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"What do you think about the fact that a lot of people see sexual chemistry between your character and Angel?" a reporter once asked Christian Kane. His only response was a blush. Chemistry is certainly apparent-- and deliberate-- between Angel and Lindsey: the shooting script of "Reunion" includes the direction "Angel eyefucks Lindsey as Kate puts the cuffs on him;" when Tim Minear was asked whether Darla's "it's not me you wanna screw" comment was to be taken literally or metaphorically, Minear's reply was "both."
The "both," however, could be read as one and the same. Lindsey's obsession with "screwing" Angel-- with screwing him over, getting the better of his enemy-- is in itself an indication of his subtextual, and possibly subconscious, desire to "screw" him in the sense that he clearly wants to "screw" Darla. The connection between the two connotations of "screw" is Darla herself, who, as the desired female, acts as a repository for sexual desire between the two men.
In her book Between Men, scholar Eve Kofosky Sedgwick writes of a concept she calls "homosocial desire." Sedgwick defines the term thusly: "Homosocial" is a word occasionally used in history and the social sciences, where it describes social bonds between persons of the same sex; it is a neologism, obviously formed by analogy with 'homosexual,' and just as obviously meant to be distinguished from 'homosexual.' In fact, is is applied to such activities as 'male bonding,' which may, as in our society, be characterized by intense homophobia, fear and hatred of homosexuality. To draw the 'homosocial' back into the orbit of 'desire,' of the potentially erotic, then, is the hypothesize the potential unbrokenness of a continuum between homosocial and homosexual-- a continuum whose visibility, for men, in our society, is radically disrupted" (Sedgwick 1-2).
Homosocial desire is characteristic of "male bonding" and other social situations where men gather. There is, Sedgwick writes, a "continuum between 'men loving men' and 'men promoting the interests of men'. . . . It is as if, in our terms, there were no perceived discontinuity between the male bonds at the Continental Baths and the male bonds in the Bohemian Grove or in the board room or Senate cloakroom" (4). Angel, particularly in its early seasons, is certainly a show about men and men's interests. On Buffy the Vampire Slayer, women are powerful and significant, whereas men are often secondary, only central when nurturing and supportive (Giles, Xander, Oz) and peripheral until symbolically castrated by removal of their aggressive behaviors (Angel, Spike). Angel, on the other hand, promotes "masculine" ideals of violence and warrior culture (as characterized by the overused phrase "champion"); groups of men on either side of the fight of good and evil-- Angel Investigations vs. Wolfram and Hart-- support their cause through violence. The women of Angel Investigations are stereotypically feminine-- Cordelia for her love of fashion and shopping, Fred for her damsel-in-distress demeanor-- whereas Wolfram and Hart's Lilah is a notable anomaly, a lone girl struggling to make it in the boy's club. In such an environment, relationships between men are strengthened through, not in spite of, their heteroerotic attachment to women. The Angel/Darla/Lindsey arc of season two, in particular, is an excellent example of the sort of homosocial bonding through an erotic triangle with which Sedgwick's essay is concerned: "the bond between rivals in an erotic triangle" is "even stronger, more heavily determinant of actions and choices, than anything in the bond between either of the lovers and the beloved" (Sedgwick 21).
Lindsey's preoccupation with Angel is well-established before Darla's appearance; he focuses almost exclusively on Angel and goes against Wolfram & Hart's orders to plot against him. Even Lindsey's twisted boss Holland Manners, seeing Lindsey's obsession with vampires, urges him to form "healthy attachments" ("Reunion"). After Darla's revivification, Lindsey makes it clear that the disruption her presence will bring to Angel's life is intended as revenge on-- and an attempt to regain power over-- the alpha male who symbolically castrated him with a well-aimed axe. From first glance, she is viewed as a means to get to Angel; his sexual attraction to her, consequently, is an unconscious attempt to have a sexual bond-- in addition to the bond they already share, that of mortal enemies-- with her former lover. "[T]he choice of the beloved is determined in the first place, not by the qualities of the beloved, but by the beloved's already being the choice of the person who has been chosen as a rival," writes Sedgwick (21). Darla is more aware of Lindsey's intentions and their homoerotic implications than Lindsey himself: "It's not me you wanna screw" ("Darla"). Angel also parallels Lindsey's sexual attraction to Darla with his obsession with Angel: "I guess it's a lot to carry. I mean, losing Darla, and even me in a way, as a place to focus your rage" ("Dead End").
The male rivals, Sedgwick writes, are the "two active members of an erotic triangle" (21). The third participant, the desired woman, is passive, serving as a representative of and link between men: "patriarchal heterosexuality can best be discussed in terms of one or another form of the traffic in women: it is the use of women as exchangeable, perhaps symbolic, property for the primary purpose of cementing the bonds of men with men" (26). Darla represents an object of exchange between the "good" and "bad" boys' clubs, a woman striving for an identity of that beyond the series title character, her lover-son. Although she rejects both Angel and Lindsey in favor of her mother-daughter Drusilla, she still laments that her story is ultimately his: "Why is everybody trying to make this about Angel? I mean, for God's sake, can't a woman wreak a little havoc without there being a man involved?" ("Redefinition").
There is a power play between the rivals as well. Cuckoldry, Sedgwick writes, is "hierarchical in structure, with an 'active' participant who is clearly in ascendancy over the 'passive' one. Most characteristically, the difference of power occurs in the form of a difference of knowledge: the cuckold is not even supposed to know that he is in such a relationship" (50). Angel is clearly the "active" participant of the triangle, the one knowledgeable of Darla's habits, whereabouts, history, and motivations. He knows of Lindsey's infatuation with her, but does not consider it a threat; Lindsey, on the other hand, is acutely aware of his own ignorance, demanding "details" of Angel's sexual encounter with Darla: "I need to know everything. All of it. What did he do to you?" ("Epiphany"). His desire for intimate details of their encounter, and the fury he unleashes on Angel, make it unclear which vampire he is jealous of. His demand suggests not only a need to regain power in his sexualized relationship with Angel, but a desire to vicariously experience what Darla felt with Angel.
Of The Country Wife, a seventeenth-century drama of romantic rivalry, Sedgwick writes that male bonding through rivalry "is not detrimental to "masculinity" but definitive of it" (50). Although homoeroticism is stereotypically associated with effeminate behavior among men, homosocial relationships such as Angel/Lindsey are characterized by stereotypically masculine behavior. Their roles as men are emphasized by their violent competition over Darla, while their fight scenes have decidedly sexual overtones, such as the breath play in "Darla." In "To Shanshu in L.A.," Lindsey fends Angel off with a large iron pole, while Angel retaliates by slicing of Lindsey's hand-- the hand holding the scroll Angel needs, the hand that wields power and knowledge-- with a huge axe. "The Trial" Lindsey forces Angel to his knees into a submissive position, while making him watch the power Lindsey exerts, through Drusilla, over the woman who has come to represent their violent, sexualized competitiveness. Their encounters also feature phallic weaponry and symbolic castration; In "Epiphany," when the sexually jealous lawyer comes after Angel with a sledgehammer, demanding details of his encounter with Darla, Angel turns his own weapon against him and repeats the castration of a year before by smashing his porcelain prosthesis to smithereens.
Sedgwick's writings on homosocial desire show that Lindsey's obsession with Darla indicates, rather than disproves, the homoerotic nature of his feelings for Angel. For writers of Angel/Lindsey slash their attraction for her is not a hurdle to be overcome but, rather, a means to bring them together.
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Recs:
Sisabet's "Last Stand" video
Pet's "UST"
Hth's "Sleep While I Drive"
Cited: Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky. Between Men. Columbia University Press: New York, 1985.
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