Are They Going To Have Sheldon Choose Amy Over Scientific Accomplishments?

[The God Particle]

Just to pile on a bit about the asexual thing--with Sheldon's references to Kholinar and having functional genitals, etc., it's been my opinion that he's not asexual as much as an ascetic.

 

I think that his disdain for sexual behavior isn't because he doesn't have any sex drive at all, but because it hasn't really been awakened, or that any stirrings he might have felt have been suppresesed.

He's a science monk, setting aside most things that would distract him from his work, but also clinging to a lot of things from his childhood.

And I do think that his isolated childhood, not spending much time with kids his own age, especially during the onset of puberty, and having a religiously conservative mother are all factors that could have led to him not really thinking in sexual terms, not developing the desire to experiment sexually--or ignoring any such development--in order to devote his time and energy to his work.

 

But now that he's been influenced by Penny's presence in Leonard's life, and finally the introduction of a female friend who gradually sparks his interest in having a girlfriend, his interest in the possibilities of such things as physical involvement has also been sparked.  But sparked is a long way from set aflame.

I do think that the adolescent analogy is fitting.  If he's only now beginning to entertain the idea of allowing anyone, let alone a girl, to hold hands with him, he's only now experiencing what most kids go through in their adolescence--experimenting with physical contact (however innocent, initially) with the opposite sex.

 

While he has the academic knowledge of such things as kissing, sex, and making babies, he has no real experience in such things, apart from Leonard's mother's tooth-breaking kiss and then Amy's stolen kisses.  I think that his gradual consideration of the possibilities of physical interaction are more or less in line with his gradual progression from "girl who's a friend, but not my girlfriend" to "will you be my girlfriend."

I think that the emotional journey might have been more confusing to him because he'd never bothered to consider it until his inner caveman seemed to rise up and crave exclusivity, even if his conscious mind didn't quite know how to reconcile that.  But they've been together as friends for 2 years and as bf/gf for less than that, so the idea that being in such a relationship might eventually involve more than the occasional hand-holding is something that he's had to think about.  Maybe the physical journey will be much harder for him to make because being friends with someone is easier than overcoming subconscious phobias.

 

At any rate, I think that they've made pretty logical and slow progress in showing Sheldon beginning to deal with that tamped-down sexuality that he long ago set aside in his self-imposed science monastery.

 

This right here is a brilliant analysis! If I had any more Likes today I would have.

[Ar Diem]

@phantagrae

 

I think that is a whole lot of reading between the lines.  Leonard's upbringing was much colder and he is still a sexual creature.  His mother and father did not even engage in sex for pleasure or at least his mother didn't. 

[Ar Diem]

Just because he *thinks* sex can be detrimental to work it doesn't mean that it will in reality be. Not to mention the whole idea that what will distract him from work will be sex rather than the other 482 things he does in his spare time is a bit ridiculous. Why not comic books? Or Star Trek? Or videogames? Or Fun with Flags (which he was planning in his office during WORKING HOURS)?

 

I don't know, by your line of reasoning you can very well interpret 6x14 as evidence that he has chosen sex with Amy over science if you wish. It's an abstract interpretation, but it can be made. But then why are you even asking the question in the first place if you know the answer? 

 

Again, I personally don't think it's an either/or matter, especially when he's in a relationship with a scientist who's just as obsessed with her work that she brings home monkeys from work. 

 

 

But he made the choice.  He says he did.  Whether or not it turns out that his belief is true is immaterial.  If I believe that flipping a switch will turn the light on and choose to flip it, it doesn't matter if the bulb is burnt out.  I made a choice based on what I believed to be true.

 

Oh and to the other distractions didn't he learn in an episode that if he set aside all of his hobbies he grew to hate working?  The one with the girl that kept motivating him.

Edited February 6, 2013 by Ar Diem

[phantagrae]

@phantagrae

 

I think that is a whole lot of reading between the lines.  Leonard's upbringing was much colder and he is still a sexual creature.  His mother and father did not even engage in sex for pleasure or at least his mother didn't. 

 

But he went to school in a normal fashion, probably learned about sex in similar ways--maybe not in locker room banter, but probably from looking at dirty magazines or talking with other nerd-guys, etc.  His parents' marriage may have been cold, but he wasn't isolated to just his parents influence.

And he went to college with people his own age, unlike Sheldon who would not have interacted socially with the other college kids because he was underage.  Leonard could have (and apparently did) have the odd dalliance here and there while he was in college.  In Sheldon's case it would have been illegal.

[Moonbase]

LOL, here we go again.   I know we've had this discussion before, but I don't understand what evidence we have to say that he was undoubtedly asexual and they just changed him later. I think we have evidence that could go both directions. You made some good examples of what might be considered symptoms of asexuality but, like I said, there's also evidence to the contrary. I just don't think sexuality is an all-or-nothing thing, and that if someone isn't turned on by top models they are asexual. I think there's different degrees to it. As for the teenage boy analogy, Sheldon has an awful lot of childish traits that a man in his 30s would not normally have. And his life as a child prodigy was hardly normal. It is weird, yes, but weirder than a man in his 30s sleeping with Mickey Mouse ears on and have Leonard and Penny treat him like he's their child? I don't know.

 

From Season 4 onwards with the introduction of Amy, they began adding comments to his dialogue for the purpose of sexualising the character in the future. Penny had asked the guys in Season 2 what Sheldon's deal was. They said he had no deal and they had known him for years. I took this and his everyday comments, which there are many, at face value.

 

Yes, we have had this conversation before. Sheldon makes a corn peeking remark now. Can you really tell me Season 3 Sheldon could have said that? Or even Season 4 Sheldon. They are moving him away from what he was, most of you love this. I like him a little less but we can't all be the same.

 

Ooh... I hated the disney episode. A grown man in mickey mouse ears, a little too much for me.

[Moonbase]

Also, his friends had always been 'operating under the assumption that he had no deal'. As they said though, it's an 'assumption', so he may or may not be asexual. I always thought he was asexual.

 

Damn I just wrote that.

[koops]

@phantagrae

 

I think that is a whole lot of reading between the lines.  Leonard's upbringing was much colder and he is still a sexual creature.  His mother and father did not even engage in sex for pleasure or at least his mother didn't. 

 

yes, but he didn't go to college at 11. Who was Sheldon going to date at 11? 18-22 year-olds? And when he was a visiting professor at 15? Leonard might have had a cold childhood but he wasn't a child prodigy. I can't believe that skipping developmental phases wouldn't mess you up. 

 

From Season 4 onwards with the introduction of Amy, they began adding comments to his dialogue for the purpose of sexualising the character in the future. Penny had asked the guys in Season 2 what Sheldon's deal was. They said he had no deal and they had known him for years. I took this and his everyday comments, which there are many, at face value.

 

Yes, we have had this conversation before. Sheldon makes a corn peeking remark now. Can you really tell me Season 3 Sheldon could have said that? Or even Season 4 Sheldon. They are moving him away from what he was, most of you love this. I like him a little less but we can't all be the same.

 

Ooh... I hated the disney episode. A grown man in mickey mouse ears, a little too much for me.

 

The guys said "We operate under the assumption he has no deal". They didn't say "He has no deal". That's a big difference to me. It's a maybe, not a yes. Friends don't know whether you have a deal or not, they assume a lot. Speaking from experience.

 

 

eta: Aaaaand everyone posted all this stuff before me. LOL. sorry.

Edited February 6, 2013 by spook

[Ar Diem]

But he went to school in a normal fashion, probably learned about sex in similar ways--maybe not in locker room banter, but probably from looking at dirty magazines or talking with other nerd-guys, etc.  His parents' marriage may have been cold, but he wasn't isolated to just his parents influence.

And he went to college with people his own age, unlike Sheldon who would not have interacted socially with the other college kids because he was underage.  Leonard could have (and apparently did) have the odd dalliance here and there while he was in college.  In Sheldon's case it would have been illegal.

 

Sheldon didn't need a girl to be a sexual creature.

[phantagrae]

From Season 4 onwards with the introduction of Amy, they began adding comments to his dialogue for the purpose of sexualising the character in the future. Penny had asked the guys in Season 2 what Sheldon's deal was. They said he had no deal and they had known him for years. I took this and his everyday comments, which there are many, at face value.

 

Yes, we have had this conversation before. Sheldon makes a corn peeking remark now. Can you really tell me Season 3 Sheldon could have said that? Or even Season 4 Sheldon. They are moving him away from what he was, most of you love this. I like him a little less but we can't all be the same.

 

Ooh... I hated the disney episode. A grown man in mickey mouse ears, a little too much for me.

 

The guys said they were working under the assumption that he had no deal, not that they knew definitively that he had no deal.  And apparently they had never actually asked him about it.  Sheldon never said he "had no deal" or that he was asexual.  He looks down on it as a distraction and a germy one at that, but that doesn't preclude the "Science monk" idea--that he has simply set aside such things as a distraction from his desire to live a life of pure science.  He has also talked about emotions or "feelings" in general with disdain, but that doesn't mean he doesn't have them.  He always tries to pretend he doesn't get hurt, for example, but he obviously does.  He simply channels it in other ways--trying to make Leonard choose him over Wil Wheaton, for example.

 

Likewise, his sexuality has long been suppressed, but that doesn't mean it's not down there somewhere.  Just as a monk may choose a life of pure spirituality over fleshly desires, Sheldon has chosen science, but that doesn't mean that the monk doesn't have to occasionally "mortify the flesh".  Maybe Amy's presence in Sheldon's life is making him have to either "mortify the flesh", or just get over it.

 

And in the Disney episode--Sheldon's never really been a grown man.  He has always been a man-child in many ways.  And as late as S5, when his mother was visiting, he was trying desperately to cling to some part of his childhood, even trying to come up with some way to justify himself as still being a toddler.

 

He lives in the adult world in many ways, but he still clings to his childhood, I think also because of the pattern of his upbringing.  He was still a child--and a sheltered one--when he finished school.  He has never fully "put away childish things."

Edited February 6, 2013 by phantagrae

[koops]

If we're going to be blunt... have you watched the pilot? And when he said his genitals are functional? What do you think he was doing? Differentiating equations?

[Ar Diem]

If we're going to be blunt... have you watched the pilot? And when he said his genitals are functional? What do you think he was doing? Differentiating equations?

 

 

He talks about sex like a first grader.  I have no idea what he meant.

[Moonbase]

If we're going to be blunt... have you watched the pilot? And when he said his genitals are functional? What do you think he was doing? Differentiating equations?

 

Season 5 - genitals comment. And Sheldon's character was still in development until S1 episode 4, there are other errors. The absence of his knocking, flirting with Penny.

 

They sexualised him with the introduction of Amy. They had too, if they were going to take this relationship where it's going now. He told us he has phobias, this works.

Edited February 6, 2013 by Moonbase

[Ar Diem]

Let's get back to the choice of Amy over science.  His sexuality or lack thereof is too murky of an area because he is in transition as a character. 

[phantagrae]

Season 5 - genitals comment. And Sheldon's character was still in development until S1 episode 4, there are other errors. The absence of his knocking, flirting with Penny.

 

They sexualised him with the introduction of Amy. They had too, if they were going to take this relationship where it's going now. He told us he has phobias, this works.

 

I think that it's fair to say that his sexuality has been awakened with Amy because she is the first girl he's met who "pushes his buttons" as someone else has said.  If he's a science monk, she's the person who comes along and makes him consider whether or not he needs to be a monk about it.

Now, that doesn't mean that he's abandoning his pursuit of science just to have sex, but that he may be beginning to realize that he can indeed have a significant emotional relatiionship (and eventually a possibly sexual relationship) without abandoning his work.

 

One can meet men or women who are not one's "type" and to whom there is no sexual attraction.  But if that special person does come along, there can be intellectual, emotional, and sexual attraction.

 

I think that for Sheldon, he hasn't really cared about it, hasn't bothered dwelling on it, even if he knows about sexuality in academic terms, because there hasn't been anyone who "turned him on", for lack of  a better phrase.  But Amy's friendship was initially something intellectual for both of them, though it seemed that the rest of their friends seemed to have seen the writing on the wall, sort of.

 

I think the writers have done a great job of having Sheldon and Amy go from intellectual friends to slightly more emotional bonds to a pre-adolescent bf/gf relationship to teenage romance.  And now Sheldon is only beginning to consider physical involvement.  He's not really ready to jump her bones--he hasn't even initiated any hand-holding or kissing yet.

 

I think that he was not sexualized with the introduction of Amy, but maybe humanized or softened or opened up.  And I don't think that's a big 180 from where he was before.  I think that he's been humanized little by little since the beginning.

[Moonbase]

While I hope I am wrong and I do admit that in this episode we don't know if we are supposed to interpret his current relationship was a distraction I am not so sure about the rest.

 

Sheldon freely accepts the excuse that having sex is the reason his work suffers. So regardless of whether or not he is having sex he believes that it is a valid excuse so he latches on to it.   He made a big fuss over Alex allowing her hormones to cloud her abilities.  He has made similiar statement to Leonard in the past.  How I am off base here?  Sheldon believes that a sexual relationship will make his work suffer.

 

At the end of the episode he admits to working toward a goal of having sex.  So in a way hasn't he already made the choice of Amy over science?

 

And please, this show and even Shamy is riddled with cliches.

 

LEONARD: Excuse me, but Einstein had a pretty busy sex life.

SHELDON: Yes, and he never unified gravity with the other forces! If he hadn't been such a hound dog, we'd all have time machines!

 

This is something Sheldon believes very strongly. He thinks people get stupider through having sex as well. This is something they will have to address this. When Amy and Sheldon finally have sex, they will have to have an episode about this. I have a feeling that the outcome will be to teach Sheldon this is not true, similar to Werewolf where he learnt a break in routine does not lead to chaos.

 

Maybe he thought, who cares? I'm not No.1 anymore anyway. Not an attitude we have seen from Sheldon before though, as far as I remember.

 

As for him choosing Amy over science. It did seem strange that after a conversation where he's still thinking sex is a distraction, that he then says 'it is possible'. I really don't know on that one either.

Edited February 6, 2013 by Moonbase

[Ar Diem]

Now, that doesn't mean that he's abandoning his pursuit of science just to have sex, but that he may be beginning to realize that he can indeed have a significant emotional relatiionship (and eventually a possibly sexual relationship) without abandoning his work.

 

 

He is not abandoning is work but he is willfully choosing a path that he believes will diminish his work which is the real point of this thread.  He even gave himself a pat on the back for the progress he has already made.

 

I realize now that my thread title and OP were incorrect.  The more we have discussed this the more I realize it has already happened. 

[Ar Diem]

Maybe he thought, who cares? I'm not No.1 anymore anyway. Not an attitude we have seen from Sheldon before though, as far as I remember.

 

Which would make him even more like Leonard. It is odd that he didn't put up any fight. I don't think we can make that assumption though. 

[The God Particle]

True! It has already happened: Sheldon has chosen Amy over his scientific accomplishments in a sense. He has lost a little bit of his previous focus but I don't think it will be as bad as he feared.

[Ar Diem]

True! It has already happened: Sheldon has chosen Amy over his scientific accomplishments in a sense. He has lost a little bit of his previous focus but I don't think it will be as bad as he feared.

 

 

Perhaps but the way we found out that he has made this choice in an episode that shows he has already slipped is disturbing. I imagine most Shamy fans will find this cute and romantic.

 

It is also disturbing because withholding sex and being more productive has been used in other sitcoms so the question is will the writers really choose to go down the opposite is true path or not.

[The God Particle]

Which episode specifically? Which scene?

[Ar Diem]

The last episode.

[Ar Diem]

Something else to take away from this, I thought we had gotten past some of Sheldon's disrepect for Amy's scientific contributions.  Yet, based on his belief, he is also choosing to allow her work to be diminished also without discussing it with her.

[koops]

He talks about sex like a first grader.  I have no idea what he meant.

 

Oh come on, he might talk about sex like a first grader or with clinical detachment but he is fully aware of how sex and genitals work. He isn't stupid.

 

Season 5 - genitals comment. And Sheldon's character was still in development until S1 episode 4, there are other errors. The absence of his knocking, flirting with Penny.

 

They sexualised him with the introduction of Amy. They had too, if they were going to take this relationship where it's going now. He told us he has phobias, this works.

 

Even ignoring S4+ Sheldon and Ep 1-4 Sheldon, imo, the argument still stands: absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence. The writers never committed to him being asexual, which would have been evidence of absence. They wanted to keep the door open, or they wouldn't have done that.  His behavior in S1-3 could have been consistent with asexuality as well as other reasons, because of absence of definite evidence for either case. But we now find out that he is not asexual, which retroactively affects everything that came before. It's Schroedinger's cat: he can be both asexual and not asexual, but until he comes out and says it you'll never know. Now we know the cat is alive (or dead, if you don't like this development). Like you said, it works, precisely because they never committed to anything and this explanation can make sense. You might think it's lame that they've gone with this option, though, and I respect that.

 

But, to get back on topic....

 

LEONARD: Excuse me, but Einstein had a pretty busy sex life.

SHELDON: Yes, and he never unified gravity with the other forces! If he hadn't been such a hound dog, we'd all have time machines!

 

This is something Sheldon believes very strongly. He thinks people get stupider through having sex as well. This is something they will have to address this. When Amy and Sheldon finally have sex, they will have to have an episode about this. I have a feeling that the outcome will be to teach Sheldon this is not true, similar to Werewolf where he learnt a break in routine does not lead to chaos.

 

Maybe he thought, who cares? I'm not No.1 anymore anyway. Not an attitude we have seen from Sheldon before though, as far as I remember.

 

As for him choosing Amy over science. It did seem strange that after a conversation where he's still thinking sex is a distraction, that he then says 'it is possible'. I really don't know on that one either.

 

That is what I think will happen. Simple as that. Because he is just being unrealistic about the whole thing at the moment, his conviction that sex makes people dumb is just another one of his obsessions to make himself look superior. Not much different from the other things he obsesses with that make no sense. In a sense, the whole first episode where he meets Amy is about the same thing: it's just ludicrous to him that he's ever going to find a woman interesting and then here she comes. I think the bigger obstacle for him was to include a girlfriend in his life, like I said before. Whether he spends his time having sex with her or playing counterfactuals, he is still not doing work. Just as he isn't doing work when he plays videogames, paintball, watches Star Trek and plays with his trains. 

 

I do not think he decided in that one episode that he was going to have sex with her, the way he approached the conversation with Penny made it clear he had been working on his phobias for a while now, way before the Kripke incident. So it's got nothing to do with him going "Ah, who cares!". 

 

Has he chosen Amy over science because he thinks of sex as a distraction? Maybe. I'd have to think about that one. But I don't know that it matters if he can have his cake and eat it too. 

[Pomita]

Also, Amy is a scientist too, and a brilliant one at that. If they want to use Sheldon's drive for scientific accomplishment to further the relationship there are plenty of ways to do that without having him pick the girlfriend over science. I said many times, get them to work together on something, use the science as a turn-on instead of using the turn-on to take them away from the science. Get Amy to help him when he's stuck on something and that can strengthen the bond. Lots of options.

 

Spook and Phanta - your posts are what I need tonight. I'm just through with submitting a paper I've been working on for 6 months, and feeling especially happy. Your very well-expressed posts are just adding to the party (oh yes, for me a 'party' means hanging out for longer on TBBT forums..) (And hi-5 to Spook with the chisq!)

 

I agree very much, especially with the above idea. I love the fan-fics based on this, and I think it could be used even more effectively on the show. As viddy said, I don't think a situation of Sheldon choosing Amy over a scientific accomplishment will or should come up - and a lot of us wouldn't be happy with that. This, on the other hand, would be all-round satisfactory, I think.

 

I do get the question about whether Sheldon is actually saying that he's willing to be distracted from his work, by accepting that sex with Amy is a possibility, since that is what he seems to believe sex does to people. I have a few comments on this.

 

Firstly, the 'distraction' aspect of it (from Sheldon's point of view) doesn't apply only to sex, but to romantic feelings and romantic relationships in general, and even just 'human feelings' in general. So he has, in a way, already accepted any such implications into his life by formalizing Amy as his girlfriend and admitting that he has feelings for her. Sex is just the next step of an already existing progression.

 

Secondly, it's quite clear from this episode that he doesn't consider his relationship with Amy to be a distraction from his work at all - he was taken by surprise when Kripke suggested it. Even when he talked to Penny about his difficulty in going forward to a physical relationship, he mentioned his touch phobia as the issue - he didn't say anything about being afraid that it would make his work suffer. If that had been one of the considerations on his mind, he would have said so.

 

On the other hand, from what he says to Leonard and Alex and others, it seems he still considers that sex/romance can be a distraction. But he doesn't look at his relationship with Amy in that light. Why? Maybe because, like many things about himself, he considers his relationship with her to be an exception - an extension of himself, if you will - and so he's confident that it can't harm him in any way. Maybe he feels enough intellectual stimulation from their 'relationship of the mind' to know that it helps his work. Maybe he believes that even if he were to have sex with her some day, he wouldn't turn into a horn-dog - which, given all we've seen of him, is probably true. Maybe he's realized that 'going without' Amy would make him unhappy enough to hate his work, just as he realized at the time of Ramona Nowitzki that going without his hobbies makes him hate his work.

 

Who knows? All we can see is that Sheldon himself doesn't in any way consider his relationship with Amy, or even the prospect of further intimacy with her, to be a distraction or obstacle to his pursuit of science. If he did, that would be a tremendous conflict of interest for him, since it's clear from his reaction to the Kripke issue that his work still matters HUGELY to him. And we would have got to see that conflict, possibly by comical freaking out, possibly by scared withdrawal and depression - Sheldon doesn't know how to be subtle in such matters. Since we haven't, it can be safely said that Sheldon has mentally accommodated his relationship with Amy, and whatever it entails, into his desired path of life which most certainly includes his love for science and ambitions for further accomplishments. That's what we've got till now, and that's what I'll believe till we see any evidence to the contrary.

[koops]

I just really don't see the point now in this whole conversation. We are discussing assumptions and not evidence anymore. There is NO evidence on the show so far that Sheldon's work has been affected by his relationship with Amy, that Amy's work has been affected by her relationship with Sheldon (let alone that he is deliberately chipping away at her work!), that contemplating a sexual relationship means that they somehow care about work less or that the writers are even remotely hinting that that's going to happen. Yes, they can write that if they want to, but it's not inevitable let alone certain. So far, the whole relationships has been about Sheldon discovering that actually things aren't as bad as he thought. That's all. 

 

He has "slipped" plenty of times before. I don't see why suddenly this one is such a big deal, when he was working on a project he might not even have expertise in and when Leonard made it clear that being stuck comes with the job. Like I said, one of the things I loved about this episode is that it shows how even a genius can get stuck and come up short in science. Because that's how science works.