Yes... there's definitely a slashy reading of his distance from Lana, as there was with his distance from Helen, but I've always felt Lex let his guard down more with Helen than anyone else, and I didn't really feel he initially had a hidden agenda with her. For me, Lex post-Helen will never offer someone the truly open access that he offered Helen: he showed her his soul in a way in showing her the CoCK, and she rejected that. He'll always guard himself against that in the future.

Maybe this is actually a sign that he cares for Lana: he's uncomfortable getting really close to her, because it would actually require letting her in in a way he hasn't ever done before?
Yes fear and desire are linked I think--they often are in the SV universe. I'm going to watch the boundary setting and breaking in that relationship with great interest!

Oh, that's interesting--you like the character not the actor so much. Fair enough. I think he does very well in this type of universe/show, with the sort of lines he's given. On the 'Thirst' commentary (which I still mean to write about at some stage), Al&Miles talk about how important it is to play against the camp in order to pull it off--and this actor seems to already know how to do that. It's so true of SV--and MR in particular--it's played so straight, so seriously, that the camp works rather than becomes an embarrassment.