Masters Thesis

When the invisible become visible: how asexuality is represented in popular culture

Asexuality is largely misunderstood in mainstream society. Part of this misunderstanding is due to how asexuality has been portrayed in popular culture. This thesis is a content analysis of representations of asexual characters in popular culture, including television, film, comics, and podcasts, and how this representation has changed over time. Specifically, this work finds that early depictions of asexual characters, from the mid- 2000’s, were subjected to common negative stereotypes surrounding asexuality, and that more recent depictions, from the mid-2010’s, have treated asexuality as a valid sexual orientation worthy of attention. However, as asexuality has become more accepted, the representations of asexuality remain few and far between.

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