I feel that I am missing out on all this Phil polio/mastoiditis stuff. I must pay a bit more attention to the Swiss books but they're just so disappointing after spending time with the earlier ones If they're right towards the end, was she simply preoccupied with getting through everything as briskly as possible towards the triplets' final term? And I wonder how much attention she was really paying to real-world developments, even though health was one of her great themes.
Certainly Auchmuty concludes that whether there is a sexual element is irrelevant. I switch back and forth on this. I'm persuaded by the arguments on both sides - that passionate but fundamentally non-sexual relationships should be publicly celebrated more than they are, and that historically homosexual relationships have been systematically de-sexualised and a bit of reclaiming is in order. Probably these two things are not actually opposed: rather, they're both in opposition to the idea that every woman is waiting for one (male, sexual) permanent life partner, and anything before this is potentially temporary, until Dr Right shows up. It's only that privileging of a certain kind of relationship over all others which makes the precise identifying of others matter, I think. I can v clearly picture Joey insistently attempting to fix Nancy and Kathie up with various eligible San doctors...
In any case, no relationship in the series is likely to be properly sexual - including the numerous heterosexual marriages which produce children, so it's legitimately up to the reader what they choose to read in. As in real life, I imagine some such friendships really are 'just' friendships, some also include a sexual relationship, some are making-do because of no potential husband and others are delighted to be freed from the expectation of having a husband and revelling in the opportunity to be discreetly lesbian, and indeed some 'normal' het marriages are privately sexless and/or include people whose actual orientation doesn't match the sex of their partner.
When I was living with my ex, my grandmother once asked me how it was working out, living with my 'friend'. I didn't know then, and still don't know now, whether she meant exactly what she was asking, or whether she was tacitly acknowledging that my 'friend' was in fact my lover. And this is exactly when I think, even though it shouldn't matter, somehow it sometimes does.
I am only writing this at such involved length because I ought to be writing a dissertation which has precisely nothing to do with any of it...