Irene in Sherlock's Mind Palace

 (Sherlock Meta by Ivy Blossom)

Question:

Ivy, what do you think about Irene's cameo in The Sign of Three? For me it was kinda random, but I've read that it was the writers showing that Sherlock is straight. I disagree with that, but don't really know what to make of it. Also, what did u think about Sherlock's "I like my doctors clean shaved" and John's reaction? I love sassy Sherlock...

Ivy Blossom:

Irene represents something very pesky and important to Sherlock. I don’t think he was in love with her and I don’t think he wanted to sleep with her. When he met her, Irene acted as a naked flashing arrow pointing to the fact that he has buried not only his own sexuality, but any real understanding of sexuality and sexual desire along with it, which makes him uniquely vulnerable. She highlighted an essential ignorance in him. He says sex doesn’t alarm him, but it clearly does.

Inside his mind palace, Irene is Sherlock’s sexuality, the naked thing he doesn’t know how to deal with and is resolutely ignoring. Irene appearing while he’s thinking about John’s middle name, and his dismissal of her (“Not now, I’m busy!”) actually read to me like…well, like he might welcome his sexuality back into his head later, while thinking about John’s middle name, in his bedroom, alone. With his hand. But not now while he’s giving a speech. I think Irene isn’t the object of his sexual desire, but the embodiment of it that he can talk to and dismiss as required.

I think it’s quite hilarious that Sherlock lets John know so matter-of-factly in what state he finds him most attractive. And equally hilarious that John was so quick to make it so. It’s the flip side of Molly’s attempt to pretty up for Sherlock with lipstick and then quickly removing it when he appears to not like it. Both of them have desperate crushes on Sherlock, and both of them secretly (not secretly) want Sherlock to find them attractive.