Notes

Also, weirdly, have a look at the 1967 movie “Bonnie and Clyde”, even if that movie apparently was considered very racy for its time. Wikipedia says Clyde is supposed to be impotent, but they never state that in the movie and he really comes across as asexual instead. (So much so that I’m suspecting the writer based his behavior on an asexual acquaintance of his who he just thought was impotent due to the usual prejudices, or who possibly thought himself that he was impotent, since he didn’t know asexuality was a thing and only women get called “frigid”.) I mean, he’s got lines like this: “I might as well tell you right off: I ain’t much of a lover boy. That don’t mean nothing personal about you. I mean… I… I never saw no percentage in it.”

In that reading, it actually comes across as a quite good and sensitive depiction of male asexuality. After a couple of instances of avoidance of Bonnie’s insistent advances and one very awkward and unsuccessful attempt of having sex with her (he stops it like 5 seconds after she starts trying to give him a blow job), she stops pressuring him about it and accepts that it’s not going to happen. She does throw their total lack of a sex life at him once during a big row, but her implication that he’s abnormal is depicted as deeply insulting and going too far, and she apologises immediately. Their relationship is clearly loving, supportive and stable even without sexual intimacy.

They do have sex (off-screen) once near the end of the movie, but it’s framed as him giving it as a “thank you” gift out of his own impulse, not as him finally ‘giving in’. And while it wasn’t unpleasant for him and he seems happy to do it again for her sometime, it doesn’t suddenly change his personal lack of urge or make him want to do it all the time, like you’d expect of a straight cis man who was miraculously cured of his chronic ED. (The next night, they’re shown in bed together and discussing marriage, but they’re both dressed in cardigans and not touching sexually or even just kissing.)

The movie makes no mention of the fact that the real Clyde Barrow was sexually assaulted while imprisoned as a teenager, so it avoids that awful stereotype. And while the titular characters obviously are criminals, and even murderers, Clyde is the one who seems most affected by their first killing, and the movie goes out of its way to make their crime spree somewhat sympathetic. (I.e. They rob banks because poor people like Clyde’s family get their homes foreclosed on, but after the first few weeks, they make a point of paying for groceries and such.) So he’s not depicted as a psychopath, which avoids the other nasty stereotype we’re usually seeing associated with asexuality in the media. Clyde isn’t even characterized as aloof or super intelligent or particularly socially inept (the Sherlock Holmes type). He’s just kind of sweetly awkward when discussing sex, and ashamed when he can’t go through with it (understandable given the time period and social expectations about masculinity), but otherwise he’s romantic and charming and engaging. The sexual dysfunction in their relationship seems to be there simply to make the romance subplot more interesting than any tired old jealousy drama or just smooth sailing.

I watched this movie for other reasons, not expecting anything progressive or inclusive, and I ended up truly amazed. It’s easily the best depiction of an asexual main character I’ve seen so far on screen. (I’ll always enjoy the old Sherlock Holmes adaptations that didn’t straight-wash the character, but those simply didn’t make any mention of romance or sexual issues, period. And that TV Movie about T.H. Lawrence in which he refuses advances by both a woman and a man is quite nice, even if it sort-of implies that he’s just traumatized, and even though the movie really is mainly about politics. But “Bonnie and Clyde” outright states that the protagonist isn’t interested, and never was, and the writer made the problems in a relationship between partners of vastly differing sexual interest part of the plot.)