Fox Mulder and Female Desire

“What about that guy you work with?”
“Mulder?”
“Yeah, I thought you said he was cute.”
 – “The Jersey Devil”

I love Fox Mulder; I really do. I know he has a lot of detractors, including the friend I am currently introducing The X-Files to.

“He is such a man-boy!” she complains, roughly once per episode.

(It’s a good thing the show has Scully, or I’m sure she would have bailed ages ago.)

I’m not going to argue with anyone who finds Mulder’s behaviour obnoxious, although I’ve always been pretty forgiving towards him. Maybe because I pitied his childhood trauma. Maybe because I related to his social awkwardness and isolation. Maybe because those puppy-dog eyes were just oh so adorable. But that’s not what I want to talk about today. Instead, I want to focus on how Mulder was also a very appealing character, especially to women.

Seen from a feminist perspective, there are plenty of things about Mulder and his relationship with Scully that are problematic. Yet there are also plenty of things that seem calculated to respond to female desires. From the way Mulder himself is presented as a sexualised object to the unconventional dynamic between him and his partner, it’s easy to see why women – not to mention gay men – would have been drawn to him. That isn’t an excuse for ignoring Mulder’s flaws, but, as with Scully, those flaws shouldn’t make us lose sight of other aspects of the character – especially the ones that might be appealing to non-straight-male viewers.

In the analysis that follows, what I say may not always seem to be strictly asexual or strictly noromo. I’m not strictly asexual myself (I’m demisexual), and I was originally more of a fence-sitter than a noromo. And I think it’s important to recognise how characters can appeal to a diverse audience, not just the asexual or noromo crowd.

It may also seem like I’m unfairly focusing on Mulder as a sexual object rather than as a complex character. I don’t mean to imply that sexual objectification is the only way to view Mulder, or that people – including women – can’t like or relate to him for other reasons. But, given how often women are presented as objects of male desire, I think it’s worth turning the tables around. And, given how often female characters are paired with unappealing men, it’s worth thinking about the qualities that actually make a man appealing.

Oh, and I’m not going to talk about “Never Again”. That’s a whole separate rant.

So, you ready? It’s time to talk about Fox Mulder as an object and gratifier of desire. Female and otherwise, sexual and otherwise.

“Hey, Scully, can you spare a prophylactic?”
 – “Soft Light”

Let’s start with the obvious: Mulder is a very sexualised character. Remember in my post about Scully, where I commented that she got far fewer fanservice shots than her partner? Well, it’s time to flip that around. As fozmeadows at Shattersnipe puts it,

“Mulder is frequently sexualised in [Scully’s] place: often, he’s shown running around shirtless or wearing nothing but a towel, and as of [‘Demons’], we’ve seen him naked in the shower. … While I can certainly think of several more recent shows that feature male sexualisation as a regular component, I’m hard-pressed to think of any that do so instead of, rather than as an accompaniment to, female sexualisation,”

On The X-Files, the woman generally gets to keep her clothes on. It falls to the man to do the shirtless and underwear scenes. And he does, often enough that Cathy Glinski at My X-Files Obsession is tracking it in a spreadsheet.

Of course, male nudity doesn’t have to be inherently sexualising; it can also be an excuse for male characters to affirm their physical prowess. A shirtless scene that shows off a man’s six-pack or has him doing heavy labour may make him look strong, powerful, and in control, inviting the audience to identify with him rather than objectify him. That’s why it’s important to consider the contexts in which Mulder’s nudity happens.

For Mulder, states of undress are often associated with vulnerability. He wakes up in his underwear after being overcome by smoke in “Fire”. He wakes up shirtless, trouserless, and gun-less in “Anasazi” while grieving the death of his father. He lies shirtless and unconscious while being nursed back to health in “The Blessing Way”. Scully finds him curled up and naked in the shower after an apparent psychotic break in “Demons”. He takes off all his clothes and starts hallucinating under the influence of drugs in “Unusual Suspects”. In these scenes, Mulder’s nudity is not active and powerful, but passive and non-threatening, making it easier for the audience to objectify him. They also present Mulder as a victim in need of rescuing. And, more often than not, the person who comes to his rescue is Scully.

“I just got very turned on.”
 – “Piper Maru”

This brings me to my second point: Mulder frequently needs Scully to save him. Inverting the traditional dynamic of the victimised woman and heroic man, Mulder is often the one in danger and Scully the one who rescues him. It’s a gender-flipped version of the knight-in-shining-armour trope that allows the woman to take on the role of the knight and to save the man. Of course, the dynamic doesn’t always work this way; there are many times that Scully is in danger and Mulder saves her. But the show doesn’t skew towards always putting the woman in danger and always letting the man rescue her. According to Cathy Glinski’s analysis, it’s about even who gets rescued and who does the rescuing. And that’s actually better, from a feminist perspective, than having Scully always rescue Mulder. To force Scully to be the strong one and Mulder the vulnerable one all the time would be putting too much on Scully, holding her to a standard of awesome that’s not realistic. It’s good that Scully can sometimes be the victim and sometimes the hero – just as, in real life, being victimised does not mean a woman cannot also be heroic.

“Do you know how much the human body is worth, Mulder?”
“Depends on the body.”
 – “Hell Money”

But Mulder is not just passive eye candy; he’s also an active character in a relationship with a woman. This relationship is far from ideal. Mulder’s interests and needs are the primary driving force behind it, with Scully’s getting little attention. Mulder’s also bad at communicating, bad at expressing emotion, and bad at thinking about how his actions affect others. So why is this relationship so celebrated? Why would any woman want to be in one like it?

The answer to this question didn’t come to me until I started watching my way through the old Sherlock Holmes movies, the ones released 1939-1946 starring Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce. One of the biggest surprises to me about these films was how shabbily Holmes treats Watson. He regularly hides information from Watson and shuts him out of his plans. He fakes his own death, then pranks the grieving Watson by visiting him in disguise. He makes fun of Watson to his face and talks smack about him behind his back. You think Mulder’s a jerk? Trust me, Holmes is a complete arsehole.

And my point is not to say, “Yeah, Mulder’s bad, but he could be a lot worse.” It’s that Mulder and Scully’s relationship needs to be understood as part of a specific tradition: that of the eccentric genius investigator and his long-suffering sidekick. Holmes and Watson are the defining instance of this trope, and, in a pre-Sherlock world, Rathbone and Bruce’s interpretation of them was the most famous and influential. The problematic elements of Mulder and Scully’s relationship aren’t unique to them. They come with the tradition – a tradition that is popular, familiar, and most importantly, masculine.

Holmes, Watson, and most of their successors were men. Mulder and Scully are following in their footsteps. In other words, Mulder and Scully have the kind of relationship usually reserved for men and treat each other the way men traditionally treat each other. Mulder may be a jerk to Scully, but he’s a jerk the way one man might be a jerk to another – there’s nothing explicitly gendered or sexist about it.

This dynamic might not always seem appealing, but it at least offers an alternative to the traditional roles of women in fiction. To Mulder, Scully is not some damsel, babe, or little girl to be rescued, seduced, or educated. She is his helper and friend. He values her opinion, respects her expertise, and trusts her to share in his eccentric and often dangerous quest. By treating her the way he might treat a man, he offers different possibilities for how men and women can relate to each other and what parts women can play in men’s lives.

“Scully, what are you wearing?”
 – “War of the Coprophages”

That’s not to say Mulder treats Scully exactly as he would a male partner. It’s possible that he does (we don’t really know how Mulder would act if Scully were a man), but fictional relationships between men tend to be emotionally reserved and physically stand-offish. Holmes and Watson are not demonstrative with each other; they rarely touch or talk about their feelings. Male-male relationships often have little room for mushy stuff – a drawback for the men in them and the women who otherwise envy them.

However, this is not the case for Mulder and Scully. From the random touches they share in the earliest episodes to the hugging and hand-holding of Seasons 4 and 5, to the concern they both display about each other’s emotional states, Mulder and Scully are much more touchy-feely with each other than most fictional male pairings. Because Scully’s a woman, Mulder seems to feel freer to be physically affectionate with her. Too free, arguably, but he never seems to cross the line into what she deems inappropriate. In times of genuine trouble, he’s also able to be supportive and caring. It’s hard to imagine their interactions in “Beyond the Sea” happening between two male characters, or Mulder showing a man the same tenderness he shows Scully in “Irresistible”, “Memento Mori”, or “Redux II”.

Mulder thus offers Scully the best of both kinds of relationships: the respect and camaraderie of a masculine relationship combined with the warmth and affection men usually only show women. It’s an attractive model for women – and probably men, too. Scully may be strong and capable; she may command her partner’s unfailing respect. Yet doing so does not require her to sacrifice her emotional needs. She can be respected and also be loved. Which brings me to…

“Scully, are you coming on to me?”
 – “Quagmire”

…The Mulder-Scully Romance, a.k.a. “the M.S.R.”, a.k.a. “the Ship”. Many fans saw the chemistry between Mulder and Scully and began to speculate about hidden romantic feelings between them. There are many reasons for this, some of which I understand better than others. But if I had to pick just one person to blame for it, that person would be David Duchovny.

Watch any X-Files episode from the early seasons and pay attention to the way Mulder looks at Scully. See when he looks at her and watch the expression on his face while he does it. He doesn’t just make eye contact as a matter of courtesy or glance up to see what she’s doing. His eyes keep coming back to her, his face full of interest and affection. He likes her; he’s into her; he digs her.

It’s easy to imagine that this interest might be sexual, but it doesn’t have to be. In a Rolling Stone interview, Duchovny gave this explanation of his body language:

“What I tend to play is that I always want to check with her. Whenever I hear something interesting, I’ll look at her. That’s sexy to people.”

These looks aren’t about mentally undressing her; they’re about sharing experiences and exchanging thoughts. And, yes, that is sexy. Women know what it’s like to be judged on their bodies. They know what it’s like to be instantly desired or summarily dismissed based on their physical attractiveness. What women are less used to is men taking an interest in them based on non-physical qualities. A man can be loved by a woman for all sorts of reasons: for his wealth and power; for his heroism; for his sense of humour; for his kindness and sensitivity; for his innate goodness and nobility of spirit. But in movies and T.V. shows there generally are only two ways a woman can be loved by a man: either she grabs his attention right away because of her physical beauty, or she earns his affection with sex. You may think I’m exaggerating, but how many love stories can you think of where the man doesn’t fall for the woman a) within minutes of meeting her, or b) after she has sex with him?

The message to women is clear, repeated over and over again: Your value lies in your sexuality, in your sexual desirability to men and your ability to give men sexual pleasure. Apart from that, you have no worth, no purpose, and no hope of being loved. (At least, not loved by a man. Which, women are also told over and over again, is the only kind of love that matters.)

Mulder offers Scully a different kind of relationship, one where sexuality plays little part. He doesn’t seem to be impressed by her looks, and she makes no effort to seduce him. Instead, he comes to value her for other reasons. In my post about Scully, I wrote: “She was loved by a man, not because she appealed to his sexual fantasies, but because of her courage, intelligence, and friendship.” The corollary is that Mulder is the one who loves her for these things. And when I say “loves”, I mean it. He doesn’t just respect and appreciate her as a co-worker. She’s the most important person in the world to him, his best friends and partner both at and outside of work. No one – not even someone with more obvious sex appeal – can compete with her for his affection. If she fulfills a popular female fantasy, then so does he.

“Keep going, F.B.I. woman.”
 – “Redux”

But are Mulder’s feelings for Scully just platonic? Isn’t it possible that, even if he isn’t primarily attracted by her body, his attraction is at least partly sexual? And isn’t that also a female fantasy: to be not only loved for one’s mind, spirit, and heart, but to be desired for them as well?

Mulder sure drops a lot of hints that he might feel that way about Scully. The guy is an incorrigible flirt, and, as the series progresses, innuendoes and suggestive banter become a routine part of his interactions with her. Is he trying to tell her that he’s in love with her? Is he mostly indifferent to her but open to the possibility of shagging her insomuch as he’s a straight man and she’s a woman? Is this the flirtatiousness of good friends who feel safe teasing each other about sex because they know it’s completely off the table? Or is flirting just the way Mulder interacts with people he likes?

I honestly don’t know the answer; sometimes I think it’s one thing, sometimes another. And perhaps that ambiguity is just one more piece of Mulder’s appeal: the audience is free to project whatever fantasy they want onto him. Maybe he’s the patient nice guy who’s in love with her the whole time but won’t do anything about it until she asks him to. Maybe he’s a potential friend with benefits who’ll give her as much sex as she wants but won’t expect her to cook for him. Or maybe he’s a guy who really is able to be “just” friends with a woman.

What those fantasies have in common is that they’re all based in friendship. And male-female friendship of this kind is underrepresented in the media. Representations of male-female relationships are underwritten by two seemingly contradictory assumptions: that men and women can’t be friends without sex becoming an issue, and that you can’t have sex with someone you’re friends with. And so you don’t often see loving relationships between men and women who aren’t sexually involved, and you don’t often see sex come out of relationships that are already loving.

Why is this? I have theories, and maybe one day I’ll write an essay about them. For now, I’ll just call it another product of sexism. Our stereotyped notion is that men only want (heterosexual) sex and are happiest having as much of it as possible, regardless of the situation. Emotional intimacy, commitment, love, those are lesser, “womanly” desires that only impede the pursuit of sex. To use the language of the asexual community, men are more associated with “primary sexual attraction”, attraction to people you barely know based mostly on physical characteristics. “Secondary sexual attraction”, which comes only after the establishment of an emotional bond, is seen as more common among women.

I’m not interested in reinforcing this gender stereotype; my point is that, as with so many other things, the traditionally “masculine”-coded behaviour is implicitly understood as better. Men behave in the way that is natural and instinctive; women behave differently because of repression and shame. Empowered men have lots of casual sex with hot women. Liberated women have lots of casual sex with hot men (or women). There’s no room in this framework for the possibility that the “womanly” desires might also be legitimate, that the need for intimacy, commitment, and love might be just as primal as the need for sex. Nor for the possibility that, for many women and men, intimacy, commitment, and love might be the very things that lead to sexual desire.

In Mulder and Scully’s relationship, the emotional elements are primary and sex plays a secondary role, if any. If all Scully wants from Mulder is love, she has it; she doesn’t need sex to validate her relationship with him. And if she wants sex, then she’s already in a relationship where that might, at least theoretically, be desirable. She doesn’t have to sublimate her sexual energy into men she doesn’t even know; she has a very appealing lust-object in the form of her best friend.

Either way, the ball is in Scully’s court. Mulder may flirt, but he never goes any further than that. He seems content to remain single, meaning that he’s always available but doesn’t have any expectations. You kind of get the impression that Scully could have him any time she wanted, but that he’s not going to pressure her into anything she doesn’t. That’s a very attractive position for a woman to be in, one that validates her choices, be they to act or not to act. Mulder isn’t just made a sexual object; he seems at times almost to be offering himself as one. But it’s totally up to Scully whether she wants to accept that offer or not.

“I was told once that the best way to regenerate body heat was to crawl naked into a sleeping bag with somebody else who’s already naked.”
 – “Detour”

Besides never putting any sexual pressure on Scully, Mulder also makes no attempt to romance her. Some people may see that as a drawback, but I’ve never been big on “romance” myself. That is, I like the idea of physical affection, emotional intimacy, and companionship, all of which Mulder and Scully have as a natural part of their friendship. But when it comes to dating relationships, “romance” seems to mean something slightly different. What, I’m not exactly clear on, but lisa_b at Ace of Arrows offers an explanation that I found helpful. For them, “romance” is “the bit where you fall in love with someone based on the best version of themselves that they’ve shown you while dating, and they fall in love with the best version of you”. And that certainly seems consistent with the way dating relationships are usually portrayed. My stereotyped image of a heterosexual date goes something like this: Woman puts on a nice dress, does her hair and makeup, shaves her legs, and maybe adds a little perfume. Man picks the woman up at her house and takes her out for a fancy dinner, which he pays for. She smiles at his jokes; he holds the door for her. She redoes her lipstick in the bathroom; he lends her his coat when they go outside. She performs a normative version of femininity: beautiful and helpless. He performs a normative version of masculinity: powerful and chivalrous. Every part of the interaction is calculated to impress the other person, to play down your more eccentric qualities and be the person they want you to be.

It sounds exhausting. It also sounds like a terrible basis on which to form an intimate relationship.

If you’re always showing the “best version” of yourself while dating, then you’re essentially building a relationship based on deceit and setting your partner up for disappointment when they realise you’re not who you pretended to be. Ace of Arrows theorises that eventually you “[learn] all the things about them that they didn’t want you to know, and likewise you reveal to them all the things you don’t want people to know, and you spend a year negotiating every single day whether you can take that thing you learned about this month, or whether that’s finally too much.” If you can take all those things, then you slip into “companionate love”, which is basically the same kind of love that friends share.

The question for me is, why go through the “romance” phase at all? If your ultimate goal is to learn to love your partner as a friend, why not approach the relationship as a friendship from the beginning? And if they’ll eventually need to learn to love you as you really are, why not be upfront about who you are so that that’s the person they fall in love with?

From that perspective, Mulder’s approach to Scully is the much more attractive one – whether as a friend or as a potential lover. He isn’t trying to be the person she wants him to be, and so she is able to love him for himself. He isn’t trying to impress her, and so she never has to worry what dark secrets he’s hiding from her. She knows about his obsession with his missing sister, knows about his fear of fire and hatred of insects, knows what kind of movies he likes to watch. Speaking of which…

“I’m surprised you haven’t already read that issue.”
“Oh, I have. April is the cruelest month.”
 – “D.P.O.”

Let’s talk about Mulder and porn. I actually love Mulder’s porn habit; it’s one of my favourite things about him. That probably sounds like a weird thing to say, so let me explain.

I have very little experience with pornography. That means I can’t speak directly to what it does or how it depicts sexual relationships. I believe we need to be concerned about how pornography portrays sex and women, and about how people who watch pornography learn to think about sex and women. But I can’t say authoritatively that all pornography is bad. Nor can I say that every consumer of pornography develops toxic attitudes – especially when that consumer is a fictional character.

All I can do is look at Mulder’s behaviour and see what he actually does. And, regardless of what the porn may be telling him, Mulder does not seem to have toxic attitudes towards women. He’s actually quite respectful to them over-all; he doesn’t question their authority or expertise; and he’s not sexually aggressive.

In fact, Mulder is a very sexually passive character. I know I complain about how little sexual agency Scully shows, but Mulder doesn’t really show much more. In his interactions with women, they tend to be the ones who take the lead while he remains awkward and uncertain: Phoebe in “Fire”, Henderson in “Young at Heart”, Det. White in “Syzygy”. Yes, he flirts with Bambi in “War of the Coprophages”, but not very aggressively. And even in “3”, Kristen is the one who initiates sex.

Mulder definitely seems to have a libido; what he doesn’t have is sexual entitlement. Just because he has sexual desires doesn’t mean he expects other people to satisfy them. He isn’t a James Bond, treating the world like his own personal brothel. Nor is he an angry incel, complaining about all the women who won’t have sex with him. He understands that his sexual desires are his own problem, and he takes responsibility for them, satisfying them in the safest, most efficient way he can.

These days, there’s probably nothing very remarkable about that. Heroes who watch pornography are becoming relatively commonplace. But, back in the ’90s, you didn’t see them that often. Heroes were expected to have love-interests or, at least, a string of casual sexual partners. Watching pornography was for weirdos and losers, those who could not “get” real women and were therefore insufficiently “manly”. Men weren’t supposed to do it – or, at least, not supposed to admit to it – not because of pornography’s harmful effects on women, but because it was a sign of this failure.

Mulder had no such self-consciousness. Watching porn was simply one of his quirks, like believing in aliens or eating sunflower seeds. He didn’t worry about being judged for it, any more than he worried about all the other things people judged him for. And, yes, a better feminist might have thought more about how pornography harms women. But a worse feminist might have been a lot more defensive, attempting to conceal his porn habit, deny his celibacy, and assert his manhood by pursuing and boasting about his sexual exploits. Mulder combined honesty and lack of shame about his sexuality with a respect for other people’s boundaries. And, even today, that’s unusual enough to be worth appreciating.

“Scully?”
“Yes?”
“Marry me.”
 – “Chinga”

I know I’ve seemed to focus a lot on Mulder’s sex-appeal, but I believe Mulder’s appeal stands whether you’re coming from a sexual or asexual perspective, and whether your position is shipper or noromo. He offers Scully a partnership based on respect and affection, and that’s an attractive model for a relationship whether that relationship is romantic or platonic. He loves her passionately for her non-physical qualities, and that’s desirable whether that love is sexual or non-sexual. He seems to have sexual desires but no sexual expectations, and that’s reassuring whether you’re the kind of person who would want to pursue him or the kind who wouldn’t.

Of course, I’ve also been talking about “female desire” mostly in terms of the desire to be in a relationship with a man. Women have all kinds of desires that have nothing to do with men or relationships, and those ones Mulder is far less able to respond to. You could even say it’s ridiculous to celebrate Mulder as a male partner when so many of Scully’s other desires are left unaddressed on the series.

But even if Mulder only fulfills a narrow set of desires, those desires are still valid. And they’re not ones the media is very good at representing. Movies and T.V. shows still tend to privilege masculine desire, sexual relationships, and primary attraction, leaving little scope for those who desire differently. Meanwhile, toxically masculine heroes who objectify women remain commonplace. So Mulder may not set the bar very high, but I think the bigger problem is how many heroes fail to meet even this low standard. And he’ll remain someone I love – at least until male characters start doing better.