Demisexuality in Ali Hazelwood's STEMinist Series

The Love Hypothesis (2021) and Love, Theoretically (2023)

Abstract

This article examines the representation of demisexuality in Ali Hazelwood’s STEMinist series, particularly in The Love Hypothesis (2021) and Love, Theoretically (2023). The main focus of the analysis is on how these two novels' demisexual protagonists navigate self-discovery, romantic relationships to determine whether there is a subversion genre expectations in contemporary romance. While demisexuality remains an underrepresented identity in literature, Hazelwood’s works offer valuable insight into the challenges demisexual people face, including negotiating their emotional and sexual boundaries. The analysis explores how Hazelwood's protagonists—Olive Smith and Elsie Hannaway—embody different aspects of the asexual spectrum, particularly in their conditional approach to sexual attraction and emotional bonding. The paper first addresses Olive Smith in The Love Hypothesis, highlighting how her emotional connection with her romantic partner gradually evolves into sexual attraction, aligning with the demisexual experience. Olive’s journey illustrates her internal struggle between social expectations of romantic and sexual relationships and her personal pace of developing attraction. The analysis then shifts to Elsie Hannaway in Love, Theoretically, focusing on themes of unwilling consent, compulsory sexuality, and the tension between social norms and demisexuality. Elsie’s complex relationship with intimacy and her orientation reflects broader issues of erotonormativity and challenges the traditional narrative of physical desire in romance. The conclusion synthesizes these findings, questioning whether Hazelwood’s portrayal effectively normalizes demisexuality or whether it is constrained by the romance genre’s conventions, particularly regarding erotonormativity. Ultimately, this study contributes to discussions on asexual representation in popular fiction and the evolving depiction of lesser-known identities within mainstream genres.