Asexuality as a sexual identity, rather than as a biological entity, became more widely discussed in the media in the beginning of the twenty-first century. The Fox Network series "House" represented an "asexual" couple in the episode "Better Half". However, this representation has been questioned by members of the asexual community (including AVEN founder, David Jay) due to the episode concluding in the reveal that the man simply had a pituitary tumor that reduced his sex drive, and the woman was only pretending to be asexual to please him. This led to controversy over the representation and a change.org petition for Fox Network to reconsider how it represents asexual characters in the future, stating it "represented asexuality very poorly by attributing it to both medical illness and deception." Children's animated television series "SpongeBob SquarePants" was under speculation (2002) and later controversy (2005) because of claims that SpongeBob and his best friend, Patrick, are gay. This prompted the creator, Stephen Hillenburg, to clarify on both occasions that he does not consider them gay or heterosexual, but rather asexual. He also linked SpongeBob's ability to reproduce asexually by "budding" to further explain that the character doesn't necessarily need relationships.