hypergreenfrog wrote:

It might not be my position to interfere here, but I think what KeepersPrice meant is that by saying that John knows "where to look" she meant Sherlock, not herself.

Yes, I'm saying she's messing with John's mind by "exposing" that he secretly has the hots for Sherlock and that if he had his choice of where to look, it would not be at her. She plays the scene insinuating she's positively "sure" of where John's interest lies; but of Sherlock she's not so sure.  She can't detect if he's sexually interested in anything.  She's not insinuating he's gay or straight.  He could be either.  Sherlock "rescues" John when he mentions the naked women on his laptop, more or less saying, "You got it wrong about what he likes lady - he's all male and he's got the pictures to prove it. So let's talk about something else now.  You're boring me with this stuff."

Irene knows sex and the game of humiliation and she knows how to completely manipulate her clients and her victims.  It's her job and she's really, really good at it.  She doesn't hold back when it comes to "ball-busting". She's bringing out all her weapons to use on these two - hoping to detect a weakness somewhere.  That's how I read the scene anyway.

But Sherlock did stumble over his words which is unheard of.

Sherlock saw the question marks next to Irene because she was naked and he couldn't read her. He does, after all, get most of his deductions from clothing. He does get some things from facial expressions, hands etc but her nails and make up were immaculate, no bags under her eyes like John which signified his night out with Stamford. So basically the only thing he could read about her was her measurements.

He was definitely surprised to see her walk in naked, I mean WHO WOULDN'T BE?! I don't think it means he fancies her in any way, shape or form. He was just taken aback, and then he stumbled over his words because he was still in shock about it (someone should have passed him a shock blanket). Let's face it, he's probably never seen a naked woman in the flesh before so even if he's not interested in sex it's bound to have some impact on him.

I think Sherlock believes she deserves to live, cos she's no Moriarty.

Last edited by besleybean (February 13, 2013 9:24 pm)

I don't think it's Sherlock saying sorry.
He may FEEL a little sorry for her.

Not everyone assumes John is gay. Some people imply it and others jump to conclusions.

Is what I put what you mean?

Sherlock and Irene seemed to oddly trust each other after the first meeting, they were something of kindred spirits.  Granted a lot of what happened was part of a bigger game she was playing with Moriarty, but in the Vatican Cameos moment when they were being held by the CIA poopy heads at gun point, there was some really effective non verbal communication between them.  ( her hinting at the code and hinting at him that there was a gun in the safe).

Well I think the whole thing with John is that we don't know. Pretty much everything said in relation to his sexuality is almost zen, nothing is ever said clearly, things can always be taken two ways and my sense is that that is because he is working through it, probably a lot more than he realises, certainly more than he is willing to admit. The writers convey this unsettled sense very well, of "what the hell are these feelings, I'm a normal guy" that are pretty familiar, I'd say, to a lot of people who have grown up not-straight at least pre mass-internet and under our Section 28 (so anyone over about 25)

So when she says "he" (John) "knows exactly where to look,", it is meant to be ambiguous. She says at one point that Moriaty has told her how to play the Holmes brothers-presumably he also told her how to play John. But she plays people by knowing them well and knowing their weaknesses. I don't get the impression that she ever lies-therein is her genius

My own sense is that John's actual problem more than anything is that the feelings he has for Sherlock, as a fundementally straight man, are actually not ones he has any experience of, that fit into anything he understands, that is reflected in his reality. So John's feelings may very well not be sexual but without an context for him to pin them to they are hard for him to understand. I know not everyone agrees, but I'd consider strong same-sex friendship-I mean to the point where your world ends because your best friend dies, where the last thing you want to look at is each other...well that might not be sexual, but, that is a freaking strong feeling there. Yk, not all gay relationships are about sex, just like not all straight relationships are all about the sex, and I think this is part of the ambiguity, that you often get in media representations of gay relationships, that, unlike straight relationships to be gay you have to have specific and strong sexual feelings whereas for straight relatinships, a strong desire just to be together is enough.. Which is why I see the writers as unwilling to declare either way-they are mimicing that uncertain, that "where the hell do I fit here" feeling, And nowadays, if John just felt straightforward lust, actually that would make sense, albeit he'd be uncomfortable. His reality, of a non-sexual attraction to another man,  what I think Gatiss calls "move" is just not reflected anywhere else except occasionally in tv bromance where everyone is raising an eyebrow anyway.

Last edited by beekeeper (March 29, 2013 7:39 pm)

yes

but "bromance" isn't really something that actually exists in real life. Not IME anyway. In many years on this planet, having known many, many different kinds of people, I have never known a bromance. I cannot think of a single pair of male friends I know who are each other's world like this, who would write a suicide note to each other or reach out hands to touch before death. "bromance", imo, is a word invented to circumvent what's actually happening, which is that sexuality isn't fixed for any of us and that gay relationships don't necessitate sex any more than straight ones do. You can and do have long term, chaste, same sex relationships where there is a lot of love. 

I'm so not a shipper. But I do struggle a bit here because to me, this is obviously a relationship with a lot of things in common with a same sex relationship. And part of me thinks, why the protest?




 

Last edited by beekeeper (March 29, 2013 7:46 pm)