There’s been plenty of speculation about Sherlock Holmes’s sexual orientation among Sherlock viewers and fanfiction writers, and recently Benedict Cumberbatch sparked a new round of discussion with a comment he made on Chris Hardwick’s “Nerdist” podcast. “They’ve got different dress senses, different taste in the sex of their partners,” Cumberbatch said when comparing the Doctor (from Doctor Who) and Sherlock. But Sherlock co-creator Steven Moffat, who’s been working on season four (finally!) of his show, had some thoughts on the matter. “It’s a funny thing when a character for over 100 years has been saying, ‘I don’t do that at all,’” Moffat told EW. “[Sherlock]’s not interested in [sex]. He’s willfully staying away from that to keep his brain pure — a Victorian belief, that. But everyone wants to believe he’s gay. He’s not gay. He’s not straight.”
In an interview with New York’s Jada Yuan last year, Benedict Cumberbatch said more of the same: “He’s asexual. He doesn’t want any, and it’s very purposeful on his part. I think he’s been burnt in the past. I think he also realizes he can’t beat female intuition; he can’t. So to embroil himself where he might be enslaved through adoration or sexual desire or any kind of power or chemistry to do with love is too big a risk for him.”
