guanin

I’m a bi ace. Sherlock is one of those shows that I’ve been able to go back to and realize how much I found things to relate to in Sherlock’s character and his relationship with John despite lacking the vocabulary or self-knowledge of it. I’ve been watching Sherlock since the first season aired on PBS. So 2010. The only of the above terms that was familiar with back then was bi, and back then, I thought I was bisexual, not simply biromantic, due to how I experience attraction and because I’d never heard of asexuality. I really wish I’d written down my first impressions of the show because my perspective has changed so much and my memories of it are now really fuzzy. Only a few points really stick in my mind.

One of these is the no doubt famous “I consider myself married to my work” scene, which I’m sure has been interpreted a thousand different ways. My own initial reaction was: does this mean that he’s gay or that he’s like Jughead? “Like Jughead” was the only way I had of conceptualizing aroace (you can be both gay and ace, but I didn’t know the split-attraction model then, either). For those who don’t know, Jughead is a character from the Archie comics who has always been very upfront about not doing or understanding romantic or sexual relationships and was confirmed as aroace in his most recent comics (never mind what that awful show is doing). So I had this notion that this was something that it was possible to be from having grown up with this character. But it was a very vague notion.

I don’t think I had a clear-cut headcanon for what Sherlock’s orientation was for those first couple of years. I read a lot of Johnlock. If there were any ace Johnlock fics back then, I sadly didn't see them. In all of them, Sherlock felt sexual attraction and acted on it, yet, while I enjoyed those fics, every time I watched that scene at Angelo’s restaurant, I just got this feeling. Like something else was going on here, but I couldn’t put my finger on what that was, so I didn’t know what do with that.

I dropped off from reading fics at some point in the hiatus between seasons 2 and 3. At some point between season 3 and The Abominable Bride, I did the whole “OMG, I’m ace” realization. So when I saw that scene in that episode, you know, the one where John is more than a bit of an asshole with not accepting that Sherlock is not interested in certain relationships, everything clicked. That’s what kept nudging me about the scene at Angelo’s. I was recognizing a bit of myself in this character without even realizing it (several bits, actually, but more on that later). I went deep into “Sherlock is ace” land and I‘m here to stay.

Asexual characters are just not something we see often. I certainly never had at that point. Todd Chavez hadn’t come out yet. It took until I was thirty years old for me to even hear the word “asexual” and another year before I even considered that it might apply to me. I’m not going to into the whole story right now, but not having any knowledge that asexuality is a thing and that you can feel some types of attraction while not feeling others did me quite a lot of damage and is the reason why I‘m now sex-repulsed when I used to be sex-indifferent. I actually used to write smut back in the day, as my Ao3 page will tell you. That’s not happening anymore.

Now I’m kicking myself for not sticking it out in the Sherlock fandom way back when, because there’s a Three Patch Podcast about asexual Sherlock headcanons from 2013. It took an ace headcanon in Gotham for me to realize. And that headcanon isn’t even based on anything canonical, really. I saw an ace prompt for the character and started digging. Then I ran into a bunch of other aces who loved the character and therefore also headcanoned him as ace. With Sherlock there’s actual evidence that you can argue makes him a valid ace apart from just a desire that I have to see myself in my faves. That makes that interpretation so incredibly important to me.

As for my current headcanon on Sherlock's orientation, I go between aroace, gay ace, and bi ace. As long as he's in a close, intimate relationship with John.