Ace and Aro Pride Spotlight

Happy Pride Everyone!!!

Each Friday this month I will highlight a different group within the wider LGBTQA+ family.

This week I'm highlighting a "bakers dozen*" of my Ace and Aro siblings.

*Inside Ace Joke

(I am including historical figures who we don't know for sure since 

The concepts/language was different in the past and they are not around to ask. 

I am also including some asexual characters)

And a bonus a list of Ace and Aro books which just means my to read pile has gotten bigger LOL

Today's spotlights are complied from various places including:

https://www.them.us/story/asexual-aromantic-celebrities-characters

https://sports.yahoo.com/25-celebrities-asexual-proud-081602373.html

Ana Gabriel

In a 2015 interview, the Mexican singer-songwriter came out as asexual.

David Jay

Jay is an asexual activist and founder of the Asexual Visibility and Education Network. In a speech from 2015, he explained to an audience what it means to be asexual.

"The important thing to understand about our community is that we have the same desire for connection as everyone else," Jay explained of aces. "We just don't have a desire to express that connection sexually. And there's a whole community of us out there."

Edward Gorey

A 2018 article in the Atlantic touched upon the author’s sexuality, stating that Gorey explained he was asexual while speaking with Lisa Solod for an interview.

💜💜💜Esperanza “Spooner” Cruz (DC Comics) 💜💜💜

Esperanza “Spooner” Cruz (Lisseth Chavez) is television’s first asexual superhero. Spooner joined the Legends of Tomorrow, a time traveling found family of adventurers, in season 6 when they needed her help (and empathic superpowers) to save their captain from aliens. The following season Spooner confided that she doesn’t get “those types of feelings,” which prompted a teammate to explain the term ace. Spooner, whole face lighting up, responded, “I guess that makes me ace!” Science fiction has so many non-human, un-feeling characters coded as asexual that hot-headed human Spooner feels like a huge turning point. Spooner Cruz is a badass, world saving super ace icon.

Janeane Garofalo

“The reason I say I’m asexual is my libido has always been incredibly low,” Garofalo said in a podcast interview. “I never have been particularly driven by sex... I could take it or leave it.”

Jughead Jones

Archie Comics Created in 1941, the Archie Comics character Jughead served as a comedic juxtaposition to his lust-crazed classmates. While his best friend Archie was always dating, Jughead’s only desire was to eat a hamburger in peace. In Chip Zdarsky's 2015 run, Jughead was confirmed to identify as asexual, with a strong implication of aromantism. Even though The CW's Riverdale made Jughead heterosexual on television, the asexual Jughead of print has been going for 80 years already and will likely outlive us all. An asexual icon of yesterday, today, and tomorrow.

Marilyn Monroe 

Despite playing sex symbols in films like Some Like It Hot and The Seven Year Itch, Marilyn Monroe may have been ace. In her autobiography My Story (co-written by Ben Hecht), the legendary actress wrote, “Why I was a siren, I hadn’t the faintest idea. There were no thoughts of sex in my head. I didn’t want to be kissed, and I didn’t dream of being seduced by a duke or a movie star. The truth was that with all my lipstick and mascara and precarious curves, I was unsensual as a fossil. But I seemed to affect people quite otherwise.” If Monroe had the terminology, she may have recognized herself in the terms asexual or demisexual. 

Michaela Coel

Michaela Coel is a writer, director, and actress known for creating Chewing Gum and I May Destroy You. In a 2018 interview Coel opened up about identifying with the label aromantic. She explained, “I googled aromanticism and I very much felt like, ‘Oh, that’s me.’” She went on to say, “I am OK being by myself. I like having intimate relationships but I don’t want to change people or want to be changed by anyone.” 

Nikola Tesla

In 1927 Nikola Tesla told a reporter he had “never touched a woman.” While we can only infer Tesla’s lack of sexual and romantic attraction from secondary accounts, many asexuals and aromantics relate strongly to him. His eccentricities and refusal to marry were used against him by colleagues and competitors to undermine his accomplishments. 

Paula Poundstone

Paula Poundstone is another actress-slash-comedian who identifies as asexual. Long rumored to be gay, Poundstone came out as asexual in 2013. “I don’t talk about sex a lot because I don’t actually have sex, and my act is largely autobiographical”, she said onstage at the Royal Oak Music Theatre.

Selah Summers (Fictional Character)

Selah Summers (Lovie Simone), the main character of the 2019 film Selah and the Spades, is an overachiever who secretly runs her elite boarding school’s black market. The film focuses on Selah’s growing connection with new girl Paloma (Celeste O'Connor), and the way this friendship brings out her insecurities and jeopardizes her legacy. Selah was intentionally written as asexual, and on the topic of sex, Selah says, “I don’t think I’m waiting for some right person. I just don’t think I’m interested in the thing itself.” Just as importantly, the film counters stereotypical portrayals of ace folks as robotic, instead depicting Selah as a character of stormy emotions and deeply felt desires. For being a refreshingly complex teen heroine, Selah Summers is an asexual Icon.

Tim Gunn

“I knew what I wasn’t: I wasn’t interested in boys, and I really wasn’t interested in girls,” Gunn wrote in his 2011 book, Gunn’s Golden Rules: Life’s Little Lessons for Making It Work. “For many years, I described myself as asexual, and I still think that’s closest to the truth.”

Yasmin Benoit

Model Yasmin Benoit has spoken openly about her asexuality, and wrote in an essay for Glamour Magazine UK, “I live a perfectly happy and fulfilled life as a Black asexual, aromantic woman. I don't need a partner to complete me – I'm complete just the way I am. That's why I use my platform to fight against asexuality stigma, dispel myths and help empower the ace community.”