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mild-lunacy · 7 years

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The Primary Lens for Mofftiss Intent

MOFFAT: You’re talking about ‘The Gay Thing’, I think. Well, I - I... that joke exists... But the joke exists only because if two blokes did move in together in modern London, and... hung around and all, people would say, ‘You’re a couple’. That’s quite sweet, if they say it in a total non-judgemental way. ‘Oh, you’re together? Yeah, I should think that’s the case’. Um... In terms of the many... fantasies that have been unleashed on the internet... Um. Fine? Uh... You’re allowed to make it any way you like. Yes, Mark?

GATISS: Just - stop it!

MOFFAT: Um, the thing about Sherlock Holmes is, you’ve understood nothing if you haven’t understood that sex, for him, is thinking. Right? That’s where he’s dislocated, that’s the problem. He’s like a genetic experiment where they’ve wired up someone’s libido to the brain, instead. So he doesn’t really think in those terms. He thinks... all he has to do is solve stuff. Um... So, it’s not - it’s not that kind of a relationship. Uh... I don’t - it can be in your mind or anyone (else’s...) But the reality is (...) No, but the, uh... You know, it’s kind of limiting - why do we have to make it sex? You know, there are love stories that are sex scenes. Love is a bigger subject. And it’s certainly a love story. But it’s not a sex scene - I don’t think. But if other people want to make it that, they’re very, very welcomed.

GATISS: It’s also back to the whole thing about... why characters are compelling. And in the end, the ambiguity is what’s interesting, and not the solution. If you just say it... I mean, it’s obviously much more fun for people to assume and for them both to get slightly affronted, but they not really see the obvious, which is - they are (!!!) - they love each other. But not in a sexual way... Series 4, Series 4!

- Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss, Q&A at Clapham Picturehouse, 2011

In retrospect, I think a lot of things resolve for me if I take Moffat and Gatiss at face value, here.

I know a lot of people are understandably upset by seeing this interview going around again, but their apparent honesty struck me as being particularly clear. I think if you don’t insist that Moffat really means that he’s aiming for canon Johnlock when he says it’s a love story but not a ‘sex scene’, and you simply accept that Gatiss genuinely thinks that it’s ‘the ambiguity is what’s interesting’, you come to a very simple conclusion, and it’s not that Moffat and Gatiss always intended to have canon Johnlock. This is not a receipt or any kind of proof of initial romantic intent for John and Sherlock in the show, as people have suggested even post-S4. Once you stop fighting it, it actually seems odd to me to see it that way, because both Moffat and Gatiss are explicitly saying the opposite... it’s just that the opposite of canon Johnlock, for them, is not a total ‘no homo’, per se. It’s more nuanced and ambiguous: quite self-consciously so. It also uses fundamentally different assumptions or axioms than fandom does.

Another way to put it is that I think it’s that they always intended to queerbait, if you take the definition of queerbaiting to mean a combination of using sexuality as a ‘recurring joke’ (for any reason), or ‘denying the assumptions’ of romantic interest ‘without modifying the character’s behavior’. In other words, if you focus on impact and results, it obviously is.

However, it’s not queerbaiting if you take it to mean specifically an intentional marketing scheme ‘to attract/appeal to the queer market’. That’s when you start talking about the Authorial Intent and/or what the creators are trying to actually communicate to the audience with the work. Here’s where the quote seems most useful, particularly if you use it as a lens to understand the waterfall ending of TAB.

They’ve actually explicitly illustrated their intent with the ending. Right after TAB aired, @therealmartinsgrrrl wrote a meta saying that the waterfall scene was the key to the entire series, and I didn’t realize then just how true that is. This is the moment we know, and that Sherlock himself knows, as she described: There are two of them. There have always been. It’s not Moriarty. It’s not Sherlock’s fear that wins. There’s no room for anyone else. Sherlock sees that alone doesn’t protect him, once and for all, and the whole episode resolves just as TFP does: John and Sherlock in their traditional roles, 1895 overlapping the present day. We assumed that there was somewhere yet to go after that scene, but there wasn’t; we just had to get John caught up, which happened at the end of TLD. Why? Because it’s a love story, but ‘not a sex scene’.

We have the last hurrah of the classic set up with a character (here, Moriarty) making it a bit of a joke for the last time, suggesting that John and Sherlock are together, because John is just... always there. ‘It’s certainly a love story’, and I’d say that’s clear as day. That’s part one, and it’s Moffat.

Part two is Gatiss: as he said, he thinks it’s fun for people to ‘assume and for them both to get slightly affronted’, which they do. This is the most explicit that gets in the whole show: both Sherlock and John get affronted, with Sherlock saying it’s ‘offensive’ and impertinent, even though he’s almost always silent on the subject, to the point that I’ve written recently about how suggestive that is, even if the idea is probably just that Sherlock’s simply silent on the subject of his feelings and/or romantic entanglement (even or especially to John). So as I’ve said earlier, Sherlock’s response here with that one word alone is a huge clue that they’re going to keep their private lives private on the show. The ambiguity is there, and it’s there intentionally, because the love itself is there, but at the same time (as Series 4 clearly suggests), their love isn’t meant to be sexual.

As I’ve written at length recently, I think the ‘Chekhov’s gun’ theory that ultimately forms the foundation of TJLC depends on conflating Sherlock’s sexuality and his history and self-perception as a ‘high-functioning sociopath’. The show did resolve that in TAB and TFP, but we obviously have certain aspects focused on (the false persona, the relevant history with Eurus that created it, the connection with John which shattered it), and certain aspects being subsumed by the other facets. The merely romantic gets dismissed in favor of the epic (’don’t you read The Strand?’) That line sets up and echoes the focus on ‘the legend’ of Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson in Mary’s final monologue in TFP. Essentially, I believe that all the romantic suggestions and questions raised in the three prior seasons about Sherlock’s love life (including Mind Palace!John’s asking about Irene Adler in the greenhouse) can be seen to resolve at the waterfall scene. This is the final time the question or insinuation about John and Sherlock is raised, and it’s put to rest and resolved through their untouchable union (of the same unbreakable ‘family’ type we see reinforced in TFP, I think).

Both Moffat and Gatiss agree-- and explicitly say-- that John and Sherlock love each other, but not in ‘a sexual way’, all the way back in Series 1, and Gatiss further says that they don’t ‘see the obvious’ until Series 4. The obvious doesn’t have to be intended to mean that it is sexual after all. It could be that they don’t see what it really means and just how much they love each other (even nonsexually!) until Series 4. That is, I do think that the end of HLV already shows that the confessions in TSoT (and everything earlier in HLV) wasn’t enough, and at the tarmac the misunderstanding and that somewhat awkward distance between them remains. They don’t see the obvious bond they have regardless of anything, the truth beneath the dismissals or denials of insinuations like Moriarty’s. And I think the truth is supposed to be that it ‘doesn’t matter’, as Mary says in TFP, ‘cause of who they are together: the indelible and unbreakable duo.

Of course that doesn’t mean I’m happy about all this, or that I think the execution or the way the text of BBC Sherlock was made (even TAB!) actually communicated this apparent intent. Certain things just exist regardless of intent, and they snowball-- such as all the parallels between John and Sherlock’s relationship and the use of romantic mirrors for almost identical dialogue with Molly and Mary, as I’ve said. That’s the ‘ambiguity’ without the solution that Gatiss seems to think is part of what’s interesting about the dynamic. Then there’s stuff that’s a lot more blatantly ‘flirting with the homoeroticism in Sherlock’, as Gatiss said in 2010, like many scenes in ASiB and TSoT in particular. There’s no heteronormative way to read John’s reaction to Irene at Battersea, as I’ve written about many times, or his reactions to the pregnancy deduction at the wedding. A lot of that’s subtext because it’s about acting, but acting is certainly part of the text, and I don’t think either Ben C or Martin Freeman are rogue agents somehow. So that’s certainly textual.

My point is simply that Moffat and Gatiss declared their intentions in 2011, and have more or less stuck by their guns the entire time.

#sherlock meta #tjlc #steven moffat #mark gatiss #johnlock feels #sherlock special #narrative #queerlock #queer issues

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stretchjournalemerson · 4 years

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Do Aphrodisiacs Really Make You Sexually Aroused?

By Athena Nassar

You are sitting on a picnic blanket with your lover. You feed her strawberries dipped in dark chocolate, because you think she enjoys them. Or maybe you are hoping that she will embody the spirit of Persephone and swallow them like pomegranate seeds. Either way, she is sitting in front of you with strawberry juice dripping down her chin onto her floral dress. She calls you to taste her, and her spaghetti strap tastes like the cherry stem at the bottom of an Old-Fashioned, but what are your intentions? She might sleep with you in a few hours, but will it be because of the chocolate strawberries that you so purposely fed her earlier that day? According to a recent study in The Journal of Sexual Medicine, the chocolate itself certainly doesn’t have enough phenylethylamine to make her jump your bones. Although it may feel as if you are closer to the Promised Land of unclothed women after a few cocktails, aphrodisiacs do not actually play a hand in his/her sexual arousal, and here’s why.

The movie 9½ Weeks, also known as the genesis of all S&M movies, lays out this utopia solely comprised of food and sex. In a scene that occupies a fat ten minutes of the film, Mickey Rourke feeds Kim Basinger an assortment of foods that I never knew could taste good together. The camera is zoomed in on Basinger’s mouth while she consumes a jalapeño pepper followed by a maraschino cherry. Just when I think things couldn’t get any worse, she downs a diced egg before the jello has the chance to get all the way down her throat. To top it all off, Mickey Rourke rubs honey on her breasts, and I just know that can’t be comfortable. Besides Kim Basinger being all too compliant, there is a critical misconception that this scene perpetuates. The visual of Basinger eating a variety of condiments while blindfolded suggests that she is being stimulated by the food itself, but Bettina Pause, a psychologist at Heinrich Heine University, claims that “a lot of our communication is influenced by chemosignals.” Considering the fact that humans have a pheromone nerve running from the nose into the brain, Basinger was most likely drawn to Rourke’s individual odorprint rather than his odd selection of petit fours. According to Pause, the aroma that emanates off of breastfeeding women encourages other women without infants to reproduce.

Now, I’m not arguing that aphrodisiacs don’t bring us any pleasure at all, just not the kind of pleasure that might first come to mind. The Smell and Taste Treatment and Research Foundation confirms that the scent of banana nut bread has the power to arouse women more intensely than any regular old banana, so there must be some truth to this aphrodisiac claim after all. My guess is that this boost of sexual arousal is due to the nutmeg, especially since the scent is amplified in the process of baking the banana nut bread. According to The National Center for Biotechnology Information, herbs and spices such as red ginseng and saffron are the only scientifically proven aphrodisiacs. Surely there is a certain satisfaction that we feel when we bite into a succulent piece of watermelon, but does this trigger some sort of sexual longing or are we just content with the fact that we fulfilled a strictly nonsexual craving? As humans that need food to survive, it would make sense to say that our brains feel pleasure when our stomachs are full. A study by The Journal of Neuroscience seems to agree with this assumption, concluding that “eating prompts the brain to release feel good hormones known as endorphins.” Of course, overstimulation of these endorphins can lead to obesity, or in other words, too much of a good thing is ultimately a bad thing. Although some sugar-filled foods generate more pleasure than others, this is not to be confused with a titillating sensation.

If I were to ask Google about the sexual enhancements of any food, the internet would surely find a way to muster together numerous articles about how that food makes you better in bed, so where do we draw the line? Does every food magically make you better in bed? What do we classify as aphrodisiacs? In the middle ages, people determined whether a food was an aphrodisiac or not based on the doctrine of signatures. Coined by German philosopher Jakob Böhme, the doctrine of signatures is defined as “the belief that natural objects that look like a part of the body can cure diseases that would arise there.” Similarly, foods that resembled human sex organs such as oysters, asparagus, and sea cucumbers were thought to heighten passion. Foods that were warm or moist such as chili peppers or curry were thought to provoke a similar feeling. Of course, we know that this theory is drastically wrong, and many classic pieces of literature have been written on the basis of this flawed ideology to further the belief that consuming oysters will contribute to vaginal wetness. In Bradley C. Bennett’s essay “Doctrine of Signatures: An Explanation of Medicinal Plant Discovery or Dissemination of Knowledge?” Bennett advises us to not try to cure a heart disease with a heart-shaped leaf, because there happens to be 2,584 leaves with the same exact shape. In my opinion, we shouldn't try to cure heartbreak with erotic food either.

The romance novel Like Water for Chocolate illustrates a new Mexican recipe for every month. Although her true love Pedro asks for her hand in marriage, Tita, the youngest of three girls, cannot marry, because she is forced to care for her aging mother. In the month of December, the heartbroken Tita makes chiles in walnut sauce for her niece’s wedding. Upon ingesting these chiles, the guests cannot resist the urge to make “mad passionate love wherever they happen to end up… some under the bridge between Piedras Negras and Eagle Pass… the more conservative, in their cars, hastily pulled over to the side of the road” (Esquivel 242). Tita, overwhelmed with lust, grabs Pedro’s hand, and they both go into a dark room. The room is so saturated in passion that it drives the doves, the pigs, and the chickens to flee the ranch. Tita is described as “experiencing a climax so intense that her closed eyes glowed, and a brilliant tunnel appears before her,” and suddenly, she opens her eyes to Pedro lying beside her, dead (Esquivel 243). Although Like Water for Chocolate depicts two lovers who die naked in each other's arms from the effects of a single chile smothered in walnut sauce, the United States Food and Drug Administration does not recognize any chemical in particular as a natural aphrodisiac. For these results, you would certainly need an abnormally large dose of sildenafil, also referred to as viagra.

In fact, one of the most popular aphrodisiacs, the Spanish fly, causes a very non-sexual reaction if it is consumed. Cantharidin, a chemical which is secreted by blister beetles, can cause a rash to form on the urethra, as well as a painful erection that can potentially last for several hours known as priapism. In extreme circumstances, ingesting this so-called aphrodisiac can even lead to death. Although chiles and diluted pomegranates won’t influence your libido, they are definitely a safer option than any version of the Spanish fly, whether it be emulsified, powdered, filtered, or so on. Marketing companies continue to advertise the Spanish fly as a love potion, either not knowing or not caring that it causes an allergic reaction. The Spanish fly is advertised on Amazon as “the number one aphrodisiac” in a bottle labeled “LOVE SEXPLOSION” with the price of $99.99, and that is not including shipping. Around fifty percent of the reviews say something along the lines of “did not work at all,” “not what I was hoping for,” or “will return later.” The customers were unsatisfied with the results to say the least, but when they are purchasing products that look like the image on your right, who is really to blame?

When you think about it, it isn’t that difficult to believe that aphrodisiacs are completely buried in mythology. After all, aphrodisiacs did earn their name from the goddess Aphrodite who emerged from the stomach of a large scallop shell, hence seafood being rumored as a sexual stimulant. Oysters, among other shellfish, are considered to be a natural aphrodisiac due to their supply of zinc and amino acids. According to Michael Krychman, a gynecologist at the Southern California Center for Sexual Health and Survivorship Medicine, “there is a very large placebo effect” that occurs in the experience of eating oysters. Sex is laced in the action of slurping something gooey down your throat, and often times, the experience itself can produce adrenaline. Oysters do contain zinc which increases testosterone levels and male sperm count, but the quantity of sperm produced by the testes has absolutely nothing to do with attraction. Barry R. Komisaruk, a professor of psychology at Rutgers University, presents an interesting question: “Could oysters possibly satisfy sexual deprivation?” The answer is most likely no, unless you happen to have a wet and messy fetishism or any other fetish pertaining to food.

Food and its correlation to sex is a major component of many films and works of literature, and the bible is no different. In the story of Adam and Eve, the first man and woman are unashamed of their nakedness until a serpent tempts Eve into eating an apple from the tree of knowledge. This depiction of the forbidden fruit as a temptation results in a further sexualization of these fruits beyond the biblical meaning. Circling back to Komisaruk’s question of sexual deprivation, do we only yearn for things that we are deprived of? If the bible had placed sloppy joes instead of apples in the Garden of Eden, would we sexualize that too?

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Laura Esquivel for writing Like Water for Chocolate.

Works Cited

9½ Weeks. Directed by Adrian Lyne, performances by Mickey Rourke and Kim Basinger, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 1986.

Ansari, Shahid (et al). “Exploring Scientifically Proven Herbal Aphrodisiacs.” National Center for Biotechnology Information, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3731873/

Ault, Alicia. “Are Oysters an Aphrodisiac?” Smithsonian, https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/are-oysters-aphrodisiac-180962148/

Bennett, B.C. “Doctrine of Signatures: An explanation of medicinal plant discovery or Dissemination of knowledge?” Economic Botany, Vol. 61, 246–255 (2007).

Böhme, Jakob. The Signature of All Things. Giles Calvert, 1651.

Dallas, Mary. “Eating Feeds ‘Feel Good’ Hormones in the Brain.” WebMD, https://www.webmd.com/brain/news/20170831/eating-feeds-feel-good-hormones-in-the-brain

Eplett, Layla. “When Sparks Fly: Aphrodisiacs and the Fruit Fly.” Scientific American, https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/when-sparks-fly-aphrodisiacs-and-the-fruit-fly/

Esquivel, Laura. Like Water for Chocolate. Doubleday, 1989.

Hadhazy, Adam. “Do Pheromones Play a Role in Our Sex Lives?” Scientific American, https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/pheromones-sex-lives/

Like Water for Chocolate. Directed by Alfonso Arau, performances by Lumi Cavazos and Marco Leonardi, Miramax, 1992.

“LOVE SEXPLOSION Spanish Fly.” Amazon, https://www.amazon.com/Spanish-Fly-1-Natural-Aphrodisiac/dp/B073NPY7VF. Accessed 31 March 2020.

O’Connor, Anahad. “The Claim: Chocolate Is An Aphrodisiac.” The New York Times, https://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/18/health/18real.html

Puri, Ravi, and Raman Puri. Natural Aphrodisiacs: Myth or Reality. Xlibris Corporation, 2011.

Rupp, Rebecca. “Sex and the Celery: Ancient Greeks Get Busy With Help From Veggies.” National Geographic, https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/food/the-plate/2014/05/20/sex-celery-ancient-greeks-get-busy-help-veggie/

Sage, Jessie. “Forget sexy-time foods, the best aphrodisiacs come from the real relationship work.” Pittsburgh City Paper, https://www.pghcitypaper.com/pittsburgh/forget-sexy-time-foods-the-best-aphrodisiacs-come-from-the-real-relationship-work/Content?oid=16090770

Shaw, Gina. “Aphrodisiac Foods: Real or Placebo Effect?” Berkeley Wellness, https://www.berkeleywellness.com/self-care/sexual-health/article/aphrodisiac-foods-real-or-placebo-effect

Te, Faith. Eggplant No. 2, Philippine Islands.

Magee, Elaine. “Aphrodisiacs: Fact or Fiction?” WebMD, https://www.webmd.com/sex/features/aphrodisiacs-fact-or-fiction#1

Malmed, Alexandra. “Love Potions: A Brief History of Aphrodisiacs.” Vogue, https://www.vogue.com/article/what-foods-are-aphrodisiacs-history

#stretch2020 #stretch journal #researchpaper #emersoncollege

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