Dean increasingly reads as coded as bi, or at least bicurious, but with some internalized homophobia that leads to him just not talking about it. See also, overcompensating.

What Plei said. I thought he seemed pretty proud of the way he handled his "gay thing" with Aaron (was that his name?), as well as the fact that he had a gay thing at all.

I think a Dean who routinely rent-boyed for grocery money would be a little more jaded about the whole thing.

I think a Dean who routinely rent-boyed for grocery money would be a little more jaded about the whole thing.

How about a Dean who routinely rent-boyed while either a) identifying as straight or b) keeping even the hedonistic pleasures he gets from no-string hookups out of it, who's now had a long term intimate relationship?

Just saying--if the writers wanted to go in directions, they could retcon in all sorts of ways. The wiggle room is there.

I think the Dean from Croatoan who said he doesn't swing that way really cockily (heh) was a Dean I could believe had rent-boyed. Someone who seems sort of flattered that a guy's hitting on him, not so much.

That said, I don't think the writers or even Jensen have been completely consistent with the undertones of that part of Dean's characterization. I was really surprised by a Dean who looked sickened at the sight of the Chief, for instance. The Dean in my head is much more sexually experimental and experienced.

I was really surprised by a Dean who looked sickened at the sight of the Chief, for instance. The Dean in my head is much more sexually experimental and experienced.

Wasn't that pretty soon after he got back from Hell? I'd think that Dean would still be pretty uncomfortable around anything even slightly torture-related at that point.

Yeah, but the things you'd agree to let the Chief do are not the same kind of actual torture he would have experienced in hell. Plus, Chief = great big non-threatening teddy bear.

That's the way I read it, anyway.

True, but I'm not sure that he'd been back long enough to really process that distinction.

You could be right. For me, his expression was definitely "Ewwww," not agonized terror, though.

At the end of the episode right before that one, he'd told Sam that he was worse than the father of those kids in the walls, because he had enjoyed causing pain. I read his expression in that scene as his disgust with himself being projected onto the Chief. It's been a while since I watched it, though, but that's how I remember interpreting that scene.

I'd like to see an unconflicted good angel for once.

Sits by Amy.