Another random note, but Ianto himself gets a lot of sexual imagery aimed at him by more than just Jack. Captain John, Adam, Owen's teasing are all from a negative place which would make sense to balance it out with positive reinforcements from Jack that not all of teh ghey on TW is BAD GAY. But we, as an audience, lack the scenes that could easily mend that. Little things, touches of shoulders or hands, even Jack spending a half-second to show concern about Ianto's well-being at one point or another would fix this whole debate in seconds!
Yes! Yes yes yes. it's not that hard to do, it would only take a few scenes, some precious seconds of screentime, and the whole thing would be so much less ambiguous. You make a valid point about the shit Ianto gets thrown at him from other sides. Especially the stuff from Owen, it seems to come from such a BAD GAY place, that I just yearn for one or two touches to fix that skewed perspective. It boils down to Russell talking the talk but not walking the walk as far as I'm concerned, and just not putting quite enough effort in to show this relationship as NOT DIRTYBADWRONG. The way it's been presented, it NEEDS that acknowledgement that it ISN'T dirtybadwrong in order to stand up as a proper relationship, and in order for Jack to stand up to scrutiny as a proper progressive role model.