nazaress:

discopolice:

aquadyne:

homofactory:

Why is it that the only people I see arguing about fetishization of homosexuality are straight girls? Ones who are embarrassed of their young teen years when they were all over yaoi as the best thing ever, and are now trying to assert themselves as superior to people in the Supernatural or Sherlock or Teen Wolf or whatever fandoms? I.E. people who aren’t speaking for themselves, but for others?

And the token guys in the debate… it’s usually only dudes who are really insecure to the point that they feel threatened in some way by 15-year-olds wanting two fictional guys to kiss. Which is mostly straight dudes who are fucking terrified of the idea of someone COMMANDING them to kiss another man because they’ve gone mad with power from Dean/Castiel.

Basically, this is a debate about gay things that’s entirely been taken over by straight people with way too many insecurities.

And I know that I don’t give a shit about people “fetishizing” homosexuality because wow, I’m a queer dude, and I’m mature enough to realize that someone wanting Sherlock and John to touch each others dicks has no fucking bearing on my life or my rights. And maybe it would do for people to listen and stop just coddling us and protecting us from everything in order to be ~good allies~. An ally isn’t a human shield who treats even the most minor aggravation as a hate crime. An ally is someone who stands by you.

hdu Sabriel is the ship of supreme power.

Not standing by a sweeping generalization that this debate is ALL straight people, but I agree that it seems pretty dang populated with ‘em.

it never ceases to amuse me when straight chicks talk about how awful slash is because uh

slash is a way to deal with my own sexuality, I like having it around, ain’t no straight chick who’s scared of being a ~*~yaoi fangirl~*~ gonna take that away from me?

I don’t entirely agree with all of this but I understand where you’re coming from. Even though the OP is a gay man, he does not speak for all gay men and so just because he doesn’t have a problem with the fetishization of homosexuality, that doesn’t mean it sits well with the entire community.

For example, as a queer woman, I have found that in my life, I usually cannot find support for my homosexuality unless it is from a man. And why do these men “support” my sexual orientation? Because they think it’s hot. They’d like to join. Or at least just watch. It feels awful having my sexual orientation reduced to a straight male’s fantasy. Even my ex-boyfriend was always pressuring me to do things with another woman (with or without him), even though I wanted a monogamous relationship.

It is NOT okay to treat someone like this, just because they have a sexual orientation that you find “arousing”. We are PEOPLE, not your PORN! Our relationships are our OWN, not YOURS! Now, this isn’t to say that I’m against yaoi, yuri, etc. I’m a huge fan of yuri myself. It’s a way for me to watch anime that has relationships in it that make me more comfortable than the usual heterosexual animes. Straight people can enjoy it, too! But you have to ask yourself WHY you enjoy it. If you like it because “hot yaoiz”, stop. Realize that gay people are PEOPLE and this is ridiculous. But if you like yaoi/yuri for more innocent reasons, then I totally respect that, just as you should respect real-life (and fictional, since it contributes to real-life) homosexual relationships.

EDIT: Upon further investigation of the notes on this post, I see that this issue has already been discussed and the OP was not necessarily referring to real-life but rather in fandoms only. I’m not entirely sure how I feel about this, then. I know one thing, though: Yaoi/yuri/gay couples in fiction should NOT be gotten rid of. Having no homosexual relationships is as harmful as having misrepresented ones (more or less). I do think, though, that fandoms should consider their actions. Shipping two clearly straight characters of the same gender together basically means that you see homosexuality as a commodity. You think it’s okay to ship them together, even if their sexual orientations clash, because it’s “hot”. But at the same time, gay relationships are rarely positively represented in the media and I can see why people might have to grasp straws when it comes to finding gay couples. I think there is no easy solution and I guess the best thing to do is this: If straight people are going to pair two characters of the same gender, know what you are doing. Being gay is not all about “hot yaoiz”, passionate kisses, and no one in the world hating you. Homosexuality is a sexual orientation just like any other, even heterosexuality, and so the fights that you have, we have. The sex that you have, we have. We’re more similar than you think but at the same time, there are special issues that gay people face and I think you should research these and talk to gay couples before you go spreading around your quite possibly misguided fanfiction. Don’t view gay people as a commodity. View them as people.

I think it is overestimated how much people in fandom treat gay folks as a commodity. More often than not, people ship straight characters in gay relationships because they have good chemistry, or because the canon relationships they’re in are uninteresting or poorly executed. It can be because they identify with the character in question and want to see them living out relationships and experiences the fan in question identifies with better- like being interested in a man. Reinterpreting a character as queer can add a new level of interesting characterization to them. Obviously, there are people who are only shipping characters because they look good together/they get off on the idea, but I’ve found that they’re a minority in comparison to those who ship for personal reasons or because they genuinely like the character chemistry.

And like I said in my other reblogs earlier, straight guys fetishizing queer women is a separate issue from this panic over yaoi fangirls. It’s an actual real-world issue that hurts women and the queer community, and I don’t want to diminish it by equating it to people who get off on the relationships of fictional men, let alone people who enjoy fictional gay relationships for reasons that are not fetishistic and get accused of being the former group.

(via fathairylesbian)