labels.
The important thing is that her identity shapes her experience without completely defining her personality. She’s not “the aro-ace character.” She’s a person who happens to be aro-ace.
When you’re crafting your own aro-ace characters, remember that nuance is what helps them feel human. Take the time to explore how your aro-ace character experiences and engages with love, attraction, companionship, flirting, and everything in between.
Common Mistakes Writers Make
If you’re writing aromantic or asexual characters, it’s important to avoid making them that token “othered” character. They need an arc beyond being a mere diversity ornament. You should be careful to avoid:
Making Them Emotionless
A lack of romantic or sexual attraction is not a lack of feeling. Aro-ace people experience joy, grief, devotion, jealousy, loyalty, heartbreak, affection, and love.
There’s nothing worse than seeing an ace character who feels cold and robotic. Oof. No way, no thank you.
Making Them Alien
Many aro-ace people already grow up feeling different, as I mentioned earlier. You don’t need to exaggerate that difference by writing them as though they fundamentally don’t understand human connection.
They understand connection. They simply experience certain forms of attraction differently. Remember, attraction and desire are not the same thing. Attraction and interpersonal relationships are definitely not the same thing.
Reducing Them to a Label
Like we previously talked about, don’t let your aro-ace character be a mere diversity dressing in your story. Your character should have opinions, flaws, ambitions, fears, hobbies, relationships, and goals that exist independently of their orientation.
Their identity should inform their experience, not replace their humanity. As we explored with my character, Saida, she was a badass who just happened to be aro-ace, and that orientation just happened to influence how her relationship with her partner unfolded in the story. Being aro-ace was simply part of who she was, like having naturally black hair and broader shoulders. It wasn’t a dressing, and your well-built aro-ace characters won’t be, either.
Assuming They’ll “Grow Out of It”
Another item I touched on earlier but I want to reiterate… Please don’t frame an aro-ace character’s arc as discovering they were secretly waiting for the right person all along. Ick.
Not all aro-ace people are demiromantic or demisexual. And as a demisexual person, I definitely never felt like I “waited for the right person.” Falling in love naturally without dates and then slowly communicating until we decided we were a couple was a lot of work. And like, realizing I “like French toast” took years in the relationship to discover, and it definitely wasn’t a day one or even year one milestone. So please don’t take my journey as a sign that I “grew out” of being super ace. I always knew I was ace, and I still am. It just took me a while to discover exactly where on the asexual spectrum I fall. And being in a relationship now is not a sign that I “grew out” of anything.
While I realized I fall on the side of the spectrum that experiences “little” attraction, people who do not experience attraction at all are also in a similar boat: they won’t grow out of being aro, ace, or aro-ace. Treating aro-ace identities as temporary obstacles reinforces the idea that they are incomplete rather than legitimate.
Additionally, be careful not to imply that not feeling attraction is a trauma-based response. I once had a straight woman ask me, in a non-aggressive and genuinely curious way, if I thought I was ace because something traumatic happened to me. I tilted my head and said, “Not at all. Are you not attracted to women because something traumatic happened to you?” We both laughed, because what an obviously silly question. So just as a human being cannot choose to be gay, they don’t choose to be aromantic or asexual. They won’t “grow out of it.” And this isn’t just a personal belief or anecdote… The American Psychological Association has asserted that efforts to change a person’s sexual orientation are futile. What we all are is innate to us.
The Most Important Question
When writers ask me how to write aro-ace characters, my answer is usually simple: Get curious. As yourself how your character experiences attraction. How do they experience love? How do they view companionship? What role does sex play in their life? What does commitment mean to them? How do they react when someone flirts with them? Do they flirt?
Two aro-ace people may answer those questions completely differently, and that’s exactly the point. The aromantic and asexual spectrums aren’t a single experience. They’re countless individual experiences connected by a shared relationship to attraction.
The more specific and personal your character’s answers to those questions become, the more authentic they’ll feel. And if you know aro-ace people in your life — or happen to know a friendly aro-ace author online… heyyyy, what’s up, y’all! — don’t be afraid to respectfully ask questions.
Writing diversity well requires understanding, not assumptions. The more willing we are to learn about experiences different from our own, the more compassionate we become.
And the more human our characters feel.