Well, it's a good excuse to use this icon...

[wshaffer]

I'm deeply amused by the fact that a writer for the Daily Telegraph feels the need to correct potential misconceptions about Jon Pertwee's sexuality because David Tennant apparently made an offhand remark in a BBC Breakfast interview describing his predecessor in the role of the Doctor as "sexless".

I haven't seen/heard the interview myself, but I'm sure that Tennant was doing no more than echoing the conventional wisdom that there was no hanky panky in the TARDIS prior to 1996, and was certainly speaking about the character, not the actor. Jon Pertwee himself described the character of the Doctor as being "asexual" in an interview that gets routinely trotted out whenever anyone wants to disparage recent regenerations' penchant for snogging.*

But since Sean Pertwee seemed possibly genuinely distressed at the idea that the world might not recognize his father's status as a sex god, I will step up and reassure him that this is not a problem. Not from where I'm standing, anyway.

* These people somehow never mention that Pertwee's doc still wins in the "Doctor most likely to get handcuffed to a pretty girl" category, which, I think, problematizes the asexuality argument a bit.

ETA: I've now seen the BBC Breakfast interview, and the word "sexless" was never uttered. The interviewer suggested that Tennant had done "a lot of snogging", Tennant questioned the use of the word "a lot", and then conceded that he had done "more than Jon Pertwee." Sheesh.

Comments

[amoken.livejournal.com]

He was also notably jealous of Jo's attentions toward a man she described to him as "a younger you". Whom she then married. Lack of snogging definitely does not indicate lack of sexual tension. And holycrap what about Four and Romana II?

Also, now I kinda want to win the "most likely to get handcuffed to a pretty girl" category. It just sounds so cool. Of course, it'd be cooler if I were a master of Escapology.

[wshaffer.livejournal.com]

Well, conventional wisdom also appears to think that a Dalek never went up a staircase before 2005, so what can you do?

I'm now kind of tempted to invent "mostly likely to..." categories for each Doctor incarnation.

[brewsternorth.livejournal.com]

*lol* I approve of that idea!