Didn't the Sherlock Halmes books hint he was gay?

[nonnon]

If you don't know what I'm talking about, read this post first.
http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/movies/news/a193822/sherlock-holmes-2-plans-in-jeopardy.html

I've read all Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's books and allways throught that Sharlock had feelings for John (Doctor Watson). I watched the movie on boxing day and this came across to me (Please note I'm a straight male and engaged to the love of my life who's called Rachel).

 

[La Min]

Interesting... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherlock_Holmes#Relationships_with_women depicts him as completely uninterested in women. He seems to have issues with women and can only respect them if they are his intellectual equal (or better), as was the case with Irene Adler.

It would be possible to portray him as gay, but that's not really the logical conclusion to draw from his behaviour. He just doesn't seem to have sexual feelings for anyone.

 

[livelove123]

Well there is that joke about "lemon entry my dear Watson"...

 

[DMB2007]

You and I clearly read different Holmes stories.

 

[CrossFireX]

It's unlikely, Conan Doyle was no Oscar Wilde, he was of that Victorian generation that could barely believe that Men could behave in such a manner, and if even if they did believe it, they'd have them horsewhipped.

Doyle was a keen believer in Eugenics, so it's safe to say he would deem any non-traditional sexual shenanigans as perverted in the extreme.

Post No. 2 has it about right.

Holmes is un-sexual, it doesn't interest him in the least because to lose oneself in sexual abandon is to lose one's rationality.

 

[Crzy-Chk-4-Evr]

Conversely, try to spot the straight one in "Dorian Gray"

 

[monique b]

I have read most of the Sherlock Holmes stories more than once and I've never felt it tbh.

I always had him down as completely unsexual in any way.

 

[chadol4962]

I came in the thread to post the exact thing, you beat me to it

 

[wylieredneck69]

He's completely uninterested in either sex.

As Watson notes, Holmes would consider the nature of attraction abhorrent because it would interfere with his calculating reason.

 

[mailaccount63]

No, not at all.

And Watson certainly isn't with his experience of many women over separate continents...etc.

As for Conan Doyle's own attitudes, he was rather more enlightened than most men of his time, especially with his campaigning for women's equal rights with divorce, and he was friendly with Oscar Wilde (his dinner with him and a publisher resulted in The Sign of Four/Wilde's Dorian Gray) so I don't think he was quite the reactionary that some assume.

 

[RS8389]

I always read Holmes as being asexual; he couldn't dedicate his mind to something as irrational as romantic love.