#in regards to this swk actually seems to be something of an outlier in terms of having 0 interest in sex or romance

[sketching-shark]

In Canon (JTTW) Wukong shows any romantic/sexual interest towards anyone?

Not Even Slightly fasfgrewdf. Going by Wu Cheng'en's version it's Zhu Bajie who's the romantic/libertine of the pilgrim group, while if memory serves correctly the main emotion Sun Wukong shows towards romance and sex is irritation. The Monkey King does have real affection for his monkey family and later on for Tang Sanzang, but it's the affection of an asexual communal grandpa lol.

That said, this characterization in Xiyouji is a big change from the monkey's presentation in the earlier play Zaju Xiyou Ji. Here, the simian in question, Sun Xingzhe, not only had a wife that he kidnapped in traditional Chinese monkey monster fashion, but apparently spends most of his time telling crude jokes, ogling other women, and acting as a rowdy clown.

I've now seen a number of pretty valid points about how it definitely pays to look outside of Wu Cheng'en's version of the westward journey to see what other people have made of it throughout its history, and I'd definitely agree that seeing what else could be considered part of JTTW "canon" in terms of the wild variety of ways people have told and retold this story is a really fascinating thing!

That said, I do think that coming at it from a western perspective one miiiiiight want to be a little more cautious of how one approaches the question of a Sun Wukong romance/sexual interest, given the long history in this part of the world of not only viewing and presenting monkeys as hyper-sexual beings/ man's poor imitation, but also using that perception to bolster a lot of horrible stereotypes against certain groups of humans, including against Chinese people. As is--and while in China itself Sun Wukong has been presented as everything from a devoted and helpful deity to a lecherous and destructive warlord--at this point there definitely does seem to be something of a preference in western depictions to emphasize the destructive and "stupid monkey" potentials of Sun Wukong's character rather than for example his love of family or his intelligence.