Would Johns sexuality matter at all if Sherlock decided to seduce him though ?
Who on this planet would turn down BCs Sherlock Holmes 

John seems a bit traditional, though...
I mean he's a modern man, but he seems to definitely know what he likes and wants.

Sacrilege!
Tee Hee,,,

To be fair, it's not too big of a stretch to interpret Sherlock's "Women? Not my area." to mean that he is gay.

@Vhanja.
Except he didn't say that, at least not quite!
I always say that scene has to be seen in conjunction with the staircase scene in TBB.
John speaking in a blokesy way with Sherlock about getting off with Sarah.
Sherlock not in the least interested.
I feel he means: relationships are not my area.
After all, not only have we never seen him with a (real) girlfriend, we've never seen him with anybody.
Anyhow, that response could just as easily mean: I'm asexual/celibate.

Last edited by besleybean (January 30, 2016 10:02 pm)

I agree with you both. When I first saw that scene, I interpreted that line to mean "relationships are not my area" as well. But I can also easily see how that line can be interpreted to Sherlock saying he's gay.

Interestingly enough, both Irene and Moriarty use sexualised language towards Sherlock (although Irene is quite a bit more out there, of course), and in my personal and subjective view, I see more sexual tension between Irene and Sherlock than I see between Moriarty and Sherlock. I see a difference. 

But, then again, there is of course as mentioned also a difference in how strong the two of them "attack" Sherlock, sexually. 

I think that for both of them, it's part of their MO too.  We know Irene uses it to get what she wants, and we see Moriarty using it with the guard when in custody.   If you count the deleted scene with Magnussen too, there's another instance of it too, again with Magnussen using it as part of his MO (as we see with Lady Smallwood).  Possibly Kitty counts as well (we don't see her doing it with anyone else, but we know she's doing it for a purpose).   It all adds up to Sherlock being shown as sexual prey too, which is more often a female role.   (Perhaps with the Magnussen scene being deleted this doesn't come across as strongly, and perhaps that was the reason they deleted it.  Unfortunately, I can't quite get it out of my head now that I've seen it). 

Sorry, digressing a bit!

From my pov , when Sherlock said " women ? Not my area ." He told me / us he was gay.
1895 things since then have reinforced that pov. I find it very hard to see povs where Sherlock is straight.

Last edited by Mothonthemantel (January 31, 2016 2:25 am)

Sorry, Schmiezi it's me being lazy in my writing - I meant modus operandi.   It's usually used when talking about criminals' particular way of working, and I was using it more generally to mean those people's approach to their "targets".  They use it with other people too, so it says more about them than it does about Sherlock.  But still interesting that the writers see Sherlock as a target in that way.

Mothonthemantel wrote:

From my pov , when Sherlock said " women ? Not my area ." He told me / us he was gay.
1895 things since then have reinforced that pov. I find it very hard to see povs where Sherlock is straight.

Yes, that's just what I mean about fitting things to the picture we have!  If you believe the writers were telling us outright that Sherlock was gay, then everything you see after has to fit around that  So when you watch the greenhouse scene and see John mentioning two women that Sherlock is supposedly attracted to, you know that John must have got it wrong, and that Sherlock is trying to hide the fact that he's gay (or the fact that he's attracted to John).  I understand that. 

Whereas for me, seeing the scene as leaving Sherlock's sexuality mysterious, but saying that he avoids relationships, I pretty much can take what John says in the greenhouse at face value, and wonder why anybody would see it differently (seriously, after watching TAB I thought the whole thing had been put to rest!).  While I do think Sherlock's orientation is a bit mysterious, and his attraction to Irene could have been a one off (she's gay too), adding the attraction to Lady Carmichael makes it much more difficult to see him as gay, when we don't see any attractions to men.  (And again, I can see that from your point of view, if you think we've been told that he's gay, and you see him being attracted to John, then the women are red herrings).

My point is really that it's not so much seeing what we want to see, as fitting what we see to what we "know". 

Apart from showing that Sherlock avoids relationships (whilst not giving away Sherlock's orientation), I think the scene establishes that both of them are "fine" with being gay: this is not going to be a rerun of TPLOSH.

(I know not everybody likes or believes the writers' opinions, so I've put this in brackets for people to ignore if wanted!  In one interview Steven Moffat said that the scene "dismisses" the gay thing - interesting, because I don't think it quite does - Sherlock's orientation is still undefined - except that it does dismiss the idea of gay Sherlock pining for John - as far as Sherlock is concerned in that scene, John was asking him out, so he believes that if he did want a relationship with John, he could have one.    And I read in a later interview that they hadn't decided on Sherlock's sexuality in the first series.  Anyway, I wonder if showing Sherlock's attraction to women in TAB was partly because it's clear that Sherlock's emotions are now clearly not so well repressed as he'd like them to be - if he was gay, then there might be a good chance that he would fall for John - or we'd have to be told why he didn't fall for John!   Making the objects of his desire female kind of removes that, and allows it to remain a friendship.   But that's more a thought for the non-Johnlockers!).