at what this post will be about. Go on.
Surprise! Chances are that you were right! I do want to talk about House.
Now, I know that this subject has been discussed and ranted about to death over the past week, but after watching the episode, I really need to vent my feelings in some way, and a blog post seemed as good a way as any.
So. For those who do not know, a recent House episode titled “Better Half” portrayed an asexual couple as a subplot. The plot basicly goes like this: married ace woman has a bladder infection. Ace woman goes to clinic. Wilson wants to run a pregnancy test. Ace woman says that she’s ace. Ace woman says that her husband is ace. Wilson reads article about asexuality and mentions it to House. House is convinced that she is ugly and single. House bets Wilson $100 that he can disprove their asexuality. House finds tumor messing with the pituitary of ace woman’s husband. The tumor causes lowered libido and erectile dysfunction. Wilson tells couple. Husband says “I don’t want to be one of them” Wife admits she lied for 10+ years about being ace. House collects $100.
I have been unfortunately out of touch with the asexual community recently, and did not know ahead of time that this episode was going to be airing. I will admit that hearing the word ‘asexual’ coming from the the room with the tv while working on homework surprised me. It was totally unexpected. I had never heard the word mentioned by anyone other than me, the internet, and the one random person who introduced me to asexuality. The tv does not talk about asexuality very often, so it was a shock. Enough to pry me away from my fascinating AP cal work to see what the tv was saying.
I only heard part of the episode the first time around (the part where House disproves the couple’s asexuality and Wilson pays him $100) and what I heard hurt. I was not planning on watching the episode until I read some truly excellent blog posts and felt that I needed to see the episode to fully understand what they were talking about. I’ll link to some of those posts below.
I want to talk about the writer of the episode’s pseudo-apology, but first I want to describe how this episode will effect me as an individual, then the community as a whole.
My mother saw the episode. To be more clear, my mother saw the last half of the episode. She missed everything near the beginning about asexuality being a valid orientation and 1% of the population is ace, and all the things that Wilson says (that House proves wrong) about asexuality and happy relationships. All she saw was House utterly dispelling the myth of asexuality and insulting asexual people.
I am not out to my family. My mother has said before that I’m “just lulling us into a false sense of security, so that just when we are worried about you never having a boyfriend, you’ll start dating and we’ll be so relieved that we’ll approve” And it seemed as though she had never heard of asexuality before this episode. She already thinks that there is a problem with people not being interested in dating, so I can only imagine what this episode has done to her image of asexuality, if she even has one before this episode.
By the time that I feel ready to come out to my family, maybe she will have forgotten the episode, though I doubt it. The episode included so many harmful stereotypes, not to mention discrediting the asexuality of not one but two characters that I think that some of it will stick. And this episode will influence her reaction when I come out.
But enough about me. Here is the “apology” that Kath Lingenfelter (the writer) came up with.
I am trying to communicate with several of the people of the asexual community who were displeased, so forgive me if I repeat myself. I did a lot of research on asexuality for the episode. My original intent was to introduce it and legitimize it, because I was struck by the response most of you experience, which is similar to the prejudice the homosexual community has received. People hear you’re asexual and they immediately think, “What’s wrong with you, how do I fix you?” I wanted to write against that. Unfortunately, we are a medical mystery show. Time & again, my notes came back that House needed to solve a mystery and not be wrong. So in THIS CASE, with THESE patients, it was a tumor near the pituitary. But I hoped I could (now it seems unsuccessfully) introduce asexuality to the general public and get them asking questions. All they need to do is one google search and they can see for themselves it’s a real community of great people. Originally, part of my dialog included thoughts about whether as a species we’ve grown past sex. Any time we tackle a subject, we risk the possibility of not doing it justice. I apologize that you feel I did you a disservice. It was not my intent.
[…]
Asexuality is a new topic for me and definitely one I find fascinating. It is a subject I would like to continue to explore here or ..on future shows I write for. I think it speaks to where humans are now and where we are going. I will do my best in the future to do it justice. Thank you for feedback and please share any and all thoughts.
Where do you even begin with this?
I did a lot of research on asexuality
How do I put this? Hmmmm.
You did a lot of research of asexuality for the episode the exact same way I did a lot of studying for my last AP history quiz: By skimming through some of the information without really understanding any of it. Both the “research” and the “studying”, I might add, resulted in absolute failure.
Someone who did “a lot of research” would know that there are plenty of asexual-sexual relationships that work. The sexual person doesn’t have to lie to the ace, though if there is lying going on, it is usually the other way around.
Someone who did “a lot of research” would know that asexuality doesn’t mean the same thing as erectile dysfunction or weird hormone levels. Erectile dysfunction doesn’t mean that a person is ace. It means that they have erectile dysfunction.
Someone who did “a lot of research” would know that most aces aren’t asexual elitists. You would be hard pressed to find someone in the asexual community who believes that people who want and or have sex are somehow lower than aces. Most don’t think that, yet it is one of the most prevalent stereotypes about asexuality. “I don’t want to be one of them” encourages people to believe that aces view themselves as ‘higher up’ than the rest of humanity who feel sexual attraction. The ace elitist viewpoint makes so sense, and neither does its inclusion in the episode.
My original intent was to introduce it and legitimize it…Unfortunately, we are a medical mystery show. Time & again, my notes came back that House needed to solve a mystery and not be wrong.
I’ll take your word that you originally wanted to cast asexuality in a good light. But once your notes came back, saying that you couldn’t write an episode that legitimized asexuality, why didn’t you drop the subject?
Assume for a moment that you are a writer for the show. You write an episode about homosexuality, in which a happy homosexual couple is cast in a good light, and House (who originally acts like a bigot) realizes that the sick gay person’s disease has nothing to do with their sexual orientation. Everyone ends up happy (except House, but he is never happy) and homosexuality is legitimized.
You are then told that that can’t happen. House MUST prove that neither person is really gay. Do you write the incredibly offensive piece denouncing homosexuality, and passing it off as an illness? Probably not.
But that example is different. Everyone has heard of gay people. Most people have never heard of asexuality. If Fox did something like that to the gay community, they would lose most of their viewers. People would boycott them. There would be public outrage.
Instead, they chose to pick on asexuality. The tiny 1% that most people don’t know of. Asexuality has a relitively tiny community, and while much of the community is outraged, why should Fox care? We’re tiny. People don’t notice us. Enough people would not take up the cause.
But I hoped I could (now it seems unsuccessfully) introduce asexuality to the general public and get them asking questions. All they need to do is one google search and they can see for themselves it’s a real community of great people.
Newsflash. People are lazy. Googling takes effort.
Originally, part of my dialog included thoughts about whether as a species we’ve grown past sex…I think it speaks to where humans are now and where we are going
First off, she’s gotten evolution mixed up. If all humans were to magically become asexual (which wouldn’t happen. we’re the 1% remember?) the species would die out. Evolution is based on sex. Who survives long enough to pass on their genes. Humans aren’t going towards a world with less sex…just check out the advertising industry.
Any time we tackle a subject, we risk the possibility of not doing it justice. I apologize that you feel I did you a disservice. It was not my intent.
It’s good that this was not her intent I suppose, but with the damage that this episode has done to the community, I’m not sure if the intent even matters at this point. From now on the reactions “What’s wrong with you?” “You can get that fixed” “You’re lying” and other such responses will become more frequent. More people will believe that aces think that we’re better than the rest of the population. The general response to asexuality will probably be increasingly negative, because this was the first time many people had ever heard the term ‘asexual.’ The damage is done.
I will do my best in the future to do it justice.
Please don’t. I’m not sure how much more damage our community can take.
Links to other posts:
The Asexual Sexologist
Writing from Factor X
An Asexual Space
Shades of Gray
just a spinster. 