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You know what’s irking me a little?

THIS line:

“It’s such a great friendship, and there’s so much going on there. Why does it have to be sexual?”

It’s always said with this tone of anger and frustration, like it would be an insult to the writing to take it to a sexual place.

Why does it have to be sexual?

My question is: why not?

The people who ask this “Why does it have to be sexual?” question are misunderstanding something essential, and I think misunderstanding it willfully.

No one is saying that the connection has to be sexual to be validated.

Do hordes of people want the relationship to be sexualized? Do hordes of people think that it would be a natural extension of the characterization? Do hordes of people think that it would be the most honest modernization? Are hordes of people emotionally invested in the idea?

Yeah.

Sure, there’s just as many people in the other camp, and their viewpoint is just as valid. Which is strange, because if Sherlock Holmes and John Watson had been written or filmed as lovers, I somehow don’t imagine that there would be an entire community devoted to a platonic interpretation of the material, only to be then dismissed with lines like,

“It’s such a great romance, and there is so much going on there. Why does it have to be de-sexualized?”

The insinuation that sexualization would cheapen the relationship between John Watson and Sherlock Holmes, or that it would cheapen the artistic merit of the show, is sex-negative and irrational.

When I read Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s work, I often think to myself, “They could be shagging the entire time they live together at 221b, or not, and not a line of this wonderful writing would need to be changed either way.” Because the stories were, in their meta universe, “real” men publishing their experiences in The Strand, there is no room to address the issue one way or the other. They were published in the 19th century, for Pete’s sake. 19th century England: a time and a place where the need for secrecy regarding such matters was outmatched only by the volume of actual practice that was occurring among refined men. Details on Holmes and Watson’s private lives were understandably left out of the record, for the most part.

In other words, any re-interpretation that chooses to show more detail of their personal relationship have the option of including sex in the relationship, or not.

And it wouldn’t change a damn thing about those stories, or make them an ounce less profound or entertaining.

It wouldn’t make the relationship between those two characters an ounce less interesting, or less immortal.

Like a more detailed exploration of their platonic friendship, a more detailed exploration of their romantic relationship would yield fruits that were just as complex, just as worthwhile, and just as true to the characters.

You know what the real problem is, here?

Our society’s relationship with sex, and the internalized notion that sex cannot exist separately from pre-established relationship structures unless it’s a two-dimensional pursuit of beastly needs. Our society’s rejection of the idea that sexuality exists in friendships, when in fact, they often do. The line is far thinner than we lead ourselves to believe, and the spectrum runs far and wide. So many people share a degree of sexual intimacy with their close friends that they don’t acknowledge for what it is. Maybe they have sex with their partners, but go to their best friends to hash out all the details and talk about how it felt. Maybe they discuss masturbation and self-love at length with friends, share intimate stories, and exchange tips. Maybe they “ship” something and exchange highly erotic fiction or fantasies with a close friend. Maybe they’ve occasionally gone to their close friends for sexual experimentation or comfort. (In Kinsey’s studies, 46% of self-identified straight men had engaged in sexual contact with another man.)

The role of sex in friendships is complex, fluid, and usually unidentified.

So what is this invisible line, I wonder, that turns this interaction from something that is interesting and honest into something that is superficial, structured, or cheap? The moment two people begin to flat out have sex on a regular basis, does their definition as “lovers” suddenly override their definition as “friends”? Is it suddenly less complex? Is there suddenly less to explore? Has it suddenly been dramatized or romanticized or popularized?

The second you add sex, does that sex replace other interesting dynamics within Holmes and Watson’s relationship? Does it take aspects of their interaction and condense it into physical contact?

Or is it, in fact, merely another amazingly deep dimension of an infinitely faceted connection that is—for a reason—one of the most studied in all of literature?

Doesn’t it, in fact, have the potential to enrich that study?

Why does it have to be sexual, you ask?

It doesn’t have to be.

However, I offer you this thought:

Really let it sink in that it also doesn’t have to not be.

I must say, you make some fantastic points here! Well done!

YES. I am sick of society’s glorification of friendship at the expense of sex. You can have both in a relationship.

It doesn’t have to be nonsexual, but from where I’m standing, Sherlock Holmes and the Doctor stand as the ONLY TWO characters in media right now who can legitimately be interpreted as asexual.

An orientation which is not only overlooked, but legitimately not known about by the vast majority of the public. Maybe it’s just me being SuperAce, but society seems to think right now that you can’t have any level of closeness or intimacy between platonic friends or couples. That if two individuals are that close to each other, they must be shagging.

Glorification of friendship at the expense of sex? Nobody means that the connection has to be sexual to be valid? Oh, you’re funny. 

By which I mean what planet are you living on?

‘Are you two dating?’
‘No, we’re just friends.’

‘But look at how close they are!

‘Look at what he would do for him! How can they not be in love*?’

*where our hypothetical poster, like most people, makes no distinction between a romantic relationship and a sexual one.

And look at fandom. Two characters are close? They’re emotionally intimate? They must be fucking. That acts on a wider societal level. Romantic-sexual relationships are considered the end-all be-all, and every other relationship is somehow lesser. It’s less important. It’s not as intimate. Just friends. 

Bullshit. 

And when there is a relationship between two people that’s powerful — maybe even the primary one in their lives — in media, it’s laughed off. It’s a ‘bromance’ or the show constantly makes jokes about it — ‘we’re not together!’ ‘we’re not gay!’ ‘I’m not his girlfriend!’

It’s considered weird and unnatural for two people to love each other absolutely and completely, to be the most important people in each other’s lives, and to not want in each other’s pants, okay? I live with this. I live knowing that the most important relationships in my life will never be considered real or important because they’re not romantic or sexual.

And in the case of Holmes and Watson, there is visibility. They’re some of the most famous characters in the history of fiction. There have been more film and TV adaptations of the Holmes stories than of anything else. Holmes and Watson are household names — the stories, and the characters and the relationship at the heart of it all, have seeped into our collective consciousness.

I can point to their relationship and say, “That’s what I have.”

And. 

People.

Will.

Know.

What.

I.

Mean.

There’s a reason that asexual people in general have latched onto Sherlock Holmes in all forms. He’s recognizable. He’s visible. And he has an incredible, powerful, important relationship without romance or sex. 

Is it too much to ask for this one relationship? For this one famous love that defines two lives but which isn’t romantic or sexual? Is it too much to ask that people stop immediately equating emotional intimacy with sex?

I don’t care that you ship it sexually. And I’m not telling you not to. You are free to interpret and ship as you wish, and I actually really can enjoy romantic Holmes/Watson as a fanon ship. Seriously.

Just don’t try to tell me that’s the only way to do it, and don’t you dare fucking tell me that I’m irrational because of it.

So, I’ll be honest: I was pretty angry when I first read your response.

Not angry because I disagreed with it—in fact, I agree with almost all of it—but angry because you clearly did not read a word of my post before you responded to it. Or, if you did, you read it with such defensive goggles that all you saw was the oppressive or offensive language you expected to see, rather than what was actually being said.

I cooled off pretty quick, because, well… I do that all the time, too. It’s sort of a side-effect of being in any sort of silenced, underrepresented, or misunderstood demographic… especially if that demographic is popularly considered to be the diametric opposite of another demographic that is visible in the mainstream. Eg., A feminist might feel that the attempt to bring visibility to a men’s issue is an inherent assault on a women’s issue.

A lot of other people have responded to your comment and, perhaps because of your added words, are also grossly misinterpreting my post and drawing offense. This is upsetting because asexuality visibility is important to me, and it’s upsetting to think that my post is hurting people’s feelings. So, let me wind this back and clarify. I’m sure that if you re-read my post, you will see that there were no anti-asexual sentiments in it.

I said in my post, several times, that both interpretations of Watson and Holmes’ relationship—that is, in some way sexual or purely non-sexual—are equally valid. (That is, based on Doyle’s original work.)

Truly meaningful and complex platonic friendships (or romantic but non-sexual relationships) are so woefully underrepresented that much of the conversation around Holmes and Watson’s relationship revolves around how wonderful it is to see so much of it in this media. And it is. Nowhere in my post do I say that this interpretation of the Watson/Holmes relationship—which is reflected in almostall Holmesian media—is unwelcome or invalid. Nowhere.

Nor did I say anywhere in my post that the conversation and visibility that naturally follows this is unwelcome or invalid. Nowhere.

What I did respond to was the occasional tendency for this conversation to cross the line into insulting, invalidating, or becoming angry with a sexual interpretation.

Yes, sexual relationships are visible and ubiquitous, but that does not make it okay to speak in a way that is aggressive or negative toward people who do value a sexual interpretation of the Holmes/Watson relationship. As I pointed out, the source material leaves many blanks, which can be filled in a variety of ways without betraying or contradicting the existing writing. One of the ways to fill these blanks is with a sexual interpretation. This in no way invalidates or supersedes other interpretations; no where in my post did I say that it did.

As a non-asexual person, I feel frustrated when people scoff and ask, in an aggressive and disparaging tone, “Well why does it have to be sexual?”

I was trying to explain, politely, that I am not saying that it has to be sexual, but that a sexual interpretation is okay. I understand that there is very little media out there that portrays honest, interesting, asexual characters and partnerships, and that in this sense, much of Sherlock Holmes media is important to the asexual community. However, the asexual community also does not exclusively own Sherlock Holmes: my sexual interpretation of the material is not an assault on your interpretation. This is why there is no reason that I should encounter so much aggression for my sexual interpretation.

Another thing that came up: I did not say that a sexual relationship and a romantic relationship cannot exist separately. In fact, part of my post was devoted to pointing out that sexuality has a presence in many aromantic relationships, and that our understanding of sex and relationships needs improvement. Asexual people are frequently pointing out that a relationship can be romantic without beingsexual; I was pointing out the flip side of the coin, which is that a relationship can be sexual without being romantic. I was pointing out that we only ever see these sexual-but-not-romantic relationships in the context of casual sexual promiscuity, or (as I forgot to mention) in “friends-with-benefits” situations, but never as part of a deep and valid aromantic connection. My observationsin no way invalidate other observations that are based on this way of thinking—that is, the thinking that sex, romance, and friendship can exist in any variety of combinations, and that none are more or less valid than others. I am just talking about a side of this philosophy that is relevant to non-asexual people, which is in no way an inherent silencing of asexual people or asexual issues.

Then there’s your line:

“And look at fandom. Two characters are close? They’re emotionally intimate? They must be fucking.”

I would like to say, on behalf of the sane and mature portion of sexual Holmes/Watson shippers, that the fandom doesn’t look very kindly on people who can’t separate their desires from the material. In the BBC version of Sherlock Holmes, for example, John Watson has explicitly stated that he is not gay and is not interested in a romantic or sexual relationship with Sherlock. It is understood among fandom members that fan-media that contradicts this is meta-fictional, AU, etc., and created for people’s personal enjoyment only. Basically, it’s a chorus of, “I wish they were fucking.” When someone says, “They must be fucking,” they don’t tend to be received very positively. (I will hand you that there is some pretty inappropriate or frustrating humor that goes on. I have to say that I was personally pretty irritated by a lot of the jokes that came out after Scandal, when John did make this very explicit statement, and portions of the fandom were making jokes along the lines of, “Haha, very funny, John.” Not cool. But, point is, very few people seriously hold such sentiments, and they’re not received well. Hopefully, the inappropriate humor will be the next thing to come under the microscope.)

The one area where I do stand corrected is this:

“No one is saying that the connection has to be sexual to be validated.”

You pointed out that plenty of people are saying this. You’re right. It was wrong of me to suggest that this particular form of enlightenment is so far-spread. What I should have said was, “I am not saying that it has to be sexual to be valid.” Or, “The majority of the fandom is not saying that it has to be sexual to be valid,” because, as I pointed out, I have seen very few people who think that their desire for sexual media invalidates other viewpoints, and they’re not well-received.

So again.

Nowhere did I say that romantic-sexual relationships are the “end-all, be-all” of relationships. Nor did I validate this viewpoint. I agree with you wholeheartedly that this is not true.

Nowhere did I say that other relationships are lesser, less important, or not as intimate. Nor did I validate this viewpoints. I agree with you wholeheartedly that this is not true.

Nowhere did I say that a sexual interpretation was the only one, or that non-sexual interpretations were irrational. I said that exclusion of a sexual interpretation or irritation toward it was irrational.

For all the negative stereotypes that exist against platonic relationships in this world (“just” friends), there are also negative stereotypes that exist against sexual relationships (that they are “cheaper”, “not as deep”, “inherently romantic”, and so forth), and I devoted time in my post to refuting those stereotypes. The fact that I did not take time to refute stereotypes against platonic relationships is not an insult or an invalidation of them: it was simply not the topic of my post.

So, what I was saying is that a sexual interpretation of Doyle’s characters is a valid viewpoint.

What I was saying is that a sexual interpretation does not cheapen or diminish the connection between the characters. (Refuting stereotypes and insinuations that it does.)

What I was saying is that it is not okay to invalidate people’s sexual interpretation of the material by coming out and expressing frustration or anger toward it.

That is misdirected aggravation.

My sexual interpretation does not inherently, nor strive to, invalidate yours.

I hope I’ve worded myself more clearly, this time.

Sorry for the long post.

(via savagedamsel)