Liberty wrote:

It doesn't really matter whether John correctly or incorrectly assessed what Sherlock felt for either Irene or Janine - the point is that he cares for him and wants him to have a girlfriend - he wants him to be happy. 

Of course, it´s part of personal interpretation and I have not an actual insight into these characters heads... but I actually doubt John wants Sherlock to have a girfriend, even if Martin mentioned it in an interview. He wants Sherlock to be happy, yes, but I think he is at a loss of how to achieve it. And I doubt he is unaware that Sherlock doesn´t really care for women (both times he sees him with a woman, he is quite shocked), so why would he want to push Sherlock into happiness using some elusive "gilfriend" as the means to do it? If you like something, but the others don´t share your entusiasm for this thing, it would be a folly to force it unto them to make them happy, wouldn´t it?
 

No need to apologise - I was just trying to say that I was aware of it and speaking from that perspective!   I think TAB is confusing, because it's just Sherlock's mind palace - but it probably does give a good idea of his view of other characters, whether he's correct or not.  In this case, I don't see any reason to think he's incorrect. 

Anyway, I think ASIP and TAB make it clear that it's not really that Sherlock is not attracted to people (I don't think it matters too much if it's women or men), but that he chooses to avoid relationships (because he believes they put him at a dangerous disadvantage intellectually and emotionally).   And I think, also, that he kind of regrets that at times (as shown in TSOT and TAB). 

I think John is shocked at seeing Sherlock with Janine because he knows Sherlock doesn't do relationships. 

But I think that what John intuits (and what Moftiss mention, and Martin, and Sherlock's mind palace version of John) is that there's a part of Sherlock that doesn't really want to be alone, that secretly desires to have what "real people" have.  (I don't think that's the same as trying to force it on him at all!  It's not like he tries to set him up on dates or anything.  He respects his view on the matter, but likes the idea of him being happy).

I don't see what's wrong with that - Moftiss, Martin and what we're shown in the show all seem to be saying the same thing?

Last edited by Liberty (June 13, 2016 2:57 pm)

Very cute .   I suppose in terms of Johnlock, it doesn't matter if it's intentional or not.  The scene is already set up to look like a date!  (Although Lady and The Tramp take it a lot further!).

SusiGo wrote:

"When I woke next morning he was in my room, and a funny-looking object he was.  His dressing-gown lay on a chair, and he was putting up a fifty-six pound dumb-bell, without a rag to cover him.  Nature didn’t give him a very symmetrical face, nor the sweetest of expressions; but he has a figure like a Greek statue."

This is from a book in which a medical student writes about his adventures with a brilliant but unorthodox genius living with his landlady above a little grocery shop. The book was written in 1895, the title is "The Stark Munro Letters" and the author is Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. It is generally regarded as strongly autobiographical. 
(full text here: https://en.m.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Stark_Munro_Letters)

 
 

Wow, they must be the best bros.

I shall say this again: ACD's notebooks show that he felt sorry for gay men as he believed they were ill.

True, and I think views were very different in those days.  And he was a doctor, who might have had more of a leaning towards seeing it as an illness.  That might have been a more reasonable assumption back in those days, even though it seems outrageous now.   As I say, I don't feel I know him well enough to decide. 

I don't think writing about the male form like that (even autobiographically) is a clincher, though.    Admiring the human body doesn't necessarily have to include sexual attraction, and I don't think a writer writing like that necessarily implies it.  The piece is a bit mixed (the description of the face and expression isn't flattering) and doesn't really show the narrator's feelings.  I read the bits around it (not the whole thing) and my first impression is that it seemed to be describing an interesting and unusual character, rather than showing romantic or sexual feelings.   But I think that as always, in writing of that time, it's difficult to know what's left unsaid when it comes to "the love that dare not speak its name"! 

besleybean wrote:

Then he did want to make Holmes ' different', then again- why mention Irene at all?

In ACD´s canon, Irene was only mentioned as Holmes´ adversary who married another man (Norton) the very day she met Holmes for the first time... they spoke together like, once and there was never anything romantic between them. Holmes respected her only as an adversary who bet him with her cleverness, not because he had hots for her.

So Doyle mentioning Irene doesn´t exclude the possibility of Holmes being gay at all.

In my opinion, the very desperation, with which the subsequent movie adaptations and pastiches try to paint Holmes and Irene Adler as the pair of lovers, betray the fear of people that the Holmes would be perceived as the homosexual man. Why would they go to such lenghts to construct the romance between him and Adler, absolutely non-existing in the canon, otherwise?

And if they are allowed to construct the Holmes-Adler ship out of the blue, then why do they deny the right of other people to construct the Johnlock ship that actually has some support in the original text?

Also, Doyle looked at the junkies with the same disagreement he looked at homosexuals. That didn´t prevent him from potraying Holmes as the person who constantly abuses narcotics. The point "he wouldn´t potray Holmes as homosexual because he took homosexual for ill" is moot, I believe.

Don't know the series, can't say I have any interest in it.
On the 'why?' part.
Because I listen to the team and accept what they say.
That as well as believing my own eyes.

SusiGo wrote:

True. The constant attempts to read a heterosexual meaning into Sherlock (Canon and everywhere) are baffling. I wonder how often we will have to hear "not my area" or "once would have been nice" or "the fair sex is your department" before this is over.
 

I don't think there's a definite heterosexual reading in the BBC Sherlock series, but as I've said, there's a strong suggestion that he's attracted to women and we don't see attraction to men (unless you see Johnlock, but then it gets circular!) - that doesn't rule anything out, of course, but it does mean that seeing him as straight is heteronormative - it's just making an assumption from the information we've got so far. 

I know some people feel that he establishes himself as gay in the Angelo's conversation, but it's clear that John doesn't see him that way.  He later asks Mrs Hudson if he's had boyfriends or girlfriends - he's still a mystery as far as John's concerned. 

The two people that are mentioned as potential love interests in the greenhouse scene are both women.  In both cases, he tries to cover up the fact that he's attracted to them, but looks uncomfortable doing it, and his mind palace John sees through him.  These are not writers who are scared to write gay characters or who would try to cover it up.   They could just as easily have brought up a man in that conversation, if they wanted to show him as gay. 

"Once would have been nice" is also ambiguous - it's not really any proof of sexual orientation.  (Obviously, being gay is not the issue - he wasn't dating Janine because he was attracted to her, but because he was using her for a case).    For some reason, he chose not to have sex with her, and we're left to make up our own minds why (I have my own ideas, of course!). 

"The fair sex is your department" makes sense if John/Watson dates women and Sherlock doesn't. 

I think it's interesting that two of the "villains" are flirting and using sexual language towards Sherlock - both Moriarty and Irene. And, in a more subtle (and creepy) way, so does Magnussen. I am wondering if they all do it because they sense that sexual advances - no matter from which gender - is a sure way to intimidate Sherlock and make him uncomfortable. Regular threats and insults doesn't work, but flirting does.