What sexuality is the Doctor?

[Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 389
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I've just been thinking about this. He's never mentioned any family back on Gallifrey that I can recall, and apart from Jenny I'm not sure he has anymore children. What sexuality do you think the Doctor is?
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  • QuantumLeapQuantumLeap Posts: 706
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    He had a granddaughter - Susan.
  • Pull2OpenPull2Open Posts: 15,138
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    Am pretty sure he has mentioned having a family, children even, in episodes and as has already been mentioned, unless it was for convenience, he did have a grand daughter
  • KoquillionKoquillion Posts: 1,905
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    Setting aside the times over the years when the Doctor has mentioned family, why should the absence or presence of children help you determine his sexuality?
  • Twonky2000Twonky2000 Posts: 344
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    I'm not sure how disingenuous this question is, because it is certainly the sort of thread that can provoke interesting responses... If you have never seen the early years of the programme when the Doctor travelled with his granddaughter, you may remember him mentioning her in 'The Rings of Akhaten'. She was also glimpsed at the start of 'The Name of the Doctor'. In 'Fear Her', also, the Doctor mentions having been a dad once. So we know for certain that The Doctor once had at least one child and at least one grandchild, and it seems reasonable to assume that the parental set-up involved a wife. That is to say: a wife other than River Song, Marilyn Monroe and Queen Elizabeth I - all of whom the Doctor has been in a wedding of one kind or another to, although there are extenuating circumstances in each case to make these weddings a little less straightforward than your average wedding ceremony. As such, they may say less about the Doctor's sexuality and more about the tendency of a manic, time-hopping individual to get himself involved in scrapes of one kind or another - especially when his adventures are being written by a showrunner who enjoys milking confusion and misunderstanding between the sexes for comedy, and enjoys it all the more when one of those sexes isn't, in fact, a human at all.

    It is possible that what sexuality the Doctor is may vary from incarnation to incarnation. David Tennant's Doctor seemed to handle the business of flirting far more skilfully than the romantically-befuddled Eleventh Doctor, and, although there was a question mark over whether the Ninth Doctor 'danced', certainly there was the implication that he did. Both the Ninth and Tenth Doctors showed traits of possessiveness towards Rose - and, occasionally, jealousy, snideness or dismissiveness to her other 'suitors', Adam and Mickey - which suggested that, on one level at least, his male ego was engaged when she was around. The Tenth Doctor famously also almost told Rose that he loved her, and there was some competitive phallic posturing with Captain Jack when the Doctor engaged his sonic screwdriver. How hard it is to write the sentence part of that sentence and have it sound in any way clean!

    From all of the above, therefore, I would suggest that the dominant evidence in the modern series is that the Doctor, insofar as we would use the term, is 'heterosexual'. But there are two caveats to this. The first is that, although the original series established him as a sexual being - a grandfather - we never really saw him being lustful or, by the standards of the later Doctors, flirtatious, other than the occasional moment, such as sharing a cup of cocoa with Cameca, or his two delighted kisses with Grace Holloway, which speak to me more about joy in the moment of living than they do about lust. So it may be that, for many years, the Doctor repressed his sexuality in the interests of saving the universe - which, to be fair, is a fairly all-consuming activity. Alternatively, he may simply have inhibited his flirting out of loyalty to a spouse whose memory he cherished - the Time War being the seismic event, as in so many other areas of the Doctor's life, which finally severed the bond with his family and, after a period of mourning for the same, freed him to be footloose again..

    The second caveat is: just as Time Lords can change what we would call 'race', they can also change gender - the Corsair did - and it seems reasonable to assume that, when so radical a change as a change of gender happens, other radical changes could follow, such as a change in sexuality. Whether the Doctor himself would consider this radical, though, is doubtful. He may metaphorically roll his eyes at Captain Jack's horny, omnisexual ways, but he is perfectly relaxed about it, suggesting that our linear definitions of sexuality are not so linear to the Doctor, who - to be fair - has seen a thing or two in his time.
  • be more pacificbe more pacific Posts: 19,061
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    I've just been thinking about this. He's never mentioned any family back on Gallifrey that I can recall, and apart from Jenny I'm not sure he has anymore children. What sexuality do you think the Doctor is?
    Surely this is a wind-up? I can sort of accept that you may have missed the very occasional mentions of the Doctor's family over the years. But to overlook the fact that his granddaughter appeared for the first year of the show is just bizarre.

    Even if you haven't seen any 60s episodes, surely you must have watched An Adventure in Space and Time last year? Are you really a Doctor Who fan?:confused:
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 389
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    Oh I know of Susan, and I've seen many episodes with her in (The First being my favourite Doctor), I just never consider her immediate family. But maybe I should.
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 389
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    Surely this is a wind-up? I can sort of accept that you may have missed the very occasional mentions of the Doctor's family over the years. But to overlook the fact that his granddaughter appeared for the first year of the show is just bizarre.

    Even if you haven't seen any 60s episodes, surely you must have watched An Adventure in Space and Time last year? Are you really a Doctor Who fan?:confused:

    Yes I am a fan, and a bloody good one at that.
  • comedyfishcomedyfish Posts: 21,637
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    Hey OP. Which do you fancy more? Male or female apes?

    (Not trying to be rude just clumsily making a point!)
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 389
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    comedyfish wrote: »
    Hey OP. Which do you fancy more? Male or female apes?

    (Not trying to be rude just clumsily making a point!)

    Female, :D:D
  • saladfingers81saladfingers81 Posts: 11,301
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    Sigh.
  • AbominationAbomination Posts: 6,483
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    The Doctor is an alien from a far-off world. He has far more important and fun things to be doing that chucking himself into the labels of human society.

    He has a biological granddaughter. He admitted to Rose that he'd been a father once, implying that he was definitely part of a family - he didn't run away from parental obligation or anything like that :D All of that is indicative of a long-term interest in women. Add on to that his strong emotional attractions to Rose, Reinette and River. To a lesser extent I think he fancied Amy a fair bit, and I think he definitely has an emotional soft spot for Clara too. The attraction to women is all too obvious.

    Is there an attraction to men as well? Well the show started in a time that such a proclamation would have had it taken off the air so at one point in time at least, because of behind-the-scenes reasons the concept of the Doctor being anything other than heterosexual wasn't really a concept at all. Now we live in a society where we can ask that question. There have been hints here and there - he somehow found out that several US presidents fancied him, he didn't reject Jack's kiss, he had no inhibition in kissing Rory on the lips and told Andrew Garfield's Frank that he could do the same as a thanks if he wanted, he danced with the men as well as the women at Amy's wedding and so on.

    But what's the point in me actually mentioning all these non-explicit examples? Well the thing is that he's never confessed his love to any of the aformentioned women either - even if Rose and River are next to given, it's still open to interpretation.

    So what does that mean? I'd say that the Doctor is far too busy saving the universe to try and conform to human sexuality labels. He comes from a race capable of changing faces and genders, which in and of itself warrants a certain kind of flexibility. Even if he had a preferred gender would you argue it is the one he enjoys being in the company of, or the one he's embraced as his own for twelve incarnations? The Doctor fancies and is attracted to individuals, he has a 'preferred type' that slowly evolves as he changes himself (he's clearly been through a 'bad girl' phase recently what with Tasha Lem, River and the suggestions that he finds Jenny attractive too) and that type could involve men or women arguably. Does that make him bisexual? Well no, because that's still a human concept and he's not human! For the sake of argument, he'd likely fit the bill as bisexual/pansexual quite well... but calling him as such goes against everything the show is pointing out about his character. It humanises him in a way that makes a certain line from the McGann movie comparably innocent.

    The Doctor has sex.
    The Doctor doesn't have a sexuality.

    Get Over It.
  • JethrykJethryk Posts: 1,355
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    Why don't you consider a granddaughter as family?
  • saladfingers81saladfingers81 Posts: 11,301
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    Yes I am a fan, and a bloody good one at that.

    and yet you don't consider Susan immediate family? Care to expand on that point? Its almost as if in your rush to create yet another contentious thread you forgot an essential part of DW history. Imagine that!
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 389
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    Jethryk wrote: »
    Why don't you consider a granddaughter as family?

    I do, just not immediate family.

    I think immediate is: mum, dad, wife, brothers and sisters, sons and daughters.

    Which is what I was getting at in the OP.
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 389
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    and yet you don't consider Susan immediate family? Care to expand on that point? Its almost as if in your rush to create yet another contentious thread you forgot an essential part of DW history. Imagine that!

    See post above.
  • be more pacificbe more pacific Posts: 19,061
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    I do, just not immediate family.

    I think immediate is: mum, dad, wife, brothers and sisters, sons and daughters.

    Which is what I was getting at in the OP.
    Well, the presence of a granddaughter suggests the existence of at least one 'immediate' offspring at some point.

    Of course, some strange fans like to assume that Susan is just an honorary granddaughter, using the feeblest negative evidence that the characters never explicitly said they were biologically related on-screen.
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 389
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    Well, the presence of a granddaughter suggests the existence of at least one 'immediate' offspring at some point.

    Of course, some strange fans like to assume that Susan is just an honorary granddaughter, using the feeblest negative evidence that the characters never explicitly said they were biologically related on-screen.

    That's vey true. It's a shame the Doctor's family and perhaps even love life has not been fleshed out a bit more. Would make for interesting watching. Maybe for the future...
  • Digital SidDigital Sid Posts: 39,870
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    Heterosexual, from the evidence thus far.
  • StarsabovemeStarsaboveme Posts: 72
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    Yes I am a fan, and a bloody good one at that.
    Oh I know of Susan, and I've seen many episodes with her in (The First being my favourite Doctor), I just never consider her immediate family. But maybe I should.

    You may be a top-notch Doctor Who fan, but your grasp of biology and/or genetics seems a little tenuous. Where do you think granddaughters come from? Maybe the Doctor - or rather, the Doctor's son or daughter - found Susan under a gooseberry bush.:D
  • TalmaTalma Posts: 10,520
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    I do, just not immediate family.

    I think immediate is: mum, dad, wife, brothers and sisters, sons and daughters.

    Which is what I was getting at in the OP.

    You can't get much closer than the offspring of one of your own, surely? He also said (to Martha?) he had a brother once and has said all his family are now dead, presumably on Gallifrey when he thought he'd destroyed it. So he has mentioned them several times in the last few years.
    That's vey true. It's a shame the Doctor's family and perhaps even love life has not been fleshed out a bit more. Would make for interesting watching. Maybe for the future...

    No, it really wouldn't. We're watching his adventures on time and space, not his love life ( well we have been in the new series and tbh I'd rather let him get on with whatever he does in private). Besides, we have no ideaof what Gallifreyan sexuality really consists of, given we know almost nothing about their 'normal' society. Though we did see men, women and children running from the Daleks. How they get that way no-one knows but they do have family units of some kind.
    No I'm not mentioning the looms:D
  • StratusSphereStratusSphere Posts: 2,813
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    Given that he's an alien I would say completely different to human views of sexuality.

    Yes, he has a granddaughter, but we have no idea how his biology works. He could have got pregnant himself or something. Maybe Gallifreyans lay eggs!

    I would say in terms of human sexualities he is probably open to whatever, or maybe he would pick up whatever behaviour seems acceptable at the time he's in in order to blend in.
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 1,244
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    Believe Steven Moffat's answer was, indeed, that he doesn't even think like that.

    Whatever he'd have said to Rose on the beach (I think we all know!) it would've ended with a kiss, and he's also said he once built himself an android boyfriend. Seems to prefer women, going by his travelling companions, but stands to reason that he's as flexible as Captain Jack and River Song, just a bit more awkward about it.
  • AirboraeAirborae Posts: 2,647
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    Heterosexual, from the evidence thus far.

    Bisexual. He briefly flirted with Captain Jack and he also said about a relationship with a male android later on. Even offered a pucker up with Frank in Daleks In Manhattan.
  • nathanbrazilnathanbrazil Posts: 8,863
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    I would say in terms of human sexualities he is probably open to whatever, or maybe he would pick up whatever behaviour seems acceptable at the time he's in in order to blend in.

    Alternately, it could be similar to an old theory about why the classic (non PC, Lois and Clarke, new man of tomorrow) Superman never really got together with Lois Lane. That being, to his alien nostrils, she smelled like a monkey!

    To DW, a time-traveling regenerating alien, humans almost certainly smell different to Galifreyans. But, although stronger and much more resilient than the average human, at least he wouldn't have the other problem superman faced. Losing control over Kryptonian muscles. The theory said if he ever did that during a proposed 'intimate moment' he might simultaneously gut Lois and blow her head off!
  • brouhahabrouhaha Posts: 662
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    Oh dear, I've a funny feeling we've been here before. The thing about cans of worms is they're best left unopened. Threads like this rarely end well. I'm off somewhere safer.
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