Seriously, peeps. Hazel was absolutely crucified for flirting with Daley. Even after he became creepy and aggressive, she was still the villain in cloud cuckoo(DSBB)land.

And he wasn't even clear on whether or not he had a girlfriend.

Austin has a husband; but here on cloud cuckoo(DSBB)land James is a saint and their relationship is ADORABLE!!!!!

*waits for reasons why the situation is so different that don't involve James' maleness or Britishness*

Because James is straight. Austin has said if he was gay or bi-sexual it wouldn't be appropriate and he wouldn't share a bed with him.

Agree with you about Hazel though. The hatred of her was ridiculous.

James is straight, that kind of puts a spanner in your comparison.

I loathe James btw but to compare the two relationship dynamics is ludicrous.

It's not a 'competition'. It's an observation on the treatment that the ear-biting thug gets in comparison to a woman who dared to flirt.

One is gay and one is straight. Yes austin is behaving like a dog in heat but for james its just horseplay. Would hazel have got any stick if she was a lesbian?

That's funny Patsy I was musing the other night about exactly that and drawing the parallel with Hazel and Daley. So you have piqued my interest.

I was thinking about how some pairings are not remarked on and others engender indignant outrage. or do they? Is it the pairings or the personalities?. I tried to work out a sort of taxonomy to see where the social boundaries are, but I couldn't make my hypothesis stand up.

So acceptable or not, assuming one party is allegedly in a prior relationship

Straight woman shares with straight man - Presumably not acceptable
Straight woman shares with straight woman - this seems to be acceptable
Gay woman shares with gay man - Is this OK?
Gay woman shares with straight man - what about this?
Gay woman shares with gay woman - My hunch is this may be deemed OK.
Gay woman shares with straight woman - I guess this will be seen as OK too.
Gay man shares with straight man - I don't know (doesn't bother me but what about the social mores)
Gay man shares with gay man. - ditto
Straight man with straight man - nearly forgot these

IS that all the possible combinations. Are they all equally acceptable/unacceptable? If not why?

ETA straight male pairing. I feel there are too many combinations there.

How do you know he's straight . He may well have discovered he's Bisexual .

I'm not sure about James' sexuality; and really I'm not overly interested.

I think - irrespective of his sexuality - there's no denying he has milked the flirting with Austin every bit as much as Austin has and that it's out of order for him to be snuggling up to a married man every night.

I suppose the question is why they are sharing a bed when there are plenty of empty beds in the house? Why? Personally, I think both of them started out with the flirty banter to give themselves a squee-able storyline. I think Austin's sort of fallen for James and James is just playing for the win so changes his attitude to Austin day by day, given however the wind is blowing.

By your continual reference to James as an 'ear-biting thug' in this and other threads, it's obvious you've got an axe to grind against him, patsy, which kind of undermines your argument.

Two flaws in your comparison with Daley and Hazel:

1) James being straight means a relationship is not on the cards.
2) Austin being married means a relationship is not on the cards.

Within those boundaries both feel able to have a laugh and flirt. James seems happy with this, Austin seems happy with this.

We don't know if Austin's husband is happy with it, but I don't see why you shouldn't be happy with it.

Taking sexuality out of it. The fact that James is snuggling up to a married man surely should raise some eyebrows?!

Also, Austin could well be getting the 'What's he playing at, he's a married man', response, but It seems their friendship ( which I'm not too convinced about ) is taking over any such 'thoughts', well from some people anyway.

If Hazel was a lesbian and Daley had been married and they had a 'friendship' like this. I'm sure there would definitely still had been some eyebrows raised, especially if they bathed together every night and whispered 'sweet nothings' to eachother about how great one another was, in the dead of the night.

I have no idea who these people are but they sound like a chocolate bar.

Ah, I don't know. When I watched Austin and his husband on The A-List their relationship didn't seem to be remotely exclusive. It was discussed quite a bit on that show.

Ah, the twisted morality of humanity...

We do love a cheeky chappy.

Shush. Don't allude to the murky world of open relationships. You'll send half the forum into meltdown...

So on that basis, it's OK for a man to sleep in a womans bed because she's a lesbian?

So do you want him vilified because he's a thug or because he's a flirt

I'm not a James fan and I wasn't a Hazel or Daley fan but I do like Austin. Putting to one side that it's a gay man and a straight man as opposed to 2 heterosexuals as far as we know out here Austin's husband is fine with everything whereas we knew that Daley's girl friend certainly wasn't.

I just don't think there is anything to learn by comparing them

I think she would need to agree

Yes??