I Am Not Human, I Walk In Eternity - An Aspec Lense on Doctor Who’s Desire and Humanity
A big deep dive into Doctor Who, amatonormativity, compulsory sexuality, asexual and aromantic coding and aspec identity in the whoniverse.
Intro Cw//: anti-asexual and anti-aromantic rhetoric, discussions of sex and romance and sexual assault will be discussed throughout the ent
Chapter 1 looks at the history of asexual and aromantic coding in the Doctor in Classic Who and how it worked as an early aspec character template.
Chapter 2 looks at how the Doctor became a more conventionally romantic and sexual character in nuwho, the "end" of the Doctor's asexuality and aromanticism and addressing the Steven Moffat aphobia allegations of 2012 :)
Chapter 3 addresses the (jarring) amatonormativity of nuwho, the way it represents romance and the harm that can cause.
Chapter 4 showcases a bunch of thoughts and experiences of ace and aro Doctor Who fans including my own on the show's representation and treatment from the fandom with the help of some cool people from the Doctor Who Ace and Aro Survey!
And last but not least, Chapter 5 covers some ace and aro readings of the Doctor and other characters and concludes my overall thoughts on the issues covered.
Doctor Who Ace and Aro Survey (2025) - The Results
Ace and Aro Survey (2025) Results Created by @leikeliscomet
Its finally done lads! 223 ace and aro doctor who fans took part in this!
Here are some highlights i found from the data:
In terms of which Doctors fall on the asexual and aromantic spectrum, Twelve got the most votes on both questions for being an asexual doctor (104) and an aromantic doctor (95).
In the asexual group, asexual lesbians were the most likely to vote for Thirteen as an asexual Doctor (54%). Ace lesbians were also the most likely to vote for Fifteen as an ace Doctor too (31.%)
In the aromantic group, non-SAM aromantics were most likely to consider Thirteen and Fifteen as aromantic Doctors (100% - one person!)
Aces and aros of colour were more likely to vote for Fifteen as an asexual Doctor (17%) than white aces and aros of colour (13%)
60s Classic Who got the most votes for representing the Doctor as an asexual character the best (81) whilst 70s Who got the most votes for representing the Doctor as an aromantic character the best (77)
Despite his comments claiming otherwise, the Moffat era received the most votes in nuwho for representing the Doctor as asexual (68) and aromantic (41)
In the ace group, aroaces were the most likely to consider all Doctors to be asexual (56%)
In the aro group, gay aros were the most likely to consider all Doctors to be aromantic (67%)
Most participants think we could get an openly asexual doctor in the future (39.5%) and maybe an openly aromantic Doctor (38.6%)
Thank you to everybody who took part in the survey! I was never expecting there to be over *200* of us 😭😭 And thanks to everyone for leaving those nice messages in the closing comments. 🥲 I'm glad i helped make aces & aros feel more seen here 🙌🏾
So the ninth Doctor was canonized as aromantic over a year ago now, and he had an entire storyline dedicated to it in the audio adventures (with Christopher Eccleston returning to voice him!) but its gotten basically no traction outside of a niche section of aro/ace Doctor Who fans.
i said it offhand/as a joke but “romance is for renegades” is real for me now.. i don’t think all gallifreyans are aro in the sense of not experiencing romantic attraction/desire, but i do think in their culture romantic feelings are very personal and are kept strictly between yourself and your partner(s). but even in private between partners, expressions of romantic love are not the passionate gestures humans would recognize as romantic. they’d look platonic or even businesslike from the outside, because it’s about internal feelings and the intent behind your actions as mutually understood by you and your partner, not about a culturally defined set of “romantic” behaviours.
so to make a show of “romance” in the way we’d understand it (anything from say dancing together in private to proposing marriage in public) is very alien to them. and because they’re time lords, it’s a bit scandalous to do anything alien. these are bizarre ungallifreyan habits that renegades pick up when they leave the planet, hence outward displays of romantic love/desire being heavily associated with renegades and outcasts
now is this to say NO time lords ever do romantic things with their partners on gallifrey when they think no one’s watching? of course not. they’re 1. influenced by alien cultures and their own history whether they like it or not and 2. massive hypocrites. but like i said, if they do it’s a bit scandalous and considered outside the social norm
(also to be clear in this scenario i don’t think their way of being private about romance is weird or sad or that they’re like unhappy living that way. they just have different norms regarding what you do with romantic love and they’re categorically weird about how non-gallifreyans do things)
adding on to this - i don't think they seek out romantic relationships for the sake of romantic relationships. romance doesn't have the hold over them personally or culturally that it does for a good portion of humanity - they can and do have romantic relationships, but they're not a given or a priority
name a more iconic thing to happen for the fictional qpr community than Donna Noble quite literally meeting her soulmate and being like hmm. there's no one I've ever wanted to fuck less
#i cannot get over how much she's like. #im crazy insane about this alien our lives and beings are intertwined #to be separate would and did require us to tear ourselves apart #and build back from the ground up #he is also completely and utterly unattractive to me. lol.
[Image description: Digital drawing of the Ninth Doctor from Doctor Who. His arms are crossed and he is smiling with his eyes closed. An aroace flag is slung around his shoulders. The background is white. The piece is signed "Snake". End description.]
Okay but Donna. DONNA. She gets to live her life with both her husband AND her platonic life partner. She'd wanted to be with him forever and now she CAN. She gets both a permanent romantic and permanent platonic partner. Who like each other. Who don't resent the other's existence. Do you understand how MONUMENTAL that is???
Something that often scared aspec people is being left out in the cold when all our friends eventually find partners and start families and it leaves us feeling so unimportant and like we always come second place.
But this...
It shows how capable of perseverance platonic love is. It only needs to be strong enough. People can love their best friends just as much as their families. And it can be beautiful. To see this as an aspec person gives me so much hope for the future, I hope rtd knows how much this finale means to so many ace and aro people
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