Practice English Speaking&Listening with: My thoughts on relationships and sex in media | Slice of Ace

You know what's hard to escape... other than news about the coronavirus? What's hard

to escape is relationships and sex in media. So when I'm watching TV, whether

it's a comedy or action or fantasy or sci-fi, 99 times out of a hundred -

and that 100 is probably the majority of Lord of the Rings - there will be some form of

romance. And if it's on a popular streaming service, there will be some

form of sex. I'm just going to talk about how I feel about it

in general so I can put out a nice easy video, where I can just ramble at

you... like I normally do, as if I ever plan these things. As you may have gathered, I

don't really like romance or sex being a major part of the media I consume.

With one exception!

I do enjoy stories of gay romance from time to time, and that includes both male

gay and female gay romance. I don't know why it's both, but if it's between

two people of the same gender, my brain's like "Yes, this is fun to watch!", whereas if

it's between two people of separate - different genders, then my

brain just switches off. Obviously for gay male romances, it's something I

personally can relate to, more so than a straight relationship. I think one of the

reasons that I also sometimes enjoy lesbian relationships on TV or something

is because when I was in the process of coming out, there was an episode of

Supergirl - if you don't want spoilers for like season two or three of Supergirl

then stop watching, I guess - um but there was episode of Supergirl where her

sister, Alex, came out as lesbian and I

found that was a very good coming-out story and that helped me come to terms

with some my own feelings. It just goes to show that is the same process no

matter what gender you are. Obviously, there are many differences because of

society. But yes, gay romance I'm a fan of.

I have a guilty pleasure in watching gay rom-coms - though there

aren't many of them. Really not very many... If you have any, please recommend

them. Something light-hearted. Anyway, I'm not doing this video to get film

recommendations, I'm doing this video to talk about relationships and sex. Gay

rom-coms: yes. Straight anything with relationships: blaugh.

And sex with anyone in it is also off the table. I do not enjoy that in the

slightest and I never have. Obviously because I'm asexual, I don't feel sexual

attraction. I have no desire to pursue that sort of thing, and I don't enjoy it. I

know there are some people who do, some people who identify as ace who do

enjoy sex and sex scenes and maybe porn, and that sort of thing. But I personally

don't. But yeah I think I noticed it a lot when I was growing up as well.

Because it made me feel different, the fact that this girl and this guy would,

they would like each other. One minute, they're talking to each other

and the next they're banging each other into walls and eating each others' faces.

And it was very uninteresting, and it added nothing to the plot the

majority of the time, so I ignored it. I normally stroked my cat or washed the

dishes. Neither of which I can really do at the moment because my sink is

really far away from my TV and I don't have a cat here, so mrgrgr. But yes, because

there was no ace representation in the media when I was growing up, there was no

one that I could relate to, and there were so few gay relationships so

I didn't see any of that when I was growing up. So yeah, in my opinion,

if you can't relate to it, and you can't relate to any of these

relationships in the media, it can make you feel lonely and ostracised, and

different. And also my qualm of it getting in the way of the story, there's so many

times where I've watched a TV show, and they've just started pairing up

every single person in the show. And fair enough, I understand having a

relationship or two because that's part of life and TV shows in some sense

emulate life. Or they should do because otherwise it's unrealistic like Farscape.

But anyway, Farscape was weird. Did anyone watch Farscape? Like I said, this is

going to be rambly. So I understand if there are a few romantic relationships

in the show, but if it gets to the point where every character arc is just

romance and sex, that's unrealistic because there are so many things in your

life that are important, so many relationships in your life that are

important other than sex. So it annoys me partly because it does diminish the

importance of platonic relationships and friendships, and familial relationships

as an extension. Familial relationship, romance. Maybe familial, a bit higher, and

romance, and then down here somewhere they're like friendships. Where they

should all be equal, and it's really frustrating because I know there are

people out there who don't want a romantic relationship.

I know though people are they don't want a sexual relationship. And they're having

this thrust on them as the most important thing. And I think the reason

that I can empathize with it so much is that during my time at secondary school,

I did self-identify as aro ace even if I didn't have a language for it,

so I understand how it feels to see all these romantic relationships and sexual

relationships being prioritized over friendships, where friendships at the

time were so much more important to me. Now, they're about equal, like I said.

Although, if you have the culmination of all my

friendships, that would be more important than my one romantic relationship...

no offense, Boyfriend. But yeah, those were just my rambling thoughts about my

romantic and sexual relationships in TV shows and media in general, as an

extension. I know I was talking about a TV and film a lot, but this extends the

books as well. I was reading a book recently, which had longer romantic

scenes in it, and I bored me it bored me. They're supposed to be killing people

with swords, damn it. I don't care about them kissing, I care about the murder.

I would like to know your thoughts on this. This was just me splurging

the contents of my brain at this moment in time, so I hope you

enjoyed it. If you did get this far, then... thank you. There we go, that's a word. Um,

two words. Please do tell me your thoughts on this in the comments if

there is something you want to say about it.

Otherwise, if you're watching this video on Saturday May 2nd, when it comes out,

then you may be interested in a live stream I'm doing later with a load of

other creators. I did do a short announcement video about it earlier in

the week, but basically I'm doing this live stream fundraiser for the WHO

Covid-19 Solidarity Response Fund. It's organised by Sounds Fake But Okay. There's a

loads of other ace creators and activists in it, so if it's something

you're interested in, it's at 7 p.m. BST, Saturday May 2nd which may or may not be

today. Yeah, check it out if you're interested. There's also a fundraiser

I'll throw links to everything in the description. Other than that I've also

released a second video today, which is basically me showing you my island in

Animal Crossing. If that's something you're interested in, I've also put a

link to that in the description below. I've left it as unlisted because of two

reasons: 1. I don't want it to overshadow this video, which is

related more to the content on the channel,

and 2. I don't want people coming to this channel thinking

that it's a gaming channel. And if maybe they've searched Animal Crossing: New

Horizons, or just Animal Crossing, they might come across the video and have a

skewed perception of the content of the channel. And I don't necessarily want

that to happen. So yes, if you're interested in the video, there's a link

in the description. You should be able to watch it, otherwise yes, so I'm putting

out two videos and a live stream today, so I don't even know where I got this

free time. I think all the things are short, that's why. That should be

everything. If you enjoyed this video, then please leave a like. I post videos

every other Saturday so if you want to see more, then feel free to subscribe. That

is all I had to say today, have a wonderful day, and I shall see you next time!!! ...

That was a tad more dramatic than usual...