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Thought there would be gross sobbing.

Instead there is just bittersweet smiling.

-about that damn House episode.

Removing the tumor will magically grant him a chemical libido-

-but how on Earth will that make him “want to have sex” (exact words)?

I know plenty of asexual people who have libidos. Who masturbate. Who take cold showers. Who fall anywhere on the spectrum.

The fact of having a bodily libido doesn’t magically make them sexually attracted to some gender, or make them want to have sex, or change their feelings about sex, or (as the show was implying it would) change their feelings about their committed, non-sexual relationships.

In fact, this whole chemical urge = MUST want to have sex is part of a deeper error of thinking that makes this such a rape-glorification and rape-excusing culture. It’s part of the mentality that incorrectly or insultingly genderizes people (eg., “Men are wild beasts who just want sex—they can’t help it”). Heck, it insults sexual people by insinuating that sexual urges matter more than personal choices. (The asexual character was given the line, “I swear I’m not one of them.”)

This is another example of how a crooked mentality that directly disadvantages one demographic also subtly disadvantages other, more privileged ones. It’s all interconnected. Our entire society needs a serious overhaul in its feelings and mentalities about sex. The whole works.

Asexual man is simultaneously told he has a tumor and, out of nowhere, aggressively hit on by his wife of ten years.

Cue comedic music!

You know, when they were in the lab, testing the patient’s blood-samples, I was still sort of okay with how the episode was handling it. Yes, all the suggestions that she must have been abused as a child, must have a hormone disorder, etc., were pretty hurtful to listen to (I’ve encountered every single one of those arguments from people who try to explain away my queerness), but House is one of those shows where you are not supposed to find any of the characters wholesomely sympathetic. They’re used as tools to express views that may be flawed, and when people are first exposed to a sexual (or in this case, asexual) lifestyle that scares or confuses them, they pretty much go straight down the list that they check-marked in the lab.

First Wilson’s confusion in the clinic, then the “explaining away” in the lab. I thought that perhaps the show was trying to hand-hold the audience through their knee-jerk reactions. Perhaps the meta message would show the audience the error of their thinking, or at least give them some serious food for thought.

No. Seriously. That fucking ending. What the actual fuck.

I get that House, as a show, makes fun of pretty much every demographic on the market in some pretty unforgivable ways. There’s no group that they consider too taboo or off-limits for a little burn. They’ve even made fun of the Roma people, for crying out loud. And heck, they devoted an episode to insulting kinksters: all the same bullshit about how we must all be sick in the head, not breastfed long enough, etc.

But to seriously take a demographic that already struggles with invisibility issues, and to make your big fucking punchline, “Oh, just kidding, they’re not real!” Not even, “Hey, we’re going to insult you”, but “Hey, you don’t exist.”

I’m sorry that I’m not being eloquent right now… I know people generally expect all this- frilly, super intellectual analysis from my blog, but… I just don’t even have words right now for how mind-blowingly Not Okay this episode was.

You know what’s really funny? (And I mean funny here in the tragic sense.) Gays and lesbians have apparently become the new “black” in minority relations.

You know what I mean. There are plenty of bigots in this world, but (in most of the “Western” world), modern people are terrified of being pegged as racists. The civil rights movement did its work, and most people have some basic, intuitive sense of what constitutes racial bigotry.

So we use it, all the time, when trying to get through to people.

“Gays shouldn’t be allowed to marry.”
“Remember when black people weren’t allowed to marry white people?”
“Oh, that was terrible! Oh, I see what you’re saying.”

Not that the conversation is always so easy, but you know what I mean. Most people are better able to see their bigotry if they imagine some other group that has already achieved relative liberation, rather than the one that society is still actively sending them overtly oppressive messages about.

So when Wilson said (paraphrasing), “You can’t tell him he’s not really asexual; that’s like a gay person finding out they’re really straight”, I almost fell out of my chair.

Fine.

Do we really have to do it that way?

Imagine that this episode was released decades ago, when there was not a single gay character on television (at least not in any positive or neutral way), when “lesbian” was a vulgar word, many people genuinely had no idea what being gay even was, and most people considered it a sickness, or a passing phase, and certainly not a genuine way of life. You know. The level of societal acceptance that asexual people currently enjoy.

Imagine that the episode is about two lesbians, and follows this exact format, with this same conclusion. (“What? A woman who wants to have sex with another woman? Can’t be! Must be sick! Or abused! Hey, check it out: we were right! She just wants cock like the rest of us! And oh look, we even made it funny when she found out and told her partner, with some comical trumpets in the background! And then we smoked cigars because we saved her from a life without cock!”)

For many people, this episode may have been their first introduction the concept of asexuality, period.

Do I really have to put people through this mind-exercise to show how ABSURDLY NOT OKAY this was?

IS IT ACTUALLY 2012 RIGHT NOW?

I’m partway through the episode and there was just a clinic scene with an asexual patient. I’m not even asexual and I almost jumped out of my chair to dance.

Wilson: We’ll run a pregnancy test.

Patient: Oh, I’m not pregnant.

Wilson: Any type of birth control can fail.

Patient: Not mine.

Wilson: Oh, I’m sorry… You said you were married.

Patient: Yeah, happily.

Wilson: S’ok, don’t worry. Sex can wane in any marriage over time…

Patient: No no. We’ve never had sex.

Wilson: …

Patient: We kiss and cuddle, but neither one of us is interested in sex.

Wilson: …You’re both celibate?

Patient: No. Neither of us.

Wilson: …

Patient: Celibacy is a choice. This is our orientation.

Wilson: …

Patient: We’re asexual.

Wilson: …I’m not sure which box to check here…

Self-possessed, articulate asexual character, talking about their orientation on a top-hit American television show. Wilson is confused (just like the majority of the audience, I bet), but not judgmental. His line about which box to check subtly points out the complete invisibility of this demographic in society. I haven’t watched the rest of the episode yet, but if they leave it where it is, then they’ve just taken a very nice baby-step toward asexual inclusiveness in American television, in my opinion. But, like I said, I’m not asexual myself—I’m curious what some of the asexual people on my dash thought of this, if you watch the show. Did you feel that this scene was done well?

Edit: Oh! They are not just leaving it there. They’re apparently going to explore this through-out the episode. I think I’ll post again once I’ve finished watching it.

Edit #2: This is fucking ridiculous.

Edit #3: What the actual flipping fuck.

House: You done now? Or you wanna do a cavity search?

*Have been watching House for years*

*Have re-watched and re-marathoned so many times that I can quote every single episode down to the medical jargon*

*Am a rabid, slash-addicted fangirl*

*Have never once, never once, had an inkling of House/Wilson feelings. Just haven’t.*

*Season fucking EIGHT. Episode two. “Transplant.”*

*Suddenly.*

Suddenly.

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H-h-hilson…?