#thats a whole different conversation. im mostly talking about the way bi women and lesbians will turn on Each Other for this sort of thing

[ot3]

This is new sexier anon then the others and this is coming from a place of good faith, or at least what I consider good faith, but it feels like there is a dissonance between your hating people who call lesbians sapphic and being ok with lesbians being called bi or vice versa. Most of the reasoning I see behind don’t call lesbian character bi is that it’s seen as people thinking lesbian is a bad word, and again vice versa. (Sorry if this sent twice??)

well for starters i'm definitely speaking with a significant degree of hyperbole here and while someone calling a lesbian character 'sapphic' is something i personally hate sooo bad i wouldn't ever actually like. make any kind of stink out of it. i'm bitching on my blog because that's what i do here but at the end of the day everyones preferences for language are gonna be different and i do not actually wish ill will on anyone who has a differing opinion from me on the subject.

but for me it's kind of like i don't see these as equivalent things at all. when a lesbian or bi woman says they view a character as lesbian or bi. it speaks to me as interest in the specific experiences this character has with their sexuality, even if it's not what's 'canon'. bi and lesbians experiences are wayyy too similar and historically intertwined for us to pretend that they are fully discrete when appearing in fiction.

whereas calling something sapphic when the characters have explicitly stated orientations already feels to me like stepping away from anything specific so it can be dropped into the greater amorphous pool we call 'representation'. it feels almost like a rebranding of discussing sexuality in media using terminology that has as many corners filed off as possible. if the whole point of sapphic is to use as an umbrella term when using a specific identity label wouldn't be accurate or appropriate, then using it when something else would be accurate or appropriate feels like a copout to me.

#people who aren't gay women love to bend over backwards to explain why lesbian characters are actually interested in men but #thats a whole different conversation. im mostly talking about the way bi women and lesbians will turn on Each Other for this sort of thing #when our experiences are more shared than not #i dont think bi women who have bi readings of some fictional characters are avoiding Lesbianism #but i do think people who will ALWAYS use the word sapphic over calling anyone a lesbian maybe have to re-assess a bit #also once again i must stress #while i find the use of the term sapphic a bit eyerolly when it comes to discussing fiction #my main issue is i dont think its good for real people