Reading Schitt’s Creek’s Patrick Brewer as demisexual — and why it matters.
I read Patrick Brewer from Schitt’s Creek as demisexual. This reading changed my life, made me realise I identify as asexual, but also fits a reading of the character in a way that’s interesting, makes sense and maybe adds a little more depth to him. Does it matter that he’s not (necessarily) written as such? I’d argue no.
Why then does it matter to have a conversation about Patrick Brewer being on the Ace-spectrum even when canonically he may not be? In the bigger sense, because in the absence of more canonically Ace characters, interpreting others as Ace is important.
This is historically a thing we do as Queer folks anyway. Before you could say gay on TV, or be gay on TV we would find Queer-coded characters. Or in books, find characters who were clearly supposed to be Queer but couldn’t be written as outright Queer. As a group, it’s what we’ve done scraped around until we find a crumb of who we are and hung onto it. Today there are more gay/bi characters on tv and film and in books and that’s amazing. I don’t want to take away one single character from that representation, we are owed after all. But we still don’t have Ace representation, so as Ace folks we’re still scraping around. So if reading Patrick Brewer as Demisexual, gives us a scrap of representation, then we should- representation matters. As does silencing members of the LGBTQIA+ community. Asexuals put the A in LGBTQIA+ after all and they’re all too often silenced as a group. This conversation also brings up important ones about fetishisation in fan spaces of queer characters. But it also is an important conversation about having people have the representation that matters.
It’s important to note too, that reading Patrick Brewer as Demi, doesn’t take away from a) the broader representation he offers as a character b) doesn’t actually detract from his gayness either.
So to take a) first. Us reading Patrick as Demi doesn’t detract from him being an important representation of gay men on TV. He is still the Patrick Brewer on TV who married a man on one of the most successful Canadian comedy dramas of all time. He’s still the Patrick Brewer who offers hope to people coming out in later life. He’s still the Patrick Brewer who sang that song and gave us all a new gay anthem. He’s still the Patrick Brewer who loved David Rose.
Reading him this way doesn’t detract from all the representation inside and outside the world of the show that he gave, any more than someone deciding which baseball team he supports or that he’s a Star Trek fan does. What he does on screen still stands. These fan-led conclusions or interpretations just embellish and add to it. On one level, deciding he’s a Maple Leaves fan because it brings fellow Maple Leaves fans joy and solidarity with a favourite character is the same thing- it doesn’t alter what’s on-screen but it brings that fan joy. My reading Patrick as Demi doesn’t alter Patrick on screen, or Patrick for anyone else. But it means a lot to me.
Because if you allow people to interpret him as Demi/Ace it gives him so much more to a group of people. You give them the representation they’d sorely lack. You give them a character they love on their ‘team’ and you do it without losing anything. In fact, understanding him as Demi might add something to the character. Because him being demi doesn’t actually make him less gay. It actually might explain his story more. But people seem resistant to that (something we’ll return to later).
This stems of course from a fundamental lack of understanding of asexuality. In fact, asexuality as a label intersects with many labels. So Patrick may be homosexual and asexual. This means he is attracted romantically (and possibly sexually to a degree) to men. But also that he does not feel sexual attraction in the dominant (or Allosexual) way that a lot of humans do. In fact, his demisexuality or asexuality might indeed account for the character’s not discovering his homosexuality earlier in his life.
The way Patrick describes never feeling ‘right’ before also feels like the way a lot of asexual people talk about their experiences. The idea of just going along with things, of not feeling the things you’re supposed to, the way they’re described in books- in TV even- is a very asexual experience. And how when many realise their orientation also a way of explaining it to others. Patrick does feel it for David, and he demonstrates his sexual desire for him. This leads us to the potential Demisexual label, his feelings are only triggered by close connection. The two can be linked- his attraction to men overall but only in very specific circumstances.
How does that work? In the story, Patrick doesn’t realise he’s gay until he falls for David, that’s an accepted part of the story. Whether or not he had slight inklings before might be up for interpretation but if we take the show as read, David was the first time he developed an attraction towards a man. So Patrick on being attracted to David discovers for the first time an attraction that feels ‘right’. So far so canon.
We don’t meet a Patrick questioning his sexuality and experimenting with a man he meets in a small town. In the show, we assume heteronormativity has caused Patrick to never ‘experiment’ like many he assumed he’s straight because that’s the default. But what if too, he assumed he’s not asexual because that’s the default? Because in fact what he describes also aligns with demisexuality 101. Patrick doesn’t feel ‘right’ until he kisses David in the show.
In the show, we very clearly see a man who falls for very specifically one other human. We see Patrick being drawn to this man (admittedly a man like no other he’s likely met before) like he’s been drawn to nobody else before. He doesn’t experience ‘the things you’re supposed to feel’ until he kisses David. What he means is he doesn’t experience attraction, sexual desire, until David. The definition of demisexuality is only experiencing sexual attraction with someone you form an emotional bond with. So we can argue that in fact, Patrick had never formed a close enough emotional bond with someone before. Because of that, he had never truly experienced sexual attraction fully before either. What we could also argue is this lack of understanding of himself, his orientation, had prevented him discovering his gayness because he’d also never allowed himself to form such a bond with a man before, not knowing it was an option, not knowing that it would lead to actual full sexual attraction.
If David likes the wine, not the label, in a way Patrick does too in that he fell for David regardless of previous thoughts about his sexual orientation. But Patrick likes only this very specific brand of wine, in fact, it’s the only wine he’s ever wanted to drink. The first time wine ever tasted good to him, and it’s because he understands and got to know that wine and things about it before he drank it. Knowing about the wine made him want to try it, and enjoy it once he did. To extend it further, he learned that in general red wine (guys) was the wine for him all along not white (girls). But probably he’d still have to get to know the ingredients of any red wine before drinking it.
If we want to dive deeper too, when we look at other interactions Patrick has in the show, they support a demisexual hypothesis. When David pushes him to go on a ‘date’ with Ken, he tries and fails to go through with it. Because in theory he finds Ken attractive but doesn’t as David misinterprets, want to pursue anything sexual. For David an allosexual person (person who experiences sexual attraction) he assumes that if Patrick finds Ken attractive, he will want to have sex with him. The way to explain in the context of the show perhaps that is, what happens in ‘Happy Ending’. David, an allosexual person, is offered what he believes to be an authorised/consequence-free sexual encounter. He finds the masseuse attractive, so goes for it. Patrick in our demi/Ace reading would not have gone for it (in the same way he didn’t with Ken) not through any moral element, but because he doesn’t feel that ‘thing’ if there’s not a connection.
For many allosexuals, this is a confusing reading/experience in that they either say that ‘well everyone feels that’ or ‘it’s just being respectful’ or ‘it’s not the same’. While to a degree many people choose not to act on the sexual attraction they still feel it. For Ace/Demi folks, they simply do not feel it in the same way.
In the conversation about Ken too, Patrick finds him objectively attractive. Patrick as Ace/Demi experiences aesthetic attraction- so he comments that Ken indeed is attractive, just as he earlier has commented on Ted’s attractiveness. But he does not or cannot take that to the next level because he doesn’t have an emotional bond with him as he does David. Something that allosexual David, who if offered the chance would have sex with an attractive person, does not understand- and in the show is the root of his insecurity at that moment. In the show, we can read it as loyalty or a commitment to monogamy (although this doesn’t necessarily track with David and Patrick’s willingness to compartmentalise sex in later episodes like ‘Happy Ending’). In our reading of Patrick as Ace/Demi, it’s that he just doesn’t have a specific sexual attraction to Ken, due to that lack of emotional/other connection.
We can see this again in their encounter with Jake as a throwback to Patrick’s pre-David life can also feel familiar- somewhat unnervingly so- for many Demi/Ace folks. Patrick goes along with it because it’s what David wants to (or thinks he wants to) do. Because it makes you feel ‘cool’ or ‘totally on board’ with what a partner wants. In this reading of him as Ace/Demi, it’s a cold-water-through-you familiarity for an Ace person of ‘just going along with it’ because it’s what people do. Patrick’s panic and run out might be in the context of the show justifiably because there are indeed a lot of people there, but also that familiar panic cut and run that many an Ace person has had on ‘threat’ of a sexual encounter. This too in the show feels like what he talked about happening pre-David, for years with Rachel and the other women because that’s what you do. These encounters for Patrick then show the light and shade of not only gender, but very specifically David being who/what feels right. And that is a very Ace/Demi approach.
The reading of Patrick as Ace-Spec here also fits with him not being a previously closeted gay man or gay man who didn’t know who he was looking to experiment. Instead, he is an ace-spec gay man who has found a person with whom he has sexual attraction. To take it a step further if we wanted to, we don’t actually know much about David and Patrick’s sex life beyond their first encounter at Stevie’s so for those of us who want to read Patrick on this spectrum the show gives us lots of scope from what it doesn’t talk about.
It’s here too that the separation of sex and love that Dan Levy has mentioned also supports our reading. Levy mentions in the Entertainment Weekly interviews about the finale, that for David and Patrick sex and love are separate. So in his view, that’s why the ‘Happy Ending’ isn’t a threat to their relationship, as their love is separate from any sexual encounter. This is also why David gives permission in principle for Patrick and Ken. But this can also support our reading of Patrick as Demi/Ace. For asexual people, sex means something else. So aside from sex-repulsed asexuals who don’t enjoy any kind of sexual encounter, many asexual people will engage in sex for other reasons; closeness to a partner, physical pleasure (asexuality is about attraction, not the inability to experience pleasure), emotional connection/expression and not forgetting fun. For many asexual folks, the equation of sex = commitment and loyalty isn’t the same, for them, that’s not where the commitment to a partner lies. So again with David as allosexual and Patrick as Demi/Ace, we can actually see why sex is a secondary indicator of their bond. It’s part of what they do, for various reasons, but it’s not the reason for their bond. So this too explains why the ‘happy ending’ along with Ken, and Jake aren’t a big deal in their relationship.
What Patrick describes too, in his ‘all those things you’re supposed to feel’ and his ‘you make me feel right’ to David aligns with a lot of asexual people’s experiences too. It’s not until someone points it out that most asexual people understand that they feel differently. If we read Patrick as demisexual, and once he forms that bond with David he does feel those feelings it’s a similar thing- not realising something was missing until it isn’t. Of course, this too aligns with gayness, but this hopefully illustrates why a number of asexual people align their experience with Patrick’s. They can realise that like him, they didn’t know something wasn’t the ‘real’ experience until it changes, or at least until someone points it out.
Why then are people resistant to coding Patrick Brewer as demisexual?
Perhaps a simple misunderstanding. It’s easy to say ‘of course he’s not he has sex with David’ without understanding asexuality. Hell even ‘he had sex with Rachel.’
But also it has to do with a deeper rooted ace-phobia and gatekeeping in the queer community. And in fandom spaces, to do with the fetishisation of gay men.
Let’s start with the more innocent end of the spectrum. People are ill-informed about asexuality, that’s just a fact. In general, it’s misunderstood, and it’s a knee jerk reaction to reject something you don’t understand. This is why true representation is important, but so is listening to the community. People have started to listen to the queer community- Dan Levy himself is proof of that. So maybe it’s time to listen to other more marginalised groups too.
Secondly, there is a view that ace-isn’t-queer-enough. Similar to our bi and pan friends, we get shut out of the binary elements of what queer means. Particularly those who are heterosexual/Ace again much like bi/pan folks in hetero relationships, get shut out. Not cool enough, not queer enough. Again this is why we need representation and conversation.
Finally, why in fandom spaces is this considered a ‘wrong’ answer to a question?
Fetisihsation. We have to say the dirty word that nobody likes acknowledging. But fandom spaces, and specifically fan fiction spaces are populated by a lot of fetishisation. That is straight women (largely) using stories about, and actual gay men (in terms of actors, and adjacently characters) as a fetish. As simply sexual gratification. Now there’s nothing wrong with deriving sexual gratification from a story, or a show or a movie. Or hell even how someone looks. I’m told, by my Allosexual brothers and sisters, that’s how it works. But it crosses a line when that’s all someone’s sexuality is to you. When that’s all representation is. That becomes appropriation too, when you, not from a particular group (in this case the umbrella LGBTQ+ group) start dictating what representation looks like. And in this case, when it only looks like something to satisfy straight sexual gratification, we have a problem.
Or when straight women also just want to adopt, and pet gay men because they’re ‘so cute’ ‘so adorable’ ‘precious babies’ this infantilisation, is just as insulting, and unpleasant as fetishisation. It also prevents the kinds of conversations about nuanced identities that this one falls into. That includes bi/pan phobia and representation, this also includes gender expression and identity and yes, asexual identities. Because when fans reduce queer characters to either something fetishised or infantilised, it erases the very real lived experience of these groups.
While we’re tangentially there, why does writing Patrick as Ace/Demi in fanfiction also matter? Because firstly the same kind of representation we’re talking about across this discussion. Because it allows Ace/Demi folks to have a voice and be seen. The same way David Rose allows Pan folks to be seen and have a voice. To borrow David’s phrase ‘I feel like that should be celebrated’ allowing people a voice is important. The thing about fanfiction too is it allows for these canon-adjacent explorations. The things hinted at in the show but not explored. So for example, every one of David’s terrible relationships are hinted at and not detailed in the show, which has led to fans’ conclusion David has had at best dysfunctional, at worst abusive relationships in the past and written fics about it. That’s no more a leap than taking hints that align with Demisexuality and exploring them in fic. Or if we’re going down the sexual route too, there’s no canonical evidence David and Patrick enjoy any or all of the various sexual fetishes explored in fanfiction, but that’s never stopped anyone writing them. Nor has it meant fans got shamed for writing them.
Why again might it be an obstacle for fans writing demisexuality? Because again, all of the above; the idea that asexuals don’t belong. The idea that unless it’s a super cute or super-hot version of the characters people love, it doesn’t ‘count’.
And here is why it breaks my heart.
Demisexual Patrick is the Patrick I love. I loved that version of him before I had the word for it. Before I had the word for myself. He and that reading and specifically the writing of him gave me that language for myself.
When I read/talked about and yes wrote Patrick in fanfiction, I wrote him as a demisexual gay man. I wrote all the feelings I interpreted from canon into a man who had never really, truly fallen for someone. Someone who in never really falling, or connecting with someone, had never felt that ‘thing’ you’re supposed to feel. Until it was David until the birds started singing and music started playing. For me, that’s what made Patrick’s sexuality ‘click’ the fact that he ‘clicked’ with someone.
Long story short someone commented on a fanfic that he read as demisexual in my writing. I got excited, realised I had a word for how I’d read him. That person promptly squashed my excitement by declaring ‘that’s not how he’s written in canon though’
Well maybe he’s not but he’s not written as a leather fetish loving dominatrix either but that hasn’t stopped people.
But the point is, there’s much unsaid in canon. Of every show, but if we stick with this one. David isn’t named as having anxiety, depression or even autism, but these are valid interpretations of the show and the character that have been written in fiction and analysis. Moira’s mental illness isn’t named, and there are many interpretations of that also. All these readings help people, just like the stories where David has and survives abusive relationships. Or Patrick helps David overcome his anxiety, or takes care of him while depressed. Patrick himself never names his sexuality out loud (his parents do, he doesn’t) so why then is it such a leap to let people have the reading that helps them?
Because it helped me. I wouldn’t have the words for who I am if it wasn’t for Patrick Brewer. Those conversations there- and later with other fic writers and other Ace fans (in every sense of the word) of the show led me to see I wasn’t the only one reading him that way. I could cry with relief that I wasn’t crazy in reading him, and me that way. That revelation changed my life. Hearing him say ‘you make me feel right’ and realising I had never felt right, led me on a path that changed my life. It doesn’t matter if ‘my’ Patrick Brewer isn’t your Patrick Brewer. What surely matters most, what is in the ethos of the show, is that he led me to understand who I am.
Why does it matter in the bigger sense then?
Representation. You can’t be what you can’t see. Even if you have to do a little creative interpreting.
For me then, reading Patrick Brewer as demisexual was a huge part of my own experience of identifying my asexuality. But also, as a sometimes scholar of TV too, it’s a great exercise in reading TV through different lenses.
It’s not about whether the character is canonically asexual, it’s about what the character means. I can look at more canon-ish or canon-adjacent characters I’ve loved in my past too. So looking back I loved The Doctor from Doctor Who (almost certainly, canonically ace) and Sherlock Holmes in several incarnations (Ace-adjacent depending on the interpretation) or Mr Data and Seven of Nine in Star Trek (Canonically Ace in spirit if not name). More recently I’ve sought out books with ace characters and they have had a huge life-changing impact. I’ve even written my own Ace characters in my own work.
‘But he doesn’t tick all the boxes’
He doesn’t tick all the cliche boxes for a gay man, because guess what there isn’t an exam to pass for either. But in particular, in ace-spec identities, it’s a spectrum. So if Patrick doesn’t tick all the boxes but if he ticks enough for us to see as one of us, that matters. Even if not written as Demi there is so little Ace-Spectrum representation in media anyway that it’s important there are a character viewers can read in this way. Lagging behind other representations, ace-spectrum folks are where gay and lesbian folks were a generation ago- reading between the lines to find representations.
Finally reading Patrick as Demi also doesn’t alter his story. But he alters ours, it altered mine. That in the scheme of things is why it matters.
You can get my book ‘The Queer Revolution of Schitt’s Creek’ a collection of essays on the queer narratives in Schitt’s Creek from 404 Ink here
