ali hazelwood's bride (2024) is an extended asexual metaphor
A version of this essay originally appeared in the Forced Proximity newsletter
Unfun fact: in 2023-2024, there were zero asexual characters on broadcast TV, zero on cable TV, and of the four asexual characters in streaming TV, all were on Netflix and they made up 1% of all queer characters counted. When asexuality is brought up, it’s usually a joke or an illness to be cured (thanks, House MD). It comes up so rarely, certainly when I was growing up, that I didn’t even know it existed, let alone that it described me to a T, until I was 22, which meant I spent most of my life thinking I was broken. That something was wrong with me.
So as both a creator and consumer of media, even very spicy media like romance, I’m Very Attuned to the asexual experience and representation (or lack thereof). And today I would like to argue that Ali Hazelwood’s first paranormal romance, which is, yes, very Omega-verse-coded, is actually a very thinly-veiled metaphor for being in an asexual/allosexual romantic relationship.
Context: asexuality, defined
Asexuality, for the uninitiated, is defined as someone who does not experience sexual attraction, or who experiences it far less or under very specific circumstances. For instance, someone who considers themself demisexual, or gray asexual, might only experience sexual attraction after finding emotional intimacy with another person, but not a minute before.
Asexuality is NOT:
Aromanticism, or someone who does not experience ROMANTIC attraction. You can be asexual and (like me) have/want romantic relationships.
Celibacy, or someone who chooses to not have sex at all or until a certain time in the future (like choosing to not have sex before marriage).
Sex repulsion, a hopefully self-explanatory concept. Asexuality can also mean sex neutral, and many people (as pointed out by both protagonists of Ace and Anxious and Sam and Pat, old film projects of mine) who identify as asexual have sex, for various reasons that are entirely their own.
Context: Ali Hazelwood’s asexual-coded former protagonists
Both Olive and Adam from The Love Hypothesis are asexual-coded, to the extent that most readers with familiarity with asexuality label them thusly. Though neither character says this aloud on the page, both characters express how they rarely, if ever, experience sexual attraction to other people. They both also have fairly low libidos, and it takes quite a while for either of them to even consider acting on the growing attraction between them, let alone actually act on it.
In Olive’s own words, to Adam:
“…the truth is that I just don’t feel any… sexual attraction unless I actually get to trust and like a person, which for some reason never happens. Or, almost never. It hadn’t, not in a long time, but now—I really like you, and I really trust you, and for the first time in a million years I want to…”
In case you missed this, we know about Adam’s sexuality (and possibly a neuroatypical diagnosis) from the bonus chapter Ali released later on (their first sex scene, just from Adam’s POV):
So it’s been a long time for him. Years, he’d guess. Not since grad school, and even then he never quite… There was about a decade or so, in which Adam thought he’d had just enough sex in his life to know with the utmost certainty that he wasn’t interested in having any more. No real reason for it, just… no. And then—Olive.
He might never say “asexual” out loud, but the evidence is… compelling, at the very least.
Similarly, Liam from Under One Roof, the first novella in the Loathe to Love You compilation. From the first sex scene of that book:
“I don’t have sex, Mara.”
“You . . . You what?”
He looks away. We are both breathing too hard. “I don’t like sex… It’s just . . .” He holds my eyes. His are a dark, beautiful brown. “I like you very much, Mara. I like talking to you. I like watching you do yoga. I like the way you always smell like sunscreen. I like how you manage to say pretty much whatever you want while still being unbelievably kind. I like being in this house with you, and everything we do in here.”
I would argue that Elsie from Love, Theoretically is ace-coded as well. She has similar thoughts to Olive and Liam, though not as cleanly articulated in a way I can quote in an essay.
Suffice to say: there is definitely a way to read at least two of Ali Hazelwood’s previous books (and at least one of her novellas) as having at least one asexual lead character.
This is important, because while I would still read Bride as a metaphor, I don’t think I’m reaching quite as far given the evidence from her backlist.
The argument: Bride is an extended metaphor about being asexual in a long term relationship with an allosexual partner
Let’s talk Bride, about an arranged political marriage between a vampire (a “Vampyre”) and a werewolf (a “Were”). HUMONGOUS spoilers, obviously, so if you haven’t read it yet but want to eventually, maybe come back to this.
Bride introduces a pseudo-fated-mates situation in the Were “mates.” Explained by hero Lowe (a Were), mates are a werewolf-exclusive concept (remember this). Physiological changes occur when you find your mate, scent (naturally) being a large part of it. You can smell your mate, he explains. Not every Were has a mate (or meets their mate), and plenty of Were couples are together, but not mates. This is also important to remember.
Consistently, as heroine Misery (lol, by the way), the vampire, slowly works her way to understanding very basic foreshadowing, Lowe emphasizes two things:
Lowe’s mate (who could it be????) does not reciprocate his feelings (meaning it doesn’t always go both ways- someone might be YOUR mate, but that doesn’t make you THEIRS*)
Lowe will never reveal he’s mated to his mate, because he would never want her to feel obligated to him.
*Caveat: it might be the case that an unreciprocated mate only occurs if ones’ mate isn’t a werewolf? Unclear if it’s possible for one Were to have an unreciprocated mate in another Were. The world building in this book is, uhhhh, inconsistent at best.
If Lowe’s mysterious (whooooo could it beeee?) mate chooses to be with him of her own volition, amazing! Best thing ever! But they will always fundamentally not have the same exact attraction- for him it’s less about choice and more about instinct/the magical Mate connection. For her, it would be a choice and organically/un-magically falling for him. Doesn’t make it worse for him at all, but it will always be different.
It doesn't make their connection less special to Misery (OBVIOUSLY Lowe’s mate is Misery) that she cannot reciprocate the particular physiological effect of Having A Mate. Her experience of their bond is different and can't be as physiologically intense because she lacks the species trait. Misery is a Vampyre. Vampyres lack the magical-biological concept of Mates. They don’t lack the ability or interest in love or relationships, though, at least not innately. They just don’t have Mates. So when embarking on a cross-species relationship, expectations must be managed.
See where we’re going with this?
Ace people have sex/partners/relationships all the time. I’m asexual and I’ve been with my allosexual partner for 12 years! We got married in 2022! I love him and [redacted, none of your business].
Just because asexual people experience attraction differently, or not at all the way their partners do, doesn't make their love or attraction less than or any less special. I love and feel attraction to my husband in a fundamentally different way from how he loves and feels attraction to me. But our relationship is wonderful. I am not failing him, he does not find me lacking in any way. We are… us. I’m my husband’s mate, in this extended metaphor, but I lack an innate mate system myself. I cannot have a mate, that isn’t how my brain/body/magical biology works. But I can love, and want love, and choose love, and have love, with my husband.
Our love is no more or less special than anyone else’s. It’s ours.
Bri Castellini is an independent filmmaker, an indie romance author, and, regrettably, a podcaster. She's known for her short film Ace and Anxious, her contemporary romance novel Rehabbing the Billionaire, and her podcasts Burn, Noticed and Breaking Out of Breaking In, covering the USA television show Burn Notice and practical filmmaking advice, respectively. She can lick her elbow (not clickbait). Full work history can be found on her website BriCastellini.com