COMMENTARY | If you haven’t seen the show “House,” you’ve probably been living under a rock for the past several years. The medical drama centers around a diagnostics team, run by Dr. Gregory House, as it tries to solve a variety of medical mysteries. What really sets the show apart from others the fact that all episodes are based on real-life medical conditions, helping to bring awareness to otherwise unheard of conditions. Overall, the show is extremely popular, previously being rated as one of the top 10 rated shows in the country. A recent episode of the hit show has left fans in an uproar however, leaving many wondering what the writers were thinking.
The episode, titled “Better Half,” features a women coming into the clinic for a routine bladder problem. Dr. Wilson, often the voice of reason in the hit show, tells her she’ll need to take a test to rule out pregnancy. The women then matter-of-factly states that even though she’s been married for over 10 years, she doesn’t need to take a pregnancy test because she doesn’t have sex … both her and her husband are asexual.
Dr. Wilson then stares at the women, mouth slightly agape, then peers at his clipboard, stating, “I’m not sure which box to check here…”
Now, for those who aren’t aware, asexuality is a sexual orientation where a person, male or female, experiences no sexual attraction. It’s different from celibacy, which is a choice. Aseuxals may still be romantically attracted to a person, wanting to date, hug, kiss, or be married, but they do not get ‘turned on’ in the same manner that sexual people do. Simply put, an asexual has no need or desire to have sex just as a heterosexual man has no need or desire to have sex with another male.
The episode then cuts to a scene of Dr. House and Dr. Wilson meeting for lunch. Wilson is peering at a magazine before making the comment,
“My patient is asexual. Apparently 1 percent of the population is … at least according to this magazine.”
House gives Wilson his typical “yeah, right” look before asking if his patient is a pile of algae. The two doctors both express skepticism in asexuality as as sexual orientation. They then agree to make a bet that there’s really a medical condition explain why both the patient and her husband aren’t interested in sex.
As the episode progresses, House and his team of doctors run countless tests on the women, checking her hormones and anything else they can think of that would cause lack of libido. When nothing turns up, one of the doctors states “she must have been abused as a child.”
Refusing to give up, Dr. House then decides to run tests of the women’s asexual husband. When he notices a slight hormone imbalance, he discovers that the man has a tumor growing near the pituitary gland in his brain. The side effects, of course, includes erectile dysfunction.
When the man is told about the tumor, he declines treatment at first, stating that he’s happy being asexual and doesn’t want to force his wife to have sex when she doesn’t want to. The women then hesitantly states, “It’s not that bad… it’s actually kinda fun… from what I remember.”
Yes, turns out that neither character on the show was really asexual at all. The man was simply sick and the women was simply lying.
So why the outrage? As many members of Asexual Visibility and Education Network (AVEN) have said, this is a huge step back for the asexual community.
“Many asexuals already get told they’re sick or have been abused on a daily basis.” said one member. “Now a hit series with a huge audience is teaching their viewers that that’s all true.”
Another member pointed out that “Neither person was truly asexual. This sends the message that if you are asexual, it must be because you have a brain tumor or are sick. Either that or you’re lying.”
Still others were quick to point out the flaws in the plotline, pointing out that in order for this story to be believable, the tumor would have had to grow right at puberty so the man would have never experienced any sexual attraction. The tumor would must have also cause no other symptoms for at least 10 years since that’s how long the couple had been married. Needless to say, it’s very unbelievable.
“Even then,” another commenter replied, “having erectile dysfunction doesn’t mean you’re asexual.”
After floods of complaints started coming in, writers of the show were quick to issue an apology. “I did a lot of research on asexuality for the episode. […] 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.”
This only drew more anger from the asexual community, wondering if this was really the intent and there was really research involved, why were asexuals portrayed so negatively?
The apology went on stating, “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.”
Kath Lingenfelter, head writer for the show, also commented through Twitter. She stated that her hope was to start dialogue, inspire Internet searches and awareness, then to teach tolerance. As many have pointed out though, tolerance should be taught first, not second.
“Just imagine the anger if this same episode would have been done about homosexuality. If Dr. House had said ‘Oh, you’re a woman who likes women? You must be sick.’ then finding out that she was really straight all along because of a tumor. People would be infuriated. Why is it any different for asexuals?”
It was only after that level outrage that Kath Lingenfelter referred any curios watchers to check out asexuality.org to learn more.
Sources:
Asexuality.org, “Asexuality”
Twitter.com, “Kath Lingenfelter”
Asexuality.org, “House MD Asexual couple”
Timblr.com, “Asexuality Apology”