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#cishets need to understand that not every gay person is in a relationship
warlock-wizard-mage · 1 month
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The Fetishization Of MLM relationships
DISCLAIMERS:
1.) this post is not trying to be transphobic or mysoginistic in any way. That would be disgusting and if you are either one of those it will not be tolerated and i will flag and block you.
2.)This is not an attack onany artist specifficaly or ppl who headcanon Sirius as transfem.
Now, onto the actuall discussion...
So this started with my post about 99% of wolfstar fanart making Sirius look like a woman and how it is a gross fetishization of a queer relationship.
As a masc person who ships a lot of MLM myself, i have noticed that sometimes when i see a fanart of my fave mlm ship, one of the more femme one out of the couple gets portraied in a very femmine way, sometimes to a point of no recognition where it straight up almost feels like a gender swap fanart (and its not).
I usually kept it no mind as it wasnt that usuall and didnt really interest me (for example, i used to be a huge Loki fan a few years back and every time id see a hyperfeminized loki it would be a Thorki fanart, so i just ignored it cuz i dont ship thorki )
HOWEVER
recently i got into marauders and when i searched up wolfstar fanart for the first time ever, MAJORITY of it was portraying Sirius as a baby girl (hyper femme, to the point where it looked like a hetero fan art)
That is why i got fed up, bc before it was scarce but this fandom has a problem.( Like how is it a majority of fanart?? you ppl okay??)
SO, how is this a gross fetishization and queerphobic you ask?
Ive actually seen a lot of people talk about it back in 2020/21 and since then had a few conversations about it with my friends, bc im not the only one who noticed this.
There is this phenomenon of CIS and HETERO girls/women that obsess over gay relationships. They ship mlm characters, maybe desire a "gay bestie" (but not a lesbian one), or even would like to have a bi bf (with a perfrence for women ofc).
I noticed this but didnt know what it was. It wasnt until i heard other people talk about it and talk about some research and studies and so on, that i found out what it all was about.
It is because girls/women in this society and era strive to be seen as equal by their partner, want to be seen as an equal by their partner- emotionaly and physically and so on. And subconciously or conciously they know that they cannot get that from a cishet male partner, so they obsess over the fictive desirable world of a gay male love. (Male bc theyre not queer themselves and fantasizing about a sapphic relationship would be very fruity.)
And while all of that is understandable and valid and actually quite sad, it does not change anything about the fact that these people then go on and invade queer spaces, take away representation, selfproject onto one of the men in the ship to the point where they hyperfeminize him bc they dont actually want to see two men in love, they just crave what the gay couple has.
ps: if you do this and you do not identify as a woman/girl, i am very sorry if this made you feel invalidated and i need to say that this doesnt apply to you, queer ppl obsessing over queer ships is no problem at all and you are valid
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tomatoluvr69 · 2 months
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It’s so funny to be lazily ambiguous with gender and sexuality in real life because most people are like oh that’s a butch lesbian. Because I am lazy. And because I only clear things up with vetted friends and literally do not care about pronouns and names and have had different names/pronouns in different circles etc. and they see my men’s attire and the fact that I haven’t binded (bound?) in years and my short hair has long grown out. And then they tell on themselves and their own lazy heuristics when I talk about liking a man that it either a) takes them visibly aback and they have to stumble over themselves to pretend they’re not shocked or b) straight up think I’m joking and continue to believe I’m a butch lesbian. And the craziest thing is other queer people like somehow often worse about this despite this sort of idea that they have of themselves that they don’t assume anyone’s gender/sexuality and that they don’t tie ideas of androgyny to a flat chest and that they do believe that pretty extreme gender fluidity can and does exist and that everyone’s experience with gender is unique. And then there’s all sorts of shit where if I don’t feel like explaining/justifying the fact that I feel my concept of identity and self shift at such a glacial pace that it’s not worth establishing a conventional nonbinary or transgender identity (that conforms to the accepted experience, timeline, and desired considerations) in public, beyond my trusted friends who are chill about deviant experiences within the queer norm, I’m just one of them theyfabs claiming to be queer for clout. Ugh anyways it’s crazy to be one of the few people on the planet who needs to occasionally come out as what may appear at the outset as straight. I’m literally not a lesbian and no one ever ever stops to think I might not be. But I’ve had so many profound experiences with women and within that sort of community that I do feel such a strong affinity there, and in an ideal world would love to be something like a he/him lesbian. But I’m not a lesbian. Because I like men!! Despite only ever having been with women!!! And it also is so funny to me that were I to enter into a relationship with a man I would be considered completely and entirely cishet despite my extensive experiences within the gay community and specifically the lesbian community. Who would accept me with open arms if I’d ended up permanently with one of the women I’ve been with!! But I remain steadfast in my convictions that I do not need to explain myself to anyone. And truly I do not care in the least what people assume about me, I’m a very private person for whom open identity is not important and I’m literally way too chill to care. But it’s just continuously funny to have to come out as not a lesbian. How many dozens of times have I had to be like “actually I am not a homosexual”. Literally the opposite experience of most LGBTeeeees I’ve just got that deeply intensely masculine swag for real that the effect lasts even when my hair gets down to like shoulder length. And it’s like, even though I am perceived as female, albeit a queer one, I have had literally every single one of the stereotypical experiences of the ‘knew I was transgender from early childhood’ archetype and that’s just supposed to be completely invalid because I decided not to medically transition due to the spans of time I have where my identity shifts and I know I’m not qualified to pick one of the three acceptable genders for the rest of my life? And I understand the broader community’s frustration with certain aspects of hegemony re: people whose identities are snidely referred to as “theyfabs” and bisexual women in LTRs with men HOWEVER im just so tiredddddddddddd of the condescension, and lazy heuristics I notice in queer people’s treatment of me and assumptions about me. Anyways thanks 2 the gay people in my phone for letting me be amorphous and being so so chill about it. I mean it probably helps that you can’t see my genuinely gargantuan and unbindable breasts from my posts. But christ man it’s just exhausting lol
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iguessitsjustme · 9 months
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I have not been able to stop thinking about this since episode 9 aired and I read an excellent insight into Pat’s character this morning by @wen-kexing-apologist so I wanted to talk about Jeng because he is the character that I relate to the most. Granted, I am not a high level manager in my parent’s successful company, BUT I’ve worked office jobs and I’ve been in management positions and overseeing people. Please keep in mind that I am approaching Jeng as a white queer person who was raised (all over) the United States so I can only truly add the perspective that gives me. Also I wrote this while bored at work so I was definitely not nearly as articulate as I like, and this might not be anyone else’s interpretation and I completely understand if you do not agree with me here. With that said, here we go:
I am probably the most cishet passing person in the world. There’s no particular reason for this other than it’s just the way I am and how I like to present. I don’t risk my safety by presenting queer, I just don’t. I live in a big city, my family is incredibly supportive, my friends are queer, a good number of my coworkers are queer, I am not closeted. But people see me and they assume that I am straight. For the purposes of this post I'm focusing on sexual orientation rather than gender what I’m focusing on because my relationship with gender right now is basically the shrug emoji. Despite being out as bi since I was 24 many years ago, I still find myself constantly coming out to people because if I say nothing, assumptions are made about me and those assumptions are based on a heteronormative worldview that society has cursed us all to and those assumptions about me are wrong. 
Now let’s look at Jeng. I’m not gonna mention Pat because I fully believe that Pat’s response to learning Jeng is attracted to men was entirely based on his own repressed feelings and not entirely an assumption that Jeng is straight. Jeng passes as straight. I’m sure that’s due to a combination of his position, his family, and just his overall personality. We know that Jeng is out to people. He talks to his friend about Pat, Jaab asks him about his feelings towards Pat, and when he brings Pat home, Jeng’s parents see Pat and make some assumptions about what occurred. So a significant number of people in Jeng’s life know that he is gay and it’s not only a significant number that know but the people closest to him know as well. The other people that are able to clock Jeng in this show are the other queer people. Chot and Jen just know. They see how he looks at and interacts with Pat and can see the humongous crush that Jeng is nursing. So Jeng is working under the assumption that around these people, he is out. He might present straight and he might keep that up for work purposes, but he believes himself to be out to at least the other queer people near him.
Then Pat says this:
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And Jeng breaks. And I get that. Jeng knows that Pat is gay, Jeng thought that Pat knew he was gay. Jeng thought they were on the same page. Other queer people in Jeng’s life have known he was gay without him needing to explicitly state that. Pat, the person Jeng has been flirting with and has confessed to (while he was so drunk he couldn’t understand Jeng you beloved idiot) had no clue. At least that’s how it appears to Jeng, who is now in the unfortunate position of needing to out himself. Let me tell you something, it is exhausting to have to constantly come out to people. Every new person that I meet, if I want them to know that I am queer, I need to explicitly tell them because if I don’t, they will never know. I’ve had people think that I’m just a really good ally before. There are times I wish I was so entirely and visibly queer that no one would ever doubt it, and I’m sure Jeng felt that in this moment with Pat. It just takes one look at his face during this scene to know that Jeng has been here before and he is tired and his heart is breaking.
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How many people do you think Jeng has had to make a choice between outing himself or letting them work with false assumptions regarding his sexuality? How many times has Jeng chosen to closet himself instead of being who he is? How many times has Jeng been interested in another man but had no chance because that person didn’t know or care to believe he is gay? Just needing to make the decision on whether or not to explicitly say, “Yes, I like men” or “I’m gay” is tiring in and of itself, but then the actual saying of the words? Depleting. Especially to someone who you thought already knew. It hurts when people think I’m just a really good ally. I can’t imagine the pain Jeng felt at Pat’s surprise because to Jeng, that surprise indicated that Pat saw him as a good ally (again, I do not think that’s what was going on with Pat but this is about Jeng and his interpretation) and not as someone with interest in him.
Then Jeng learns later on that Pat just doesn’t understand how someone like Jeng can like him. It doesn’t make sense to Pat. How many times has Jeng been made to feel like his sexuality, coming from him, doesn’t make sense? I’m sure his dad had some things to say about it. I’m sure part of the reason he left previously was due to that. So while Jeng is out, it is a constant coming out process and then an entire new process to get people to believe it. Jeng’s sadness is mostly about Pat rejecting him, but I’m sure at least a small part of it is also the tiny piece of him that was so sure that Pat at least knew he was gay.
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Jeng now believes that Pat has only ever seen him as his straight boss and that can’t change. Pat sees him as a coworker, not even a friend, not even a member of the queer community. Just a coworker and nothing more. The revelation that Jeng likes and is attracted to men, made Pat uncomfortable. Is it because Jeng doesn’t obviously present as gay? Is it because he isn’t as clockable as someone like Chot? Now Jeng has to think of not only all of his interactions with Pat, but also all of his interactions with the other queer people in his office. Does he have to come out to them too or do they already know like he thought they did? Jeng was so busy being the most smitten man in the universe, it didn’t occur to him that his giant, massive, all-consuming crush on Pat might not have been obvious. I’m guessing the straight people in his office have been working under the assumption that he is straight. Will he need to come out to them too? He has been handling this for who knows how long, but this time, this time it HURTS.
Jeng was so worried about crossing the boundaries by being Pat’s boss that he didn’t even think about how dating a man would impact his worker’s perception of him. I don’t think he ultimately cares about what they think of his personal life or his personality as long as they are able to function as a department. But when Pat asked if he liked men, Jeng had to start reevaluating everything. Not just his interactions with Pat, but his interactions with the world. No wonder he seemed so just completely and utterly tired this episode. When Jeng and Pat finally work through their little miscommunication issues (which makes so much sense and work so well with this show I can’t even begin to describe my actual love for it which is weird cause miscommunication is my least favorite trope), I don’t think Jeng will actually change anything about the way he presents himself to the world. He still has his family to think about, and he’s still, well, he’s still Jeng. But I think this gave him some things to think about himself that he probably already knew but didn’t think he would have to explain to another queer person. Especially not Pat. Pat is out at the office, but it wasn’t entirely his choice. Pat outed himself so he would stop getting put in awkward conversations about the women in the office. Jeng might have seen something similar to himself in Pat. Pat could potentially pass as straight, and in fact did at the very beginning. He let people think he was dating a woman. Pat was careful who he came out to at the office. Jeng probably thought that of all people, Pat would understand him the best. Not explicitly out, but not in the closet either. How heartbreaking for both of them that their experiences clashed in such a way. But once those two get on the same page? They are gonna be the cutest couple in the entire world and I am so excited to see Jeng, finally, finally, be able to express his love for Pat to Pat as much as he wants to.
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textk4kira · 2 months
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Cisgender, straight aces have cisheteronormative identities. And can get affirmations for their ace identities from the ace community.
They can get support for conversion therapy (what is ace conversion therapy? Anti-gay conversion therapy is targeted at making gay people associate gay attraction with trauma and pain? what do you think anti-ace conversion therapy is?) from aces. What resources do //LGBT// groups have for htis?
What LGBT resources do they need for religious trauma they cannot get from the ace community? From other religious trauma groups? Do religious trauma groups exclude cisgender, straight ace?
What specific LGBT resources for csigender, straight men who do not want to date need? Be SPECIFIC. What resources do they need from groupsmade to give rights to Lesbians, Gay Men, Bisxuals, and Trans People? You haven't listed a single LGBT specific resource uet
Being raped for not experiencing sexual attraction is a feminist issue, not an LGBT one. What LGBT specific resource do they need that they cannot get from feminist groups?
Every point you listed actually happens to cisgender, straight women. Should all LGBT groups acomodate all cishet women?
Hello again anon!
I will address each of the points you have made, with some additional information at the end of this post.
I would also like to point out that ace/arophobia tends to go hand in hand with anti-trans/TERF discourse, so I would like anyone reading to please keep that in mind.
Now to address the points you made:
Asexual/Aromantic people do not have cisheteronormative identities as they do not conform to society's expectations on how people are 'supposed' to behave regarding sexual or romantic relationships. These expectations include but are not limited to: Being in a monogamous, heterosexual/heteroromantic relationship with a fellow cisgender person. This argument is also used against bisexual people who are 'straight-passing' individuals.
Asexual people receive medical interventions including conversion therapy to make them heterosexual. Please look up 'hyposexual sexual desire disorder' as an example of anti-asexual medical maltreatment. Coercing an asexual person into having sex to 'cure' their asexuality is a form of corrective rape AND conversion therapy. The asexual community is a part of the LGBTQIA+ community and this has been the case forever. If an asexual person is seeking comfort or resources from other queers, such as myself, I will do what I can to help them.
I do not know if religious trauma groups explicitly exclude asexual individuals, so I cannot answer this. Pushing asexuals to only interact with other asexuals in regards to their problems, is actually a form of marginalization, which is in fact a form of oppression.
The love and support of the LGBTQIA+ community, as well as community-wide solidarity, is, in fact, a 'resource'. The time that I am spending to respond to your ask, as opposed to uplifting aromantic men is in fact, the 'use of a resource'. Yes, emotional labor is a finite resource that I am currently using to address you.
I will not address this point, for obvious reasons.
To conclude, here is a list of resources specifically for asexual/aromantic individuals (note, this is just a short list, I will try to find more in the future):
AUREA - Resources (aromanticism.org)
Aro 101 and Resources – Aromantic Spectrum Awareness Week (arospecweek.org)
Understanding Asexuality | The Trevor Project
About AVEN | The Asexual Visibility and Education Network | asexuality.org
Understanding the Asexual Community - Human Rights Campaign (hrc.org)
Navigating LGBTQ Identities and Religion | The Trevor Project
Culturally Competent Psychotherapy for the Asexual Community | Society for the Advancement of Psychotherapy (societyforpsychotherapy.org)
I would also like to mention that I do not interact with radfems, TERFs, or Gender Critical Feminists as stated in my pinned post, if this describes you anon, or any other readers, please move along. I will not address you.
I hope this was helpful!
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nillinlore · 1 month
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On Being T4T
Originally posted on February 20, 2024, to https://mxnillin.com/on-being-t4t/.
I’ve been seeing a lot of discussion lately in my various social circles about what it means to be t4t. If you’re unfamiliar with the term, t4t stands for “trans for trans,” which, as you can imagine, describes a trans person who is mostly, if not solely, interested in connections with other trans people. This of course includes nonbinary and gender nonconforming folks who are also into other trans, nonbinary and gender-nonconforming folks but tnbgnc4tnbgnc is kinda a lot, so, t4t it is.
But being t4t isn’t simply choosing to forge intimate relationships with other trans, nonbinary and gender nonconforming cuties. There’s more nuance to it than that for me.
Being t4t is actively rejecting the queerphobic and transphobic notions that trans and nonbinary people, and the relationships they forge with one another, are somehow unnatural.
Being t4t is celebrating my own revolutionary self-acceptance, transition and personal exploration outside of the confines of cisnormative and heteronormative assumptions about bodies and intimacy.
Being t4t is fucking loving nonconforming bodies regardless of what their transition looks like for them. And also really loving t dick, girl cock and bussy.
Being t4t is knowing that my partners and lovers aren’t going to make cisnormative assumptions about my intimacy needs, touch me in invalidating ways or use terminology that misgenders or invalidates how I experience myself.
Being t4t is staring shame, judgment, anger or violence for expressing my gender identity
Being t4t is challenging traditional gender roles and social norms with every kiss.
Being t4t is choosing self-acceptance, love and authenticity in radically queer and nonconforming ways.
Being t4t is cheering on my husband as he celebrates his changing voice, his growing dick and the gradual increase in his facial and body hair since starting testosterone. It’s re-learning how to give him pleasure, and relishing in the fact that I get to continuously explore that with him.
Being t4t is sitting on the couch with my trans partner, watching our favourite shows and looking at each other knowingly as the obviously queer coded egg does something that’s actually really gay.
Being t4t means feeling safe, seen and affirmed in every single interaction, knowing that I can be my authentic self without masking my queerness or neurodivergency.
At this juncture in my life I would not choose to pursue a relationship with a cishet person because I very rarely feel safe and respected by them as a disabled nonbinary queer. It is immensely important for me to enter into intimate connections with people who understand my experiences, respect who I am and whom I simply do not have to worry about misgendering me, deadnaming me, feeling ashamed of being with me or trying to control how I express myself.
So when I’m meeting somebody and really vibing with them, getting to know them, it becomes fairly obvious through those discussions who is trans, nonbinary or gendernonconforming, and honestly it’s absolutely 100% going to be those individuals who I put any effort of developing a bond with. Because they just get it.
If you liked this, you can read hundreds of more posts like it at https://mxnillin.com.
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warlenys · 8 months
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i feel like i’ve been boxed by the world into the version of womanhood that barbie portrayed. that every person that saw that movie now perceives my girlhood the way that barbie presented it. but like. weird barbie was ostracised and mocked and then, without reparations, forgave all these women just because they decide to include her in the version of womanhood she chose to escape from. is that what they want from me?? because sure the job she wants and gets is quirky. they don’t erase her weirdness. but have they instead considered that this singular idea of womanhood is not for every woman?? that one roof cannot provide for all?? do they realise that weirdness doesn’t need to be accepted and embraced to be valid??? and that often weirdness doesn’t fucking want that???? they acknowledged that women outside of that box exist with more knowledge than people in it. like she is the key to the escape. and she then gets boxed back into it. and of course many might want to be accepted into this kind of womanhood but i just don’t think i do. because barbie’s womanhood was completely devoid of queerness. and whilst obviously it couldn’t tell every story i don’t like that it thought it was. that it thought it was casting an umbrella over every single woman. i don’t like that all these cishet women have been given even more reason to be completely ignorant of queer women’s struggles. that men(!!) have been given reason to believe we’re all the same. that we can be weird but only when accepted by the women that branded us as that. that being gay doesn’t affect our relationships with gender at all. that we just want to be accepted by cishet women into their cishet bubble of womanhood even after they’ve made no fucking attempt to understand that queer women might have a different experience of womanhood than they do. i don’t actually hate the movie. but i do think i hate what it has made me feel. i don’t like that a film so popular and successful has condensed womanhood into something that i didn’t feel represented by at all. it’s made me feel the way that “girls and gays” makes me feel. i am both of those things but when i hear that phrase i feel like neither. i don’t wanna be a fucking barbie. i wanted kate mckinnon to scissor someone.
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I truly think it would solve so many problems with intra-community bigotry and even just community infighting as a whole, if people could learn how to unpack their own personal traumas and insecurities around their gender/sexuality/life in general without projecting it constantly and obviously onto other people instead of purely blaming the people who yknow. Actually hurt you.
Like, you see this all the time where people have understandable and legitimate issues but they see other queer people whose lives and choices remind them of the things they feel inadequate or insecure about. That's entirely normal, and human and to some degree inevitable, and not what I'm criticizing. You can't help your initial knee jerk feelings, all you can do is learn to work through them and eventually hopefully heal and learn how to manage them in the meantime.
Where it becomes a problem is when people have no self-awareness about this at all or when they take these feelings as fact every single time and make other queer people responsible for their own trauma. Like, you see it all the time with...just to name a few examples:
Bisexual women who end up in long term relationships with men being treated as like. Just Barsexual or see people expressing angst about Becoming Them. And like...I get where it's coming from, bisexuality is constantly erased so especially if you're a woman in a relationship with a man. Being with the right man who'll Fix You is something dangled over every queer woman's head, it's what society expects us all to do, so I can see why people would think "we need to prove them wrong" and also be rightly afraid of the prospect for themselves being essentially quietly repeatedly pushed out of the queer community. But...that's not the problem of random bisexuals. And repeatedly apologizing for your attraction to men and making ball and chain jokes is not gonna fix the issue. The whole problem is bi people's personal lives being forever treated as a political statement or a pledge of loyalty in an eternal stupid, regressive on multiple levels Battle of the Sexes instead of...just their personal lives, right? They're not responsible for society's bi erasure.
Flamboyant or "feminine" gay men are not the reason the guys who picked on you because they guessed you were gay despite your masculinity picked on you. They didn't invent stereotypes, they're just trying to live their lives, and there's nothing wrong with being a "stereotypical" gay man anyway. Your own internalized shame and rightful annoyance at being stereotyped is not an excuse to shit on other people for something harmless. Same with feminine queer women and butches. Like...yes, we've all been terrorized with the Mannish (and therefore Ugly) dyke stereotypes but maybe the problem is equating gender nonconformity with ugliness and violence and lack of worth??? And cishet people's willingness, again, to stereotype??? Shitting on butch women is not going to fix society, it won't go back in time and undo your own personal anguish. They are not responsible. They're just trying to express themselves the way that best fits them.
And on the even more extreme and inexcusable end:
I see the same impulse in a vocal minority of lesbian terfs (a lot of the people who clain the loudest to be Lesbian Allies...aren't lesbians lol, hi JoRo 🙃🖕🖕🖕🖕) making it out like there's an Epidemic of all these lesbians who are being Brainwashed by Self Hatred, Misogyny and Lesbophobia into wanting to be men rather than be lesbians. One of the most memorable examples being, the reaction by some to Elliot Page's second coming out.
Of course, this kind of overlooks...a million fucking things, like how just as many trans men if not more, do not in fact follow this narrative because they did not identify as lesbians before their transition and came out as gay/bisexual trans men instead...or the fact that you have to be seriously disengenous or just. Not Live on Earth to actually say that trans people of ANY stripe including transmascs, as a group somehow have it BETTER than cis people even cis women and face less discrimination...or that for every "lesbian" who later came out as a straight trans dude/nonbinary transmasc like Elliot, there are a thousand cis lesbians still out here around the world *waves* hiiii...
I honestly think the biggest issue out of all of it, because these facts don't seem to MATTER to these loud online terfy lesbians, ia that these people are fundamentally just. Making the world about them. They're projecting their ideas and experiences onto everyone else. Elliot Page isn't just a thirty-something adult with his own opinions and feelings and thoughts and life experiences separate from these people, who should be deemed the #1 expert on their own body and life and what decisions to make about it. Not to these people, to them he's an expression of...the trauma they've faced in THEIR lives living as lesbians, as women, and a tragic story about how Sexism and Homophobia Wins Again. He's a cautionary tale to them, not...a person. So Elliot Page's actual happiness and well-being, or simply their own opinions and words about their life, and their motivations...don't really matter to these women, because their own grasp of their own identities depends on other people doing what they think should be done, and staying Loyal to a label for life. And someone choosing to leave that identity behind triggers those old insecurities that they've repeatedly refused to find a better way of dealing with. Their sense of self is THAT fragile. Which is sad...but obviously doesn't excuse their alignment with a goddamn hate movement whose rhetoric has only grown more violent in the last few years.
Idk, I just think so much pain and harassment and...bullshit would be better if we could all actually learn, repeatedly, through mental habits and patience and therapy and growth etc etc...to see other people AS PEOPLE in their own right without being reflections on us.
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ghostsontelevision · 3 months
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sorry the gaylor stuff is fascinating to me so i wrote a whole damn essay abt it under the cut
something i find personally really interesting about gaylor stuff is like - i see the sentiment expressed often in gaylor circles that taylor swift's queerness needs to exist to justify her art. like, if taylor swift isn't queer, why does she write so much about hidden romances? about feeling like she needs to protect her lover from the public? how come she writes about these big dramatic whirlwind affairs when in real life she just dates boring white guys?
there's a few answers:
writing about normal dating stuff isn't as fun as writing about big dramatic whirlwind affairs. yes, love can be stored in going to the grocery store together and cuddling and movie nights - but it's hard to get multiple albums worth of material out of the bliss of domestic mundanity
she is a woman in the public eye. her dating life has been heavily scrutinized by a million strangers since she was sixteen. publicly being seen with someone is in fact a big thing for her, even though she is a cishet white woman who historically has only dated cishet white guys
as much as she hypes up her work as autobiographical - she is capable of writing fiction and has done so before. to assume that every song is ripped straight from her diary seems like it's discrediting her own creativity (and, see point one)
and i think its fair to say that these themes she returns to of forbidden love and having to hide your feelings can absolutely resonate with queer audiences. yeah, i do think a lot of her songs probably hit harder if you imagine they're about a queer person. but relatability and identity are not the same thing, and i think it's important to both not assume that everyone with x identity has experienced y, but also to not assume that experiencing y means someone must have x identity.
however, there's another layer to this. if i were to tell a straight girl about my personal experiences with homophobia, and she responded by saying "i absolutely understand - my dad wouldn't let me date anyone until i was eighteen, i had to sneak boys in and out of the house" - i would understand this as well intentioned, but i might feel slighted or misunderstood by the fact that she considered society-wide discrimination equivalent to having to worry about getting in a fight with her dad. similarly, i've seen many gaylors express that taylor being an ally would make her absolutely unpalatable to them - if she's straight, that means she centered herself every time she talked about lgbt activism despite being heterosexual, that means all the lyrics about hidden relationships are actually about her public boring white boyfriends, that means she didn't ramp up her gay activism because she was planning on coming out and she just did it to promote her new album, that means there really aren't any more secrets to decode and she might actually be dating a football player. for a lot of gaylors, the gay subtext is in fact the entire reason they like taylor swift, and if she's a heterosexual woman, that means they have to find a new favorite artist
in case it's unclear: this is an outsiders perspective. i find gaylor stuff interesting in the same way i find paul is dead stuff interesting - the concept of this long running conspiracy theory surrounding celebrities is really fun for me. paul mccartney is alive, though, and taylor swift is, at least to my knowledge, heterosexual. i'm actually not really a taylor swift fan - i won't change the station if she comes on the radio, but i'm only familiar with her hits and also steadfastly believe that her being gay wouldn't outweigh the damage her jet has done to the environment. i don't have any investment in taylor's sexuality at all - if she's been secretly dating whatever woman she was most recently photographed with, ok cool. if she's actually for reals dating the football guy - cool. but i think a lot of gaylor stuff leans on starting from the assumption that she's queer and works back from that, which makes for poor theorycrafting. additionally, i think it's fuckin goofy to pretend the biggest pop star in the world would face career-ruining backlash for being gay, especially when she's made her stance on gay rights known. i can't imagine someone going "i thought the gay rights song was good and tasteful but knowing she herself is queer has ruined her for me". if she could come back from the kanye scandal, the jet thing, the dating a right-wing asshole thing - she will literally be fine, and to pretend otherwise is to ignore the plethora of other queer pop stars who are far less famous than her and still maintained their careers.
however, i do find that theory that she and harry styles committed vehicular manslaughter and had it covered up pretty funny. i will incorporate that one into my belief system.
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ame-sea · 7 months
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blorbo bingo! sweden and finland!
SWEDEN
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let me tell u for a very long time i was like "yeah he's okay i like him" but this year i have been especially in love with him. thinking about him makes me feel so comfortable about my own socially awkward behaviors and also helps process masculinity as something more soft and gentle than most men in media. super awesome guy to look to as i grow up and get older and need to conceptualize what i want to be as an adult.
i appreciate more recent fanon iterations of him so much. i think now that we're all growing out of our 13 year old twink yaoi fujoshi phases, we're all exploring what it really means to look and act like a grown ass man LOL. i think he really truly fell victim to the "here's our gaybies" back in the day and, also because the nordics are so minor, he's been so void of personality in fanon works. like he's always just kinda There. always around do be The Guy Seen With Finland.
but he's got so much personality behind that stern-seeming face. like, man, he's just got autism guys he cant mask to save his life. im excited to share the version of him in my head with everyone because he's so interesting, and has so much going on in that little head of his, so much in that lil heart too. im so glad everyone else is coming around to it as well. i hope those of us around continue to do him justice and rectify the sins of our past.
FINLAND
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it is not that i dont give a shit abt aph finland but i think nobody does him right, not now and not ever before, and ive not done much thinking about who i wish he was. i think he is Fine in canon, but just a little bit boring. i wish he was a bit more standoffish, had a bit more of an edge to him. he's been so yaoified so feminized and while neither being gay or feminine are bad, i think it has really come at the expense of who he Is as a character and as a Person, and also as a representative of a culture!
he also tends to be relegated to housewife and it drives me crazy genuinely. stay at home dads are awesome but not when it's bc kids feel the desperate need to make a gay relationship look like traditional straight relationships in media.
for both of these guys, i just wish they were more complex on their own, and not viewed solely as extensions of each other.
their relationship is super awesome though they are endgame fr. their banter, the quiet domestic love, soft glances and knowing so well how each other communicates.
i think i also hate the sufin + sealand household dynamic everyone has created. and i have to preface this by saying the basis of every fic i have ever built or planned or written or fantasized about has been about them. like okay. i just think. they would not be traditional parents. they are so uncle core. casual friendly hands off uncles. sea is like the neighbor's kid that comes over every night for dinner bc his parents work graveyard shifts and he always forgets his front door key at home, and while you're not ready to be a parent, you help him with his homework and make sure he eats his dinner and teach him how to swear in languages his parents dont understand. (also sufin + sealand has a chronic lack of ladonia which is so very upsetting! they would be so funny forced to be in the same house so often.) sufin (and the nordics as a whole) is so build a relationship from the ground up vibes, and their sense of family is absolutely about building a space with those around them. found families not by chance but by forging deep relationships and care for each other over time.
i think the need for sufin to be so 'traditional white cishet american parents' core stems a lot from general ignorance and homophobia that stained fandom culture for so very long (and honestly still does) and it pisses me off to no end. i demand so much justice for them.
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bougiebutchbitch · 2 years
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I love kakagai, I think it's the ship that makes sense the most but what I dislike is how kakagai shippers saying it's canon, kakaobi shippers saying it's canon, kakairu shippers saying it's canon, hell even kakasaku and kakanaru shippers are claiming it's canon too just because Kakashi cared about them ಠ益ಠ Does canon mean that I like it so everyone else has to like it too now? It's infuriating to me that everyone likes to sexualize every beautiful relationship in Naruto then claim it's canon
okayyyyy I think you might need to take a step back, nonnie.
Is this really such a big issue? Are people attacking you personally, or are they just stating their personal interpretations of canon, and because they don't align with your own, you're getting upset and coming into people's inboxes to try and make it an argument?
Basic rule of Tumblr: if people say what you don't like... block them. Don't react. Don't come into people's inboxes, don't post hate in the tags where fans will see it.
By all means, share your negative opinions! Your tumblr blog is your own. But you need to take measures to ensure the fans won't see it, otherwise you're not venting. You're trying to start a fight.
And come off anon so I can block you properly lmao
Look, people have different interpretations of 'canon'. Just because, for all we know, Kishimoto intended every single character except the creepy pedo-coded villain to be read as cishet, it doesn't mean there isn't canon subtext, however unintentional, that people can pick up on and adore.
Sure, the canon content can be read completely as platonic. But honestly, I'm a little weirded out at how you seem to think that seeing hints of a romantic relationship in canon between men in a children's show is ‘sexualisation’.
Where might that train of thought be coming from??? HMMMM I WONDER. :stares at the Don’t Say Gay bill, and every other argument that queer content is somehow inherently sexual:
Obviously, I'm not a fan of teacher/student ships. At the end of the day, I'm a firm believer in 'everyone can write what they want so long as they tag it properly so I can avoid it'. But seeing an adult and a child who are very close, and perceiving them as 'romantically involved', is a WHOLE lot different from seeing two adult male characters and thinking 'oh I can see a canon subtextual romantic relationship here'.
I don't really think they should be compared like this. I'm sure this wasn't your intention, but it kinda makes it sound like you're putting them on a moral playing field, which... no. :/
Of course, I may be being uncharitable. I admit that this whole issue might just be a muddle of terms. I and a lot of people use 'canon' to mean 'content in the source material'. This is different from 'Word of God', which means 'word of the author'. The two do not always align. However, if you see 'canon' as meaning 'both the source material and Word of God in combination', I can see that you might be upset that people are going against Kishimoto's personal views. I still don't think this is an excuse for actually bothering shippers about this, but I can understand it.
But the point remains: I haven't seen anyone say 'this is a canon ship and therefore you have to ship it'. Why would they? Everyone knows that shipping doesn't 'have' to follow canon anyway. A canon ship is of no greater or lesser worth than a non-canon one.
If people are implying otherwise, they're asses - but in that case, why come for the entire kakagai fandom, rather than just blocking those Schrodinger's Assholes who I've never had the misfortune to meet?
I just. I cannot see how people interpreting a romantic element in a canonically close relationship that is only assumed to be platonic because the couple is m/m rather than m/f is hurting you, anon. And it definitely doesn’t justify harrassment, which is what my original post was about.
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inmyarmswrappedin · 2 years
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Yeah because systemic oppression of queer communities for millennia means it’s understandable when members of those communities sometimes act out/react badly. Mailin has every privilege in the bag so of course flaws aren’t so easily forgiven
Hi anon! 🧇 Ngl I thought this ask was going to go in a different direction, one that was going to make me complain a lot more lmao.
I was talking about badly written seasons specifically. I'm not talking about queer characters (or any kind of minority characters actually) behaving badly. I love Isak and he was an asshole to like 95% of people he came across. Cris was also an asshole. Kieu My was a bystander to bullying and pulled some dick moves in s5 and s6. I hate to even put Ava in this paragraph, but when she had a personality, she didn't just exist to be Mailin's hypewoman, she had her own motives and pain that meant she didn't say "you go gurl!" to every stunt Mailin pulled. Lol of course members of oppressed communities aren't always precious angels, but we as a fandom give wayyyyyyyyy more leeway to white/light-skinned queer characters than we give cishet (or otherwise) characters of color.
We also give more leeway as a fandom to ASSUMED queer white characters, as we saw during s6 when the Druck social media team had to DEFEND Ava in youtube comments because commenters were massively siding with Mailin. And it wasn't just on youtube. Here on tumblr many people gave Mailin every benefit of the doubt even when Druck kept showing that she was more focused on coming across as the wokest person in the room, than on actually being a good friend to Ava and Fatou. And that was because even in s6, Mailin was assumed ace or sapphic or both. Same with pretty much every Sana/Vilde conflict. Vilde and remakes were given a lot of leeway because people thought she was sapphic. (And to be clear, I think a queer reading of Vilde makes a lot of sense. I'm not saying people are wrong for thinking Vilde is gay. I'm saying that because we/people think Vilde is gay, Vilde enjoyed a loyal fandom who defended her in fandom discourse.)
So if I'm fine with some queer characters behaving badly, why am I not okay with baby Robbe and Isi and whoever else? Well, because they're fictional characters first of all. Ideally, the character arc of a Skams main will be about ("you know what that is?") GROWTH. Isak was taken to task for pretty much every shitty thing he did, and eventually he learns to be more patient and generous (in his season anyway lol, s4 is a bit more complicated) as shown in week 10 when he's a completely different person to Vilde, and lets bygones be bygones with Emma. Likewise Cris was slapped across the face with the consequences of her actions until she made more efforts to understand the people around her and focused on giving them what they needed. Nora G realized that she'd been going through life thinking she had it all figured out, when abusive relationships are more complex than she thought looking at them from the outside. I do not think Robbe was given a character arc that addressed the bits the writers decided to add for funsies, like accusing Sander of abuse or the hate crime. Isi's redemption arc after bullying their childhood friend is, lmao, nonexistent. The love story with Sascha is perfunctory, Sascha and Lou were included because the season had too many poc as leading characters, and Sascha really only exists to make sad faces when Isi once again mistreats him. Then they're given a happy ending as well as the compulsory sex scene.
So you said Mailin's flaws aren't so easily forgiven, and I will say, depends on the viewer. If Mailin has every privilege in the bag, then Sporty Spice has one more. And yet I had to see on the tag a post about how op actually prefers Sporty to Mailin and thinks he's a more compelling character and his season would've been better. The thing is though, with this writing, Sporty would've been just as flat of a character and any storylines just as "how do you do fellow kids". But people like op would've loved it anyway because the actor is so cute. And there are plenty of people (see: youtube commenters circa s6) who still think Mailin is fucking great and think those that attack her are misogynists and "reverse racists" and "fake woke" and "looking for something to hate".
My conclusion being that of the post I already made. Eva Mohn also had pretty much every privilege in the bag, but her season was well written, her character arc made sense, her flaws were addressed, and the character (and by extension, the teens who Eva represented) were validated wherever she was right. And if Druck absolutely had to rob Ava of her well deserved season, the least they could've done was deliver a good Mailin season. And they didn't.
Edit: Also like I said on the tags to a reblog, I don't even place most of the blame on the writers. Q3 were also criticized for a bunch of issues in s3 and s4, but they decided to get educated, invite a diverse film's collective (Jünglinge) onboard and try to improve. And they weren't given the chance to complete this gen as they envisioned. If this bunch of writers, who are after all inexperienced, decide to improve and incorporate fan feedback, ZDF will likely get rid of them too. The problem is ZDF, and the writers are perhaps even more expendable than the cast at this point.
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antbitez · 22 hours
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i hate berlermo.
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okay, HEAR ME OUT FIRST!! do i hate the ship? yes. absolutely. does that stop me thinking about them every second of the day? no. i am in so much pain help me.
want to start with talking about berlin. he is a straight man. martín was NOT his bisexual awakening or something. he. is. a. straight. man. they could not work and berlin made that very clear on multiple occassions. he is also an egomaniac. he has so many disorders, and while i dont want to portray him as some heartless monster (because he isn't!! he cares about himself but that doesn't mean he doesnt care about others too!), i find it hard to believe he didn't keep palermo around to mess with him.
the kiss scene between andrés and martín is the root of a large majority of martíns issues. we see throughout the series that palermo is withdraw from his emotions and love, he has attatchment issues, and he has not moved on from berlin even two years later. he hasnt let himself recover from his death, and his loss of a hopeless, unobtainable love. when berlin kissed him, they both knew that would be the last they saw of eachother. they both knew berlin was willing to let himself die (both because of his illness and his love for his brother) during the heist. it left palermo with false hope, that maybe something could have come from it. but there never could have! that is their last interaction, and that is the last thought he leaves with martín. i wholly believe berlin was fully aware what that would do to him, and left with that as a little "you won't be forgetting me :)" because everything with berlin is Him Him Him. without the kiss, martín would have been able to heal so much quicker and easier.
palermo doesn't start to heal until two years later, when he gets involved in the bank heist. up until that point he blames sergio for the "love of his life"s death, but slowly comes to realise that this group of people that berlin died for are the most caring people. he begins to understand it. they are hurt, they have losed loved ones too, they are risking everything for a loved one. they are so much like him. does he make mistakes? YES! so does everyone in the group, but it is in his nature to stir trouble when he doesn't get his way. did his actions have awful consequences because of that? unfortunately, yes! but he regrets them. he is forgiven, even by those he probably shouldn't be forgiven by!
by the end martín is so much more in touch with his emotions, he realises that he doesnt have to settle for unobtainable love, and he can be loved unconditionally. he went into the bank heist for berlin, but came out of it with so much more. palermo would not have been in the place he was in by the end of it if andrés was still around.
money heist was so refreshing to watch as a queer person. queer relationships were not perfect. i understand the appeal of berlermo, i really do, but they are so unhealthy. i understand the need to cling onto any sort of gay rep because its so scarse in mainstream media, but there is so many queer stories in this show, and none of them are appreciated as much as berlermo, which i find kinda weird!! why is a relationship with a gay man and a straight man more adored than helsinki and palermo? two gay men who helped eachother through SO MUCH! what about the beautiful platonic soulmate relationship between helsinki and nairobi? what about the amazing transwoman, who was such a genuine representation of some trans struggles? please stop prioritising the cishet in queer stories. berlin is so important to so many characters, especially martín, but him as a love interest to martín shouldn't be the main focus in his story, because his whole arc was getting over him and moving on. in reality, he made martín the most unhappiest he had ever been.
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twen-nee6 · 2 months
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i’m exhausted, hello diary blog.
i broke up with my cishet male partner the first week of january, fulfilling my joking resolution of no more sex with cis het men. he was lying to me for who knows how long about where he was, and has since sent me pictures every single day … and his family members have been more active on facebook as well, apparently now unburdened by me not knowing where he was. really fucking cool.
that was a seven-year relationship.
my best friend of sixteen years stepped in after when i said i wasn’t sure what i was going to do, since i need some kind of structure imposed by another person in order to function and not go out and do stupid shit. i joked i was only staying with my ex for so long because i’d go feral otherwise. it wasn’t really a joke. i harbored internalized issues with that relationship for a long time, but i still hold no ill will to my ex. we are friends. i love him very much still as my friend. (perhaps i am too forgiving.)
regardless, my best friend stepped in and offered that structure. we were queerplatonic partners to some extent for years before this, but we operated under the fact that my ex would not allow them into our relationship due to him, once again, being straight (of course cishet men often disregard AFAB NB people’s gender in their sexuality, my friend being transfemme in many ways was still unacceptable to him); regardless, we had shared finances and an unbreakable bond. we’ve talked daily longer than our youngest siblings have been alive.
understandably, i was unwell so i was quite quiet with friends who are not as close. my friend, who i’ll just name as ellie here so it’s easier for me to talk this way, is my family and was my partner in many ways that my ex was not. of course i spoke with them. they are my best friend!
apparently, though, i needed to be more clear to people about my fucking exclusions list. apparently, i was supposed to say, “hey, sorry, i’m not feeling well and may not be talking much to anyone but my mom and my best friend okay?”
is this not implicit? for fucks sake, the people i’m about to get into are older than me. one is almost forty. why are we acting like this is middle school? the fuck is wrong with you people?
but, i’m getting ahead of myself …
over the time that ellie and i worked within a new dynamic, it became clear that we needed to formally state ourselves as partners. not due to romantic attraction (we are both aro), but because it was obvious we would be operating as a “couple” going forward. note: we are not monogamous, but are the stereotypical transish queer people who would be in a communal polycule of gay.
this was good and helpful and they have been absolutely amazing! i love them so much <3 and through their help, i have been able to slowly start reaching out again.
let’s start with subject one: the “convention guy” (CG).
i met cg at a mlp convention. he is pleasant and very nice! but very into me. which is okay, i am always very forward about being poly and being comfortable with casual sex outside of that. when we met, he knew i was in a long-term, committed relationship (i generally referred to my ex as my fiance), and this was fine. at the airport, i gave him a poker chip that said “1 fuck” on it as a joke and to signal that I wouldn’t mind a bang session. i thought i made it very clear i wasn’t interested in a relationship with him outside of being friends and fucking occasionally. apparently not.
he reached out to me and has been very kind as i’ve been struggling. i cannot overstate enough that his part of this hurts me more than the other person’s, because i value him as a friend and he is genuinely such a kind person. but he was really confrontational a couple days ago when i told him ellie and i are more formally dating. he seemed angry! he demanded to know why i talked to ellie instead of him… i’ve known him for less than six months. he was clearly upset i wasn’t talking to him.
i apologized and said it wasn’t personal, that ellie has been my friend for almost twenty years, but apparently this didn’t matter. he was upset. i feel so bad. i do. i feel like i have fucked up as a person, sent mixed signals, got his hopes up… i… i hate this. i feel like i could have lost a friend. it hurts.
but also the audacity. the audacity to think he is on the same level of someone that is family to me? he doesn’t know me. he doesn’t know half of what is wrong with me. i keep so much of myself hidden because it’s nasty and hard to deal with — ellie has seen it. my ex has seen it, and i even was talking to him during this period which set CG off. he isn’t entitled to my time or my attention, and he has scared me from being open with people with this behavior. it hurts.
the other person is a guy i met off whisper, and i’ll just call him W.
W & i met shortly after CG and i met. we’ve never met in person like CG and me. W & i had a purely sexual relationship through shared kinks, etc., but we didn’t talk normally all that much. at the time i met him, he knew i wasn’t single. he talked to me three times before the end of the year, then started talking to me more and more after i told him i broke up with my ex.
he’s an interesting person. broken in many ways, but i think he’s cool. i never insinuated that i was interested in a long-term relationship, especially since he’s monogamous. we talked about a sex holiday, though. god forbid i talk about fucking people, i guess.
he’s cut all contact and said it was because i was in a relationship and clearly didn’t want to talk to him. i explained it wasn’t personal, i just didn’t know him that well (and, seriously, we barely talked for months) and that i really wasn’t talking to anyone much. much like CG, he got mad because i was talking to ellie and not him. clearly that meant i wanted nothing to do with him.
i told him i understood and respected him cutting contact, but explained that i did want to talk to him and had been, in fact, talking to him more than some other people. i just still wasn’t feeling well, it wasn’t personal, and that i wanted him to understand that.
i feel so horrible that my lack of contact has clearly hurt people. i never want to hurt anyone.
at the same time, it feels like these two have just been trying to talk to me to be in a relationship with them. it feels predatory. and the fact they both thought they were owed my time during one of the hardest things i’ve gone through as an adult? are you fucking kidding me?
i just want friends. just friends. please.
i’m not sorry i’m a slut. i just need to figure out how the fuck to get it through people’s skulls that sex doesn’t mean anything of importance to me, and if it is something important to them, then don’t fuck me? isn’t it that simple? don’t fuck your friends you don’t want to fuck?? don’t just get involved with someone because you want to fuck? this isn’t rocket science. it still feels like my fault, and i’m still so guilty and hurt that i apparently hurt others.
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I think--and this is kind of complicated but try to bear with me, I'm not super great with words + English is not my first language--when discussing on Tumblr, we are discussing in a primarily transgender space, and so it's generally accepted that there is no "trait" of being a man. Being a man isn't really a class of people, it's more of a private way of seeing yourself. This is different from cis spaces, where there is an inherent "trait" of being a man, or rather, lots of inherent "traits." Including having a certain body, looking a certain way, using the pronouns he/him, having a certain relationship to women, et cetera.
So, you have this group of people who are focused on analyzing the patriarchy apart from gender, because men in transgender spaces typically experience what mainstream gender politics call "female" oppression. As in, they experience sexual harassment and assault every day, need access to abortion and fear pregnancy, are subject of violence at work and school, barred from school and not hired based on misogyny, et cetera. Many of them even use she/her pronouns, keep traits that mainstream gender politics consider "female" like by not ever going on testosterone, et cetera. And they are very concerned with framing those as male experiences, because they are men and not "less male" based on their bodies or violecne they face.
So there's a very strong contingent on Tumblr to discuss the patriarchy, not as every individual man having male privielge, but as every individual cis men having cis male privilege, because the idea that there is a "male experience" that is about not experiencing misogyny means that trans men are "less" men for it. Or that they are a "different kind" of man than cis men. Which I beleive is why there is pushback to the idea that trans men oppress trans women, because trans men tend to experience the violence described above. So trans men and trans women both face the same kind of misogyny in many ways, so the idea that either of them oppress the other based on misogyny is not something many Tumblr gender discussions will allow.
Here's the thing though, I do Not believe that trans men oppress trans women. I realise someone mentioned that in a post i reblogged but i added in the tags that I do not agree with that part of it. And as a genderfluid person who is affected by misogyny I also get that trans men are not an oppressive class, you're quite right there.
However I am increasingly seeing posts talking about cis men, they specificy, as also not having male privilege because male privilege isn't a thing. It's the "Patriarchy is responsible for this, cis men aren't" argument that bothers me a lot. Yes this is predominantly a trans space. But we can't warp our ideas of gender politics so much so that we forget the very real oppression cis men regularly enact upon women and trans + intersex people of all kind. Trans men are oppressed in the same gendered politics. Cishet men oppress women - cishet men and women also oppress gay men - cishet men and women also oppress trans people. It's quite as simple as that. But because, like you said, this understanding of power dynamics is being seen as othering trans men, queer people have gotten way more comfortable just dismissing cis men as an oppressor class completely by claiming that cis men lose their privileges when they aren't manly enough (which, as i explained, happens in ALL systems of oppression). I do not agree with that because cis men very very clearly still enact and uphold patriarchy and patriarchal laws that hurt women. There is a very real quantifiable harm that cis men do in this and are complicit in, even if not every cis man will be wilfully misogynistic.
The knee-jerk reaction to women talking about being oppressed needs to stop just because some men who are oppressed in other ways (poc, trans , gay, etc) get uncomfortable about it being worded that way. (Before tumblr's reading comprehension strikes again, i say some men not because the number of oppressed men is less but because most men oppressed by some other axis understand this nuance and aren't discomforted by these discussions and don't feel the need to say "Not all men")
Tumblr has a dominantly trans userbase. It also has a dominantly Western userbase. And this userbase often likes to act like "women getting raped for simply because men feel entitled to them" is a thing of the past, amongst other arguments I've heard, and use that understanding to argue that cis men cannot be oppressors. When indeed they very actively are
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colorisbyshe · 3 years
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I hate every single person who dragged this horse carcass back into my ask box, just begging me to beat it but here we fucking go.
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I think the thing that aggravates me soooo much about a lot of ace rhetoric and ace terminology is the fact that 90% boils down to “different than the norm” and no one fucking knows what the norm is. Unlike concrete identities like gay, straight, bisexual, and trans, it’s just completely abstract and relative.
It’s an ace spectrum so it’s less sexual attraction than normal. Queerplatonic relationships are platonic relationships that are stronger or stranger than normal. Oh, we’re ace and we want to fuck but it’s different than normal, we’re aro and we want to date but it’s different than normal.
What the fuck is normal?
Aces and aros clearly do not know. They cry “amatonormativity” where romance and sex is the norm, ignoring the fact that society does not want or normalize gay love. It is not accepting of women owning sexual desire and acting on it. It doesn’t want interracial couples to fall in love or for disabled people to be openly sexual. It doesn’t think trans people should be raising kids in the nuclear family or that they can even be part of the nuclear family. Amatonormativity is not real.
There is no normal. There is no running average of sexual attraction or romantic attraction. There is no “typical” romantic relationship. No one is meeting a sexual ideal. There is no framework of “asexual but can fuck and suck and even feel sexual attraction sometimes” that makes those people oppressed but makes those who feel sexual attraction but don’t ever want to have sex or are incapable of sex oppressors. A gay person who feels sexual desire does not have social leverage over a straight person who doesn’t... or even over another gay person who doesn’t.
There are INFINITE variables sex and romance that COMPLETELY change their social context. Who is feeling it, who they are feeling it for, how they are feeling it, how they intend to act on it, IF they intend to act on it, how often they feel it, when they feel it, WHY they feel it, and how it is received changes ALL of that.
There is no normal. A cishet demisexual can recreate the nuclear family and uphold “amatonormativity” while a nonbinary bisexual girl can choose to never date or have sex and... suffer no consequences because no one fucking cares if she’s dating or not. No one cares.
A cishet man who wants to fuck women but not date them isn’t defying any norms. He’s not special for not wanting commitment or not being able to feel “romantic desire” which is a complete abstract.
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LGBT identities do not exist in contrast to the norm. They exist in contrast to oppressive social classes. They exist in an oppressed/oppressor system with fairly concrete definitions, even if someone may fluidly change identities with time and introspection.
A gay person isn’t someone who “feels gendered attraction outside the norm.” A bisexual person isn’t someone who “feels normal and abnormal attraction.”
And yet 90% of asexual identities, which claim to be a sexual orientation just the same as gay and bisexual, aren’t “does not feel sexual attraction” but rather “experiences sexual attraction but abnormally.” Less than normal. Needs more emotional connection than normal. Feels a normal amount but wants to act on it less than normal.
We get it, Jughead. You’re a fucking weirdo.
But you’re not oppressed for it. Nor do you understand what normal is.
None of you know what normal society is. You don’t leave your house so you compare your life to television shows and fanfic and create an identity out of your life not matching those you see on the screen.
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firelxdykatara · 3 years
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I’m just really confused as to where this idea that Zuko is gaycoded came from. Like people are allowed to have that headcanon but I don’t understand where people are coming from when they try and claim that he was undisputedly gaycoded and trying to deny it is homophobic when he’s only ever shown romantic interest in women.
I made a pretty long post on the topic a while back, but the ultimate gist of it is this: there are a lot of elements of Zuko's status as an abuse victim and trauma survivor that resonate with queer folks. This is understandable and completely fine! However, there are some parts of the fandom who have taken that to the other extreme and will now insist that those elements are uniquely queer, and that they can only be read as some sort of veiled gay/coming out narrative, even though that doesn't make much sense since there is no part of Zuko's narrative which is unique to any sort of queer experience.
I think the problem really does stem from two things being conflated--Zuko's history of abuse and trauma, and trauma&abuse being something a lot of queer people have experienced. I suspect it goes something like 'I see a lot of myself in Zuko, and I was abused for being gay, therefore Zuko must be gay too in order to have had similar experiences.' This can then lead to feeling dismissed or invalidated when other people point out that those experiences are not unique to being queer--but on the flip side, abuse victims and trauma survivors whose abuse&trauma do not stem from queerness (even if they are queer themselves) can feel invalidated and dismissed by the implication that their trauma must be connected to their queerness or it isn't valid.
This is also where the 'people don't actually know what gay coded means' part comes in, and I realize now that I didn't actually get into what gay coding (and queer coding in general) actually means, since I was so hung up on pointing out how Zuko doesn't really fit the mold. (And the few elements that exist which could be said to count are because of the 'villains historically get queer coded bc Hays Code era' thing and mostly occur in Book 1, not because of how he acts as an abuse&trauma survivor.)
Under a cut because I kind of go on a tangent about gay/queer coding, but I swear I get back to the point eventually.
Queer coding (and it is notable that, with respect to Zuko, it is almost always framed as 'he couldn't possibly be attracted to girls', rather than 'he could be attracted to boys as well as girls' in these discussions, for... no real discernible reason, but I'll get into that in a bit) is the practice of giving characters 'stereotypically queer' traits and characteristics to 'slide them under the radar' in an era where having explicitly queer characters on screen was not allowed, unless they were evil or otherwise narratively punished for their queerness. (See: the extant history of villains being queer-coded, because if they were Evil then it was ok to make them 'look gay', since the story wasn't going to be rewarding their queerness and making audiences think it was in any way OK.) This is thanks to the Motion Picture Production Code (colloquially and more popularly known as the Hays Code), which was a set of guidelines which movies coming out of any major studio had to adhere to in order to be slated for public release and lasted from the early 1930s until it was finally abandoned in the late 60s.
The Hays Code essentially existed to ensure that the content of major motion pictures would not 'lower the moral standards' of the viewing public. It didn't just have to do with queerness--cursing was heavily monitored, sex outside of marriage was not allowed to be seen as desirable or tittilating, miscegenation was not allowed (most specifically interracial relationships between black and white people), criminals had to be punished lest the audience think that it was ok to be gay and do crime, etc. Since same-sex relations fell under 'sexual perversion', they could not be shown unless the 'perversion' were punished in some way. (This is also the origin of the Bury Your Gays trope, another term that is widely misunderstood and misapplied today.) To get around this, queer coding became the practice by which movies and television could depict queer people but not really, and it also became customary to give villains this coding even more overtly, since they would get punished by the end of the film or series anyway and there was nothing to lose by making them flamboyant and racy/overly sexual/promiscuous.
Over time, this practice of making villains flamboyant, sexually aggressive, &etc became somewhat separated from its origins in queer coding, by which I mean that these traits and tropes became the go-to for villains even when the creator had no real intention of making them seem queer. This is how you generally get unintentional queer-coding--because these traits that have been given to villains for decades have roots in coding, but people tend to go right to them when it comes to creating their villains without considering where they came from.
Even after the Hays Code was abandoned, the sentiments and practices remained. Having queer characters who weren't punished by the narrative for being queer was exceptionally rare, and it really isn't until the last fifteen or so years that we've seen any pushback against that. Buffy the Vampire Slayer is famous for being one of the first shows on primetime television to feature an explicitly gay relationship on-screen, and that relationship ended in one of the most painful instances of Bury Your Gays that I have ever personally witnessed. (Something that, fourteen years later, The 100 would visually and textually reference with Lexa's death. Getting hit by a bullet intended for someone else after a night of finally getting to be happy and have sex with her s/o? It wasn't remotely subtle. I don't even like Clexa, but that was incredibly rough to witness.)
However, bringing this back to Zuko, he really doesn't fit the criteria for queer coding for a number of reasons. First of all, no one behind the scenes (mostly a bunch of cishet men) was at all intending to include queer rep in the show. This wasn't a case where they were like 'well, we really wanted to make Zuko gay, but we couldn't get that past the censors, so here are a few winks and a nudge', because it just wasn't on their radar at all. Which makes sense--it wasn't on most radars in that era of children's programming. This isn't really an indictment, it's just a fact of the time--in the mid/late 00s, no one was really thinking about putting queer characters in children's cartoons. People were barely beginning to include them in more teen- and adult-oriented television and movies. It just wasn't something that a couple of straight men, who were creating a fantasy series aimed at young kids, were going to think about.
What few instances you can point to from the series where Zuko might be considered to exhibit coding largely happen in Book 1, when he was a villain, because the writers were drawing from typically villainous traits that had historically come from queer coding villains and had since passed into common usage as villainous traits. But they weren't done with any intention of making it seem like Zuko might be attracted to boys.
And, again, what people actually point to as 'evidence' of Zuko being queer-coded--his awkwardness on his date with Jin and his confrontation with Ozai being the big ones I can think of off the top of my head--are actually just... traits that come from his history of trauma and abuse.
As I said in that old post:
making [zuko’s confrontation of ozai] about zuko being gay and rejecting ozai’s homophobia, rather than zuko learning fundamental truths about the world and about his home and about how there was something deeply wrong with his nation that needed to be fixed in order for the world to heal (and, no, ‘homophobia’ is not the answer to ‘what is wrong with the fire nation’, i’m still fucking pissed at bryke about that), misses the entire point of his character arc. this is the culmination of zuko realizing that he should never have had to earn his father’s love, because that should have been unconditional from the start. this is zuko realizing that he was not at fault for his father’s abuse--that speaking out of turn in a war meeting in no way justified fighting a duel with a child.
is that first realization (that a parent’s love should be unconditional, and if it isn’t, then that is the parent’s fault and not the child’s) something that queer kids in homophobic households/families can relate to? of course it is. but it’s also something that every other abused kid, straight kids and even queer kids who were abused for other reasons before they even knew they were anything other than cishet, can relate to as well. in that respect, it is not a uniquely queer experience, nor is it a uniquely queer story, and zuko not being attracted to girls (which is what a lot of it seems to boil down to, at the end of the day--cutting down zuko’s potential ships so that only zukka and a few far more niche ships are left standing) is not necessary to his character arc. nor does it particularly make sense.
And, regarding his date with Jin:
(and before anyone brings up his date with jin--a) he enjoyed it when she kissed him, and b) he was a traumatized, abused child going out on a first date. of course he was fucking awkward. have you ever met a teenage boy????)
Zuko is socially awkward and maladjusted because he was abused by his father as a child and has trouble relating to people as a result. He was heavily traumatized and brutally physically injured as a teenager, and it took him years to begin to truly recover from the scars that left on his psyche (and it's highly likely, despite the strides he made in canon, that he has a long way to go, post series; it's such a pity that we never got any continuation comics >.>). He was not abused for being gay or queer--he was abused because his father believed he was weak, and part of Zuko's journey was realizing that his father's perception of strength was flawed at its core. That his entire nation had rotted from the inside out, and the regime needed to be changed in order for the world--including his people--to begin to heal.
That could be commingled with a coming out narrative, which is completely fine for headcanons (although I personally prefer not to, because, again, we have more than enough queer trauma already), but it simply doesn't exist in canon. Zuko was not abused or traumatized for being queer, and his confrontation with Ozai was not about him coming out or realizing any fundamental truth about himself--it was about realizing something fundamental about his father and his nation, and making the choice to leave them behind so that he could help the Avatar grow stronger and force things to change when he got back.
TL;DR: at the end of the day, none of the traits, scenes, or behavior Zuko exhibits which shippers tend to use to claim he was gay-coded are actually evidence of coding--they aren't uniquely queer experiences, as they stem from abuse that was not related in any way to his sexuality, and they are experiences that any kid who suffered similar abuse or trauma could recognize and resonate with. (Including straight kids, and queer kids who were abused for any reason other than their identity.) And, finally, Zuko can be queer without erasing or invalidating his canon attraction to girls, and it's endlessly frustrating that the 'Zuko is gay-coded' crowd refuses to acknowledge that.
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