Except that it isn't canon that sherlock is gay despite you wanting to pretend that it's fact, bye.

hey pal don’t say bye you just boarded the Discourse Train and u got a long way to go before your stop 

could you specify what you mean by ‘canon’? do you mean the ACD books? may i remind you that homosexuality was in fact illegal at the time those books were written, and oscar wilde’s ‘the picture of dorian gray’ was used against him in his 1895 trial for ‘gross indecency’. so arthur conan doyle could hardly write “sherlock holmes had a hawk like nose and he was also a raging homosexual”- especially considering the structure of the books.  they’re from watson’s POV, telling the public about holmes- he wouldn’t expose holmes as a homosexual would he? 

that being said, despite the risk of writing a queer character in those times, there is a plethora of subtext suggesting holmes is gay- i haven’t got time to list every instance but this sums it up quite nicely.

so it’s quite clear holmes is attracted to men in the books, what about women? well the only woman we could possibly suggest he was ‘attracted’ to was irene adler. except he wasn’t attracted to her. at all. watson/doyle makes this clear to us within the first few lines of the story (which is actually quite risky when you think about it, doyle could have left some ambiguity around holmes’ sexuality yet he explicitly states he is not attracted to women). 

your “it’s not canon” argument is utterly meaningless- even if the books had said holmes was a jolly old hetero who had seven wives, that doesn’t affect BBC sherlock. first of all, ACD said (as we all know) future adapters of sherlock holmes can do ‘whatever they like’ with him. so the BBC version has every right to create their own version away from the canon. 

also, if BBC sherlock is based off some sort of ‘canon’ it’s going to be the Private Life of Sherlock Holmes which the creators have stated was their favourite adaptation and mark has said the film ‘changed his life’. if you know about TPLOSH you’ll know holmes is confirmed as gay by billy wilder (yup, the same wilder as referenced in the shspesh- they really do love him), but it’s also made clear in the film despite the restrictions it faced. 

“There’s an amazing scene where, to get out of a situation where a Russian ballerina wants Sherlock to father her child, he claims Watson and he are gay. Watson is outraged and, when he calms down, speaks of the women all over the world who could attest to his sexuality. He says to Sherlock, “You do too, don’t you?” Holmes is silent, and Watson says, “Am I being presumptuous? There have been women, haven’t there?” Holmes says, “The answer is yes – you are being presumptuous.” Sensational.” - Mark Gatiss 

as for BBC sherlock itself in the first episode they made it absolutely clear sherlock is not attracted to women

John Watson: You don’t have a girlfriend then?

Sherlock Holmes: Girlfriend? No, not really my area.

John Watson: Alright… Do you have a boyfriend? Which is fine, by the way.

Sherlock Holmes: I know it’s fine.

as someone who is gay i’ve said something akin to ‘not really my area’ hundreds of times when people ask me about having a boyfriend. also, sherlock (who is called ‘mr. punchline’ i.e he has to have an answer for everything) does not say “no” here he says “it’s fine” which not only skirts around the question but suggests he knows it’s fine because he’s thought about it before. 

so it’s clear he is absolutely 100% gay. 

i think there is room for interpretation when it comes to the aro/ace spectrum, but i would argue that he is not asexual (or at least not completely). the scenes where magnussen analyzes/deduces people (the red words) we see their ‘porn preferences’. now i know that this could be slightly useful for blackmail but (as far as i can remember) everyone we meet has their porn preference listed as ‘normal’, so its purpose isn’t to show magnussen’s methods of blackmail. i personally think it’s there to state sherlock is not ace and that he does experience sexual attraction. because sherlock (from a casual viewers perspective at least) is the main character, and it’s his porn preference we’re most likely to be interested in- and mofftiss know that. his preference is listed as ‘normal’ which shows he does watch porn. i’m aware that you can still be ace and watch porn but, firstly, the shows creators might not know this, and secondly, i think we have to look at this ‘porn preference’ device in that it has no real purpose unless it’s placed in the context of showing sherlock does experience sexual attraction. there aren’t many ways mofftiss can subtly state “hey, sherlock has urges”, but this it what they’re trying to do through revealing his porn preference. that being said, you can still be ace and gay, and as i said earlier i would be open to interpreting sherlock somewhere on the ace spectrum. 

last thing bc this is turning into a novel- what would it take for you to see sherlock as gay? do you need him to stand up and say “hello world, i’m gay”? i hope you realize this is impossible for him to do in the context of 19th century canon (”I’ve always known I was a man out of his time”) but why does he need to explicitly state he’s gay in the BBC version? when have you ever heard a character say ‘i’m straight’? the creators have given us subtle ways of seeing his sexuality -as i’ve mentioned above- without making him stroll around london wrapped in a giant rainbow flag.