Revisiting Sherlock as an Aspec Adult - Part 1

Image description: A promo image for Sherlock, the BBC's modern Sherlock Holmes adaptation. Back in high school, this image used to be my laptop background, signifying my deep love of and appreciation for the series. But does it hold up when I watch it as an adult? Do the seemingly asexual and/or aromantic moments still resonate to me now after all this time? I explore these questions and more in this, the first of two posts all about the show.

Back in 2010, my parents put on PBS’s Masterpiece Mystery, which was showing a British series known as Sherlock and I, unaware the show was about to completely change my life, sat down to watch the final episode of the three-part first season. I hadn’t even seen the other two episodes, having been too busy with homework and such to watch them, but I was nevertheless completely hooked. I had a working knowledge of Sherlock Holmes as a character, of course, and knew a few of the most famous stories, but there was something so very new and fresh about this adaptation that I became an immediate huge fan. Of course, that also meant I was dumped into the extremely long hiatus that heralded the wait for the successful show’s second season, and in that time I turned to the internet and to fandom life to get me through.

If you talk to me nowadays (or if you’re a regular reader of the blog), you know that I haven’t had the most positive experiences with my fandom life over the years and that my interest in organized fandom has largely waned. However, the experience of becoming a Sherlock fan and consuming that content did lead to something extremely formative for me. After the show’s first season aired, there were many fans on social media sites like Tumblr who began to discuss the idea that the show’s titular character might be asexual, a term I’d never really heard before.

Although it’s quite likely I would have come to discover asexuality through other means – especially thanks to an informed and supportive queer-identifying friend I had in high school – I also can’t deny that the show and its fandom was my first main introduction to many of the terms I use today. Thus, beyond just being my favorite show for many years and something I sincerely enjoyed, it was also important in the early steps of discovering more about myself. For that reason, it will always have a special place in my heart, even if the later seasons and episodes began to yield diminishing returns for me.

Sherlock has been off the air for years now and the fact that the latter two seasons held less charm for me than the first two has led to it being somewhat pushed to the back burner of my fandom life. But recently I felt a desire to revisit it as an aspec adult who has been identifying as such for years and has been discussing aspec issues for a while. Sherlock has been part of my earliest aspec analysis due to its role in my discovery of the concept, but I’ve never really devoted a full post to the subject – or, in this case, two posts (but more on that later). So I thought it would be worth it to revisit the show in its entirety and see not only if it still held up but to see how I would react to the aspec elements of Sherlock as a character.

Over the years, a lot of people have more harshly critiqued the show, but I want to keep my analysis more centered on the aspec stuff than any personal feelings about good or bad elements (although I will likely complain about how much I hate season 4, I apologize in advance). Even so, I will dive into the question of how the show works today and what parts of it I feel work or don’t work. As always on the blog, I look forward to exploring the good, the bad, and the ugly of the series and its potential aspec representation, and I hope you enjoy reading about my journey of rediscovery as much as I enjoyed undertaking it!

Spoiler warning! 

Sherlock (all episodes and seasons)

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An Overview of Sherlock and Sherlock

Image description: Sherlock Holmes in the BBC's modern Sherlock... but nevertheless wearing Holmes's iconic deerstalker hat, something which becomes a recurring joke from season two onward

In the simplest terms, the 2010 BBC series Sherlock is a modern-day adaptation of the iconic Sherlock Holmes mysteries by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Many people have at least a passing familiarity with Sherlock Holmes as a character, as the idea of the hyper-observant detective is very prevalent in society and pop culture. In this universe, Sherlock is a younger, more modern sleuth – still boasting the unique job of “consulting detective” and exhibiting often super-human powers of deduction, but working with cell phones, laptops, and other modern technology. As in the original stories, he meets and befriends John Watson, a doctor returned from military service in Afghanistan in search of a roommate, who chronicles his bizarre and wonderful adventures (in blog form in this adaptation).

The show consists of four seasons (or, to use the proper British term, four “series”) of three 90-minute-long episodes, as well as a Christmas/New Year’s special called “The Abominable Bride,” which genre bends in the most interesting way possible. The first series adapts the very first Sherlock Holmes story “A Study in Scarlet” into “A Study in Pink,” introducing the iconic duo and setting them off on their adventures as roommates and unlikely friends. The second series then adapts three of the most famous Holmes cases, culminating in tragedy. The third and fourth series bring the characters back together, throwing in a major new character by adapting the novel “The Sign of Four” and bring Sherlock face-to-face with new enemies, some of which have their roots in the original stories and some of which do not.

In my 2024 preview post, I mentioned that I was a little nervous to revisit Sherlock as an adult after having not seen it in so long. Not only was the show formative to me on an aspec level, but it was a show that meant a lot to me for years – its presence can still be felt in my life through various fandom items and references even to this day, and it was my absolute favorite show for a very long time. While the series enjoyed enormous popularity during its heyday, over the years there’s been an influx of critiques about the series, postulating that it’s not nearly as good as many people felt and that it took too many liberties, deviating too far from the original canon.

It’s become something of a meme to cite certain deductions Sherlock makes that are unique to the modern time as stretching things a bit. For instance, this is particularly true of the first deduction he makes to John when borrowing his hand-me-down phone in “A Study in Pink,” wherein he is able to deduce John’s sister (although he thinks it’s John’s brother) is an alcoholic due to evidence that her hands are shaking when she goes to plug her phone in at night, with many people saying that whenever they miss their own charging port, it makes them think of the flimsiness of this deduction. Another common – and admittedly not altogether inaccurate – criticism is the adaptational changes made to many characters, including Sherlock himself, particularly in how cold and standoffish he is portrayed. While I think there are reasons for Sherlock’s portrayal, which I will address later in the post, many fans of the classic stories dislike the show for this reason, as well as the numerous changes made to other characters.

So when I sat down to watch the show, I found myself wondering if I had been watching it through a rose-tint back in my teen years. As the show progressed, I was quite vocal about my dislike of later seasons and am quick to point out the ways the show and its creators fall down when it comes to aspec issues, but I was worried that the substance of even the episodes I liked would no longer resonate with me. But right away, it feels like “A Study in Pink” really holds up. Although I was a little surprised by how out of date their cell phones already seem to me now after only about fifteen years, the rest of the plot felt like a warm and witty welcome back into a world I loved as a teen and still find value in now.

Image description: A promo image of Sherlock and John from series one

The first season is hardly perfect, and even the stellar second season has its flaws, but I found myself still delighting in not only the nostalgia of revisiting the series, but in the brilliance of both writing and portrayal that characterizes many of these episodes. While I believe the criticism of the series as a whole is valid, I do think the show is often adaptationally brilliant in other senses, and the acting – especially from series leads Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman playing Holmes and Watson respectively – is what earned the show its immense popularity, whether or not you agree with the portrayal of Sherlock as a “high-functioning sociopath.”

But what about Sherlock as an aspec character? Even in the original stories, Holmes always seemed to be removed from romantic and/or sexual relationships, ruled by intellect and dedication to his craft. A modern adaptation would likely find even more ways to play with and highlight this, showing Sherlock as even more different and unique from those around him. Well, yes and no. Above all, Sherlock is portrayed in this version as something of a social pariah. Much like other characters with similar mindsets (like The Big Bang Theory’s Sheldon Cooper, another character with maligned aspec tendencies), he is portrayed as strange, rude, and utterly ignorant of the people around him, all without realizing he’s doing this, as we see in the first five minutes of his introduction.

While he does have friends, acquaintances, and colleagues, there are many who insult and revile him, treating him as a bizarre nuisance at best and a full-on psychopath at worst. Words like “freak” are used, which receives an extra layer when you consider how often people assume – and Sherlock himself seems to confirm – that he’s not straight. I’ll get more in depth into this facet of the show in my next section, but for now suffice to say that – while never explicitly stated – both the show at large and the character himself seem to embrace the idea that Sherlock is not engaged in what others consider “normal” human relationships. While many people in his life assume he’s gay, Sherlock describes himself as being “married to his work,” and describes relationships as “dull,” both of which are described in the very first episode.

The question of whether or not Sherlock has ever had a relationship of any kind is brought up first by John in this same episode and in this same scene, where he asks if Sherlock is dating anyone, either male or female. Later, in the season two episode “A Scandal in Belgravia,” John wonders again if Sherlock has ever had a romantic relationship of any kind at all during his life, this time asking Mrs. Hudson, who says she doesn’t know. John is shocked that he and Mrs. Hudson – two of the deepest relationships Sherlock has in his life – don’t know this seemingly basic fact about the man, but Mrs. Hudson says it makes sense to her largely because “he’s Sherlock” and it’s impossible to ever truly know what he’s thinking. This is actually somewhat ironic when you consider that Sherlock has said numerous times that he is not interested in relationships and people consistently ignore him.

So, unfortunately, while the show does often take advantage of the modern setting to postulate the idea of Sherlock not being straight, it’s nearly always treated as vague. Even worse, once fans began to see aspec parallels in Sherlock, there were often attempts to subvert his asexual tendencies by the people behind the scenes, revealing a deep misunderstanding about asexuality as an identity. If you’ve read any of my previous posts where I discuss Sherlock, you’ll know that I’ve specifically mentioned that series co-creator Steven Moffat has some very erroneous notions about what asexuality even entails. From what I’ve seen online, Moffat has his fair share of controversies and detractors, so it’s not exactly surprising to me that his opinions on the topic are a mess. But it is nevertheless a shame, and at times quite baffling, given the clear aspec-coding Sherlock seems to have for much of the show.

Queercoding and Acecoding in Sherlock Holmes

As I said in the previous section, the idea of Sherlock Holmes as an aspec character did not start with Sherlock, although thanks to the show’s internet following, it certainly gained extra traction with this particular iteration. If you’ve been a long-time reader of the blog, you’ll know that I discuss the idea of Holmes being aspec in one of my earliest posts, which centered on the tropes of aspec people being treated as cold and unemotional, something that many portrayals of Holmes capture, this version included. The idea of Holmes being uninterested in romance was something even the character’s creator, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, discussed, his slightly unfortunate quote having been a large reason why I wrote that particular tropes post in the first place.

Therefore, it’s not a surprise that many of those tendencies seem to show up in this version of the show. However, much like Doyle’s original quote about Holmes carries some problems with it (describing Holmes as “inhuman”), Moffat’s comments about this version of Sherlock have many of the same issues. In an interview for The Guardian, Moffat once described Sherlock’s aspec tendencies as “the choice of a monk, not the choice of an asexual,” a deeply problematic statement on multiple fronts. Most predominantly, asexuality is not a choice, and if he’s describing Sherlock as making the “choice of a monk,” he’s likely describing celibacy, which – as I’ve discussed before on the blog – is a term that is rarely used accurately. He then goes on to say that Sherlock being asexual would not be “interesting,” stating that it’s more interesting to watch him wrestle with these things and potentially fail.

Image description: Sherlock repeatedly says romantic relationships are not for him and routinely exhibits traits that are often "ace-coded" or "aspect adjacent," such as not understanding romantic cues. While these things don't have to be inherently aspec and won't align with everyone's experience, these things are often used in media to give characters a particular "vibe."

While I think that latter part was probably said to “troll” the fans, the statement as a whole is nevertheless rife with problems. However, despite this quote and the way many of the Moffat penned episodes like to portray Sherlock, I feel that the character and the show alike actually suffer from inconsistent writing and characterization, sometimes even within the same episodes. Even, rather bafflingly, in episodes written by Moffat himself. For example, Moffat seemed to have a certain fixation on the idea of Sherlock and Irene Adler, and yet “A Scandal in Belgravia” seems to almost have the most concrete notions of Sherlock being aspec. To me, Moffat has a habit of portraying Sherlock as aspec without even meaning to, and then being surprised when people pick up on it.

This same internal inconsistency is also a big factor in the show’s controversial use of queercoding. The act of queercoding refers to the tendency in media to imbue characters or situations with elements that, while not explicitly or openly queer, are there to lead the audience to that particular direction. While any popular show will of course span a great deal of “shipping,” Sherlock’s popularity and the prevalence of its queercoding has ensured the equally enormous popularity of the Sherlock and John pairing known as JohnLock, which, as of 2023, was the second most popular pairing of all time on fanfiction website Archive Of Our Own (according to this article). Beyond that, the show is absolutely full of queercoding from the earliest episodes and the idea of Sherlock and/or John being gay and in a relationship was so heavily implied by different situations and characters that the show’s queercoding tendencies have actually yielded various memes and conspiracy theories. The fact that these tendencies never went anywhere officially makes many people feel like the show actually engaged in queerbaiting - the act of using queercoding and/or queer identities to draw fans in, and then never actually committing to this potential representation.

But much like with the acecoding of the show, the queercoding is strange in its implementation. One of the most curious features of the queercoding in the show is that the writers seem to want to lead us to that destination repeatedly and then will veer off abruptly and deliberately. Steven Moffat’s fandom troll tendencies could explain this, but it comes off as strange even so. The very first episode of the show has people close to Sherlock assuming or at least referencing the idea of him being gay three different times – four if you count the conversation he and John have about it in the restaurant. Season two’s “The Hounds of Baskerville” contains a scene, albeit a comical one, where the gay couple who run the hotel John and Sherlock are staying in make the same assumption. The comments and assumptions don’t even stop when John is in a relationship with Mary – and sometimes Mary herself is even the one making the comments, such as teasing John for the fact that he shaves off the mustache he grew during Sherlock’s absence only after Sherlock says he doesn’t like it.

Again, Moffat likely knew the fandom attitudes that had developed after the first season, choosing to throw these references in to, at best, give that side of the fandom some crumbs to keep them busy or tease them, and at worse to keep us going in circles. In some instances, such as the aforementioned comments made by Mary or even by John himself (like the recurring “people will talk” joke), these comments are probably meant to just be lighthearted jokes. But there are many other instances where it’s hard to fault fans for seeing John and Sherlock as more romantic than platonic.

Image description: John and Sherlock in front of their flat at 221B Baker Street

The show doesn’t just queercode John and Sherlock, however, and this makes the show’s treatment of queer identities all the more baffling. References to queer identities – for better or for worse – are built into pretty much every episode of the series, setting up the idea that we don’t have to watch this series through a heteronormative lens. This starts right away with Sherlock’s first deduction about John’s supposedly alcoholic brother, only to realize every part is true except it’s not his brother, it’s his sister (Sherlock is even annoyed at himself for assuming gender).

It continues as queer side characters are sprinkled throughout the narrative and worked into various cases and situations, and many episodes feature these elements heavily as part of their essential plots or characterizations. For example, the show’s reimagining of Irene Adler explicitly has her identify as a lesbian, while their version of Moriarty is nearly always making references to being gay or at least emulating the notions when he interacts with Sherlock. Series co-creator Mark Gatiss is himself gay, and his influence may perhaps be felt in this manner, trying to encourage the audience to broaden their interpretation of various characters and situations, but I feel this doesn’t always land.

It's strange to me, for instance, that the series is perfectly willing to reimagine Moriarty as a wickedly flamboyant character with potentially gay/bisexual/pansexual tendencies (depending on your interpretation; and yes, there are definite problems that exist with portraying a psychopathic killer as any of those) but seemed deeply bothered by the idea of letting Sherlock be either openly aspec or openly gay. Other times, when the show does make those decisions, it seems to struggle with its own choices, such as making Irene gay and then repeatedly throwing her and Sherlock together. There is so much the show could have done with a more modern setting that it at times just seems unwilling to do, and that’s disappointing, especially from my own personal aspec perspective, and from other perspectives as well.

To Ship Or Not To Ship?

Here on the blog, I often describe Star Trek as my first fandom since, as a child, it was the first time I really became aware of people bringing their love of media into their day-to-day life. However, the first fandom that I was actively a part of was technically the Sherlock fandom, and during my time as an active fan, I read and wrote fanfic, explored fan art on Tumblr, and was involved in shipping. If you’re not familiar with the term, “shipping” refers to the act of rooting for specific characters to get together within a piece of media. The pairing themselves are often referred to as “the ship” or “OTP,” which is short for one true pairing.

In a previous post, I delved a bit deeper into shipping and the issues it can present from an aspec perspective, but I was and still am an avid shipper even so, and one of my dearest held OTPs for a long time was, in fact, JohnLock. I won’t lie and tell you that I’ve completely lost my ability to see JohnLock as a romantic pairing; as the previous section demonstrates, the show really does set things up so that it’s all too easy to fall into this rhythm. However, perhaps now more than I ever did, I really value the unique and special parts of Sherlock and John’s association that are completely platonic and seeped in deep friendship.

Right away, and especially as the show progresses, I think we can really see that Sherlock has been through hell and back again in his life, even though he tries not to show it, and John is much the same. But there is an immediate trust and connection there that allow the two to elevate and support one another. In the first episode, we hear John mournfully declare that “nothing ever happens” to him and he seems to feel that he has nothing to say or contribute; mentally he’s still stuck in his role as a soldier in Afghanistan and the things that happened to him during that time. But Sherlock sees the value and worth in him, and by showing him true understanding, he is able to bring John out from the things that ail him most, especially in the show’s first two seasons.

Although Sherlock is, in return, difficult to understand, John doubtless does the best job, and the efforts he makes to continually understand Sherlock and help him understand the world around him are often wonderfully portrayed. As I stated earlier, Sherlock often doesn’t realize when he’s being unkind to people and often misunderstands the best ways to make an effort to connect with them, but his association with John helps him with that. We see throughout the series that he actually does deeply care about and value people – it’s what makes Moriarty’s threat to “burn the heart out” of Sherlock all the more terrifying, because there is a heart there that so many things try to crush and deny, whether that be his line of work, his own ego, or the people around him. So many things want to decay Sherlock and make him the psychopath everyone wants to think he is, and the psychopath that Moriarty is. But John sees the best parts of Sherlock’s nature and helps Sherlock see it too, in himself and in others.

Like I said, I really do think the show perfectly hands fans the ability to ship John and Sherlock, and I don’t think it’s a bad thing to do so. I think that many of the observations I’ve made here have the potential to be seen in either light and still be deeply poignant and moving. The way the show queerbaits and acebaits and then doesn’t seem to follow through on either of these things is frustrating, without a doubt. But even if John and Sherlock are nothing more than what TV Tropes would describe as “heterosexual life partners,” I think they prove what it means to someone who is different and misunderstood by the rest of society to find a friend who trusts and understands them. And honestly, that goes for both characters, which is part of what makes their bond so deeply profound.

To me, I think that was probably one of the biggest things I took away from my “aspec adult” rewatch of the series. Although it was easy to put my “shipping goggles” back on and see many of John and Sherlock’s interactions through that lens, I found it the most rewarding to celebrate their friendship – and the friendships Sherlock has with many of the other characters in the show. These bonds are not always portrayed well, something I’ll get into more in the next post, but they are always unique and fascinating even so, and I’d like to think that maybe those bonds can inspire better ones in future. After all, although Sherlock itself has been off the air for many years, there may be other adaptations or other shows that draw inspiration from it. To modify a quote from Lestrade, the relationships in Sherlock are great and someday, if we’re very lucky, they might even be good.

Image description: Several of the principal characters of Sherlock - from left to right, Molly Hooper, Mary Watson, John Watson, Sherlock himself, Detective Inspector Greg Lestrade, and Mrs. Hudson. Everyone pictured here is a good friend of Sherlock, which I think nicely illustrates my point.

In my introduction, I mentioned that this post was going to have two parts. That’s nothing especially new for me – as you may know, during the editing process of my posts, I often realize that I have so much material I need to cut down for the sake of readability that I decide to move it all to a new post and expand on it, often posting the second one several months to a year or more later. However, this post is different in one key way: I knew this post was destined to be a two-parter during the research stage and am planning to do the second part right away, meaning my next planned post will be the continuation of this one.

Ironically enough considering the subject matter is familiar to me, this post may be one of my most researched posts in a while, and I have so much I want to discuss and explore that I think doing another post right away makes the most sense. So, even if you never saw Sherlock or the show wasn’t really your thing, I nevertheless hope you join me for my next post. In it, I plan to get into even deeper analysis, and I think a lot of my points are relevant not only to Sherlock or aspec fans, but to people of all identities and preferences. This is a large undertaking, but one I’m enjoying, and I can’t wait to get even deeper into it. As Sherlock himself might say, the game is on!