Homosexuality and Bisexuality
Torchwood deals with several LGBT themes, specifically bisexuality. Each of the main characters in Torchwood has same-sex encounters at some point in the first season, with The Sun describing all of the characters on Torchwood as bisexual. Series creator Russell T. Davies has said that he hopes to defy audience expectations of monosexual characters:
| “ | Without making it political or dull, this is going to be a very bisexual programme. I want to knock down the barriers so we can't define which of the characters is gay. We need to start mixing things up, rather than thinking, 'This is a gay character and he'll only ever go off with men.' | ” |
Davies has also described Jack Harkness as omnisexual:
| “ | He'll shag anything with a hole. Jack doesn't categorise people: if he fancies you, he'll do it with you. | ” |
Similarly, Toshiko Sato describes Jack as someone who'll "shag anybody as long as they're gorgeous enough!". The essential Cult TV reader writes that because Jack, Owen, Ianto and Toshiko's homosexual dalliances occur "without any debate or angst", they form part of an attempt to "naturalize bisexuality", appearing to "deliberately refute and deny... gay, straight bi": "a progressive challenge to contemporary ideologies of sexuality".
In "Everything Changes", Ianto Jones jokingly refers to Jack's appreciation of his good looks in a suit as sexual harassment. In "Cyberwoman" the pair share a kiss, although it is essentially a kiss of life, it is not done in the normal way, and resembles a kiss of lust rather than of life. At the end of "They Keep Killing Suzie", Ianto subtly presents Jack with a sexual proposition, which the latter appears only to understand after a few seconds - he accepts by telling Ianto to meet him in his office in ten minutes, once the rest of the team have left the Hub. This is again alluded to in the Instant Messenger Transcript provided on the official website, which represents a conversation between the pair in the time remaining before their tryst. Ianto and Jack's relationship is referred to by Owen in "Captain Jack Harkness" when he calls Ianto Jack's 'part-time shag'. Their relationship is displayed for the first time in "End of Days" in which Ianto and Jack kiss after finding Jack is alive. Also during this episode, Ianto is clearly distraught when finding out Jack is dead, and smells his coat, reminiscent of gay cowboy film, "Brokeback Mountain". This relationship develops further in Series 2 with Jack asking Ianto out on a date ("Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang"), the pair sharing an intense kiss ("To the Last Man") and Gwen walking in on them during some kind of sexual activity ("Adrift"). The other characters also allude to their relationship; most specifically Owen ("A Day in the Death") and Gwen ("Something Borrowed") and ("From Out of the Rain").
While Ianto becomes comfortable hinting on things going on while in bed with Jack around the other team members, he is uncomfortable to do so out of the Hub as Children of Earth shows. In Series 3 he gets uncomfortable when strangers suggest that he and Jack are a couple, is offended when an elderly man under Torchwood protection refers to him as "the queer over there". At first he even tries to avoid the subject when talking to his sister, before confessing that while he is not attracted to men in general, he indeed has a relationship with Jack. However, as the end of the 4th episode of "Children of Earth" suggest, Ianto was only able to tell Jack that he loved him when Ianto knew he was dying.
Earlier in "They Keep Killing Suzie", Jack claims to have had a sexual relationship with twin brothers, both acrobats; however, it is unclear whether he is speaking sincerely or simply trying to distract Gwen from asking difficult questions. However, in series two, Jack remarks to Owen that when you have been alive as long as he has "you don't make any more up" while they are in police custody in the episode "Dead Man Walking", implying that the many past relationships he refers to are genuine.
In "Captain Jack Harkness", a subplot of the episode revolves around Jack's namesake's sexual orientation. His uneasy behaviour and his dismay at having convinced his girlfriend that they were in love combined with his flirtatious interaction with Jack suggested he was gay and trapped in an unwanted heterosexual relationship, unable to come out in his era. At the episode's climax, at a dance and knowing he was going to die the next day, the two Jacks danced and kissed, to the amazement of the 1940s guests all around them, before they had to part.
In "Everything Changes", Owen Harper seduces a woman and then her boyfriend using alien technology. Gwen Cooper has a boyfriend, but she reciprocates the advances of a sex-driven alien in a woman's body in "Day One", albeit under the influences of alien-enhanced pheromones. Later in that episode, when the possessed woman attempts to absorb the orgasmic energy of various men at a sperm bank, one of them briefly protests that he's gay. Toshiko also exhibits bisexual behaviour: she has an interest in her teammate, Owen, but in "Greeks Bearing Gifts" she has a sexual relationship with "Mary".
Read more about this topic: Themes In Torchwood