An ace perspective on Only Friends, sexuality, and purity culture.
Look, I'm not very good with meta, but I have to give my two cents here.
I love Only Friends. They've brought a perspective on queer culture that usually falls flat in most Thai BL series. The hookups, the cruising, the expectations of love and care... There are so many nuances they've explored, it really is a breath of fresh air.
But I have to say, as an ace person, I'm quite disappointed with the not-so-implicit moral standard they've set on characters based on their sexual experiences. Argue all you want, there's no way they didn't make it to be as "virgins are good, hoes are evil".
Look at episode one. One of the first quotes that really got to my mind was when Mew told Top that "he is not like Boston" (as in he can't do casual sex). I really got curious about that line. It could mean that 1. maybe he views sexuality differently — maybe he is on the ace spectrum (I was sooo for it); or 2. maybe he just isn't as sexual as his friend, not necessarily ace (also cool); or 3. maybe he views his virginity as a badge of honor, and thus is afraid to lose it to an almost stranger, hookup enthusiast like Top.
With a premise like OF, of exploring queer sexualities, I really thought option 1 or 2 were going to be it, and even if it was option 3, it was going to be a setup for, by the end, Mew understanding that, virgin or hoe, anyone can be good or bad. But then, episodes were being released, and now we only have 1 episode left and nothing really changed. Characters like Mew and Cheum still view sexual experience as a way to measure someone's worth.
There are two examples that I need to show here.
Cheum is supportive of her virgin friend hooking up with Top (when he already said he wasn't comfortable yet), while also shaming Boston for hooking up — of course, he isn't the virginal angel type.
(seriously, what's with this fixation on Mew's virginity?)
Like, boy I know you are still hurt, but what do you mean by saying that?
And there's the Nick situation. They really wanted us to see Nick, the hopeless romantic/stalker as the good guy, while seeing Boston, the one who does not want a serious relationship, as the bad guy. And as we approach the last episode, they might even pull one of the "hoe cures" and make Boston actually want a monogamous relationship with Nick now. (I say MAYBE, I'm writing this before ep 12 airs).
Yeah, Boston is a shitty friend. No one is questioning it. But none of his cruising behavior is the reason why I say that. His biggest mistake was sleeping with Top while he was actively pursuing Mew (if they were dating or not, that's up to you). His hooking up with multiple people, taking pictures of them, and even sleeping with Atom... none of these are mistakes on his part. Maybe not the wisest ideas, but not mistakes. None of these make him bad.
And you may ask, why does being ace have anything to do with it?
Because purity culture is harmful to everyone, sluts and virgins alike. Of course, there's nuance in everything: some may suffer more, and intersectionality also factors here. The ace spectrum is HUGE, with people having polar opposite opinions on sex and hookups. Some hate the idea of participating in all sexual activities, some tolerate it and some actually enjoy them very much. All of them are still ace.
So, when I see a series like OF (which many, many people wanted to see because of its raw, realistic perspective on sex) propagate a viewpoint that the virginal character is superior to the hoes, it really frustrates me.
Sexual experience does not make one mature, wise, or better than anyone else. Just like that, being inexperienced does not make one pure, enlightened, mature, or inherently better than anyone else. WHY DO WE JUDGE PEOPLE BASED ON SEXUAL EXPERIENCE? Sex is just an activity. Some do for leisure, some do for their partners, some do for having children and some don't do it at all. Are all of these people better or worse than the others? ABSOLUTELY NOT.
I'm going to be honest, I wasn't expecting much (or any) representation for aces in Only Friends. It still is a stigmatized orientation, and sometimes it's better to have nothing than to be represented badly. While I was expecting nothing, I really wasn't expecting this morality based on purity. I thought it was going to shine a light on hookup culture, not necessarily romanticizing it but not making it to be a bad thing either.
I don't really have a closing paragraph. I just saw the discourse and agree with basically everyone, but I hadn't seen an ace perspective (at least not one explicitly ace) on all of this. Sometimes allo (non-ace) people think we on the ace spectrum actually want this discourse of "virgin = good" to be popular, and while there may exist people like that, most of us just want to have our humanity not dictated by how many people we fuck.