Okay I got two asks back to back about this a few days ago and now that I actually have some time I do want to elaborate on my thoughts about them even at the risk of sounding like a broken record bc I do talk about this a lot lol. first of all I think it's worth mentioning that Matt (director) has verbatim stated that he doesn't think Matt (character) has any "sexual designs on anyone, that he knows of" and I thought that was such an interesting way of contextualizing and articulating exactly what I also think is going on with this character and, while i definitely don't really take everything Matt says even about his own characters as 'word of God' or anything, I do think it's useful and super interesting information to have when trying to tackle these kinds of questions about a character like Matt. And, just to be clear, when I refer to 'Matt' for the remainder of this ask, I'm talking about the fictionalized version of him and not the actual guy lol.

Anyways. I really don't see Matt as a person who grants anyone, not even himself, access to those parts of him in canon. I see Matt as someone who is progressively stuck deeper and deeper in arrested development as his life goes forward. I think when he was younger, webseries days, he was maybe able to pretend or even actively lie to himself about what he wanted out of life, about his desires for a girlfriend or for a sexual relationship that looked like something he recognized he was supposed to want, but even then he wasn't very good at maintaining that facade. We can see this manifest in several different ways but I always think about how Jay pushes him down into the couch and forces that mask over his face almost violently so that he can have the stripper come in for him.

That episode is actually the only little taste we get of Matt saying he wishes he had a girlfriend or at least a girl to hook up with or whatever and I don't think it's a coincidence that all that masquerade lap dance stuff happens in the same episode. It's almost like Jay latches onto the fact that Matt says that, that Matt and him were scoping out girls in the park, that he was trying to teach Matt how to talk to and perform interest in them. Not only do I think Jay gets off on Matt embarrassing himself around women, I think Jay gets off on knowing that Matt maybe doesn't really know what he wants but that maybe if Jay presses him hard enough, he can force Matt into a situation where he humiliates himself trying to perform the same kind of misogynistic masculinity rituals that Jay seemingly has actually had success with in his own life. This way Jay can come out on top and Matt can be his little embarrassing abomination that he covets so much. But that's not really what ends up happening anyway because Matt fights and tries to reject the experience before he even realizes the truly taboo and humiliating piece of the puzzle - that the girl grinding on him is actually his sister. I think it's one of those things that further sort of proves to Matt in his own mind that even pretending to want that kind of experience only serves to make him uncomfortable and embarrassed. When he tells Jay that he doesn't need a g-friend because he already has everything he could want in his b-friend, it's basically an overt admission of this lack of interest - one that Jay pushes back on pretty intensely by implying that Matt's gay. It's this kind of admonishment from Jay that I think pushes Matt even further into the space of never admitting to himself what he really wants because if he does, he will have to reckon with things that could potentially endanger his relationship with Jay which as we know is NOT an option under any circumstances.

This only becomes more and more obvious as the show goes on, too. By viceland there is nearly NO sexuality left in the show at all, besides vague allusions to women as concepts and a brief moment in the back of a limo with hired sex workers neither of the guys are even paying attention to. I've talked about this extensively in other posts but I truly see sex and sexuality as such an existential threat to the mattjay relationship that in order for their domestic world to stay in tact it cannot be acknowledged even conceptually. It has to be completely eradicated. Matt is very VERY skilled at understanding the exact things he needs to do in order to keep Jay where he is, living and breathing and playing and isolated and attached to Matt and no one else. We see this a lot but I always think of the Buffet as the main example, like Matt literally can almost bend reality into whatever shape will make Jay choose him again and again. I don't think Matt is necessarily lying to himself about loving Jay or even being in love with Jay, I think he has taken sexuality off the table precisely BECAUSE he loves Jay. He loves their life, this sort of sense of prepubescent intimacy that can stretch on eternally without interruption from girls or women or wives or mothers or whatever. As long as Matt doesn't admit that he wants anything that Jay can't give him, he can have everything he has ever wanted.

I also see the fact that Matt creates a world where he can be so childlike and naive and desexualized in a darker way at times too, though. I mean, he literally wants to go trick or treating in the Book and sees it as an entirely unproblematic thing for him to do. He hears a strange older man making a joke about eating pussy (that he doesn't understand at all at first btw) and literally starts clinging to Jay so intensely that Jay has to physically remove and chastise him for it. He almost never makes sexual jokes himself besides completely inappropriate bits about pedophilia that clearly make everyone around him (Jay) very uncomfortable. Idk, I know it's controversial and definitely not something I would ever EVER bring up in a casual conversation about this topic or this show and it isn't anything I want the creators to be even tangentially aware of, but I really do think there's a valid reading where some of Matt's behavior and aversion to sex is also rooted in some kind of trauma response. I don't see that as the ONLY reason though (as outlined above and in other posts I've made about this), but I do think that kind of analysis has a place when talking about this topic which is why I feel compelled to mention it.