Queering Holmes

This post is based on a suggestion in the discussion prompt gathering thread, which is still taking suggestions for new discussions if you have them.

melannen suggested:

How about Holmes as asexual, in the context of queer readings of Holmes, modern asexual identities, and the ways previous commentators have used asexuality to refute his queerness?

I don't really have much to add to that, other than a resounding YES. There's a lot to talk about here -- Holmes's behaviour in canon, how we interpret it, whether asexuality is a form of queerness in itself, the co-existence of asexuality with hetero- or homo-romanticism. ilthit had some comments in the suggestions thread, here, which are also worth quoting:

I've been trying to write Holmes/Watson fic and I'm finding it extremely difficult, because any way I play it Holmes turns out to be an asexual. Even if we assume he's asexual and aromantic by choice, having rejected sensuality on intellectual grounds, that doesn't make his asexuality any less legit.

I got no further than positing Holmes and Watson as a couple in love that doesn't have sex or talk about being in love, having it merely tacitly understood, with Holmes as a repressed bisexual rather than naturally asexual and Watson as a healthy sensualist who used to consider himself heteroromantic (though he wouldn't use that word of course) before Holmes.

Do you agree?

If you're interested in finding out more about modern asexual identities, AVEN is a good place to start. There's also asexual_fandom here on DW.