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THE JOHNLOCK CONSPIRACY: WHY IT IS REAL
There is a lot of subtext in the show Sherlock that it is almost like the writers are practically writing on the screen that these two are a couple. In the eyes of the majority of the audience, Johnlock is real because of the fact that Sherlock is flamboyantly gay and John is bisexual. It is not as much as a long shot if you really think about it and really look into the subtext that the writers are giving to the audience.
There are many reasons why the BBC adaptation of Sherlock Holmes could arguably be a straight man, but in the first episode, the audience sees Molly (the morgue worker) ask Sherlock “out for coffee”(Sherlock; A Study in Pink), he says “black two sugars please, I’ll be upstairs”(Sherlock: A Study in Pink) now this could be taken as ‘oh, he is a sociopath, he does not understand human emotions!’ but this has been proven wrong by psychologists and in the most recent episode the audience discovers that Sherlock is a very emotional human being and he only says that he is a sociopath to make himself be more like his older brother who he has idolised when he was younger, while it is true that he does not fully understand emotions from other people, but it is in no way a complete mystery to him, Molly asking him for coffee was an invitation for a date, he just brushes it off as ‘oh, she is asking me if I would like coffee, that is nice of her’ and does not pick up on her interest in him and treats it as if he is ordering something off a menu, and when Molly returns with his coffee he gives her blunt fashion advice and winks at the cute army doctor that his friend brought him to be potential flatmates and the best duo in all of history, and his friend continues to say that “he’s always like that”(Sherlock; A Study in Pink). The next day when they meet up at Baker street, the landlady, Mrs, Hudson, who knows Sherlock quite well, asks if they will be needing two bedrooms, John replies no and she continues to say “oh it’s alright, Mrs. Turner next door has married ones” (Sherlock: A Study in Pink) implying that the lady next door has a gay couple as her tenants, in the original books, Mrs. Turner and Mrs. Hudson are the same person because Arthur Conan Doyle referred to her as both names for reasons unknown. Out of all the times when someone blatantly assumes Sherlock is gay, he never once corrects them yet he corrects almost anything else, while any straight person would do almost immediately. Later in this episode, Sherlock and John go to a restaurant to try and find the murderer, while they are waiting John mentions that he has met one of Sherlock’s ‘arch-enemies’ and continues to say that normal people do not have arch-enemies, they have people they like, people they do not like, girlfriends, boyfriends and asks if Sherlock if he has a girlfriend, who responds with “girlfriend? No, not really my area”(Sherlock: A Study in Pink) and John then asks if he has a boyfriend and says that it is fine which Sherlock says “I know it’s fine”(Sherlock: A Study in Pink), he did not answer John’s original question so he asks again and Sherlock says no, John, continuing with the conversation says that “great, you’re unattached, just like me”(Sherlock: A Study in Pink). At the beginning of the last episode of season one, the audience discovers that Sherlock only remembers things he only deems as important, for example, he has deleted his memory of the solar system because he does not think that it will come up in a case. Later on in this episode, a man who is dating the morgue worker, Molly Hooper comes into the lab that Sherlock is working in with Molly and when the man says hello to Sherlock, he says “gay… nothing, um hey”(Sherlock: The Great Game) and once the man leaves Molly asks what did he mean by gay, Sherlock then explains “With that level of personal grooming?... tinted eyelashes, clear signs of taurine cream around the frown lines. Those tired clubber"s eyes. Then there"s his underwear.... Visible above the waistline – very visible; very particular brand. That, plus the extremely suggestive fact that he just left his number under this dish here... and I"d say you"d better break it off now and save yourself the pain.”(Sherlock: The Great Game) Sherlock says he only keeps things in his mind that he deems necessary, so it would only make sense that he keeps the specific brand of underwear that gay men buy if he is gay himself. Something that has nothing to do with any argument but should be mentioned anyway is that after John’s wife died, he has moved back in with Sherlock and they are raising John’s daughter together, nobody moves in with and raises a kid their best friend ‘platonically’. Sherlock is obviously a gay man once the subtext has been brought together, or if someone actually pays attention to the background of the show.
In Sherlock, John has had many girlfriends and has even married a woman, now people would say ‘no he cannot be gay, he has had girlfriends before!’ well there is a surprisingly easy solution to that: John is bisexual. Bisexual is when a person likes 2 genders. When Sherlock first meets Irene Adler, who is the main ‘enemy’ for this episode, Sherlock gets John to punch him in the face as some sort of a disguise, this obviously does not work but Irene comments on it saying “Oh, and somebody loves you. Why, if I had to punch that face, I’d avoid your nose and teeth too.”(Sherlock: A Scandal in Belgravia) and both she and the camera turn to look at John standing in the doorway, almost as if he is the one that Irene is referencing to. Mycroft (Sherlock’s brother and arch-enemy) gave Sherlock a cigarette as a ‘Christmas gift’, Sherlock took the cigarette and once he was gone, Mycroft informed John that he took the cigarette and is told that it is a ‘danger night’ and that he needs to stay with Sherlock, John has to cancel his plans with his girlfriend in order to accommodate this, his girlfriend gets fed up and starts saying “You know, all my friends are totally wrong about you, you’re a great boyfriend… and Sherlock Holmes must be a very lucky man, you’ll do anything for him… just don’t make me compete with Sherlock Holmes!”(Sherlock: A Scandal in Belgravia) John then tries to apologize but messes up and confuses her for one of his ex-girlfriends, she obviously does not appreciate this very much and storms out. Earlier, Sherlock keeps getting texts from Irene, John counts them and there are about 57 of them, so John cannot tell his girlfriends apart, but remembers the 57 texts Sherlock is getting from the Woman (also known as Irene Adler). Later in that episode when Irene is thought to be dead, she reads out to John some of the texts she sent to Sherlock, which are along the lines of “You looked sexy on ‘Crimewatch’. Let’s have dinner”; “I’m not hungry, let’s have dinner”(Sherlock: A Scandal in Belgravia) The rest of the conversation goes a bit like this when John asks “You ... flirted with Sherlock Holmes?” “At him. He never replies” “No, Sherlock always replies – to everything. He’s Mr. Punchline. He will outlive God trying to have the last word.” “Does that make me special?” “I don’t know. Maybe.,, We’re not a couple.” “Yes you are.”(Sherlock: A Scandal in Belgravia) Now Irene Adler is a ‘Dominatrix’, she knows exactly what people like, another text that Irene sent to Sherlock that is relevant is “John’s blog is HILARIOUS. I think he likes you more than I do. Let’s have dinner.”(Sherlock: A Scandal in Belgravia) And Irene has been asking Sherlock indelicately to sleep with her and John likes him more than she does apparently. When John goes to Mrs. Hudson to tell her that he’s getting married, Mrs. Hudson looks surprised and says ”So soon after Sherlock?... What’s his name?”(Sherlock: The Empty Hearse) and John says that it is a woman and Mrs. Hudson replies with “You really have moved on, haven’t you?”(Sherlock: The Empty Hearse) John then says “Mrs Hudson! How many times ...? Sherlock was not my boyfriend… Listen to me: I am not gay!”(Sherlock: The Empty Hearse) And Mrs. Hudson has lived in the flat below them since they have first moved in and knows the boys quite well. There is not a whole lot of evidence of John being bisexual, but what is there to prove he is is quite valuable.
The writers of the show also have an important part to play in this conspiracy. Mark Gatiss, one of the writers for the show, is a gay man, at one of the panels that the writers went to they mention how important it is for kids to see themselves on the big screen, on the topic of LGBT representation. Both of the writers are completely on board with the idea and have been queerbaiting the audience since day one (queerbaiting is when you have a blatantly gay couple but will not put it into the show due to either the reactions of the audience or the writers just want to see the fanbase scream). In the trailer for season 4, they put in Sherlock saying ‘I love you’ to the camera, it was not what the audience wanted but the writers knew how they would react and put it in anyway. The writers have also said that nothing in Sherlock is there for no reason, so there must be a really good reason on why in every episode, the topic of John and Sherlock are a couple is mentioned by almost every character in the show at least once. Arthur Conan Doyle, the original writer of Sherlock Holmes, was close friends with Oscar Wilde who was charged with indecency and he made some characters in his books queer, ACD was smarter than to make characters gay, but he did put in heavy amounts of subtext in the stories, also the last line in the book is “Maybe one day, the true story may be told” so that could be Doyle asking that once it is legal, to make them fall in love and to live the happy life they deserve.
The idea of John and Sherlock being a couple is not as far-fetched as it sounds when it comes to the subtext of Sherlock being gay, John being bisexual, and the obvious way the writers tell the story. The story of this famous duo and their frankly ridiculous adventures have come such a long way since they were first told in the 19th century. Even if someone says that it would be a shame to make these characters gay, just know that Arthur Conan Doyle did not care for these stories as much as his others.