“Visibility” is one of the words that,
when one delves into the internet realms of the asexual movement, a person can
expect to see many times over. Naturally, visibility is the first part of any
movement. From feminism to democracy, the great movements of history had first
to be put in the public eye before any progress could be made. However, from
the time I began identifying as asexual, through my eagerly-maintained invisibility
in high school, and up until several days ago when I sat happily watching the
new Big Bang Theory episode, I never really considered visibility a necessary
goal for asexuals. This was for the usual reasons I have heard from people
opposed to the movement, arguments ranging from “Asexuals don’t experience
discrimination” to “What you don’t do in the bedroom shouldn’t matter to
anyone,” even reaching to “Asexuality is just hypoactive sexual desire disorder
under a different name”. However, there are a number of reasons that I believe
these arguments do not hold up against scrutiny.
Firstly, asexuality is not a
disorder. Any number of blog posts by asexuals or allies can attest to this,
and the fact that most discussions I have had with others about asexuality
start from a defense of its existence only points to the fact that many people
have not encountered the term before.
Second, what I don’t do (or do) in
my bedroom is, indeed, something that shouldn’t matter to anyone. However, any
person making this remark may be politely directed to any number of anti-gay
activists and/or well-meaning people “playing Cupid” for asexuals upon the
utterance of such an opinion.
Third is discrimination. Admittedly,
I have never experienced discrimination for being asexual. The majority of
people I have told responded with bemused support, and the few non-positive
responses I have received were more dismissive than unkind. Since I am
currently in college, the most common dismissive response labels me a “late
bloomer,” a response that is usually silenced when one asserts a conviction to
the contrary. From other asexuals I have heard reports of incidents that may be
called “discrimination”.
However, something is becoming clear to
me, which may or may not be unique to my own experience. The observation is
tenuous, naturally, given the tiny exposure the media gives to issues of
asexuality, but the trend is there nonetheless.
The tendency of the dominant culture
in the United States is to infantilize nonsexual people, whether or not they
are children.
What does this mean for asexuals in the
United States? Does this type of infantilization also negatively impact
non-asexuals? Yes and yes. The clearest example struck me this past Thursday,
on my viewing of the new Big Bang Theory episode.
I first started watching the Big
Bang Theory sometime in the middle of the first season, when I read on the
internet that a new television show had a character that just might be asexual.
Watching the first episode, and then the second, I became—I am not ashamed to
admit—slightly giddy. This—this was visibility! Despite the creators of the
show, to my knowledge, only hinting at Sheldon’s sexuality, it seemed clear
despite this that the character was “like me”. Sheldon, I thought, would make
more people aware that some don’t experience sexual attraction.
However, over the seasons of the show,
which has now reached season five, Sheldon’s character has not only become more
blatantly asexual, but has become a kind of container for many of the prevailing
stereotypes about asexuals.
Sheldon is a neat-freak. He seems
usually opposed to all forms of physical contact, not just sex. He was raised
in a very religious household (however, his mother’s clear support of sexuality
despite her questioning of him and Amy, “Did they sin?” might also subvert this
stereotype). His parents had a rocky marriage. He is socially awkward, even to
the extent some see in him signs of autism. Also, in a mix of stereotype
reinforcing and defying, Sheldon is a nerd—not a stereotype that pervades the
culture in any sense, given the alternate stereotype of sex-starved nerds—and
an antithesis to his more non-stereotyped friends Raj and Leonard. (Howard is
another story altogether.)
However, it is easy to see all this
without thinking immediately of stereotypes. Despite his occasionally
unpleasant behavior toward others, and despite the personality quirks that tend
to make him more likeable as a “character” than as “somebody I’d like to meet”,
Sheldon Cooper is still a well-developed character for an American sitcom.
There are reasons behind the things he does, and, as I believed when I first
saw the show and still believe now, he provides visibility in a way that does
not compromise. He does not exhibit, as do many exposés on asexuality I have
seen, a need to seem “perfect” in every way for the sake of “visibility”. This
is most obviously because of the character’s own lack of a need to explain his
lack of desire for intercourse. This may also be because of the sense of
superiority Sheldon displays for his “homo novus” (his words) status.
Regardless of Sheldon’s own reasons for living his life entirely as he sees
fit, it is still an encouraging message for me (I can speak for no one else)
that an asexual who is not absolutely “normal” can lead a self-confident and
sexless life.
Granted, “Be whatever you want” probably
isn’t the message that the creators of the Big Bang Theory had in mind when
they began to put the show together. It is not likely that asexual empowerment
was the goal of the production staff when Leonard pronounced that Sheldon “has
no deal”, nor was it in the minds of the staff to formulate or reinforce
stereotypes regarding people who do not experience sexual attraction. Any
attempt to read The Big Bang Theory through an asexual lens approaches the show
in much the same way that queer theory approaches many Alfred Hitchcock films—with
a focus on the viewer and his/her response rather than on the minds behind the
text.
Looking at the show as an asexual
viewer, I have rarely found myself discontented with The Big Bang Theory. After
all, Sheldon’s character is more than just a sexless neurotic. He, as I wish
would be shown more often, is more rounded than many of his peers in the queer
spectrum. After all, looking back through American television it isn’t simple
to find equal characters for the gay and lesbian community. Perhaps I have not
done sufficient research; perhaps these characters lie in film rather than in
television. However, looking back at early depictions of gay characters
(remember Mannequin?) I imagine it
isn’t a difficult feat to find homosexual characters whose personalities can be
reduced to their personality. In contrast, Sheldon is an interesting character
first and foremost. His confusion over the sexuality and sexual references of
his peers, while humorous despite their incessancy, is only one part of his
character. There is a great deal more to him than that.
In fact, if there is one major
accomplishment in Sheldon’s character for asexuals, aside from visibility, it
is the multidimensionality with which he is gifted. He is a nonreligious
person, despite coming straight out of the Bible belt, but he still retains
enough of his youthful training to forget himself at a bowling game and shout “Thank
you Jesus!” in a moment of great success. He claims to follow all social norms,
offering people hot beverages when they are distressed, but he still exercises
sufficient control over his social behavior to ignore the social conventions of
false compliments and (more recently) physicality with one’s girlfriend.
Perhaps none of these relate to Sheldon’s (perceived) sexuality, but then, it
is precisely these traits and others that make him more than just a stock character.
It is also traits like this that liberate asexuals to promote visibility
without worrying about whether or not they are suitably “spotless” Poster
Boys/Girls. Asexuals come from all religious, ethnic, and national backgrounds.
They may or may not fit into the gender binary; they may or may not be cognitively
normative; they may or may not have mental illness; they may or may not be
physically “able”. However, among some I have conversed with in my brief
periods of activist fervor, the desire to whitewash asexuality remains. A
person like me, for example—twenty-one years old, Catholic, on anti-depressants,
a survivor of an abusive relationship—might not be the “right person” to spread
the world about asexuality. It is with great thankfulness and tenuous pride
that I note, on the internet at least, an acceptance of all types within the
asexual umbrella. It is because of people like the folks at AVEN, the writers
of numerous asexual blogs, and members
of various other queer blogging and forum groups that characters like Sheldon
can be viewed with more acceptance and less judgmental analysis. Sheldon is not
simply not interested in sex because “he’s crazy” or “he’s clearly somewhere on
the autistic spectrum” (as if people with autism are automatically nonsexual).
Sure, there are people who hold such views, I am sure of it. However, looking
at a person’s sexuality apart from whatever factors supposedly pushed them out
of the “normal people” bubble? This, when it is done, is cause for celebration.
However, I am not without my gripes
about Big Bang. Granted, this is still simply a sit-com on television that
being discussed. I in no way mean to imply that the makers of the show are
bigoted in any way. However, there is a treatment of Sheldon’s character that I
believe reflects one of the most pervasive of negative attitudes toward
asexuality. That is, as noted towards the beginning of this post,
infantilization.
It’s been more blatant on the show than
it was the last episode, yes. It bothered me, somewhere in my gut, long before
I actually had words to vocalize my discomfort. I thought to myself enough
times “It’s the other characters, right? Right. You don’t call All in the
Family bigoted because Bunker was. OK, relax, girl.” It is simple enough to
bring to one’s mind the episode arc in season three when Leonard and Penny
broke up and Sheldon didn’t know how to continue being friends with both of
them. Granted, family and relationship aping have been part of the show for a
long time. Howard and Raj behaving like an old married couple became obvious
enough to be noted by Leonard’s mother, and the episode “The Infestation
Hypothesis” of the fifth season illustrates it perfectly. It’s not that viewers
are meant to believe that the characters are harboring repressed feelings for
one another; the point is humor, a phenomenon noted on TV tropes as “The Rule
of Funny”. However, the infantilization of Sheldon on many occasions over the
course of the show does not, in my estimation, get entirely covered by the Rule
of Funny. Even if it frequently is.
Perhaps this is the point at which one
becomes obviously entrenched in his/her own political outlook. However, from an
asexual lens some episodes of the show become difficult to watch. The episode “The
Spaghetti Catalyst”, in which Penny takes Sheldon to Disney Land and engages in
a discussion with Leonard that humorously resembles that of divorced parents
discussing a child, is one of my favoured episodes of that season. However,
watching it with a fellow asexual friend, both of us found ourselves cringing
on numerous occasions. Sheldon is not supposed to eat before going on the rides—fair
enough. Penny letting him do so, and then regretting it—haha. Leonard talking
like he’s the “responsible parent” while Sheldon stands passively by, not even
an agent of his own stupid action? Ouch. Ouch. But okay, maybe my friend and I
are just being oversensitive. Moving on… O, look, they’re watching him sleep.
Okay. But wait. Why is this their decision? The man holds a doctorate, a good
career, and a well-maintained schedule. Despite his preoccupation with certain
things society deems childish, he is no more a child than Raj, Howard, or
Leonard, none of whom receive treatment like this on the show. Even when Howard
seems dependent on his mom, it is not in as infantilizing a way as Sheldon is
treated in the Disney Land episode, or for many surrounding it in the show’s
run. Howard knows to tell Bernadette when he moves in with her how his laundry
must be done. From the way Sheldon is treated in the Disney Land episode, he
isn’t deemed responsible enough to choose whether or not to risk vomiting on a
roller coaster. Is this treatment because of his character’s implied
asexuality? Or is that merely a conclusion jumped upon by an asexual tired of
being told that she’ll “grow up someday” and then be interested in sex “like
everybody else”? Both answers seemed feasible to me, but the more I watched the
show the more I grew wary of such attitudes. It obvious by now that I was
immensely happy when the “Leonard and Penny are like Sheldon’s parents” running
gag stopped appearing on the show. However, a line uttered by Penny during the
most recent episode made me jump off the couch and bite my lip, lest I say
something I shouldn’t.
Penny is trying to help Amy get Sheldon
to treat her better, a good goal in a romantic relationship. (Their
relationship may not seem romantic sometimes, but, as Amy noted, they do have
the relationship agreement.) Penny says, “Let me give you a little Girlfriend
101. Usually the first move out of the gate is to withhold sex, but that will work better after Sheldon hits
puberty.” I remember my reaction this past Thursday, comprised of
open-mouthed gaping, a whir of thoughts, and finally a hearty “What the fudge?”
only checked back from WTF by my vow to not cuss during Lent this year. What
the fudge, indeed. Perhaps I betray myself as being without a sense of humor—indeed,
I did laugh after my wtf, despite the fact that I felt a little angry with
myself for it.
Let’s go through the checklist, shall
we? Lowered voice? Check. Appropriate body hair? Check; see first episode third
season for evidence of ability to grow a beard. Concern about male reproductive
health? Check. Interest in sex?
Here, it would seem, lies the problem.
Puberty, according to the sexual norm, necessarily involves a budding interest
in the opposite (perhaps same, both, etc.) sex. However, this norm, held by
most of the people I have encountered in my lifetime, leaves a little to be
desired. First, there were the brave people in the gay rights movement who
normalized (or are working to normalize) interest in the same sex. Second,
there are the lovely individuals working to separate notions of sexuality from
the prevalent gender binary. Third…? Unless I am missing an in-between group
(of whom I would love to hear, if there is one), asexuals also fit into the
questioning of this norm. Is interest in sex what finally makes one an adult?
How is it, then, that the prevalent Bildungsromans of this or any century
rarely focus on sex? Or, if they focus on sex, why does it ring hollow for
some? One can look back fairly far for this; King David is not brought to
adulthood by merit of intercourse. Neither is Rama or Esther Greenwood.
Hercules’ trials were not trials of the bedroom any more than Holden Caulfield
finds manhood in the cheap hotel room with the prostitute he ultimately pays to
leave. Also, if sex is so instrumental to adulthood, how is it that so many
people led lives without sex, people who are revered by some person or another
even to this day?
The issue of the infantilization of
asexuals (and others not, at least for the moment, interested in sex), is too
big an issue to cover fully in one blog post. Perhaps the only real assertion
that can be made in this essay is the small ways in which Sheldon Cooper is
occasionally infantilized on The Big Bang Theory. However, other people, I am
sure, have experienced this attitude. I have been considered something less
than a woman and something more like a girl by the majority of people to whom I
have disclosed my asexuality. The position of my own religious institution, the
Catholic Church, also leaves much to be desired in its attitudes towards
asexuality. This is despite the great number of men and women religious,
consecrated virgins, and just plain single people who honor the history of the
Church, people for whom sex was not even slightly a part of their lives.
That is, naturally, another issue
entirely. The Church’s position on sexuality is, naturally, alienating for
some, and people who are in any way affiliated with the GLBT community probably
have some strong opinion on it. However, it is important to note the famous—and,
undoubtedly, mature—individuals throughout history who have led sexless and
even asexual lives, if only for the sake of visibility. Visibility and,
perhaps, destigmatization. Perhaps lists like the ever-shifting one on
Wikipedia (including Edward Gorey and Emilie Autumn, both of whom it would be
difficult to label as infantile) serve no purpose other than visibility.
However, problems like the issue of asexual infantilization are unlikely to
leave the popular consciousness until there is a widespread understanding of
what it means to be an adult who has no interest in sex. Indeed, even after
visibility is attained in the popular culture of the United States, there is no
guarantee that this perception will vanish overnight. However, visibility is
the first step. Until then, combating negative stereotypes will not be an issue
that can be dealt with at a large scale. Indeed, with asexuality as with
homosexuality, it would seem that backlash does not occur until visibility
starts.
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