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Looking at Bruce's explanations for the Hulk between the Norton movie and the Avengers. Kinda spoilery. Just ... looking at what triggers the Hulk (and whether he could have sex - it goes against Norton-era canon, but ...)
Hulk Triggers
Hulk triggers ... *muses* Okay. Breaking it down a little. Leaving aside what Bruce thinks is happening, for the moment. The times the Hulk actually appears, pretty consistently, are times when Bruce is physically threatened. He can hold it off for long periods, he's fought for the control to do that, but it's fairly obvious that it's a threat that triggers the Hulk. Now Bruce, being a scientist, links that to a biological trigger, and a logical one would be heart-rate. But I'm guessing fight-or-flight is a massive bundle of internal triggers including chemical changes as well as mechanical (I have no medical knowledge whatsoever, keep in mind). Bruce, in the Norton movie, is only trying to avoid it, so he's not looking into understanding it as much. Until the cure fails, after which he does start examining it more carefully. And it's after he starts examining it from a control point of view that he comes to the 'always angry' conclusion.
Now ... Just guessing, here. But keeping in mind that Bruce is the one telling us about the Hulk, and Bruce is consistently figuring his condition out on the fly, on the run, on his own, and not in the best mental place for quite a long period of time ...
I think he recognised that it had a physical/biological trigger early on. But he only needed to avoid it while he searched for a cure, so he tied it into an easily-monitored trigger (heart-rate), and avoided anything that raised that. We don't actually see him Hulk out when he tries to have sex with Betty. He just panics because the heart-monitor starts beeping at him and he's trained himself to avoid that. Heart-rate spiking is part of a bundle of biological shifts that happen under fight or flight conditions. But it's only one of them.
I think what's happening is that the Hulk is triggered by the full fight-or-flight suite of reactions. The Hulk appears when Bruce is under threat. He can be held back if Bruce has room to run, which is also interesting, but if Bruce is cornered and has nowhere to go, or if Bruce suffers life-threatening physical damage (hitting the ground from a helicopter, bullet to the head), the Hulk comes out. So it's probably mostly the biochemical reaction to anger/fear/fight psychological responses, and direct physical damage. And Bruce, after he stopped running from the specter of the Hulk and actually looked at it, after the events of the Norton movie, figured that out. Which is why he settled on controlling the anger/fear fight/flight response, rather than continuing to focus on keeping his heart-rate down.
So ... if we leave aside the irradiated-blood thingie (which the movie itself seemed to do once it was no longer a plot point), he ... possibly should be able to have sex, actually. Sex triggers a lot of biochemical responses, but fight or flight usually isn't one of them. The heart-rate might spike, but the chemical signature is all wrong, and consensual sex shouldn't really register, psychologically or chemically, as a Hulk-worthy threat to Bruce's well-being.
The exception possibly being, if Bruce reacts to it like it is. If he panics the way he did with Betty, because he's gotten it locked into his head that sex is a bad, bad thing that could hurt the people he loves. He could potentially have a Hulk-inducing stress reaction if he panics too badly. Which would be ... actually, a very interesting thing to work through, no? *smiles faintly*
Hulk triggers ... *muses* Okay. Breaking it down a little. Leaving aside what Bruce thinks is happening, for the moment. The times the Hulk actually appears, pretty consistently, are times when Bruce is physically threatened. He can hold it off for long periods, he's fought for the control to do that, but it's fairly obvious that it's a threat that triggers the Hulk. Now Bruce, being a scientist, links that to a biological trigger, and a logical one would be heart-rate. But I'm guessing fight-or-flight is a massive bundle of internal triggers including chemical changes as well as mechanical (I have no medical knowledge whatsoever, keep in mind). Bruce, in the Norton movie, is only trying to avoid it, so he's not looking into understanding it as much. Until the cure fails, after which he does start examining it more carefully. And it's after he starts examining it from a control point of view that he comes to the 'always angry' conclusion.
Now ... Just guessing, here. But keeping in mind that Bruce is the one telling us about the Hulk, and Bruce is consistently figuring his condition out on the fly, on the run, on his own, and not in the best mental place for quite a long period of time ...
I think he recognised that it had a physical/biological trigger early on. But he only needed to avoid it while he searched for a cure, so he tied it into an easily-monitored trigger (heart-rate), and avoided anything that raised that. We don't actually see him Hulk out when he tries to have sex with Betty. He just panics because the heart-monitor starts beeping at him and he's trained himself to avoid that. Heart-rate spiking is part of a bundle of biological shifts that happen under fight or flight conditions. But it's only one of them.
I think what's happening is that the Hulk is triggered by the full fight-or-flight suite of reactions. The Hulk appears when Bruce is under threat. He can be held back if Bruce has room to run, which is also interesting, but if Bruce is cornered and has nowhere to go, or if Bruce suffers life-threatening physical damage (hitting the ground from a helicopter, bullet to the head), the Hulk comes out. So it's probably mostly the biochemical reaction to anger/fear/fight psychological responses, and direct physical damage. And Bruce, after he stopped running from the specter of the Hulk and actually looked at it, after the events of the Norton movie, figured that out. Which is why he settled on controlling the anger/fear fight/flight response, rather than continuing to focus on keeping his heart-rate down.
So ... if we leave aside the irradiated-blood thingie (which the movie itself seemed to do once it was no longer a plot point), he ... possibly should be able to have sex, actually. Sex triggers a lot of biochemical responses, but fight or flight usually isn't one of them. The heart-rate might spike, but the chemical signature is all wrong, and consensual sex shouldn't really register, psychologically or chemically, as a Hulk-worthy threat to Bruce's well-being.
The exception possibly being, if Bruce reacts to it like it is. If he panics the way he did with Betty, because he's gotten it locked into his head that sex is a bad, bad thing that could hurt the people he loves. He could potentially have a Hulk-inducing stress reaction if he panics too badly. Which would be ... actually, a very interesting thing to work through, no? *smiles faintly*
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