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it seems sometimes that every halfway decent movie or book has sex scenes, sexual themes, and/or love triangles and people falling in love at the drop of a hat, and honestly, as a sex-repulsed acearo who is baffled by 'falling in love' and romance, I'm getting really sick of it, but I don't want to just give up on books and movies entirely ¬¬

 

 I'm sure I can't be the only one, so... does anyone know of any good, or even tolerable, movies, books, series, anything, with no or barely any sex and romance?? 

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Wolf 359, The Black Tapes Podcast, and Limetown are all really great podcasts with absolutely zero sex or romance, if you're into podcasts. 

 

As far as TV is concerned, I haven't actually watched much TV since Cosmos was airing a few years ago, so, um, yeah. 

 

Movies: off the top of my head? Labyrinth, Big Hero 6, Star Trek IV, V, VI (I think), VIII, the first Avengers movie (definitely not the second one or Civil War, though Civil War is better about it in that there's a total of maybe 3-5 minutes of screen time given to it), Star Wars episode VII (it's not anywhere near as shippy as the Internet made it out to be), Real Genius (okay, there's one  awkward 5-minute scene that can be skipped easily because it has no relevance to the plot)

 

Books: The Martian, the first three books of the 2001: A Space Odyssey series from what I can remember, Life of Pi (I think--there was something in the movie, but I don't remember it being in the book?)Sophie's World

 

Also, since more than half of this is purely sci-fi, you also now have something of an idea of how much of a hopeless nerd I am.

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I don't have a lot I can think of at the top of my head but Wolf Children Ame and Yuki. Whether or not you're into animation, I'd recommend this movie to anyone simply because it's my favorite (platonic) one out there. It's 97% family and friendship. The first part of course shows where the children came (sex is implied but it's like 3-5 seconds) but that's the only romance in the entire movie until the plot actually begins (and you'll probably cry the moment it does). The rest is all bittersweet family/coming of age (minus obligatory romance) conflicts and shenanigans. 

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I feel ya there buddy, especially on the sex part :v  get ready for a Big Post with not actually that many recommendations but I talk a lot.

 

 

Pacific rim is a good move, not much romance (apparently there's a scene with ''sexual tension''" but I just liked watching them beat each other up).

Lots of Myuzaki films are good for this - Totoro, Nausicaa, Spirited Away... 

 

For books there's Good Omens - the main characters are an angel,  a demon, and a bunch of 12 year olds so yeah, not much going on there in the romance or sex department :v

Also try The Hobbit - I'm not done reading it but I don't think there's romance there.

 

TV shows are hard because they all have some sort of romantic episodes here and there.   Doctor Who is sometimes ok depending on the season and which characters are there.  Maybe try the first season of new who with the 9th doctor - Rose has a boyfriend but he's there like 3 times in that season and they don't got no chemistry.  :0  well, there's some euphemisms here and there when Jack shows up and he's sooper flirty but nothing explicit.  

Hmm... as well, try any episodes with the 10th doctor and Donna as the main characters.  They've got a really good friendship and fun dynamic.  

 

Now, Brooklyn 99:  it's a comedy, mock cop show, and is a weird because it's got romance, but I don't mind.  It's either already established and quite natural, or its just completely ridiculous and played for laughs.  The one exception, I think, is with Jake and Amy - but that's not so bad cause they mention it every few episodes until they finally get together, then a few awkward episodes and then everything just kinda goes back to normal except they kiss sometimes. 

So I guess, if you're turned off by anything romantic then this show isn't for you, but if you're frustrated only when it gets in the way of the plot and makes characters stupid then don't worry, there's no plot and everyone's always stupid.

(I'll say, they do talk about sex often - it's not so bad and usually in jokes - and there's one small scene where a character uses asexual I think as an insult?  But that's Gina to her literally everything is an insult.  I didn't take it too bad and I'm ace, so make what you will.  :0)

 

If you don't mind anime, I strongly recommend mushishi.  It's really good - no romo with the main character, and if there are some side characters that bother you you can skip the episode because it's almost always self-contained.  The anime itself is very relaxing and beautiful, gets very philosophical and sometimes kinda scary.  It's not for everyone, but give it a try.  (It's also in manga form if you prefer reading.)

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14 minutes ago, Swablu said:

Also try The Hobbit - I'm not done reading it but I don't think there's romance there.

Just to confirm, there's no romance in the book form of The Hobbit

 

EDIT (to not double post): I've just realised, one of my favourite animes has no sex or romance in it (probably, I haven't watched it in a while so I can't be 100% sure). It's called Innocent Venus and it's a mecha set in a distopian future and is quite dark, so if that's someone's kind of thing you should give it a go. It's only one series so you don't need to worry about it becoming a time-sink.

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I'm doing this as if I have stuff to actually recommend lel, but I can't really think of anything.

 

Books:

• Sherlock Holmes, the original ACD canon (where better to start than the most famous aroace character?)

• Richard III, Shakespeare

• Old Kingdom/Abhorsen series, Garth Nix

• There's a list of books here, bc people on AVEN did something similar. (I'm sorry, I gave up, there're probably similar threads there too.)

 

Movies:

18 hours ago, Dodecahedron314 said:

Movies: off the top of my head? Labyrinth, Big Hero 6, Star Trek IV, V, VI (I think), VIII, the first Avengers movie (definitely not the second one or Civil War, though Civil War is better about it in that there's a total of maybe 3-5 minutes of screen time given to it), Star Wars episode VII...

Star Trek and Star Wars seconded, although there little bit of romance-y thing between Kirk and Gillian the Whale Expert in IV...? And a fair warning about Star Trek - literally everything else has romance, and loads of people ship Kirk and Spock (which makes for terrible fic-hunting).

((Civil War will break your heart))

• Narnia (As far as I can remember, there is little to no romance in the films. Definitely no established, takes-up-70%-of-the-plot relationships.)

• Alien (downside: fucking terrifying, upside: no romance)

• Brave (which compensates for romantic love with copious amounts of familial love)

• ParaNorman (I think, although I could be wrong)

 

Yeaaah no, I have nothing, sorry.

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16 minutes ago, Midnightrune said:

• Old Kingdom/Abhorsen series, Garth Nix

I love that series! But I'm pretty sure it has romance in it? I'm certain Sabriel does (though if you don't mind a limited about of romance in your stories, the plot itself doesn't rely on romance as far as I remember).

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8 hours ago, Swablu said:

Brooklyn 99

A bit off-topic but, I felt really annoyed that Amy wasn't aroace or at least ace. It would have fit her character perfectly!

 

On topic: I can only really think of one book that doesn't have romance, (I'm like 90% sure it doesn't have romance at least) and that's Ice Station by Matthew Reilly. That book is so full on action that there's no time for any romance. Seriously, every time you think the action is going to die down for a while it just starts back up again. If you can handle non-stop action, it's a good read.

 

If you're really desperate for a show with no sex or romance, there's always the original yu-gi-oh anime. Although that show takes the main characters' love of their friends to the cringy extreme. Like we're talking (paraphrasing here), "I beat you at a card game because my love for my friends is stronger than any evil". Yeah. Cringy.

 

 

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9 hours ago, Midnightrune said:

Movies:

Star Trek and Star Wars seconded, although there little bit of romance-y thing between Kirk and Gillian the Whale Expert in IV...? And a fair warning about Star Trek - literally everything else has romance, and loads of people ship Kirk and Spock (which makes for terrible fic-hunting).

((Civil War will break your heart))

Ah, forgot about that thing in IV. And agreed, I'm rewatching the first season of TOS and it's utterly unbelievable how unnecessarily allo it is thus far. (Although the one nice thing about this situation is that Spock is there to pretty much exactly demonstrate my reactions to these scenarios. Relatable characters for the win.)

Additionally...seconded on Civil War, it pretty much destroyed me.

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