“Normalizing my identity with characters I love” : aromanticism & asexuality in fanfiction writing

The culture of shipping in fanfiction as well as the social norms dictating sexual and romantic attraction create an unwelcoming space for aromantic and asexual fanfiction and its writers. Allonormativity, amatonormativity, and compulsory sexuality construct the lack of romantic and sexual attraction as deviant and thus aromantic and asexual people as less human, less capable of love, and less deserving of love. As such, aromanticism and asexuality are made invisible and delegitimated within society, media, and fanfiction. This exclusion causes feelings of otherness that writers then explore through fanfiction. This report explores these tensions with surveys and interviews asking participants about their identity, motivations, fanfiction writing behavior, and the media they consume. Through an inductive coding of participants’ voices, experiences, and emotions, I argue that aro/ace fanfiction is a diverse space regarding the experiences, motivations, and intentions of its writers. Overall, I argue that their desire to write themselves into existence is in defiance of the stigmas, stereotypes, and social norms that discriminate against them. Additionally, I argue that the portrayal of aromanticism and asexuality in media is neither plentiful nor accurate though it does not need to be for writers to create fanfiction with aromantic and asexual characters. This report was made available as a website and this statement serves as a supplemental document to describe its contents and decisions in making it accessible to those outside the scholarly community.