“It really got to me [...] The movies where the main characters freaked out about being virgins at the age of sixteen”: Narrative Subversion as a Queer Strategy in Loveless

See in particular the section on "Recontextualizing the Romance Formula."

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The novel makes it a point to discredit the stereotype that aromantic people are loveless human beings by ‘aromanticizing’ the romance formula to include other love stories, in this case, platonic ones. In doing so, the novel decenters romantic love to make space for platonic love stories, creating a more inclusive genre more that is also accessible to aromantic people. (40)