Was Sherlock Holmes Gay?

With each new incarnation of Sherlock Holmes comes the inevitable question, “Was Sherlock Holmes gay?”  Holmes’ close and trusting relationship with Dr. Watson certainly raises eyebrows in modern times.  However, Holmes was a product of the Victorian era.  His creator, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, made Holmes a true man of his times.

According to Doyle, Holmes and Watson shared secrets, spent their free time together and sometimes walked arm in arm in public.  This was normal behavior between best male friends in Victorian times.  However, if two men tried to walk arm an arm down the street today, they would be assumed to be gay.

Men and Women in Victorian Times

Men and women basically treated each other like different species during Victorian England.  Husbands and wives tended not to socialize or confide in each other.  Women were expected to be pleasant company, devoted mothers and to support their husbands in all ways but they were not to have ideas that were independent of their menfolk. 

In this atmosphere, men felt that they could not truly be themselves around women.  Women were strange creatures either placed on pedestals or found in the gutter.  As a consequence, they formed gentlemen’s clubs and formed friendships usually with other men.  It was only with other men that they could discuss touchy subjects like religion, politics and philosophy.

Holmes’ Relationship to Women

Although Watson would marry and become a widower in the Doyle canon, Holmes would remain a confirmed bachelor.  He never dated, often talked badly about women and would proclaim that he never loved.  All indications are that Doyle had Holmes be celibate and quite possibly a virgin throughout his life.

In “The Adventure of the Copper Beeches,” Watson reports with regret that Holmes lost all interest in one woman client that at first seemed to turn his head.  Holmes did not socialize with women.  He avoided them as much as possible.  He never talked about his childhood, which has become the source of much speculation as to his apparent misogyny.  Women could have made him feel uncomfortable or bored (or both) and so he avoided them unless absolutely necessary.  He only spoke well of one woman, Irene Adler, whose photo he kept locked in a drawer.

Reasons For Holmes’ Celibacy

There are two possible reasons for making Doyle making Holmes this way.  One was for commercial reasons.  Although Doyle never intended for Holmes to be any woman’s fantasy object, Holmes became one anyway.  The first Sherlock Holmes novel, A Study in Scarlet (1887) was rejected by one publisher for lacking a romantic interest.  In order to keep the female fans happy, Doyle always had Holmes seem available.

The next reason is probably the most possible.  According to The Doctor and the Detective: A Biography of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (Minotaur Books; 2000) celibacy was thought to endow a man with special aptitudes.  Instead of spending energy for the marriage and mating, a celibate man could devote all of his energies to his profession or to mental pursuits.  Since Sherlock Holmes was described as a genius, it may have been more believable for the reading public at the time to see a celibate man as a genius instead of a sexually active one.

Note: I cannot remember where this article first appeared online, but it was on Yahoo Voices for a year or so and is on sites that scrape content. I thought it was about time it appeared on one of my own blogs.