Concept: ace Willow
This is a semi-serious thought I've had rattling around my brain for a while. I meant to put it in a story, but writing the story hasn't been going well, and I did want to put this into some kind of words. This post may be more long-winded than anyone needs it to be, because I kept adding to it until I hit 1K words so that it will count for Buffyverse Bingo... square "Mistaken Identity".
(Can one truly be said to be in the Buffy fandom before one has formed one's own pet theory on Willow's Sexuality? Yes. But will I miss the opportunity to do so? No, as it turns out.)
I have come across two main groups of Willow's Sexuality Headcanons, broadly speaking:
(a) that although the show writers didn't think they were writing a bi character, that's what they seem to have done (imperfectly), given Willow's meaningful romantic and sexual relationships with both men and women throughout the seasons. Here's a thoughtful post arguing that position.
or (b) Willow calls herself gay, and Willow is the authority on this question, so she's gay. AND Willow's choices to date, kiss, etcetera men at certain points in her life don't mean that she's attracted to them. Here's a meta post and a lovely thinky ficlet on the subject.
I'm deeply uninterested in deciding which interpretation is true. Obviously, both lesbian!Willow and bi!Willow are very important to a lot of people, and I'm not trying to prove anyone wrong. I think part of Willow's charm as a character is that she's so open to different readings.
Case in point, is it just me, or do the two headcanons summarized above imply the possibility of a third headcanon, in which *none* of Willow's relationships are motivated by sexual attraction on her part?
(Insert charming WikiHow article about asexuality just because I want to share with the world that it exists, with its 8 Steps and Pictures.)
In lesbian!Willow headcanons, Willow is influenced by compulsory heterosexuality that makes her think that her feelings for her male friends must be romantic or sexual interest. Likewise, ace!Willow would be influenced by sexnormativity, such as when she listens to Walsh's lecture in "Beer Bad". "Comfort, sex, shelter, food. We always want them and we want them all the time.... the pleasure principle is at work in all of us."
The framing in the episode does not seem to question the lecture, as far as I remember. Willow is interested in Walsh's work, and I don't remember any hints that she evaluates the psych lectures critically (...does she ever?). I bet Willow made neat color-coded lecture notes about how science says she's always after sex, just all the time.
Or look at Willow talking like she wants to make love to the institution of higher education, in "Freshman". "But here, the energy, the collective intelligence, it's like this force, this penetrating force, and I can just feel my mind opening up--you know?--and letting this place thrust into and spurt knowledge into... That sentence ended up in a different place than it started out in." Jokes aside, could this be read as a character who defaults to thinking/talking about pleasure and excitement in terms of sex, because that's the language and cultural context available to her? What would happen when she's excited about a new relationship and intensely enjoying a shared activity, such as magic? Would her default assumption be that this must mean it's in some way sexy?
To make the ace!Willow headcanon work (as far as it can be done), I think it would make sense to ignore all the heavy "magic = gay sex" hints throughout canon and to stubbornly assume that whenever a surface reading of canon says Willow and Tara are doing spells, that is literally the only thing they're doing. I imagine this kind of reading would go a bit similarly to Quinara's intriguing ace!Ethan ficlet where chaos magic is explicitly not a sex thing.
Of course, eventually canon does directly state that Willow had sex with Tara (and enjoyed it), even if we ignore all the "you make me complete" lyrics in the world. This can be true, and technically she could still be ace, because sexual attraction is not exactly the same as deciding to have sex with someone or enjoying the experience. There can, of course, be other motivations for having sex, besides attraction. For example, the Tara/Willow scenes in New Moon Rising are very much about Willow trying to demonstrate to Tara that she loves Tara (more than Oz) and that her relationship with Tara matters (more than her relationship with Oz). I'm getting some déjà vu -- the first time Willow tried to initiate sex with Oz in Amends, that too was about proving to Oz that he mattered to her (more than Xander). In Wild at Heart, Willow tells Oz that sex with him is basically a good way to relax and also tries to initiate sex in order to reaffirm their relationship in the context of the whole Veruca fiasco. (This isn't an exhaustive list of anything, I'm aware. Not trying to be rigorous here, just playing with an idea. Also, just because there are other motivations, that doesn't in itself prove that there's no attraction -- but I can try and imagine to what extent they would still work without attraction.)
When Kennedy pursues a relationship with Willow in season 7, Willow hesitates a lot because of very understandable issues related to Tara and magic. There's a lot of hesitation. Would anyone notice if some of it was not because of Tara and magic, but because, say, maybe Willow has little interest in having sex with someone she doesn't already love?
Obviously, I'm never going to be able to make this idea fit canon neatly, because it's nowhere near what the writers were going for. Even if I did "prove" it, or if I declared that I'm making an AU where Willow is asexual, what would change? Not a whole lot, I'm thinking. The relationships that are important to Willow would still be important. She could still be in love with everyone she was ever in love with (YMMV on who that was, naturally). She could even still be gay, but maybe she would be using the word to mean she can have romantic feelings for women and that she's only interested in dating women, starting from a certain point in her life.
I want to reiterate that I'm not trying to erase or mock anyone else's favorite Willow headcanon. It pains me that they all can't exist at the same time, within the same interpretation. If Willow decides she was really gay all along and only dated men because she was confused, that's terrible bi representation but good lesbian representation, right? Likewise, if Tara and Willow were just doing spells for most of season 4, nope nothing sexy going on here, I admit that this sounds, at best, like comically missing the point in terms of lesbian or bi depiction in media. But maybe not so much from an ace perspective. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
This entry was originally posted at https://thenewbuzwuzz.dreamwidth.org/204940.html.
(Can one truly be said to be in the Buffy fandom before one has formed one's own pet theory on Willow's Sexuality? Yes. But will I miss the opportunity to do so? No, as it turns out.)
I have come across two main groups of Willow's Sexuality Headcanons, broadly speaking:
(a) that although the show writers didn't think they were writing a bi character, that's what they seem to have done (imperfectly), given Willow's meaningful romantic and sexual relationships with both men and women throughout the seasons. Here's a thoughtful post arguing that position.
or (b) Willow calls herself gay, and Willow is the authority on this question, so she's gay. AND Willow's choices to date, kiss, etcetera men at certain points in her life don't mean that she's attracted to them. Here's a meta post and a lovely thinky ficlet on the subject.
I'm deeply uninterested in deciding which interpretation is true. Obviously, both lesbian!Willow and bi!Willow are very important to a lot of people, and I'm not trying to prove anyone wrong. I think part of Willow's charm as a character is that she's so open to different readings.
Case in point, is it just me, or do the two headcanons summarized above imply the possibility of a third headcanon, in which *none* of Willow's relationships are motivated by sexual attraction on her part?
(Insert charming WikiHow article about asexuality just because I want to share with the world that it exists, with its 8 Steps and Pictures.)
In lesbian!Willow headcanons, Willow is influenced by compulsory heterosexuality that makes her think that her feelings for her male friends must be romantic or sexual interest. Likewise, ace!Willow would be influenced by sexnormativity, such as when she listens to Walsh's lecture in "Beer Bad". "Comfort, sex, shelter, food. We always want them and we want them all the time.... the pleasure principle is at work in all of us."
The framing in the episode does not seem to question the lecture, as far as I remember. Willow is interested in Walsh's work, and I don't remember any hints that she evaluates the psych lectures critically (...does she ever?). I bet Willow made neat color-coded lecture notes about how science says she's always after sex, just all the time.
Or look at Willow talking like she wants to make love to the institution of higher education, in "Freshman". "But here, the energy, the collective intelligence, it's like this force, this penetrating force, and I can just feel my mind opening up--you know?--and letting this place thrust into and spurt knowledge into... That sentence ended up in a different place than it started out in." Jokes aside, could this be read as a character who defaults to thinking/talking about pleasure and excitement in terms of sex, because that's the language and cultural context available to her? What would happen when she's excited about a new relationship and intensely enjoying a shared activity, such as magic? Would her default assumption be that this must mean it's in some way sexy?
To make the ace!Willow headcanon work (as far as it can be done), I think it would make sense to ignore all the heavy "magic = gay sex" hints throughout canon and to stubbornly assume that whenever a surface reading of canon says Willow and Tara are doing spells, that is literally the only thing they're doing. I imagine this kind of reading would go a bit similarly to Quinara's intriguing ace!Ethan ficlet where chaos magic is explicitly not a sex thing.
Of course, eventually canon does directly state that Willow had sex with Tara (and enjoyed it), even if we ignore all the "you make me complete" lyrics in the world. This can be true, and technically she could still be ace, because sexual attraction is not exactly the same as deciding to have sex with someone or enjoying the experience. There can, of course, be other motivations for having sex, besides attraction. For example, the Tara/Willow scenes in New Moon Rising are very much about Willow trying to demonstrate to Tara that she loves Tara (more than Oz) and that her relationship with Tara matters (more than her relationship with Oz). I'm getting some déjà vu -- the first time Willow tried to initiate sex with Oz in Amends, that too was about proving to Oz that he mattered to her (more than Xander). In Wild at Heart, Willow tells Oz that sex with him is basically a good way to relax and also tries to initiate sex in order to reaffirm their relationship in the context of the whole Veruca fiasco. (This isn't an exhaustive list of anything, I'm aware. Not trying to be rigorous here, just playing with an idea. Also, just because there are other motivations, that doesn't in itself prove that there's no attraction -- but I can try and imagine to what extent they would still work without attraction.)
When Kennedy pursues a relationship with Willow in season 7, Willow hesitates a lot because of very understandable issues related to Tara and magic. There's a lot of hesitation. Would anyone notice if some of it was not because of Tara and magic, but because, say, maybe Willow has little interest in having sex with someone she doesn't already love?
Obviously, I'm never going to be able to make this idea fit canon neatly, because it's nowhere near what the writers were going for. Even if I did "prove" it, or if I declared that I'm making an AU where Willow is asexual, what would change? Not a whole lot, I'm thinking. The relationships that are important to Willow would still be important. She could still be in love with everyone she was ever in love with (YMMV on who that was, naturally). She could even still be gay, but maybe she would be using the word to mean she can have romantic feelings for women and that she's only interested in dating women, starting from a certain point in her life.
I want to reiterate that I'm not trying to erase or mock anyone else's favorite Willow headcanon. It pains me that they all can't exist at the same time, within the same interpretation. If Willow decides she was really gay all along and only dated men because she was confused, that's terrible bi representation but good lesbian representation, right? Likewise, if Tara and Willow were just doing spells for most of season 4, nope nothing sexy going on here, I admit that this sounds, at best, like comically missing the point in terms of lesbian or bi depiction in media. But maybe not so much from an ace perspective. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
This entry was originally posted at https://thenewbuzwuzz.dreamwidth.org/204940.html.