The next time I see the “it wasn’t canon argument,” I’m going to run screaming at you with copies of the Criminal Law Amendment Act of 1885 and news articles detailing the treatment of convicted homosexuals in 19th Century England, and then continue screaming until you understand exactly what would have happened to Arthur Conan Doyle had he explicitly written Sherlock Holmes and John Watson as gay lovers.
So, I wrote this a bit cheekily last night, but now I want to expand on it with some actual facts. I see a lot of people saying, “Oh, back in the 19th century, Sherlock and John couldn’t openly be together.” And that’s true, but what’s at the heart of that sentiment is this one, “Arthur Conan Doyle couldn’t have written them openly together, because the general public would assume he was encouraging homosexuality, perhaps was even homosexual himself, and that would have been dangerous.” Here’s why.
In 1885, the British Parliament enacted section 11 of the he Criminal Law Amendment Act 1885, known as the Labouchere Amendment which prohibited gross indecency between males. It thus became possible to prosecute homosexuals for engaging in sexual acts where buggery or attempted buggery could not be proven. Note that they didn’t have to actually catch you in the act, they just had to suspect that you did it. During this time period, many notable men were prosecuted with disastrous results; Lord Arthur Chilton committed suicide after being implicated in Boulton and Park trial involving two transvestites and Oscar Wilde was sentenced to prison and hard labour after being found guilty.
Was there still a homosexual culture in England at the time? Yes, it was around this time that the movement began to flourish, with clandestine gatherings preceding the opening of the first gay pub, The Cave of the Golden Calf in 1912. There was even the beginnings of gay erotica and publishing, but it was still very much subversive and not openly distributed among the public.
The opposite of who Arthur Conan Doyle was; Sherlock Holmes increased subscriptions to The Strand magazine by 30,000. While Oscar Wilde, if not embraced, accepted, the consequences of his actions, Arthur Conan Doyle was not in a position to do that. He received a knighthood in 1902, he was involved in political campaigns and other civic work throughout his lifetime, and he had 5 children to support. He was not in a position to risk what an accusation of buggery would bring.
So, when you look at the situation, Arthur Conan Doyle was unable to go any farther than he had with Holmes and Watson in his original stories. Even if he wanted to. Even if he tried to fill it with as much subtext as possible, he would always have to be mindful of what would happen if he went to far.
This is why this argument bothers me so much. Were Sherlock Holmes in John Watson explicitly in a romantic relationship in the original stories? No, and no one is arguing that they were. Are we intended to imply, with the clues that were safe to include given the environment at the time, that it’s a possibility? That’s up to you to decide. But demanding that the only way a relationship could be legitimate is if it had been clearly stated by Arthur Conan Doyle is frustrating because it’s imposing today’s standards on a time period where they do not fit.
Extremely well written and accurate, thank you. I wish more of the ‘Doyle would have written them gay if he’d wanted them gay’ brigade actually bothered to understand this. But no, they impose today’s situation on Doyle’s writing. ‘Dorian Gray’ was cited as evidence in Wilde’s trial in 1895: the first openly ‘lesbian’ novel, Radclyffe Hall’ ‘The Well of Loneliness’ was prosecuted as obscene. And that was in 1928. All it takes is a little research. Thanks again 🙂
Anyway, I bring up Wilde because Doyle makes a somewhat ambigious statement in one of his stories, The Adventure of the Three Students, that may relate to Wilde:
“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, and it was during this time that
the small but instructive adventure which I am
about to relate befell us.”
What is the combination of events into which he “need not enter” that would lead Holmes and Watson to spend some weeks away from home? Possibly nothing, but also possibly the trial & conviction of Oscar Wilde, which occured that year and brought public attention to the issue, making London a very unsafe place for men who may be suspected of homosexuality. (Here is an informative post that also mentions this, among other things.) I’m not sure that a month is actually given in the story, but Sherlockians tend to place it in spring based on context in the story itself. Spring of 1895 also is when Wilde’s trials and conviction occured.
Aside from being friends with Wilde, according to Doyle’s official biography, Doyle had liberal views on homosexuality for his time. During his life, Doyle on a few occasions had gotten involved with legal cases in attempts to help people. One example involved a man he knew, Sir Roger Casement, whose life Doyle almost managed to succeed in having spared, but failed due to “the discovery of Casement’s diary. It chronicled in detail his homosexuality, which at the time was also a criminal offense.” (this is also taken from the official biography of Doyle)
None of this is hard evidence that Holmes and Watson were intended to come across as a gay couple; all I am intending to suggest is that Doyle would not necessarily have been against the idea, and that at any rate he had lost real life friends and acquaintances thanks to laws against homosexuality that Doyle considered too harsh.
This is getting more than a bit long, but I have one more point to bring up: the Turkish baths. The Adventure of the Illustrious Client begins with Holmes and Watson relaxing together at a Turkish bath.
By the time that Doyle wrote that story (1924), public baths had already been known as a meeting place for gay men. Even around the time the story takes place (1902), the first recorded police raids on public bath houses (in the US) had occured (1903). As I don’t want to add any more to the length of this post, I will just link to a page that talks about this story specifically and a bit of info from this page of Wikipedia:
Beltainefaerie's Flights of Fancy 