Not 'All or Nothing': How a lost TV sitcom idea taught me prude-slut solidarity

Emerging Queer Voices is a monthly LGBTQ arts and culture column that features different up-and-coming LGBTQ writers. You can read more about the series and find all published editions here.

Imagine a buddy sitcom about a pair of roommates. One is pansexual and the other is asexual. Here's the twist: the pansexual … is introverted, and the asexual … is extroverted.

So begins the premise for All or Nothing, the worst and best TV show to never exist.

In 2014, a now-infamous Tumblr post proposed a series following these unlikely roommates. The idea was reblogged widely, spawned an impressive volume of fan art, and culminated in a legendary Indiegogo campaign to produce the series in real life.

But the show was never actualized. Teenagers disappeared with the crowdfunded profits, spurring over a decade of outraged memes since. To this day, the very concept of All or Nothing is Tumblr shorthand for "scam." A questionable GoFundMe posted to the site is liable to receive the comment, "While you're at it, why not film a show about a pansexual and an asexual?"

All or Nothing has become a seemingly immortal symbol of early 2010s queer internet culture. Yes, the premise was insultingly heavy-handed. Yes, it was emblematic of the misguided hyperfocus on representation above all else. However, I remain struck by how closely the show mirrored my own reality.

I was an outgoing social butterfly of an asexual aromantic who shared a bedroom with my kinky, pansexual, socially anxious sibling. They would sneak out to visit BDSM munches and panic over ambiguous text messages. I would read poetry in front of hundreds of people, but spit and retch if anyone asked me on a date. We coordinated a system for their "alone time" in our shared bedroom. We imagined a better world together. It was a harmonious existence that has been foundational to my queer politics ever since.

To us, All or Nothing was not a novel juxtaposition. I taught my sibling to dirty dance. They researched asexual-friendly doctors for me. They were president of our high school's Gender and Sexuality Alliance. I inherited the title after their graduation. They advocated against Bill C-36 and the criminalization of sex work, then pursued a curatorial studies degree with a focus on pornography. I began working in consent education and co-founded PRUDEmag, a consciousness-building publication politicizing the word "prude" in the way I'd seen sex workers reclaim "slut." Our queernesses were of complementary species, functioning better in tandem than they ever could in isolation.

The subversion of stereotypes about our identities was the least compelling aspect of All or Nothing. It was self-evident that I was not a timid, uncomfortable Sheldon Cooper, and they were not a brash, unhinged Tila Tequila. In years since, some media has emerged to better portray both asexuality and pansexuality, but I am uninspired by being individually depicted, like lab specimens divorced from our environments. I am more intrigued by the relationship between these characters. Why is it that despite today's improved queer representation, the "prude" and the "slut" are still imagined as enemies?

The goals of so-called "prudes" and so-called "sluts" are considered antithetical. How could a supposed free-loving, sex-positive philosophy coexist with a presumed opposition to sexuality itself? 

In reality, our communities have a long history of working together to support freedom from the sexual status quo — whether that means the freedom to say yes to pleasure or the freedom to say no to expectations.

All or Nothing represented a challenge to these flattened politics and this false opposition. In reality, "prude" and "slut" are not inverse pejoratives, but converging epithets that seek to limit our sexual agency. My sibling has been called a prude in some contexts, and I have been slut-shamed in others, proving that these derogatory terms at times barely correspond to our actual sexual behaviours and instead reflect how an outsider seeks to control us in that moment.

The principles of each of our communities hold immense value for those outside of them. Prudes teach us the power in celebrating our boundaries, the necessity of prioritizing community beyond our romantic-sexual partner, and the meaning of intimacy beyond the sexual. Sluts teach us to seek true connection across barriers, to shamelessly investigate our desires, and to express our needs without apology. Both ask us to listen to our bodies and discover what we really want, rejecting the societal assumptions that too often govern our lives.

When you look for examples, you will find prudes and sluts working together everywhere. The emphasis on full-spectrum consent in BDSM circles mirrors that of asexual communities. Sex workers exemplify a prude politic every time they enforce boundaries at work. Asexuals demystify pleasure by expanding its definition to include the non-sexual. Polyamorists complexify relationship hierarchies in a similar fashion to aromantics. Queers of all genres recognize that the rules set upon our relationships serve only to reproduce power dynamics, and in disrupting these, we make all of us more free.

All or Nothing affirms that active solidarity is as much a shared battle as it is a goofball sitcom. Picture my sibling's exasperation as I found myself on another accidental date while they suffered through a silent crush. I remember being asked to covertly hide a mail-ordered sex toy, and still reflect on their coaching on how to reject romantic advances more politely. If I have learned anything from my queerness, it is that justice-seeking alongside those of contrasting experiences is not only powerful. It is also frequently messy, awkward, and hilarious.

It is unlikely that All or Nothing will ever escape notoriety. But in its own corny way, the series's premise confronted assumptions and showed where our commonalities lie. In all of our modern queer media, we have failed to create anything like it. More than 10 years later, the myth of this "show that never was" serves as a welcome reminder that sexual liberation is not, in fact, all or nothing.