ace rants

The Big Bang Theory

For all of you who don't know the show, it's about this group of friends in California, and on elf the friends is named Sheldon, who is the important one today. I don't think the writers have outright said it, but he's clearly coded for having Asperger's and OCD. The actress who plays Sheldon's girlfriend in the show has a PhD in neuroscience, and she said that Sheldon probably has OCD and Asperger's. The actor who plays Sheldon also said Sheldon probably has Asperger's.

For any of y'all who don't know, Asperger's is on the autism spectrum, and is generally characterized by having intense interests in particular topics and lower than average socialization and communication skills.

Also, Sheldon is clearly asexual. I don't think they've ever said out, but watch the show. He's asexual. 

The thing is, the writers end up forcing him to have sex with Amy, which I'm really pissed about (I've been watching The Big Bang Theory since I was around 6, so when I realized Sheldon was asexual too, it helped me with me being asexual). Besides that being hurtful to the asexual community, the way the other characters and writers treat Sheldon throughout the whole show is pretty disrespectful. 

First off, there have been many scenes where the other characters have referred to and treated him like a really young kid who is incapable of being self-reliant. To be fair, he doesn't drive a car, so he needs the rest of them to die him, but the extent that they do it to is rude to asexuals and people with Asperger's.

Also, Amy, Sheldon's girlfriend 'tricks' him into doing sexual stuff with her. In one episode, Amy pretends too be sick so Sheldon will take care of her. That part morally not that great, but not too offensive. Amy's friends tells her she shouldn't lie to Sheldon like this, so Amy says that she'll tell Sheldon she's not actually sick. Then Sheldon asks if she's feeling up to bathing herself or if she wants him to do it. 

Amy then decides not to tell Sheldon she's only pretending she's sick so he'll give her a bath.  Later, Sheldon finds out she's lying, and he'd really upset. As a punishment, he says he's going to spank her. And instead of trying to at least be a bit respectful of Sheldon's anger at her, she puts on music to 'set the mood' or whatever (she tells him it's so they don't disturb the people next door). 

The episode just makes a joke out of asexuality and portrays it as something to get around, and it also shows Sheldon to be like a five year old, which is extremely disrespectful to asexuals and people with Asperger's and OCD.

The worst thing in my opinion is that in one of the episodes, for Amy's birthday, Sheldon has sex with Amy. At this point, they've been dating for years. In the beginning of their relationship, Sheldon wasn't even comfortable holding hands with her. It says to audiences that you just have wear down asexuals for a but and then they'll have sex with you, which sets unrealistic expectations for asexuals, and also is just completely incorrect. There is, of coarse, a possibility that he could be grey or Demi, but from what I'e heard from people who are those, usually they've found more than just one person sexually attractive by the time they're 35, the age Sheldon was when he and Amy and him have sex. 

Why can't they just have an episode when he finds out what asexuality is or demisexuality or grey-asexuality, and he's like, "oh. That is me." 

Even if they've done a shitty job portraying asexuality, they could at least get rid of the idea that he doesn't want sex because he has Aspergers or because he's a massive nerd or whatever.