No Heterosexual Explanation Moments

[thefourthvine]

Recently, I was talking to frostfire_17, and the topic of the No Heterosexual Explanation Moment came up. (It will not surprise you to hear that we were talking about the Fast and Furious franchise at the time. There are few other franchises so thoroughly inundated with such moments, I think.) It is the moment when you try, you genuinely, seriously try to take off your slash goggles and figure out what the writers, producers, directors, and actors thought was happening in a scene, and you can only conclude that, no, they must have thought the same-sex pairing was doing it, too. (It can also be the moment that a non-slasher wanders in, studies the screen for a long moment with narrowed eyes, and then says, "They are so fucking each other.")

As far as I can tell, there are two major categories of No Heterosexual Explanation Moments. The first is where the plot only makes sense if the pairing is, in fact, a pairing; I tend to put the first season of Smallville (what I know of it) into this category. Lex's behavior is just, you know, really really hard to explain unless he is very hot for Clark indeed. And the second kind is where it's just not something people with a strictly platonic, UST-free relationship ever do. Like, for example, when one cop signs "I love you" to the other cop as he's being med-evac'd out on a helicopter. I am pretty sure they don't teach that in police academy courses on Effective Partnerships in the Law Enforcement Profession, is all I'm saying.

But Frost and I realized that, tragically, we just do not have the depth and breadth of experience to make a complete catalogue of No Heterosexual Explanation Moments. This is where I am hoping you all come in. What are the key NHEMs of our time? Of past times? Of all time? Educate me! Bonus points for links to clips, if they come from a visual medium.

F/F as welcome as M/M, of course. And, hey, if you've got any NHEMs for threesomes, lay 'em on me. The only key is that even a person struggling not to see the pairing will still say, "...You know, I just really think they're doing it." (Obviously, if it is an actual canon pairing, it cannot feature in an NHEM, because in that case there shouldn't BE a heterosexual explanation.)

ETA: Spoilers in comments, of course! And the more the merrier, in my opinion.

Comments

[melannen]

I have an entire subset of these which are not so much about the characters' behavior as about the framing and symbolism of an episode (possibly because I tend to read all onscreen body language, het or not, as gen if given half an excuse, I look for the external cues.)

The first blatant example of this I encountered was the Highlander episode "Till Death", where the A-plot is centered around Mac convincing Methos to help him save their friends' marriage. They don't behave any more slashily than usual (which is to say, a lot) - but everything in the episode, from the dialogue to the cinematography, is clearly, obviously, blatantly set up to parallel Mac & Methos' relationship with the married couple's, in such a way that that there is no other possible explanation except that the producers were deliberately trying to say "Mac and Methos are so very married."

[bluemeridian]

Breaking the vase! So, so true. The whole Methos storyline is rife with them! The parallels between Methos and Amanda always entertain me in particular. It's glorious.

[killabeez]

This. I was going to say, the moment when Duncan bats his eyelashes at Methos to convince him to do something suicidal—and it works— is one of these moments, for me. (It doesn't hurt that Methos calls Duncan "Darling" in a deliberately camp way right after.) I can't imagine ever doing that to someone I wasn't outright flirting with.

The other moment that always pings for me as NHE is the nose-painting. Not necessarily the act of painting itself, but the manner. Wow. Uh.

[cupidsbow]

This happens a lot. I was O_O for much of Season 4 of Supernatural because of the parallels and oppositions between Sam/Ruby and Dean/Castiel. If Sam and Ruby are wrong, evil, focused more on carnality than love, and inevitably doomed, what else are Dean and Castiel but right(eous), good, focused on love over carnality (*coff*), and BFFs?

How else are you meant to read that?