press & interviews
i’m a good source, and i answer fast.
i’m an asexual writer with an audience of over a million views a quarter who mostly found me because i named something they had felt their whole lives. if you are writing about asexuality, attraction, friendship or loneliness and you want somebody who will speak plainly and on the record, that’s me.
everything on this page is yours to use without asking: the bios, the photo, the numbers, and quotes i have already said publicly. if you need something that isn’t here, email me and i’ll send it the same day.
ria@riadms.com for press, interviews, panels and podcasts.
looking to sponsor something instead? the rates and the audience breakdown are at riadms.com/partner.
the fast version
- who
- ria dumitrescu. writer and video essayist. asexual, and out publicly since the channel started.
- age
- 22.
- based
- moves between cities for university. san francisco, taipei and tokyo so far.
- channel
- essay channel on attraction, love and friendship. launched april 2026.
- reach
- over a million views a quarter, and 1.6 million lifetime. 11,200 subscribers.
- best known for
- an explainer naming the kinds of attraction most people are never taught. past 200,000 views.
- also
- weekly letter, weekly podcast, and riadms.com.
- books
- self-published a novel at sixteen. finishing a romance novel, closer than touching.
bios, three lengths
copy whichever fits. all three are current and all three are accurate.
one line
ria dumitrescu is a 22-year-old asexual writer whose video essays on attraction and love draw over a million views a quarter.
short
ria dumitrescu is a 22-year-old asexual writer and video essayist. her channel about attraction, love and friendship draws over a million views a quarter, including an explainer on the kinds of attraction most people are never taught, which passed 200,000. she writes a weekly letter at riadms.com.
full
ria dumitrescu is a 22-year-old asexual writer and video essayist. at sixteen she wrote and self-published a novel about a young woman with a dissociative disorder, after months of interviewing people with the diagnosis, because the only versions of them she could find in fiction were villains; readers wrote to her from three continents. she now makes an essay channel about attraction, love and friendship, which draws over a million views a quarter, 96% of them from people who do not subscribe, and has 11,200 subscribers. her explainer on the kinds of attraction people are never given words for has passed 200,000 views, and its comments are several thousand people saying they had felt something their whole lives and never had a name for it. she writes a weekly letter and makes a weekly podcast at riadms.com, and is finishing a romance novel, closer than touching.
name: ria dumitrescu, lowercase is fine and is how i write it. pronouns: she/her.
photo
free to use with a credit to ria dumitrescu. right-click to save, or download it here.
if you need something at print resolution, a different crop, or a landscape frame, email me and you’ll have it within a few hours.
what i can actually speak to
not a list of things i have opinions about. these are the subjects i have researched, made videos about, and answered thousands of comments on.
asexuality, from the inside
- what the world actually looks like without sexual attraction, described rather than defined.
- the difference between asexual and aromantic, which almost every article gets wrong.
- being in a long-term relationship with someone who is not asexual.
- why “you just haven’t found the right person” lands the way it does.
compulsory sexuality
- the rule that everyone is supposed to want sex, and how it grades people who are not ace.
- adrienne rich’s 1980 argument, widened one notch, and kristina gupta’s 2015 work on it.
- the diagnostic manual’s exception you can only claim if you already know the word.
- the “sex recession” numbers, and why the panic about them is the story.
friendship and the hierarchy
- why one romantic partner is now expected to do the work of six relationships.
- platonic life partners, and people building a life with someone they will never date.
- the grief of a friendship ending by drifting, with no breakup to mark it.
- why “just friends” is the most dismissive phrase in english.
the vocabulary problem
- the kinds of attraction: sexual, romantic, aesthetic, sensual, intellectual, platonic, alterous.
- why a video that is essentially a vocabulary lesson reached 200,000 people.
- what several thousand comments saying “i finally have a word” actually tell us.
- loneliness in your twenties, and the language we do not have for it.
i also do panels, podcasts and university talks, and i am reliably available around ace week in late october.
quotes you can use right now
every one of these i have already said publicly, on video. quote them as ria dumitrescu without booking an interview. if you want something said fresh, or said about your specific angle, email me.
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People ask what it’s like to not feel sexual attraction, and it’s like asking a fish what water feels like. It isn’t a thing I experience. It’s the thing everyone else experiences everything through.
on describing asexuality
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I see someone beautiful and I say, they’re beautiful. It’s the same beauty I see in a sunset. I might look for a few minutes. But there’s no next step. The appreciation exists on its own, and that’s enough.
on aesthetic attraction
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You can’t miss what you never had. It’s like a sixth finger. You don’t walk around feeling its absence. Your hand just works.
on the idea that asexuality is a deficit
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My boyfriend thought asexual meant I couldn’t be touched. Not sex. Any of it. He imagined I would flinch if he hugged me.
on what people assume about ace relationships
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We ask one romantic partner to be the passion and the finances and the emotional support and the intellectual spark and the domestic teammate. No one person holds that. We didn’t get worse at love. We started asking love to do the work of ten relationships.
on why modern relationships strain
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Calling these relationships just friendship is like calling the ocean just water. Technically accurate. Entirely missing the point.
on platonic love
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However much you want sex, a lot, a little, never, that was always allowed. There is no correct amount. There’s just yours, and somebody should have asked.
on compulsory sexuality
one more thing, and i mean it kindly. the story is usually not “here is a person who doesn’t want sex.” it’s that a lot of people are walking around with feelings they were never given words for, and mine is just the clearest case. that’s the piece i would want to read.