Asexual Dick Grayson
Batman #3
Okay. So Dick Grayson is very obviously asexual to me personally. The most accurate label if we're going with comics canon is demisexual, but I personally believe he's entirely asexual, and sex-neutral. It's so explicitly coded that I feel like I'm going insane every time someone in fandom makes a joke about him being a slut or whatever because huh. What. It's exacerbated because of the on page SA he's gone through and he clearly didn't want that either--but that on top of the previous asexual coding is deeply upsetting. I will be listing out all of my receipts or whatever.
Action Comics Weekly #614
I don't really know what to say about this one I'm going to be so honest. Dick Grayson is not a fan of casual sex and is very very uncomfortable at the idea of sleeping with someone he isn't deeply in love with. Okay.
Nightwing/Huntress #3
"Every time someone's even nice to you, you feel this almost pathological need to--" "[...] Now you're just making me sound like I'm just afraid to--to--" "To be alone?"
So he slept with Helena, and then called Babs in the early early morning in a panic, completely naked, to ramble until she cuts him off to psychoanalyze him in the most asexual coded way possible to me? You're telling me he sleeps with girls because he doesn't want to be alone and he doesn't know how to get that connection otherwise? You're telling me that's a man who is actually interested in the sex? I don't believe you.
This post is a brilliant goldmine of all sorts of panels about Dick, detailing his personality in a lot of depth -- go read the whole thing! I personally am only going to grab the panels sourced from this post that are relevant to this essay:
He's canonically attractive. He canonically has a great ass, great muscles, gorgeous eyes. Yet every time he gets attention of this kind--even from his own girlfriend--it makes him uncomfortable, he dodges it, he turtles in on himself, he doesn't want it. His complete lack of interest in sex is contrasted with the constant in-universe sexualization by characters, but also the fandom jokes about his ass, and the sexualization of him by the comic artists and cover artists as well.
Here's yet another post compiling moments like this. It's scary how many they are. More panels attached:
At some point when you slap these panels all next to each other you start to feel really bad for him. And again--there are barely any moments where he responds to any of this positively. He's not a peacock; he's barely self aware of his own attraction. He mentioned to Kory once that he didn't really understand why people found him attractive. More precisely, the actual words used were something more along the line of that he didn't feel comfortable in his own skin. Despite people's obsession with him--maybe because of it.
