Trope: “Asexuality = A Ploy for Attention/A Medical Condition/A Lie”
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| Image description: Over half of this post is about one episode of one TV show, that TV show being the Fox medical drama House, following the titular doctor shown here. |
When most people hear Moby-Dick, they think of Captain Ahab and his mad revenge quest against the titular great whale; when I as a Trekkie hear it, I think of The Wrath of Khan, as well as the pivotal scene in Star Trek: First Contact (because, in the immortal words of Lily Sloan, I never read it). Just like Ahab had Moby-Dick and Picard had the Borg, I too have a white whale that haunts me – the subject of today’s essay and the last of my trope series, the trope that says asexuality is a medical condition, a ploy for attention, or a lie. This trope is truly an example of saving the worst for last, or perhaps an example of hoping that if I ignore something long enough it will go away. But alas, this trope is something that cannot simply be ignored or brushed aside, because it is the most insidious of the tropes used against asexual people and the one that arguably has the most damaging real world implications.
House ("Better Half")
If
you know me, have experience with aspec analysis, or are aspec yourself (or if
you just recognize the cover picture of this post), then you probably know what
the main example of this trope is going to be. But before I dive into the
obvious, I want to start with some other perhaps less obvious examples of this
trope, as well as define it a little better. While my name for this trope makes
it pretty clear what it implies, it goes a bit deeper than that. All the aphobic tropes I’ve discussed so far
carry with them the implication that asexual people are broken or confused, but
this one spells it out in great detail. Much like the notion that asexuals need to be fixed, this trope is
the crowning glory of aphobia, as it not only discredits asexuality, it
disproves it, all while dressing up its insidiousness to make this process look
helpful or even necessary.
As
with many tropes, a clear example of this can be seen in the character of Sheldon Cooper from The Big Bang
Theory, specifically the season six episode “The Cooper/Kripke Inversion.”
In this episode, Sheldon’s friend Penny point-blank asks him if he ever plans
to sleep with his girlfriend Amy, a question which is dismissively tossed out
using the phrase “what’s the deal?” Even worse than the degrading nature of
this question is the fact that Sheldon responds by saying he is “working on”
his aversion to “normal” instance of physical contact, so that one day a
physical relationship with Amy is “a possibility.” Thus, not only have
Sheldon’s non-sexual tendencies been horribly and problematically portrayed up
until this point, this episode takes those tendencies and simply labels them as phobias, a fear of being touched that Sheldon is attempting to work
through.
I’ve
talked before about how asexual people are often labeled as “prudes” because of their
non-sexual natures and have mentioned the ways allosexual people can look down on asexual (and
aromantic) people as lacking emotional development because of
their identities, both of which have shades of this notion. The Big
Bang Theory is not the only show to directly equate non-sexual tendencies
to phobias, however, and there is a similar instance of this phenomena with
the character of Emma Pillsbury, the guidance counselor and OCD-sufferer from
the Fox musical series, Glee. Although Emma is more an example of a "celibate" character than an asexual one, the way she is treated is nevertheless
extremely troubling from an aspec lens. This is because her lack of sexual
desire is primarily framed as an offshoot of her OCD, which is likewise insultingly framed
as a defect to be mocked, belittled, and otherwise disrespected. Additionally,
both Emma’s OCD and her lack of sexuality are portrayed as crippling to her
relationships, her personal life, and her happiness. The way she’s written
often highlights the ways her OCD affects her life, but does so by relating it
to her virginity and making both of these things seem shameful. Just like
Sheldon, Emma is portrayed as being dysfunctional and thus in need of fixing,
both when it comes to her OCD and her non-sexual nature.
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| Image description: Throughout Glee, a series which is supposed to be about diversity and acceptance, Emma is mocked and belittled by people for her OCD and is especially disparaged for being non-sexual, as other non-sexual characters are throughout the series. |
The
show portrays this in ways that make Emma seem like she is either deficient or
like she’s simply bound up in her love for glee club leader Will Schuster,
particularly at times when Emma is in relationships with other people. For
instance, when she gets married in season two to someone who is not Will, a
major plot point centers on the fact that Emma is still a virgin despite this
marriage. Once again, this is not portrayed as any kind of asexuality, but
rather is portrayed as something that stems from her OCD and her leftover
feelings for Will. Eventually, her husband leaves her and annuls the marriage
on the grounds that it was never consummated. The plot point is an obvious
quick fix for the star-crossed Emma and Will, but in order to do that, it makes
use of a very real fear that some asexual people have about whether or not their
relationships will be seen as valid when sex is not involved.
In
both Sheldon and Emma’s cases, their non-sexual tendencies are eventually
forgotten and they “get over” their hang-ups with intimacy, which seems to be
the general way asexuality (and aromanticism too) is portrayed in most media – as something that will
eventually go by the wayside. For both of these characters, their potentially
asexual nature is not considered a good or valid thing; it’s a problem, a defect,
and a shield, all of which real life asexual people often hear as well. In my own
experience, I have heard allosexual people refer to asexual identities
in very similar terms. Meanwhile, a quick scroll through social media makes it
clear that there are those who believe aspec identities are actually just
childish lies, used to make people feel special or unique. This not only
ignores the struggles aspec people go through, but completely dismisses the
experiences of people on the asexual and aromantic spectrums and the struggle for visibility.
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| Image description: I have talked many times about the problematic elements of Sheldon's relationship with Amy in The Big Bang Theory. Portraying Sheldon's initial lack of sexual interest in her as merely a touch phobia is chief among these, and sadly not just limited to this show or this character. |
These
examples would be bad enough for the ways they dovetail with other tropes and
the way they prey upon real issues in the asexual community. However, up until
this point, these examples of somewhat asexual or non-sexual characters are all
extrapolated - never have these characters identified as asexual on-screen nor
do their creators dub them as such. Indeed, all the examples I’ve used
throughout my trope essays could be seen as merely ignorance of aspec identities and
nothing more. But there is one example that cannot be denied, and it comes in
Fox’s medical drama House in the eighth season episode “Better
Half,” where we are introduced to a side plot that dismisses asexuality – by
name – as nothing more than a lie and an illness.
[Warning:
This episode is extremely aphobic, read with caution]
House’s titular doctor Gregory House is
based a bit on Sherlock Holmes, solving bizarre medical mysteries with the same
type of cold calculation. Therefore it is not surprising that the cynical and
manipulative Dr. House – whose motto is “everybody lies” – would offer us an
equally cynical view of asexuality. But “Better Half” cannot just be dismissed
as “House being House”, but rather perfectly illustrates all the points made in
this post so far. First of all, the asexual couple in “Better Half” is a side
plot, which reduces their function to basically a sideshow for the more
important patient-of-the-week main plot. Problematic as they are, at least if
the couple was featured as the show’s main plot, we’d be encouraged to feel
more empathy for them and perhaps the show would engage in more of a discussion
about their identity. But since the asexual couple is featured merely as clinic
patients whom we are not meant to really care about, the show and its writers
are intrinsically letting them be meddled with.
The
first we see of the asexual patients comes in the form of the wife, Kayla, who
has a bladder infection and reveals during Dr. Wilson’s examination of her that
she does not have sex due to her and her husband’s asexuality. When Wilson
tells House about the patient, House bets with him that he can find a medical
reason why Kayla does not want to have sex. House betting on the asexual
patients is not particularly surprising; however, it is a shock to see Wilson
agree to have House mettle with the patients’ lives. As viewers we are meant to
like both doctors – we're supposed to like House much in the same way we
begrudgingly like Sheldon and Sherlock – but we are supposed to relate and
sympathize with Wilson (just as we are meant to sympathize with his counterpart
in Sherlockian media, Dr. John Watson). Therefore, when we see not just House,
but both House and Wilson treat this couple like a riddle to
be solved, it feels as though we as viewers are meant to join in and to have a
personal hand in the triumph House will eventually feel.
While
the episode’s main case rages on, we are offered a sort of “comic relief” as
House brings in the women on his team to help him crack the mystery of Kayla’s
lack of sex drive despite her tests showing she has normal hormone levels.
Together with House, the two women theorize everything from a spinal cord
injury, to a lack of a chemical in the brain that would help her build
relationships, to what turns out to be the true answer – she’s a liar (we’ll
get to this later). More interesting than their spit-balling, however, is the
fact that one of the women wonders why it matters. House’s answer? Because sex
is a primary biological function. Nothing gives House
the right to decide this couple needs to be having sex just because it is, in
his view, a basic function, but since House is the show’s vehicle for
storytelling, we get little else.
Later,
House brings in Kayla’s husband under false pretenses in order to test him -
his new theory is that only the husband is asexual (although he also believes
there’s a medical reason for it) and that Kayla is lying because she loves her
husband and wants to be with him. House dubs this frankly disturbing meddling
as doing the couple a favor and, even when Wilson informs him he will destroy
the couple’s happiness, House replies that Wilson is only assuming the couple
is happy. Once again we are treated to the idea that love and happiness in a
relationship cannot exist without sex, a very offensive notion, particularly
for the romantic spectrum of the asexual community. To see it tossed out
humorously by House as if he is doing the couple a favor is demoralizing at
best and destructive at worst.
However,
all of these things could have been negated if the episode decided to end on a
respectful note and have it turn out the couple is actually happily asexual
after all. Imagine if the results of the test had come back inconclusive or had
shown nothing; imagine House being left without the smug satisfaction of
solving this “case” and was left with a narrative that showed him he was not
always right and could not always play God. But instead the episode veers down
the easy route as House discovers that Kayla’s husband has a tumor in his
pituitary gland - shrink the tumor, fix the lack of sex drive. When Wilson
breaks the news to the couple, the husband asks what would happen if he refused
treatment for the tumor. This is a heartbreaking scene, but “Better Half” does
not allow this to be as heartbreaking as it should be; instead Kayla tells her
husband that everything will be okay since she has already had sex before and
enjoys it. When her husband looks at her in astonished indignation, she merely
replies that “a girl has needs”.
That’s
it – no conversation about the far-reaching, traumatic repercussions this may
have for the man, no condemnation of House’s actions, no real debate about sex
and sexuality. Instead, the entire asexual plotline can be boiled down to House’s
line, “lots of people don’t have sex. The only people who don’t want sex
are either sick, dead, or lying”. The previous examples explored in this essay
also put forth this idea to a certain extent, but none directly mention
asexuality or show a doctor diagnosing it. At the end of the episode, we see
Wilson confront House again, giving him the $100 that was the prize money for
the bet. House once again states that he got the couple back on track to a
“healthy sex life”, once again ignoring that he basically destroyed the
husband’s sense of identity. It becomes obvious that House doesn't care at all about the
bet, as he uses the hundred-dollar bill to light a cigar, but even more
shocking is that Wilson sits down and joins him. The premise of House has
always been that House is allowed to be unorthodox as long as he gets results,
but through these plot elements "Better Half" takes it a step further
and rewards House for these behaviors, which again goes to
reinforce the idea that destroying asexuality is not a big deal.
More
jarring than just the in-episode ramifications are the real world results we
see this having. Although several members of the asexual community spoke out in
dismay against the way asexuality was portrayed – including AVEN founder David
Jay – for the most part, other review sites completely missed how problematic
this portrayal is. For example, the AV Club's reviewer, when hitting the major
elements of the episode, refers to the asexuality plot as "a goofy enough
subplot with Wilson" and later goes on to describe "House’s quest to
disprove asexuality” by saying it "wasn’t too terrible.” In another review
from a website called WhatCulture (which I can now no longer find), the
reviewer describes the asexuality plot point by saying asexuality is
"viewed by some as a legitimate sexual orientation"
[bold added] and then never mentions the plot point again for the rest
of the review. While these reviews are depressing, it’s hard to blame the
reviewers for merely going where the episode encouraged them to go in the first
place. In fact, it’s difficult for any viewer who is not already familiar with
asexuality to get to any other conclusion when House refers to Kayla as a
"giant pool of algae". In this way, House and
“Better Half” are a perfect demonstration of how media shapes real life
understandings about difficult concepts such as sex and sexuality, and thus
should be taken seriously and analyzed.
Perhaps
my own personal experience with this episode is what spurred me into the
asexual analysis I do now. The me who watched this episode in 2012 was still in
the early days of embracing my asexual identity and was thus very excited by
the notion that my burgeoning identity would be featured on a popular
television show. I’m sure you can imagine the crushing devastation I felt when
I encountered this aphobic mess instead (a lengthy closed doors crying session
may have been involved). Thus, you can see why this episode haunts me in so
many ways; the last time I gave my “Asexuality in Media” presentation to an audience,
in fact, I described myself as being forced to talk about this “for exactly all
of forever” and lamented the fact that “I can’t get away from it.” But I hope
you can also see why it becomes of paramount importance for us to point out
these problematic representations when we see them, in the hopes that maybe we
can inspire creators to take a new look at the way they portray asexuality in
the future.
Now
that I’ve discussed it on my blog, I have to wonder if I can finally get out
from underneath the weight of “Better Half” once and for all – or any of these
characters throughout different media. Discussing this trope does indeed have a
certain catharsis to it, but alas, I nevertheless find myself wondering if
escaping this trope can be that easy. As I mentioned earlier in the post, this
trope has real-world implications and I speak from experience, since it
probably has the most real-world implications for me of any of the tropes I've discussed. I am not exaggerating
when I call this trope my white whale, because to this day, I actually suffer
from a somewhat debilitating fear of going to the doctor precisely because of
this trope. Although I am confident in my identity, I nevertheless find myself
terrified by the idea that someone could come along and disprove it much like House does to his patient in “Better Half”. This terror keeps me on high alert
constantly and means I tend to not prioritize (or even outright ignore) my
health because the potential consequences of a doctor’s visit have me
petrified. I know, of course, this is irrational, but it nevertheless lurks in
the back of my mind, keeping me from ever fully being comfortable in my own
skin.
At
its core, that is the main reason why this and all the other tropes I’ve
discussed are extremely important to shed light upon. These tropes are
insidious precisely because they prey on the comfort, safety, and confidence of
aspec people like me. These tropes lock us into a prison of
self-doubt and anxiety, fear and guardedness, forbidding us from ever being our
true selves. The only way to erode the bars of that prison is to talk about
these tropes and to shed light on the way they limit the asexual and aromantic community. I
hope the analysis and stories I’ve shared with you regarding these tropes have
helped provide a little light, but my experience is just one of many and my
thoughts on the matter are not the only ones to exist. There are a lot of aspec
voices that deserve to be heard and a lot of analysis to be had.
Whether in 1967 with Star Trek’s “The Apple” and the ways it paints the Vaalians as children, or in 2019 with The Big Bang Theory’s questionable treatment of Sheldon Cooper, these varied tropes are woven into the fabric of our media landscape. But asexual and aromantic people are not children to be ignored, prudes to be silenced, liars to be discredited, or sick individuals to be cured. We are more than the sum of these limiting tropes and more than the cringeworthy media portrayals we see. It’s time to pull at the threads of the aphobic tropes we see in media in the hopes we can find something better underneath it all.
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