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

[fuzzybluemonkeys]

I just read a bunch of the stories, and I had to keep telling myself that it was a cultural thing, men just walked arm in arm back then. And when Watson talks about thier "intimate" relations he is in fact referring to them being roommates. But even with me reminding myself that times were different, there's the whole bit in The Adventure of the Norwood Builder where Holmes basically bought Watson's medical practice so he would come back to live with him. And then before that, I mean there are no stories between The Final Problem and The Adventure of the Empty House, right? So in TFP Watson's wife is away visiting family or something (she conveniently went "to visit family" a lot, is all I'm saying), so he can go gallivanting about Europe with Holmes and then in TAofEH when Holmes comes back from being fake dead a)Watson faints and b)no mention is made of his beardwife at all whatsoever. Not even to say that she kicked the bucket, she just, like, stayed on her pre-Reichenbach Falls vacation and never came back. So even Mrs. Watson doesn't think there's a heterosexual explanation.