kissmeprobie | Tony's sexuality

Hi y'all,

Just wanted to start a little healthy discussion/debate about Tony's sexuality. Do you think he is Tim-sexual, bi-sexual, homosexual, pan-sexual etc? How do you factor his on-screen relations in regards to his sexuality, particularly Jeanne Benoit?

Personally, I see Tony as being very gay and all his talk of women is over-compensating. His infactuation with Tim has been there since the very beginning. I see him being mostly celibate and having slept with women in his past until he realised he was gay and sort of stopped the sex all together. Alas, the sexual frustration he gets from working round Tim day in and day out has driven him into the arms of a few men, but he tries to forget about that. For me, the forced relationship with Jeanne Benoit actually helped sell him as gay to me, he may have fallen in love with her eventually but I think a part of that was acting and sex, sex which he was reluctant about to begin with. It was supposed to be a fake relationship to begin with but I think that can be extended to include the fact it was fake because he is gay. Cole Porter married and loved his wife but that didn't make him any less gay.

What are your thoughts?

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I love reading all the different views on Tony - lots of different possibilities.

I think Tony is basically bi, but because of his family history he pictures relationships as with women because he has that need for the white picket fence life he didn't have as a kid. This is where I think his age comes into play. Tony's about 40, so all while he was growing up and into his 20s, it was rare or unheard of (depending on the state) for male gay couples to have children because it wasn't biologically possible (unlike lesbians who could use sperm banks) and adoption wasn't an option. So even thought that's changed in a lot of places it's recently enough that it's hardwired into his brain that to have a family, he'd have to be with a woman. Tim's enough younger that he doesn't have that particular mindset, so even though he is the settling-down, start-a-family type, he doesn't think that precludes doing so with a guy.

So that's one reason Tony presents himself as completely straight. Also, he knows in law enforcement and the military, self-IDing as gay is a bad idea on many levels. So he plays up the straight side of his life and probably thinks of himself as basically straight with the odd detour here or there.

He doesn't have much luck with long-term relationships, though at least a couple that we know of were more than a few dates. Monica, the married one, and Lt. Kim, who listed him on the herpes alert website, both seemed to be more than a few dates. He was particularly smitten with Monica, thought she was the one, until he found out she was married. So between that and his family history (angsty no matter how you write the backstory there), there are lots of landmines in his psyche.

I also think Jeanne, in many ways, is the catalyst for him and Tim because Tony got to be in a long-term relationship and since he had to make things work for the op, he had to do a lot of things he normally wouldn't be comfortable with. And he found out they weren't so bad after all. And then that goes south. And he really thought he loved Jeanne, so he needs to take his mind off of her and for him that means thinking of a guy - no chance he could start out thinking of a fantasy woman and realize she had morphed into Jeanne in his traitorous mind. In my uni, that's when he starts thinking of Tim in that way. He's always kind of wondered about Tim, ever since Abby's "Your tat is real and you don't disappoint me" comment, but since there's Rule 12, he's off limits and a safe fantasy. And then comes Leap of Faith and Tim saving him and Tony realizing he's stopped thinking of Tim as a contrast to Jeanne and is just thinking of Tim for Tim. Rule 12, etc., so he doesn't act on it. Then there's the Rivken debacle in LA while Tim's there and it gets worse once they're back in DC and then Ziva's gone and it's just them and Gibbs. And Tony realizes he wants something and he wants it with Tim and the heck with Rule 12.

This is amazingly articulate and well-thought out, with the evidence and the episodes to support it. Fascinating. Thanks for taking the time to share.

Thanks! I'm in the middle of writing a novel-length McNozzo fic where they get together and then angst ensues, so I've done a decent amount of pondering on the subject recently. :) The last graf is actually how I did have things play out in my universe - the rest is more me theorizing.

Tony's sexuality - Discussion

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