meloukhia:
Bromance narratives, though, show that people are aware of asexual partnerships, even if they don’t quite know what they are, or what word to use to describe them. These relationships go deeper than simple friendship, as viewers and readers and listeners know and are acutely aware. Sadly, the development of a sexual relationship is often framed as the end of a bromance, which sets up an adversarial and unfortunate situation. It also implies that such relationships are transitory waiting periods, that people only experience rich, full lives in sexual partnerships and that the bromance is only a temporary stopgap instead of a relationship in its own right.
I took a deliberate indefinite vacation from asexuality discussions recently, but I am briefly coming back to address this interesting article.
I am going to take the opportunity not to be overblown or sarcastic about this and instead point out some problems I have with it, using quotes where appropriate.
1. My overarching point: bromances are not inherently ‘asexual relationships’. People who are not asexual are, in fact, capable of having deep non-sexual connections with others. In general, this was an attitude that seemed pervasive within the whole piece—that asexual people somehow have a special claim to emotionally intimate relationships. How interested someone is in sex is rarely an indicator of the emotional connections they have with others. It is highly possible—nay, COMMON—for a person to have sexual partners AND emotionally intimate nonsexual friendships, equally important to them, but not necessarily overlapping.
2.
Asexual partners are dismissed as ‘friends’ or ‘buddies’ when their relationship may run much deeper, and be much more complicated.
Who said friendships can’t be deep and complicated?
Such partnerships are also assumed to be inherently subordinate to sexual relationships; if someone is married, for example, but also has an asexual partner, that partner is considered ‘just a friend’ even though the relationship is not like a friendship.
Side note: there’s a strong cultural current demonstrating just the opposite, for men at least. Call it the “bros before hos” argument—but that’s a function of straight men devaluing women. Misogyny actually complicates the whole idea of the bromance significantly, but that’s a topic that women have already done a great job writing about so I will not address it here.
Another side note: there are a lot of people out there who are decidedly not asexual but who are also not interested in having a single “committed” (closed) primary relationship of any kind.
3. This whole paragraph really gets at my objections to the assumptions that are being made here best:
The asexual community is one where the formation of multiple deep connections with people is not necessarily remarkable or extraordinary,
That’s not remarkable or extraordinary for people who aren’t asexual, either. It is quite an irritating generalization that ~sexual~ (urgh) people are somehow less capable of this, or in general that their relationships are less “deep” or varied.
and is in fact recognised as a necessity for some people. It is not always possible to get everything you need from one person, and that’s perfectly reasonable. Individual relationships aren’t greater or lesser, just different. They may fill different social and personal needs and can help people feel more well-rounded, with a deep social network of people who are available at different times and for different things.
I chuckled out loud when I read this, because this part of the paragraph gets very close to perfectly describing a very close friend’s relationship philosophy, and he’s about as sexual as they come. (For the record, it comes close to describing my own sexysexual perspective as well.)
4.
How long will it take for pop culture at large to recognise bromances for what they are, and to start seriously talking about them?
Pop culture critics and writers have already devoted many, many words to bromance already (because culture at large is very interested in male relationships, and, elaborating on that, because the bromance is a recent continuation of an admired and long-lived homosocial streak in Western culture that is enjoying a relative comeback in a time in which emotionally close relationships between men are generally stigmatized). In fact, I am pretty tired of hearing people talk about dudes and their special dude relationships, but that’s just me.
Many fans of the bromance appear blissfully unaware that they’re talking about asexuality, that thing they hate and fear and dismiss with a sneer.
The reason that people have not acknowledged bromance as an asexual phenomenon is simple—this type of relationship is in no way unique to asexuals. To claim bromance, romantic friendship, etc. as an asexual thing is to obliquely imply that non-asexuals are less inclined towards deep, varied, emotionally intimate nonsexual relationships with others: OR that those relationships somehow lose something or become completely different if they gain a sexual element. Both of these implications are insulting and inaccurate.
To reiterate: the bromance is not an “asexual romantic partnership”. Asexuals do not have a monopoly on emotionally intimate nonsexual relationships. A relationship does not become “asexual” simply because it does not involve sex.
And, of course, the lines between “friendship” and “romance” are often so blurred in practice (for anyone!) that they become fairly meaningless.
I might have missed some things: I’ve been writing this post at work, in small and hurried chunks. Anyone else care to weigh in?
