My take on “Hannigram is queerbaiting if they don’t kiss”:
Sex is a form of communication. It is a way to express intimacy, but it’s not the only way to be intimate. What’s special about Hannigram is that they already have such intimate, good, communication that sex and physical touch become an aesthetic.
Their dinner conversations where they’re seated across from each other with a table physically in between them, and Hannibal cleaning Will’s hands are equally scintillating, and it was never physical touch that made them be drawn to each other —it was their intellectuality. As long as they have their minds, their thoughts and opinions, they will gravitate toward each other. In regards to a kiss: they’ve expressed how much they mean to each other so much already, is it really necessary that they kiss just to prove that they’re something? Would a kiss make their affections valid? Absolutely not. And this quality adds to how genuine they are. IF they ever kiss, I’m sure we’d enjoy the eroticity of the moment, but if they never kiss, it doesn’t invalidate what they mean to each other.
In my eyes, Hannigram are poetry. A lot left to read in-between the lines. A kiss is an accessory, and doesn’t represent the content of their story. Characters with romance in their relationship don’t need to kiss on screen to be valid. And kissing and sex don’t prove someone’s queer sexuality.