Wouldn't see them as in love if one of them was a woman and they still acted the way they act now?

Hey, thanks, Ag. ^^ Confidence boost. I've always felt like talking about this stuff isn’t my forte. I don't know anything about psychology. DX
So this is about why changing gender would change relationships means the double standard might not be that stupid. The rest of this post is qualified by “It’s possible that..”, Some of this just playing devils advocate.
Sherlock and John interact according to a guy code-  for the sake of the argument, I’ll pick the easy example where S punches J to make J retaliate.
If a female Sherlock used guy code to tell John to punch her, J would be confused. He probably wouldn’t, but if he did punch her back, the audience would feel like he must not have a soft spot for her. Contrast this with male Sherlock’s scene, we’re feeling all warm inside because of how familiar they are with each other and boys will be boys.
Fast forward to when female Sherlock returns from the death and John hits her repeatedly, instead of thinking “aw, lover’s spat, they love each other” I’m thinking “gosh, he must really hate her” because he’s motivated enough to break convention and “he doesn’t love her, if he did he wouldn’t be able to do something so damaging”.
It means a different thing when a guy does something to a girl than if a guy does that something to a guy. Even if two identical behaviors play out, one in a male-male relationship and one in a male-female relationship, they may not be equivalent in meaning. So we have to judge the two identical actions differently because they mean different things. A double standard is born. And it's justified, as a necessity to understand character behavior.
S and J know this when they interact; they pick behaviors according their mutually accepted standards for male relationships so that they are understood correctly. Sherlock may use his sex gaze on John because he knows J isn’t likely to assume it means S wants to physically have sex with J, J is more likely to interpret this as a non-aggressive sign of affection. In order to express the same not aggressive sentiment, Sherlock would not act this way with female John. If he did, female John would assume S wanted sex and could miss the affection completely. To communicate the same level of affection to female J, S would probably smile at her, or something similarly docile.
Summary. If we set them up so that they behaved like men but one was a girl, they would be misrepresenting their feelings and we would be misconstruing their relationship. A relationship where we maintain everything but the gender would still be an entirely different animal than the original relationship. We cannot judge them by the same standards, because the same actions don't mean the same thing going to or coming from the switched gender. In order to make the relationships the same, behaviors need to be translated to fit the genders and context, so that J and S's sentiments, and therefore the essence of the relationship, is equivalent to the original.

So, this may or may not be true, but because it's possible, I'm not 100% on the "double standard is bad" idea.

Last edited by Lue4028 (April 21, 2014 9:03 am)

Yes, indeed, comparable to Molly's reaction the lab. 

SusiGo wrote:

Yes, indeed, comparable to Molly's reaction the lab. 

Different reactions were shown from all the major people in Sherlock's life (and in fairness, Molly was the only one of them who knew he was alive and would reappear at some point)--  Mrs.H's scream, Lestrade's hug, Molly's close encounter of the third kind in the locker room. But only John was approached in public (why on EARTH would Sherlock do that?? He didn't do that to the others) and only John was treated to the full-on Sherlock song and dance of misplaced "humor" and smart-ass remarks and a desperate attempt to deflect what Sherlock knew was probably going to be a very, very, very bad reaction.

John *matters* to Sherlock, more than all the others combined, 100s of times more, IMO. So the way Sherlock revealed himself to all of them was one more sign from the writers that the two men are Something More Than Friends to each other, at least I think so, and I don't think I'm delusional about that, at least, I hope not. heh
 

tonnaree wrote:

You have a point here, but if you flip it and make John the one who is female with the male Sherlock returning from the dead, no one would blink twice if she smacked him.  It's an emotional response.
 

Haha yeah, that's true.That scenario seems like it would be even more amusing. So, there aren't always dissimilarities between M/M relationships and M/F relationships. But if there are any at all, and they bump the portrayal of the emotions off kilter, we're still comparing apples and oranges. So it still may be okay to use a different standard for M/M and M/F..
Haha, thanks for reminding us of that BB. So cute. ^^
Ugh.. I can't stand the thought of elementary. Framing Sherlock in the United States is like shooting a western film in without the horses and guns.

Last edited by Lue4028 (April 21, 2014 2:45 pm)

I'm sure its an enjoyable series. Can't stand it though. I don't think I'll ever get over the fact they took "Sherlock Holmes" out of London. I put quotes cuz I don't think he's the real one, lol. After watching Ben play Sherlock, this other guy (didnt bother to catch his name) bored me because he was not immediately as interesting. Sorry, I'm off topic.

Last edited by Lue4028 (April 21, 2014 4:32 pm)

besleybean wrote:

Of course John is the most important person in Sherlock's life, doesn't mean he's in love with him.

Doesn't mean he's not, either. I have no doubt that it's possible to be truly, madly, deeply in love with someone and *never act on it*. Ever.

The reason the Reunion was in public, was because Sherlock couln't wait to see John again and he just happened to be in public! Also, Sherlock was in palyful mood...though he rapidly realized he was in error.

That whole thing, with the shaving and dressing in that room with Mycroft, questioning how could John have "moved on," with Sherlock out of town for two years (as though he'd gone on sabbatical to the Greek Isles and everyone knew he'd be back, after all....  what?), putting his coat on, calling Mycroft "Blood" (I mean, seriously?), and then moving on to the restaurant, Sherlock was.... strange. Once he got to the restaurant, you could tell how clueless he was, wondering to himself how he should approach John. The ideas of impersonting a sommelier, painting on the mustache, the fake accent, all of that was totally off the cuff.

Playful? Maybe. But have we ever seen Sherlock be anything approaching playful before? I can't think of an instance of it-- he's usually sourly sarcastic, loud and rude. This iplayful thing was part of what I've called Sherlock's S3 partial personality transplant.
 

But I think they work well together.

ancientsgate wrote:

besleybean wrote:

Of course John is the most important person in Sherlock's life, doesn't mean he's in love with him.

Doesn't mean he's not, either.

And that's the thing about romance, bromance, Johnlock, whatever you wanna call what's going on in the show. It almost always works both ways. Beautiful ambiguity.

 

Lue, for some of us, that intangible, soulful relationship you speak of that they already have would not be sullied or destroyed if it tipped over into physical expression. Often when you love someone deeply and selflessly, you want to be as close to them as you possibly can.  You feel like you want to climb inside their skin and know them from the inside out.  You almost can't get close enough. You yearn to touch, smell, embrace, caress and "be as one" as the expression goes.  But most of all, you want to make the other person happy.  You want to make them feel close and loved and give them physical pleasure because it can be wonderful to do that for the person you love.

For the Johnlock fans who enjoy imagining them in a physical relationship it isn't a far stretch to have that perfect relationship they already have embody all the aspects of a perfect relationship - including the physical aspect. In our minds, theirs would never be a "common homosexual relationship".  What they have is way beyond anything "common" or gratuitous.  In the Johnlock fanfiction I enjoy, theirs is a true marriage of body and soul. That's my personal concept of Johnlock anyway....