Saved Archived Meta: Weeesi (pt1)

(Commentary by Crow: I prefer for this blog to stay as strictly focused on ACD meta as possible. Unfortunately that can not be entirely the case as there are many useful metas about the original Canon stories that are also interwoven with bbc commentary. Please forgive their addition, as their notes regarding ACD Canon itself are useful.)

London and the Culture of Homosexuality – Masterpost

I’ve finished the book London and the Culture of Homosexuality, 1885-1914 by Matt Cook. We’ve learned a lot along the way and now that it’s finished, I thought I’d compile everything into one post for easier access.
1) Empty train carriages, Molly houses, and moustaches on trial
2) “That’s not a sentence you hear every day” - how modern Sherlock incorporates Victorian-era facial hair code
3) Gay lit is gay, the Criterion bar is gay, Turkish baths are gay, green carnations are gay, button holes are gay
4) Homosexual men loved to liaise at the Criterion Bar
5) TJLC is Real: Carefully-Chosen Words and Public Opinion
6) Sherlock fits a case study of a period-relevant homosexual man
7) Anal violins
8) Gay graffiti worth writing about in your memoirs
9) Cabs were helpful, Gothic romance was queer, literary gay subtext was criminal evidence, the male-on-male gaze was a stand-in for sex, and idealised male nudes were all the rage
10) Every Great Cause Has Martyrs - how language used in the TAB trailer mirrors that used by Victorian homosexual men
11) Did Victorian-Era Gay Men Think Sherlock Holmes Was Gay?
12) The closest thing I’ve ever written to a personal TJLC manifesto
Discussions/asks/misc with other people about the book: here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here
Buy the book online
Thank you to everyone who read/commented/liked/reblogged posts from my little readalong liveblog. I loved doing it and I hope you liked it too.
Up next:
Strangers: Homosexual Love in the Nineteenth Century by Graham Robb

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1) Empty train carriages, Molly houses, and moustaches on trial

I am reading this book at the moment – London and the Culture of Homosexuality, 1885-1914 by Matt Cook. First off, it’s brilliant and everyone should read it. Identifying as “gay” or “homosexual” was quite complicated during this era and Cook spends a lot of time discussing the idea of sexuality and sexual identity in London during these years. I’m just through the first chapter but have learned many things already:

1) Empty train cars (railway carriages) were quite popular spots for gay men to rendezvous and do the do
2) A gay man was often referred to as a “Molly” and a “Molly House” was a place where gay men could socialise together
3) A famous case involving two men (Ernest Boulton and Frederick Park) who were accused of homosexual activity and charged with “conspiring and inciting persons to commit an unnatural offence” was brought to court to great public spectacle. During their trial, one of the men (Park) GREW A MOUSTACHE to try to conform to the era’s expectations of masculinity (many men who were identified as gay were clean shaven).

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2) “That’s not a sentence you hear every day” - how modern Sherlock incorporates Victorian-era facial hair code

“That’s not a sentence you hear every day.”

Originally posted by gold-talisman

You’re right, John, it isn’t.
We’re all very familiar with the sort of cringe-worthy yet sweetly honest scene in TEH where Sherlock and John have this little exchange (and thanks again to Ariane DeVere’s transcripts):

SHERLOCK: See you’ve shaved it off, then.
JOHN: Yeah. Wasn’t working for me.
SHERLOCK: Mm, I’m glad.
JOHN: What, you didn’t like it?
SHERLOCK (smiling): No. I prefer my doctors clean-shaven.
JOHN: That’s not a sentence you hear every day!

Sherlock outs himself as a gay man to John.
John is surprised and focuses on the sentence rather than the meaning, the format instead of the content, as the viewer is supposed to do too.
Let’s back up a bit. Obviously BBC Sherlock Holmes was not created out of thin air in the 21st century – the original character was created in 1887 during the late-Victorian era. At this time it was against the law - a criminal act - to engage in homosexual activity and men who had sex and/or “improper” relationships with other men were under constant threat of being arrested and prosecuted in court, with some even sentenced to hard labour in prison.
During this time, however, many men who identified as homosexual (which in itself was a complicated concept and meant different things to different men) started to find unique ways to identify each other: for solidarity, friendship, support, sex.

I made another post talking about London and the Culture of Homosexuality, 1885-1914 by Matt Cook, which is an incredible resource on queer history and culture at this time (though focuses exclusively on male homosexuality). In the book, Cook talks about various ways that men were stereotyped as homosexual: being effeminate, being a (confirmed) bachelor, a theatregoer, a dandy, wearing scent, living a “bohemian” lifestyle.

Oscar Wilde was called a bohemian repeatedly, in the press and elsewhere, during his trials. Who else was called a bohemian…oh. Sherlock Holmes was called a bohemian… by Watson himself. Here’s the quote, from A Scandal in Bohemia, published four years before Wilde’s trials:

“My marriage had drifted us away from each other. My own complete happiness, and the home-centred interests which rise up around the man who first finds himself master of his own establishment, were sufficient to absorb all my attention, while Holmes, who loathed every form of society with his whole Bohemian soul, remained in our lodgings at Baker Street, buried among his old books, and alternating from week to week between cocaine and ambition…”
Curious that you’re so happy in your marriage, Watson, yet you still refer to 221B as “our lodgings”. But I digress. We have a juxtaposition in the text: supposedly happy, hetero-married John Watson, master of his domain, describing confirmed bachelor Sherlock Holmes’ apparent depression, alone and gay in Baker Street, but clearly preferring that over the social and sexual demands of a homophobic society. For as much as he’s trying to draw the line between himself and Holmes here, Watson immediately drops everything to go out on another case with Holmes. Of course, this “bohemian” signifier is used in the story featuring Irene Adler, a woman who appears in the BBC modern verison in ASiB, an episode which focuses heavily on sex and sexual identity.

Anyway, back to the moustaches.

Being “bohemian” was just one way to identify men who were considered to be homosexual. Another was being clean-shaven. A man who was placed on trial for homosexual activity grew a moustache so as to conform to contemporary standards of heterosexual masculinity. As Cook says, “…though certainly not a definitive indication of sexual deviance, [being clean shaven] was a commonly noted feature of defendants in cases of gross indecency between men” and almost always reported in the press. He continues: “Facial hair functioned as a symbol of masculinity and respectability during…the late-Victorian ‘beard-boom.’ Those without it were associated with fashion, bohemiansim, and an avant-garde - but also possibly worse” – being a homosexual.
George Ives, a friend of Oscar Wilde’s and a gay man, shaved off his moustache on Wilde’s advice once he set himself up in the West End as an independent bachelor and decided to pursue sexual and emotional relationships with other men.
For Sherlock Holmes to be clean shaven at the end of the 19th century would definitely have signified something to the average reader who was at least slightly familiar with masculine culture in London.

Here’s some of the many Sherlock Holmes we’ve seen over the years:

All clean shaven (photo from x).
What does John Watson usually look like?

Originally posted by leavemealonewithmyvoices

MOUSTACHED TO THE NTH DEGREE. I can’t think of a Watson in any adaptation who is clean-shaven…except for our BBC John. (But do help me out if I’ve missed one).

In The Abominable Bride, Sherlock is clean shaven as usual, and John has a moustache, but setlock photos suggested that John has some scenes sans moustache (unless this was due to Martin just not having it on yet – we’ll have to wait and see).

The symbolism of facial hair and having it/not having it was a significant indicator of sexual preference during the era when Sherlock Holmes was at the height of his glory in late-Victorian London. Curiously, it’s also become a focus in the modern adaptation as well.
To return to that scene in TEH, Sherlock admits to John that he doesn’t like his appearance with a moustache (he doesn’t like John altering his appearance to change aspects of himself), and John admits it wasn’t working for him (can only keep up altered appearances for so long). Interestingly, he asks Sherlock to confirm “you didn’t like it”. John grew it when he thought Sherlock was dead and became engaged to a woman.

Sherlock plainly says he prefers his doctors clean-shaven. To the modern ear, this sounds weird and means nothing, really. To the late-Victorian ear, this would be nearly tantamount to saying that you prefer gay men, or that you yourself might be gay, according to popular contemporary trends and beliefs.

A clean-shaven John, especially one that does this

Originally posted by go-alan-run-you-hairy-bastard

is pretty revolutionary.

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3) Gay lit is gay, the Criterion bar is gay, Turkish baths are gay, green carnations are gay, button holes are gay

I’ve made some more progress on the book I’m currently obsessed with, London and the Culture of Homosexuality, 1885-1914 by Matt Cook, and have made a couple posts about it here and here. Now I have my next longer meta brewing (!!)…but in the meantime, here are some updates:

(if you’re not keen to see more posts like this, I’ll tag everything related to this book “london and the culture of homosexuality” so you can avoid it if you like)

1) The Sins of the Cities of the Plain was a pornographic (homosexual) novel published in 1881. It follows the memoirs of a young male prostitute, John Jack Saul, who is “paid to set down his experiences by a client“, who just happens to provide an address in Baker Street, which was really the address of a friend called William Sherlock Scott Holmes Potter. The book talks about doing the do in Belgravia and picking up men in Regent’s Park, as well as the joys of having sex with guardsmen/soldiers. It did not mess around: one of the chapters is literally called “The Same Old Story: Arses Preferred to C*nts”. So. It was pretty gay.

2) The Criterion Bar on Piccadilly Circus attracted all kinds of men, including guardsmen, for meetings of a more intimate nature. According to Cook’s research, it was considered to have “a subcultural reputation for homosexual activity” and was a “great centre for inverts”, according to some 19th century contemporaries. (“Invert” was another derogatory term for homosexual.) I’m sure there’s no need to remind you that this is where John Watson and Mike Stamford meet up before Stamford introduces Watson to the love of his life Holmes. 

3) Turkish baths were considered to be very gay (many other homosocial spaces developed similar reputations).

4) Articles in popular fashion magazines like Modern Man “bemoaned the damage done to the fashion for buttonholes by [Oscar] Wilde’s penchant for green carnations”.

This, in an article titled: “Judging a Man by His Button Hole.”

Originally posted by bumblebee-cuttlefish

WHAT COULD IT MEAN

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4) Homosexual men loved to liaise at the Criterion Bar

Just liaising….

(from London and the Culture of Homosexuality, 1885-1914 by Matt Cook)

Saved Archived Meta: Weeesi (pt2)

TJLC IS REAL: Carefully-Chosen” Words and Public Opinion

Or, Another Installment in:

Weeesi Liveblogs “London and the Culture of Homosexuality, 1885-1914″ by Matt Cook and Flails Continuously Because Reasons

(Previous posts here, here, here, and here. I’m also tagging with “london and the culture of homosexuality” but apparently tracked tags are no longer a thing so idk.)

Let’s talk about words.

Mark Gatiss revealed the title of the previously-untitled shspesh at the MCM London Comic Con panel a few weeks ago.

“The. Abominable. Bride.”

Many people quickly realised the connection to “Ricoletti of the club foot and his abominable wife“ in The Adventure of the Musgrave Ritual, the same story in which Watson refers to himself as Bohemian, a word we’ve already explored as being connected to queer culture around the turn of the century in London.

So, who is the abominable bride? What’s so abominable? And why use the word abominable in the first place?

What’s the significance of the word abominable?

The Buggery Act of 1533 “codified sodomy into secular law as “the detestable and abominable vice of buggery”,  which remained a capital offence until the Offences Against the Person Act was enacted in 1861.

@skulls-and-tea and @wellthengameover also talked about the use of the word abominable in the Offences Against the Person Act of 1861 and a possible connection to a (gross indecency) trial taking place in TAB.

As we’ve established, during the late-Victorian era it was clearly against the law to engage in homosexual activity. Various laws and amendments meant any homosexual activity – at all – was illegal in both public and private spaces. The Criminal Law Amendment Act of 1885 recriminalised (male) homosexuality due in part to Section 11, the Labouchere Amendment, which read:

”Any male person who, in public or private, commits, or is party to the commission of, or procures the commission by any male person of, any act of gross indecency with another male person, shall be guilty of a misdemeanour, and being convicted thereof shall be liable at the discretion of the court to be imprisoned for any term not exceeding two years, with or without hard labour.”

(Both Oscar Wilde and Alan Turing were convicted and sentenced under Section 11. It was only repealed in part in 1967 and stayed on the statute books until 2003. That is truly abominable.)

Now the word “male” was explicitly written into the law. Male homosexuality in particular was outlawed. Additional legislation, such as a clause in the Vagrancy Law Amendment Act of 1898, caused one man to despair that “an alleged smile or wink or look may cause an arrest.” Behaviour that was not even explicitly sexual was under suspicion. Being in a certain place at a certain time with a certain person looking a certain way was often cause for interrogation, arrest, and imprisonment. In other words, Cook says, “the police did not arrest because sexual acts had actually been committed but on the basis of a judgment they had made about the propensity of an individual to commit them.” This sent a message to the wider public and the homosexual subculture as to the “expectations of private conduct and public behaviour”, although essentially, even private behaviour was subject to the law.

Statistics on arrests, persecutions, and imprisonments were collected during this time and show fluctuations due to the enactments of these legal provisions. Accordingly, “details of homosexual crime appeared more frequently in the newspapers…significantly increasing exposure” to the public with consistent (often literally daily) reminders of the perils of engaging in homosexual activity. As much as we love a good scandal today, the same could be said for the late 19th century, as newspapers competed to ramp up their coverage of the latest major trial whilst still “communicat[ing] cogent moral messages to a massive readership”.

As a result, the average London newspaper reader was bombarded with conflicting information, a strange combination of “here’s the scoop on these two men who got it on” but also “this stuff is horrible and how dare you be interested in it.”

Except, newspapers didn’t just use “horrible” to describe these cases of homosexuality.

They used the word abominable.

The word abominable was used to describe 1) the physical places that men would have sex and 2) the actual act of homosexual sex itself.

One of the most well-known cases of this time was the 1889 Cleveland Street Scandal, which involved a homosexual male brothel in London. Newspapers such as Reynolds called the Cleveland House an “abominable institution” and referred to the “abominable orgies of Cleveland Street” in its coverage of the case.

The use of the word “abominable” had important implications here, because essentially newspapers couldn’t actually say what the actual sexual acts were. The newspaper reader had to fill in the details based upon how the circumstances were described and readers had to deduce what was meant by reading subtext in the reporting. Cook explains:

“The newspaper reader often had to gather clues from details of place and appearance in order to discern the crime, which was often not made clear. Whilst the courts heard descriptions of sexual acts, the newspapers referred to ‘gross indecency’ or ‘unnatural’, ‘infamous’ or ‘unnameable’ offences.”

Since these same types of descriptors were used repeatedly, readers were gradually able to pick up on these clues. This resulted in an “increasingly clear sense of what in fact was being spoken about” and actually started to engender some sympathy for the homosexual on trial…and sort of…homosexuals, all together.

Wait. What?

A month after Oscar Wilde’s trial and conviction, Reynolds (that same newspaper that loved the word “abominable”) published a more “measured” editorial and a series of letters from readers that expressed support for Wilde. One woman even signed hers “A woman who believes in Oscar Wilde.”

(Remind of you anything?)

Cook explains what happened this way:

“[George] Ives, [a friend of Wilde’s and a gay man] detected ‘a change in the ethical atmosphere’ after the trials and four months later noted that ‘the change in public feeling, if one may judge from the gossip in the clubs etc., is truly wonderful; men very hostile a few months ago, now admit this or that, and seem truly on the road to reason.’ Whilst club gossip is not a sufficient gauge of public opinion, the trials clearly did not simply reaffirm prevailing attitudes about homosexual activity. They also provoked dialogue and, Ives suggested, some change of heart.”

Ives later records his joy at a magistrate using the words “senselessness” and “cruelty” to describe sentences given to homosexual men instead of “abominable.”

Clearly, “some change of heart” does not mean “everything was fine”, nor does it imply that all (or even the far majority of) Londoners held these opinions.

But…

Popular newspapers like Reynolds used very particular words – words chosen with care – in their coverage….

They relied heavily on subtext and their readers’ ability to pick up on clues…

They had the power to (and did) publish some readers’ support for homosexual men…

…which, at least in one (gay) man’s view, resulted in a ”change in public feeling” and perhaps even “provoked dialogue.”

What else is currently working against “prevailing attitudes” about the depiction of homosexuality in culture?

Oh.

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6) Sherlock fits a case study of a period-relevant homosexual man

I’m in a part of the book (London and the Culture of Homosexuality, 1885-1914) where Cook is talking about the beginnings of sexology and the study of homosexuality. Many early books published on these topics included detailed sexual case studies. One of the most well-known was Psychopathia Sexualis: eine Klinisch-Forensische Studie (Sexual Psychopathy: A Clinical-Forensic Study) by Richard von Krafft-Ebing. As an example, Cook outlines one of Krafft-Ebing’s case studies of a young (homosexual) man:

“The patient went to university in ‘the city’ at nineteen and began to be dandified…

Originally posted by mostlybenedict

…He wore striking cravats…

Originally posted by vavriba

…and shirts that were low cut…

Originally posted by sparklingwaterbabie

…forced his feet into narrow shoes…

Originally posted by jesse-goat-221b

…and curled his hair in a remarkable way…

Originally posted by see-but-do-not-observe

…He abstained from sex for some time by using cocaine…

Originally posted by elusivist

…and living in the country…

Originally posted by mostlybenedict

…before being arrested for having sex with a man just outside the city walls.”

Originally posted by theperksofbeingawanderluster

I’ll leave you to your deductions.

(previous posts in this series: here, here, here, here, here)
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7) Anal violins

um

The book (London and the Culture of Homosexuality, 1885-1914 by Matt Cook) is covering the study of “erotic anthropology” and very early versions of sex toys and…

…there’s a thing…

…some men liked to use…

…called…

…an anal violin.

I’ll let you fire up good ol’ Google for some visuals there.

And a description of how it is “played”.

Let’s just say….well, yeah. I think it’s pretty obvious the possibilities for a 19th century gay man who, you know, plays the violin.

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8) Gay graffiti worth writing about in your memoirs
 

In London and the Culture of Homosexuality, 1885-1914, Matt Cook discusses places in London that were highly associated with homosexual subculture, largely based on locations that various homosexual writers (including Oscar Wilde) referenced in their work during this time. This is essentially like compiling a list of certain spots that were known to be Very Gay.

One of these writers, John Addington Symonds, was working on his Memoirs in about 1889, right around the time of the Cleveland Street Scandal. In one passage, Symonds writes about seeing a “a rude graffito” which he described as:

“an emblematic diagram of phallic meeting, glued together gushing”

and accompanied with the words…

“prick to prick so sweet”

Symonds helpfully notes that this graffiti was “scrawled on a wall ‘in the sordid streets’ just to the west of Regent’s Park”.

Come again?

He further clarifies it was located between his home near Paddington Station and Regent’s Park.

Let’s take a look at a map.

Here’s the area:

Oh, what do I spot in the middle there?

Symonds was a real guy who saw this real graffiti somewhere in this real area during this time and actually wrote about it in his memoirs.

And just two years prior, two very famous fictional bachelors moved in together in this same area…


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9) Cabs were helpful, Gothic romance was queer, literary gay subtext was criminal evidence, the male-on-male gaze was a stand-in for sex, and idealised male nudes were all the rage
 

Another Update

I’m nearing the end of the book, dear friends. London and the Culture of Homosexuality, 1885-1914 by Matt Cook has served us well, and I have a few long meta/posts planned. In the meantime, here’s more goodies:

1) The homosexual subculture of late-Victorian London flourished when men were able to move quickly and anonymously through the city in order to meet and socialise (and have sex). Men who were the most successful had the money to pay for cabs.

2) Gothic romance was queer; Dracula was undoubtedly very queer. For more on just how queer, check out @heimishtheidealhusband​‘s incredible meta Ghost Stories are Gay Stories.

3) The gay subtext in Oscar Wilde’s writing was actually used against him in his trials. The Picture of Dorian Gray was perceived by opposing counsel to be “calculated to subvert morality and encourage unnatural vice”. Other literature that was deemed to be questionable was highly scrutinized. This is my personal conjecture, but I feel it entirely reasonable that ACD/his editor/his publisher would be a little worried about his stuff coming off a too gay, hence  moustaches (and Mary).

5) While still we’re talking about literature, remember John Addington Symonds? The guy who saw some dick graffiti on his walk home and thought it so memorable that he wrote about it in his Memoirs? He used the male-on-male gaze as a “key erotic modus operandi” in his writing and employed it almost “to stand in for sex”.

Cook notes that “fleeting exchanged glances” were becoming “key to ideas of modern homosexual identity.”

*coughs out a lung*

Originally posted by william-scott

(It was hard to pick a gif but this is sort of the ultimate. Also: not so fleeting.)

5) Ancient Greece and all things Hellenic were all the rage, as was collecting photography/statues of the idealised male nude. Homosexual men would hang out in the statue gallery of the British Museum to, you know, appreciate the… art.

Like, this kind of art?

[x]
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10) Every Great Cause Has Martyrs - how language used in the TAB trailer mirrors that used by Victorian homosexual men

Every Great Cause Has Martyrs

The trailer for TAB includes some interesting words:

SHERLOCK: Every great cause has martyrs. Every war has suicide missions and make no mistake, this is war.

Words are important. Words tell us everything.

In London and the Culture of Homosexuality, 1885-1914, Cook discusses the perspectives of homosexual men and their personal relationships to homosexual identity. The language in the TAB trailer echoes the language that these men routinely used to describe their struggle for legitimacy.

Some men, like Edward Carpenter, “looked at homosexuality as part of a wider vision of social renewal and reform” and used their writing as a tool to work towards changing the status quo.

Other men, such as George Ives, “developed a much more combative stance in his evolving politics and in the language he used“ in his writing (both private and public) in terms of agitating for change in the way that homosexuality was understood.

What kind of language?

Ives “envisaged a dichotomy” between “them” and “Us”.

Ives referred to:

• “the battle”
• “the fight”
• “traitors”
• “the cause”
• and “workers for the cause”

Here’s something really interesting:

In the 1890s, Ives formed a private group called the Order of the Chaerona:

“an exclusive and secretive support and pressure group composed of men who drew on Hellenism to understand and legitimise their desires. The affiliation and the ritual that cemented it constituted a protective and quasi-Masonic bond based specifically on sexual preference. It formed an invisible boundary between ‘them’ and ‘Us’ and sustained an exclusive fraternity and virtual safe space in the city for Ives and his fellow members.”

The name of the group came from the Battle of Chaerona in 338BC, after the Theban bands of Greek men who fought “alongside their male lovers and were revered for their bravery” until they fell to the Romans. Ives “imagined his own fight for legitimacy in terms of martial force, persistence and bravery.”

It was extremely ritualistic and used codes and symbols in its ceremonies.

Remind you of anything? [x]

I’m not saying that the Order of the Chaerona used hoods and fire in their rituals; I’ve no idea the specifics of what they did other than what Cook describes in the book and what can be found about the group online. However, we see what appears to be a secret society engaged in a ritualistic activity in the TAB trailer.

Interesting, that.

Many of the gay men who joined this group were rather wealthy and powerful. Ives also wanted to recruit men of the working classes but found this to be difficult. He noted in his diary that the “rich and powerful had the scope to act without the same threat of legal action” that might be held against men without the security of money and connections:

“The helpless and the wage earners dare not, must not, move or speak unless they wish for martyrdoms.”

Another book I’ve been perusing, London in the 1890s: A Cultural History by Karl Beckson, captures additional use of this language.

You might have guessed it.

Oscar Wilde told Ives in March of 1898:

“Yes, I have no doubt we shall win, but the road is long, and red with monstrous martyrdoms.”

Every great cause has martyrs, indeed.

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11) Did Victorian-Era Gay Men Think Sherlock Holmes Was Gay?

Did Victorian-Era Gay Men Think Sherlock Holmes Was Gay?

Something I’ve often wondered about is whether or not there is any documentation that any contemporaries of the Sherlock Holmes stories in any way thought them to be gay. What I mean is: did any homosexual men read the stories and understand the characterisation/subtext to imply, if not johnlock vibes, at least homosexuality, not least for the character of Sherlock Holmes himself?

I have come to the end of the book London and the Culture of the Homosexuality, 1885-1914 by Matt Cook and it seems he’s saved a lovely bit for last.

My new fave George Ives (I’ve written about him in other posts) kept meticulous journals, much of which informed Cook’s work. Ives routinely engaged in self-examination against the stereotypes of homosexuals newly outlined by sexologists and found himself similar in some ways and different in others, both of which he carefully recorded in his diaries. He noted his “keen aesthetic sense” and “lack of taut muscle”, among other things.

In March 1901, Ives records in his diary that he considers himself to be:

 “the Sherlock Holmes of a 1000 little peculiarities”

Here we have a man who identified as homosexual relating to a character who he may have recognised to be homosexual as well. Ives definitely doesn’t write “yeah I’m gay and I know Holmes is gay too” but I think it’s interesting that he would have included this little comparison in alongside his descriptions of whether or not he matches the “gay profile”.
--------------------
12) The closest thing I’ve ever written to a personal TJLC manifesto

 

I have tried to reblog this 2x now and it won’t take for some reason so I guess I’ll have to do it like this:

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR READING MY POSTS!!!!! That makes me so happy!!! And also I should say, I totally agree with you. I’m 100% the exact same way – I hate getting my hopes up only to be wrong or disappointed. And that could still happen here, which would be so, so sad @veertjed

But.

It’s been incredible – with every turn of the page, there is something else in this book that “matches”: either with the original ACD stories, or the BBC Sherlock episodes, or the little bits we’ve seen of TAB. The more I read, the more I’m convinced that at least some of these things are in there (in all three) deliberately.

For example, I just can’t believe that ACD would not have known the cultural significance of using the word “Bohemian” to describe a man when “Bohemian” was used repeatedly in the press to describe Oscar Wilde, a man ACD had actually met and who was (extremely) publicly tried for engaging in homosexual behaviour. All these little details…like why have Holmes clean-shaven. Being clean-shaven meant something in late-Victorian sexual culture, and people would have known what being clean-shaven implied. Why not give them both moustaches and be done with it? And yet…

I can’t believe that Mark (at least) would not know these things, given that he’s so clever and well-read and interested in history PLUS so passionate and active about protecting/advancing gay rights and investigating queer figures in history. I can’t believe that he would be cavalier about randomly throwing in cheap gay jokes when the show that HE IS CREATING AND IS WRITING FOR AND RUNNING is incredibly heavily queer coded.

And as for the argument like “well, he’s gay so he knows this stuff” – there are plenty of people who are gay who do not embed period-relevant queer codes into their modern work.

So why are they doing it?

For example, what is the point of stitching red thread around the button hole on Sherlock’s Belstaff? I seem to remember someone on the team saying that “it makes it pop.” So what? Who cares? Who cares about a button hole popping? Why would it even matter? But when you read about the significance of button holes in the 19th century, and men who wore green carnations, and articles about “judging a man by his button hole”, and the ability to possibly identify a man’s sexual orientation by his jacket whilst wandering through the streets of London, then you start to think that maybe there’s a reason for that extra red thread.

Why bother to draw attention to something as insignificant as a button hole, unless it is significant? Unless there’s hidden meaning there, hidden in plain sight. A code to crack if you know what you’re looking for.

So in short, I don’t want to get my hopes up either… but I believe that this is not a coincidence. The universe is rarely so lazy, after all.

 

 

Saved Archived Meta: Weeesi (pt3)

deeisace asked:

Hi! I've just seen that post you wrote about Matt Cook's London and the Culture of Homosexuality - the bit about the famous trial, you know there's a book about that? Fiction, from the point of view of the daughter of their landlord, but based on all the archived newspaper articles and records. It's called The Petticoat Men by Barbara Ewing. I'm only a bit the way through, but it's good so far!

Oh brilliant! I didn’t know about that book but I’m adding it to my list now :) Matt Cook doesn’t go into loads of detail about the case (at least so far, in the parts I’ve read), but it sounds so incredible. I’m only moderately familiar with the details of Oscar Wilde’s trials but I’d love to learn more about other famous cases, even fictionalised accounts. Thanks for the rec!
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Question: does this book delve into female homosexuality at all?

weeesi

@justacookieofacumberbatch unfortunately it does not. Cook states in the introduction that the term “homosexual” should of course not automatically refer to men, but that in this book he will focus only on male homosexuality “to avoid collapsing two distinctive sexual subjectivities and relationships to the city.” So this might not be quite as suitable if you’re looking for resources that focus on female homosexuality during this time.

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mostlyanything19 asked:

Hi can I ask you something? That book you're reading - London and the Culture of Homosexuality - can you tell me a bit more about it? That's a topic I'm extremely interested in (especially bc of my passion for the original Holmes stories) and your post made me consider buying it, but it's quite an expensive purchase in my country. I guess you haven't read all of it yet but maybe if you're further into it, could you tell me if you still think it's worth getting? That would be great!

Hi! I think if you’re pretty interested in queer history and particularly this era of (male) homosexual history, you’d like the book. He focuses on cultural geography in a way – how gay men experienced London and how place/space can influence sexual identity. Cook documents homosexual subculture in a time when it was illegal to be gay/engage in gay sex and references a lot of diaries/first hand accounts, which is brilliant. He also talks about homosexuality in the law, the press, literature, popular culture, etc.

I’m in the 2nd chapter now. His writing is a bit academic so my reading pace is slower but it’s well-written and I learn something new in just about every paragraph. There’s also illustrations and pretty lengthy bibliography.

I bought my copy at the Wellcome Collection in London and paid about £20 for it, which was a splurge for me on a book! But I’ll continue to use it in my research so I considered it a treat.

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Saved Archived Meta: wsswatson (pt2)

sweetaguacate asked: Hey Brontë! In reading Dorian Gray for trike the 3rd time and I just got to the part where Alan Campbell is being described. This is the first time I'm reading it and sherlocks character comes to mind. Idk if you have any thoughts on that or have explained if there's a connection there?

Oh, that’s a very interesting observation, there are very striking similarities! Unfortunately, though, Conan Doyle can’t have based Holmes on Alan Campbell, as A Study in Scarlet was written in 1887 and The Picture of Dorian Gray was written in 1890. Whether Wilde was influenced by Conan Doyle in the characterisation of one of his most explicitly gay characters, though, isn’t entirely out of the question.

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thealogie:

jimzuccofromit:

jimmriarty:

joolabee:

jimmriarty:

“sherlock HATES moriarty because he’s a bad person and he kills people, he’s just so bad and sadic and sherlock despise him so much!!!! lol delusional sheriarty shippers who think sherlock admires and respects him lol”

johnlockers who refuse to accept what is canon are my fave thing

What kind of disrespectful, illogical response is that anyway? Wow, you added a gif onto a post, what a clever counterargument. It doesn’t change the fact that it’s true.

Okay like if you want to be pissed off that someone dragged your post (which takes a line of a doyle story soooo out of context that the gif should really suffice) in a humorous way, feel free. But now I’m concerned you actually think you’re correct about this being canon? I mean the words are written down but you’re taking the actual meaning and thematic purpose of the line out of context and then you’re saying it’s someone else who’s refusing to accept the text? I think using the canon story to prove something in an adaptation isn’t really sound analysis. BUT if you’d like to use the original text as a starting point….let’s…..do a counterargument…..
The quote you are pointing out actually serves to further the fact that Sherlock Holmes hates James Moriarty and is basically willing to give his life to stop him. “My intellectual equal”. This doesn’t JUST set up Holmes’s death (meaning: we were evenly matched so I have to give my life and can’t simply outsmart him.) But also points out that Moriarty and Holmes are mirrors. In fact throughout this story Holmes makes several flattering remarks about Moriarty’s brilliance using language he often uses to praise his own brilliance. Note: he never says anything flattering about Moriarty beyond equating Moriarty’s brilliance with his own. He even says that Moriarty has “hereditary tendencies of the most diabolical kind.” Something we know Holmes isn’t fond of. (Again: refer to any of this man’s soliloquies on crime and evil etc.) (Mmmmm also YIKES @ the belief in hereditary evil but okay. Whatever Holmes.)
So you may ask: what is the point of including these remarks about Moriarty’s brilliance at all, if in every other way he expresses dislike for him? Why does he repeatedly talk about how smart his adversary is? Moriarty is Holmes without the goodness. There has even been Holmes scholarship on the possibility of Moriarty representing the parts of Holmes that he hates and wants to destroy…you know, the classic hero destroyed by the darkness in himself narrative….except Holmes is resurrected and we find out that he actually manages to kill his evil twin. You don’t necessarily have to go that far into symbolics! But you’re missing the point of the story if you’re not getting that they are good and evil mirrors and that Holmes absolutely hates him and is horrified at the possibility of being him (see: his fondness for pondering “we’re all lucky i didn’t turn out a criminal” every few stories). Okay here is an excerpt from one of like 100 essays on how they’re good and evil:

Just in case you didn’t get the point though, Holmes disguises himself as a priest so he and Watson can escape Moriarty. Just, like, driving the point home how much this story is about good and evil.
Let’s look at some actual descriptions of Moriarty given by Holmes.
Holmes, who has never been very careful actually has a concealed weapon on him, that’s how much he’s wary of Moriarty:

Then we have to look at the language characters in fiction use to describe one another. Descriptive language is deliberately used to express how characters view each other. Anything Holmes says of Moriarty (except saying “he is exactly as smart as I am”) is negative, from his character to his appearance:

Not super flattering description. Unfortunately, appearance and moral character/subjective feeling were firmly equated in fiction back in those times (and still today.) But unfortunately that’s how you’re supposed to figure out how characters in fiction feel about each other.
And are we going to ignore a dead man’s last words. Like how could he tell you any more clearly what he thinks of Moriarty. He thinks Moriarty was so awful that he is willing to die to rid the world of him:

Anyway yeah. In the BBC adaptation Sherlock fears Moriarty and hates him but even there you’d have at least slightly more room to argue than in this story the entire purpose of which is that Sherlock Holmes hates Moriarty so much he’d consider his career well spent if he could just rid the world of him.
 

 

 

asked: Can you clear this up? Was Holmes romantically/sexuall interested in Irene in the orginal stories?

tiger-in-the-flightdeck:

 

 

Nope, he wasn’t. Fourth line of Scandal in Bohemia, and Watson makes it clear in plain words that Holmes wasn’t in love with her. Then he goes on to explain in rather vivid detail as to why he knew this. Almost as if he wanted to make it incredibly, unquestioningly obvious that Holmes has zero interest in this woman. Or any woman.
Yes, Holmes keeps her photograph. But his bedroom is filled with pictures of murderers and thieves and other criminals, yet no one has ever raised a fuss over him being in love with them.
Amusingly enough, throughout Scandal, the only person that Holmes seems to be crushing on (other than Watson, of course) is Adler’s fiance. He describes him as “Dark, handsome, and dashing.” and “He was a remarkably handsome man, dark, aquiline, and moustached.” Who else do we know, in Holmes’ life who fit those descriptions? It appears the Detective has a well defined preference for men with tans and moustaches.
You can read the Canon without thinking Holmes and Watson are in love. But it is impossible to read them accurately, and still think that Holmes is straight.

For more reading on this, check out this essay I’ve written on Scandal in Bohemia, or this… sort of essay thing I’ve written in regards to Holmes and Watson and their relationship.

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 thestoutianheretic asked: hey there! so, I'm extremely interested in interpretations of canon Holmes and Watson as women (as you may have construed from my url), and I was told that you know some stuff about Holmesiana—specifically, early Holmesiana— positing that Sherlock Holmes was a woman. I'd never before heard that Holmes being a woman is apparently one of the oldest queer theories in the fandom, and I'd like to learn all about that, if you can provide any sources. Thank you!

Hello!

I think this idea was actually first proposed by Rex Stout in a speech to the Baker Street Irregulars in 1941 arguing that Watson was female. Watson/Holmes-was-a-woman is now mostly an outdated area of Holmesiana - it was essentially early queer theory which has mostly been disregarded now that people feel safer to say “my point is, Holmes and Watson were in love”.

That said, the evidence used to support the theory that Holmes was female is interesting. It’s primarily divided into three categories: physical appearance, identification and relationship with Watson.

Physical appearance:

In chapter 12 of The Hound of the Baskervilles, Watson discovers that Holmes has been hiding out on the moor since he arrived in Dartmoor, yet ‘he had contrived, with that catlike love of personal cleanliness which was one of his characteristics, that his chin should be as smooth and his linen as perfect as if he were in Baker Street.’

Identification:

Both Holmes and Watson describe men with very romanticised language, yet while Watson distances himself from implications of attraction* by adding phrases such as ‘very well equipped to steal the heart of a country girl’ and ‘which might easily hold an irresistible fascination for women’, Holmes does nothing of the sort. He does, however, add phrases such as ‘a face that a man might die for’ and ‘no young man would cross her path unscathed’ to his descriptions of beautiful women - he distances himself from implications of attraction by insinuating that he is not a man.

*Remember that homosexuality was a criminal offence when Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was writing, and the homoerotic undertones in Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray were used against Oscar Wilde when he appeared in court against the Marquess of Queensberry - a trial which resulted in him being sentenced in two years of hard labour for gross indecency. Contradicting the Watson/Holmes-was-a-woman theory, this is another event of interest in queer Holmesiana - in The Adventure of the Three Students, which coincides with Wilde’s trial, popularly regarded to mark one of the most dangerous times to be a queer man in London, Watson writes that ‘It was in the year ‘95 that a combination of events, into which I need not enter, caused Mr. Sherlock Holmes and myself to spend some weeks in one of our great university towns’.

Relationship with Watson:

The romantic and erotic undertones in Holmes and Watson’s relationship has been written on many times in much depth, so rather than attempting to summarise that here, here’s a comprehensive reading list on the subject. I’ll also direct you to my ACD Holmes tag. As I said, though, now that people are much freer to say “these were two men in love”, the woman theory has mostly fallen away from this subject.

Hope that helps! x
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moranion:

mydwynter:

welovethebeekeeper:

A Reading List for Holmes and Watson Romance/Relationship Topic pre BBC Sherlock

Obviously, there is little written evidence of the Holmes and Watson romance school of thought until the 1940’s. However oral history has passed on that the idea of Holmes and Watson as a couple was suspected but not talked about openly since the characters inception. I can only bare witness to this oral history as it came to me from my Dad and his partner, who spoke of literary discussions in London ‘queer’ pubs on the subject.They were both young men in the 1950‘s but spoke to other men at these meetings, who were elderly and who had been fans since the publication of the works. There could be no documentation of these meetings due to the laws and stigma in existence at the time. Maybe one day we will discover a manuscript or notes on this speculation and discussion. I have included some works in the list that show the literary and social background in which Doyle wrote his stories.

Therefore the first person to give voice to a romantic relationship between Holmes and Watson was Rex Stout’s 1944 presentation;  a tongue in cheek analogy to show the romance but having to gender swap Watson to make it palatable for the era. {Things may not have changed very much; hello Elementary] I included a few Baker Street Journal articles [BSJ] with the date of publication, plus the wonderful nekosmuse’s ‘Decoding the Subtext’ as it is the companion when reading the canon and looking for evidence of a romance within the subtext.

Please feel free to send me names of any other books you feel should be on this list.

Non-Fiction

Victorian [background and ethos]

Men at Work: From Heroic Friendship to Male Romance -  Stephen Arata

A Man’s Place: Masculinity & the Middle Class Home -  John Tosh

Sexual Heretics: Male Homosexuality in English Literature - Brian Reade

Web page With Love, SH - Decoding the subtext -                        www.nekosmuse.com

http://welovethebeekeeper.tumblr.com/post/98054738938/a-surprise-johnlock-experience-today-wanted-to-share1940’s - an oral history story of Holmes and Watson’s love affair.

Watson was a Woman - Rex Stout

1950’s onward

Llove at Lhasa  BSJ 3/57 - Stanley McComas

Eros in Baker St  BSJ 4/75 - Donald Pollock

Love Notes  BSJ 6/79 - Tom McGee

Did Sherlock Holmes Kill CAS?  BSJ 3/82 - Bruce Harris

Most Unromantic: Most Sexy Too  BSJ 3/82 - Christopher Redmond.

Baker St and Beyond -  Lord Donegall

In Bed with Sherlock Holmes  - Christopher Redmond

Sherlock the Man and His Word - HRF Keating

Strangers: Homosexual Love in the Nineteenth Century - Graham Robb

Naked is the Best Disguise - Samuel Rosenberg

The Gay Book of Days (Jan 6th) - Martin Greif 

Sherlock Holmes and Philosophy - Sawyer J. Lahr

Fiction.

My Dearest Holmes - Rohase Piercy

My Dear Watson - L.A. Fields

A Study in Lavender - Joseph R.G. DeMarco   

The Sexual Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Larry Townsend

Kissing Sherlock Holmes - T. D. McKinney, Terry Wylis.

Plus various fanzine stories from the 1980/90 period. Mainly based on Granada Holmes.

 Updated. 

After a rather frustrating experience I had on a panel a few months ago, I’ve been putting together an essay on this topic. This is INCREDIBLY helpful. Thanks!

I’d like to add to the list of fiction: Kissing Sherlock Holmes - T. D. McKinney, Terry Wylis.

Done. Thanks moranion.

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Anonymous asked: I think everyone needs to talk more about how in love ACD/Granda Holmes and Watson are. I mean, for a time when it was illegal, they were quite obvious about it.... (Don't even get me started on The Dying Detective or The Three Garidebs)

tiger-in-the-flightdeck:

Oh, honey. I don’t stop talking about that!

The Post Return stories are the most romantic things I’ve ever read. I like to think of them as the second honeymoon stories. Before the Final Problem, the stories were a lot more carefully written. Aside from ridiculously obscene descriptions about Sticky Spearheads, and Holmes’ O face, you had to pick deeper for the coding. After the Return, though? Watson crammed as much romantic imagery into each description as possible. And the events were far more romantic. Holidays on the Cornish Coast, sharing a small seaside cottage for example.

And of course, the most flashing, big arrows pointing ‘code’ in the entire series (A series which includes private couches in bathhouses, a lot of time spent in France, and…. It includes The Blanched Soldier for crying out loud.)  is the opening of The Three Students:

It was in the year ‘95 that a combination of events, into which I need not enter, caused Mr. Sherlock Holmes and myself to spend some weeks in one of our great university towns

This is it. This is my favourite piece of evidence pointing to a romantic, sexual relationship between Holmes and Watson. The Three Students takes place at the beginning of April, in 1895. Our great detective and his constant companion are not out of London for a case, and Holmes is rather irritated at not being there. The pair are staying away long enough that they need to rent furnished rooms, rather than staying in a hotel, and judging by the fact that Holmes has none of his own equipment or books with him, they had to pack in a hurry. Almost as if they were fleeing London. 

What combination of events would have taken place at the beginning of April, in 1895, so well known to all of London that Watson feels he doesn’t need to remind his readers of what it was? That had queer men running from London for their own safety?

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CANON EVIDENCE OF JOHNLOCK

221behavior:

Good lord the ACD canon is gay.

Like, seriously. I sincerely recommend that Johnlockers read NekosMuse’s Decoding the Subtext. Every last entry stands as more and more strong evidence that John and Sherlock were always gayer than people overtly noticed. If the writers are approaching the Holmes canon from this angle—and genuinely looks like they are—they’re actually being loyal to ACD in a way that all other adaptions have failed, in the way that they utilize the cases as a way to support the subtextual messages, and use particular phrases to draw attention to the fact that the readers/viewers should be paying attention to the little details. I mean, the relationship NekosMuse is reading out of the subtext of the canon stories is precisely that portrayed by the BBC’s John and Sherlock. I mean, to the point where it being a coincidence is completely absurd. The writers of this show are geniuses. The writers of this show are geniuses. This show is the most brilliant thing ever written.

This webpage is my current emotion.

 

MASTERPOST – STRANGERS: HOMOSEXUAL LOVE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

MASTERPOST – STRANGERS: HOMOSEXUAL LOVE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

weeesi:

THE SERIES IS NOW COMPLETE! 

Here’s what we learned from Graham Robb and his brilliant book:

1) What ACD said about Oscar Wilde, how do you know if you have homosexual “characteristics”, and why the colour green is gay

2) Turkish bathhouses, the Achilles statue, and my dear boy

3) Lifting the veil, coded meanings, and red neckties/handkerchiefs

4) Gay marriages took place in secret in the 19th century

5) Knee gropes and “crude symptoms of physical sexual sympathy”

6) Homosexuality in Victorian literature, Part 1

7) Homosexuality in Victorian literature, Part 2

8) Sherlock Holmes and Victorian Homosexuality – original post

9) Sherlock Holmes and Victorian Homosexuality – with extended material on ACD, authorial intent, and Hellenic influences on 19th century gay culture

10) Link to purchase the book from amazon.co.uk