#gay men don't want you to objectify them

[littledemon55]

"It's hurting trans eggs when you say something against fujoshis!!!1!1!!1!11! 😭😭😭"

As if Fujoshis weren't transphobic towards trans people (especially trans man, who they claim get hurt if you say something against rotten girls.) Like... Stop pretending your brain dead ass could accept a guy who is pre T.

We don't need the fetishization of mlm people to figure out who we are. 💀 There's a difference between simply liking mlm mangas, and thinking it's sinful when two men make out and having to make it your entire personality!

-sincerely, a trans guy.

[tocomplainfriend]

SEE!? THEY DON'T CARE!

TW: Rape, SA, Homophobia, Misogyny, Misandry

The specific censored word with "-", it's for my own reasons and comfort. It's not censored up and in tags due to filtering! Sorry if I made mistakes like forgetting of filtering or similar, I haven't used tumblr much before!

THIS IS A R-PE JOKE! THAT'S WHAT I HAVE BEEN FUCKING SAYING! ONE OF MY BIGGEST PROBLEMS WITH EPISODE 4 IS THE FACT OF "we want to write an empowering story about men getting sexually assaulted. Men victim don't get that attentio-" BITCH, YOU MADE MANY R-PE AND SA JOKES ALL THE FUCKING WAY THROUGH HELLUVA AND KNOW HAZBIN! You are the one making fun of scenarios where your male characters get assaulted or r-ped.

HOW TF DO YOU PRETEND TO BE SOOO ABOVE PEOPLE (INCLUDING VICTIMS OF SA AND R-PE) THAT'S EXPRESSED HOW THEY FELT ON THE EXECUTIONS AND WHO WORKED IN EPISODE 4. WHEN YOU YOURSELF MAKE JOKES ABOUT IT????? For some context, Sir Pent is trying to get with Cherri, but always deflects first in case she rejects him. He offers her a drink, but immediately says it's because he'll buy a drink for everyone on the club. Then he asks Cherri if they can have sex- and deflects back (a repetition joke) "Because I'll have sex with everyone here". Then he gets dragged into a room by other people, yelling wait and no! And the door closes as you heard him scream.

Out of context in the screenshot, you might even think it might be a serious scene where something happens to Pentious. BUT NO! IT'S BRUSHED OVER REAL FAST AND PLAYED AS "HAHA SOMETHING BAD HAPPEN TO SIR PENTIOUS AGAIN LMAOO"- it's the punchline.

Then at the end of the episode he gets out asking "Where is Cherri" (who btw is having sex with a random guy).

And please don't say "Well, he asked for it"- you know how you sound. The whole point of the joke is that he is trying to get with Cherri and failing astronomically. The point here is that he really doesn't want to have sex with a bunch of random people, but he has to do it because he is getting dragged into a room. (Again, Pentious is like Moxxie Their joke it's getting trashed and bullied by the world or people around them).

You made a whole episode about dealing with a male character's sexual assault, abuse or r-pe. Saying how much you respect victims, and your episode, it's just perfect about the topic. BlaBlaBla- no, you don't. You made all this jokes since HB season 1. This new joke was episode 6 of HH. You never acknowledge power dynamics, or coercion. You never acknowledge anything bad in your show.

Remember, as much as this shows go for LGBTQ+ representation and Queer media. As a ""Female lead show"". This jokes link back (not only to making fun of SA and R-pe itself, but to) homophobia and Misogyny. A scenario of where a man gets SA'ed or r-ped by another man or woman- leads to a scenario where the character is made fun of for not being "masculine enough" for being a victim or for not being able to defend themselves. In a scenario where this happens by a man to man, "It's funny because the victim is viewed as gay. As less masculine = gay and that's bad cause gay = weak and feminine and the idea of feminine = weak".

(There are a few jokes here and there, like Blitzo touching Moxxie's dick after making fun of him for having a baby penis.)

If you didn't notice, Moxxie gets attacked by multiple succubus, and that's apparently funny. KEEP IN MIND is not basic physical violence-no he comes out with lipstick kisses marks, the sounds effects are (ugh)... and Blitz tells him "Don't let them access any of your holes". In other concepts, I want to point out that the times when Moxxie is viewed as a bottom or feminine- he is made fun of. When Millie pegs him, he is made fun of because he is the man of the relationship, being implied as the bottom. When he wears the outfit of unhappy campers, he is extra objectified or made fun of even more than in any other episodes. He is also forcefully put on a dress in his wedding.

He is made fun of for being SA'ed for being uncomfortable scenarios:

These aren't jokes made by characters that "are bad because they are from hell". These are scripted jokes written by a person searching for the audience to laugh.

AND the reason why many audiences accept this jokes or even find them funny is because of some of these views (internalized or not) above. You'll also notice how all these jokes are directed at men (if you find an R-pe or SA joke directed at a woman in this two show, say something about it! POINT IT OUT!). People accept and write these jokes more because they care less about the idea of a man being a victim of such situation. More often than not- in the present, a woman getting assaulted or anything similar in any media gets noticed and called out. THESE JOKES OR THE NORMALIZATION OF SEXUAL HARASSMENT, ASSAULT, COERCION, OR SIMILAR TOWARDS WOMAN STILL HAPPENS!!!! There is an idea that men just tend to just want sex all times at any time. -And that a man getting SA'ed or r-ped by a woman it's just sex, cause "Why wouldn't you like free pussy". When it's a gay perpetrator is viewed as funny cause "that makes you gay or a woman" and that's apparently hilarious. Men can be r-ped no matter what. Men can be targets of all of these acts.

Remember that all the scenes of sexual abuse, harassment and r-pe in Poison are directed by the R2. Who, once again, is into r-pe porn- and they themselves said they are not an SA victim either. So remember, not even a victim trying to cope with their own R-pe or SA. This person draws and ships "R-pe ships", and tags it as "naughty men uwu" bullshit. Also, a person so obsessed with the character of Angel that they changed their name to Tony (Angel's real human name), make themselves look like him, and become a sex worker like Angel. They themselves looked at a comic of Val threatening r-pe and abuse on Angel as "thank good you have balls to draw something mean with these too, I was so bored" ???? (this stuff is in:) and cosplay and take photos of your Val x Angel ship

Congrats if you as a victim yourself thought that the scene with Angel was good. If it helped you be and feel seen. But remember the rest of the show, the hypocritical writers, don't care enough to view it as a serious topic to not joke about. Both HB and HH written by the same people (as in Vivziepop), take their sweet time to turn these topics into jokes.

What pisses off more, it's the trying to make yourself be viewed as a sensitive person about such topic. Make it seem like you are a savior for writing about it in such "serious, powerful and not sugar coded" way. But then you drop that on the fucking ground to make a joke about it when you are tired of pretending you are so good. If you were so informed of SA and r-pe, you wouldn't be making these jokes. If you knew how much SA male victims struggle to get viewed as serious or their stories taken into account-you wouldn't be this shitty.

God, you are so proud of the joke too.

My poor snake guy... one of the few characters that I like-

[xmimikyuusx]

I'm here on my soapbox in defense of the teenaged girls who love yaoi to trans men pipeline get ready. I'm speaking for the heart so excuse me if I sound silly

(If t/rfs see this post, before touching it: consider choking on my nuts)

Growing up, especially in adolescence, I (and probably most people perceived as women around that age) struggled not only with feeling objectified by other people and society at large, but simultaneously, living with a strange relationship to wanting to feel attractive to others. It had been ingrained in me that because I wasn't performing my agab hard enough (to the impossible standard that was every piece of media about women) that I was undesirable. In a very weird way, that is; you're an undesirable woman because you're ugly, you're fat, you can't afford makeup or fancy clothes and wearing them makes you feel like shit. However, if all else failed, you could still be "used" by someone. Maybe I would never be loved, but at least, even if it was hell, someone would find a "use" for me as a sexual object, if I performed feminity just enough.

It all sounded awful. Really, really awful. I remember every time someone would hit on me, would oggle my body, it was humiliating. Even being bisexual, I felt this awful ache in any relationship I was in where I was someone's handbag, I was something for them to have. But at least someone wanted me.

Then, I grew up, and I transitioned. And a whole new world of getting shit on awakens. Because now, I'm nowhere near performing feminity enough. I'm blatantly undesirable. The disgust that comes for trans men's bodies, especially early in transition, is night and day. You're not masculine enough, you're not feminine enough, you're an ugly girl who thinks they can get away from it all if you change your pronouns, which makes you even more pathetic and disgusting in the eyes of people who see you as an object to be desired.

And being told, over and over, that the changes you wanted, the neck hair and the patchy stache and the body hair and the smell of your own sweat that gets stronger as your voice drops, the things that make you happy, they're disgusting, it's another layer of hell after you grew up going through the last five. You felt rejected and outcast before, but now you're something that people don't even want to use, unless they can make you go back to being a woman.

No man looks like you. Except. In fucking yaoi. You get short, vaguely feminine men, who are desired in a positive way. You see men who are allowed to cry and be emotional, and it's seen as a good thing. You see men who can be an equal to their partner, that even if they're short, they're not as strong as other men, they struggled with being taken seriously or are even hurt by people who see them as something that can be used, but they get their happy ending. He gets comfort and love for someone who sees his feminity and finds him attractive without saying these unchagable attributes negate his status as a man. You see this man, who feels like you, being loved, and being able to love, and it's life changing.

You can be a man even if you're feminine. Even if you're short. Even if you couldn't win in a fight if someone attacked you. I'm not saying trans men are always all of these things, but fuck, for me, seeing representation for short effeminate men being loved and valued without being maliciously feminized is fucking impossible outside of gay manga. It helped me so much reading theaw things, seeing what bits of myself I could and knowing that if other people were writing and drawing this, maybe I could be worthy of love, not despite my body, but including it.

I fucking love reading manga with effeminate gay men in it because it feels like me. If other media started giving us short gay men, I'd be more interested, but manga/yaoi has it as a damn staple. Representation is media is life changing. Seeing someone who looks like you when you feel like you're all alone is so fucking important.

If you're going to complain about trans men reading yaoi and wanting to become that, eat shit. I'll become whatever I want for whatever reason makes me happiest. This has made me happy, incredibly, very happy, and has been something I can bond over with other trans men and my partner. You can stay bitter and disgusted with me, and I'll be happy with the people who care about me for who I really am, because I'm frankly over worrying about how other people will react to my joy.

[thelampisaflashlight]

Lakeside

[This got longer than expected. Dew gets introspective with Rain.] Below the cut.

Dew lays sprawled out on the dock, legs dangling off the end just above the water, a hand thrown over his face to block out the sunlight filtering through the clouds, turning his head slightly when he hears Rain approaching and giving a little huff of acknowledgement.

"Feeling alright?" Rain questions, crouching down beside his friend, deliberately leaning over him to cast his shadow over his form.

"Not really, no." Dew mumbles, "I came out here to get some fresh air, but... I dunno. Head hurts from thinking too hard about bullshit, and I just... It's nice out here, cold, but nice. Calm, quiet..."

"Did something happen?" Rain asks, moving to lay down next to him.

"Ehn... Yes and no." he says, closing his eyes and letting his hand fall slack at his side, "Talked to Aether about some stuff... feelings stuff. We're good."

"But?"

"...When you..." Dew bites his lip, "D'you think Mount and me come off a-a certain kind of way?"

Rain rolls onto his side, propping his head up with his palm.

"Like, gay?"

"I mean, I guess that's what I'm..." Dew makes a grumbling noise in the back of his throat, "If I said that wasn't the case, what'd you think?"

"That you're not gay or that the two of you aren't an item?"

"See that's-" The other ghoul finally sits up, running a hand through his hair, "It's not that I'm NOT, ya know, into dudes I'm just... It's complicated, and, like, with Aeth, people thought we were a thing for a while but we weren't, and then with Mount, we're buddies and all, but he isn't into me like that, and he's not totally my type, and I just..."

Dew shakes his head.

"Why is it that when it's ME in these kinds of situations that people think I'm dating my friends?"

Rain shifts and sits up as well, shrugging, "Honestly, I couldn't tell you why. I guess, maybe, people see that you're happy or comfortable around someone and they just assume... You know. That you're into them, maybe."

"But they don't do it when I'm around Cumulus or Cirrus, now do they?" Dew points out, "Why's it only when I'm friendly with a guy?"

The water ghoul clicks his tongue.

"What?"

"Real talk?"

"Noo... Don't do this, come on-"

"Dew, I'm gonna have to level with you." Rain starts, placing a hand on his shoulder, "When you like a woman, it's obvious, yeah?"

"Yeah...?"

"When you like a guy... it's really, really obvious."

Dew scoffs, "No it's not-"

"The waiter at that restaurant in Spain, who you kept eyeballing all night."

"Now hold on, I just wanted free tapas-"

"That time that guy at the bar rolled up his sleeves and you almost passed out because all the blood rushed from your head to your-"

"Hey, that was objectively sexy-"

Rain snorts, "I'm not arguing with you, I'm just saying that compared to how you treat women -which, you know, you're respectful and that ain't a bad thing- you treat men more like... like something you wanna fuck, I guess... I dunno, I wanted to put it more eloquently than that, but that's pretty much the most straightforward way I could think to put it."

Dew tents his fingers, deep in thought.

"So what you're saying is that because I don't objectify women, but DO objectify men... people think I'm gay?"

Rain tilts his head and then shrugs.

"Are you saying you're not gay?"

"NO!" Dew shouts immediately, "I mean, no, but... maybe-Augh! I like both, I guess, I just... with women it's like... Women... ya know? And with men it's like... men."

Rain blinks.

"Jesus Christ..."

"Oi, no need for that kind of language now." Rain jokes, then clears his throat, "I kind of get what you're saying, I guess... You like women, you're attracted to them, but with guys it's more... physical, would you say?"

Dew makes a face and pinches the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger, the tips of his ears turning a bright shade of pink.

"I mean, yeah... Yeah, that'd be..." he swallows, "When you put it that way, it just sounds so... Don't tell anyone I told you about this."

Rain mimes zipping his mouth shut.

"Your secret is safe with me." he says, "But, Dew, there's nothing wrong with liking men, even if your attraction to them is different from the kind you feel towards a woman..."

"Thanks..."

"No problem."

Rain leans back on his hands.

"Question though."

"If you say something stupid right now, I'll smack you like I did Aether."

"When you think about yourself with a guy-"

"...Are you seriously asking me if I'm a top or a bottom right now?"

Rain gives him a once over before meeting his gaze.

"I was actually asking what your type is, I can already hazard a guess as to-OW! YOU BIT ME-"

[lenaperseveranceoxton]

Listen, I know I said in this post from June 15th that Emily is perfect as a civilian, and I was vindicated when the Invasion story missions dropped and showed that Emily is holed up in some bunker in King's Row with omnics and bigots alike.

but Blizzard, PLEASE, I need more Emily content. I am starving. She deserves to be given a canon voice like Iggy in the Underworld mission. She deserves to have a canon last name. She deserves the world.

It's so infuriating that the Lena and Emily spray even gets censored in Play of the Games and highlights. I mean, I get why (and you can ask the winners of the 2023 Overwatch World Cup if you don't) but damn it!

I am SO sick and tired of seeing people ship Lena with men, whether it be self-ships, generic nude models in Blender, or male playable characters. (If you fall into one of those categories, please let me know so I can block your disgusting ass.)

I need the cishets to know- to have it absolutely drilled into their skulls- that Lena is dating Emily Overwatch. Give me a voice line about her in the Hero Gallery. Give me a weapon charm version of the Lena and Emily spray, or at least a weapon charm of an orange heart that says "Emily" in the center. Give me a victory pose where Lena is bridal-carrying Emily. Anything.

Also, this is going to sound very weird, but the "Caught you staring!" voice line still makes me uncomfortable every time I hear it in game. I get that Lena is a playful person, but did we learn nothing from the Over the Shoulder controversy in 2016? (Even the current Over the Shoulder victory pose makes me uncomfortable. It's one of the few victory poses I don't have favorited in the Hero Gallery. Why would Lena be striking a pose from a WW2 pinup poster?) I remember hearing complaints that it's unfair that Lifeweaver, Baptiste, and Mauga get to flirt with each other while our lesbian characters don't get to flirt with women, but Lena is in a loving relationship. I think she should be able to express an aesthetic attraction towards female characters (like Sombra saying "You're cuter up close" to any gender like the bisexual icon she is when getting a melee kill), but she should not be alluding to her butt whenever you use all three Blinks. The internet is so quick to objectify Overwatch characters, and it's disappointing to see Blizzard fueling those flames.

Rant aside, I also want to point out that Lena tells Emily to let the omnics in the bunker know about Null Sector.

I remember joking in a Discord server with friends who don't go here but know Lena "Tracer" Oxton is my lifeblood about the idea of Lena having paparazzi that write articles such as "The Rumour Come Out: Does Tracer from Overwatch is Gay?" after seeing them casually plan to meet Emily at the pub in London Calling Issue 1. Does everyone in the bunker just know Emily is Lena's girlfriend? Either way, I love to imagine the conversation that would ensue.

"So, omnics, I've gathered you here today to discuss some important matters. As you may or may not know, Tracer from Overwatch is my girlfriend, and uh... A majority of the omnic population in Toronto has been abducted and possibly even had their minds wiped. Overwatch was late, so they couldn't do anything about it. Sure, Null Sector could very well be breaking into this bunker in no time at all, but Overwatch is prepared now! We're going to be okay... I think."

I'll finish this off by saying that, if she can't come to Watchpoint: Gibraltar, Emily should at least be added to the Miscellaneous section of the Intel Database.

Thank you for listening to my TEDTalk.

[tirfpikachu]

cw: me holding women accountable for sexism/gncphobia. if you don't feel like you're capable of being sexist/gncphobic against men and don't care about being a good ally to gnc people, move along <3

let's be real gyns... at some point, it does become weirdo behavior when tumblrinas who don't face male-specific gncphobia foam at the mouth to excessively call any flamboyant or unmasculine man the f slur or a twink or something related to being gay or trans bc a dude can never be too gnc or it must be a gay thing or a trans thing.

listen, i make jokes like that too. i prob sometimes still will. but i'm being self-aware and noticing my own sexism. i'm still working through my own internalized gncphobia, it's a life-long journey. i was taught growing up that anyone gnc and male is either creepy, gay, or a sex thing. and sometimes the jokes we make do get a good chuckle out of me! but i think we do have to be like... okay at this point are we making the gender roles boxes tighter? are we actually helping at all normalize gender nonconformity in society? do we truly uplift ALL gnc people or do we just do the woke equivalent of calling them girly f*gs for daring to not be hugh jackman level masc 24/7? do we truly see them as men, or lesser men? and if he wears a croptop or a skirt or shows emotions immediately he's "gay coded" or slutty? as if gnc men and transfems don't get chasers all the time for just existing. it's turning anyone gnc into a fetish category and honestly it feels Weird.

idk, if i was a gnc het man rn growing up with kids bullying him laughing calling him girly and f*ggy and gay etc, something that often turns violent, bc we know how male bullies are, going through that all the time... fearing getting hurt for existing, and then coming into leftist spaces and seeing all these nonstop jokes about any male person even remotely gnc being a wh*re or "visibly gay" simply for breaking gender norms, for saying fuck you to the patriarchy and wearing and doing whatever harmless things that shouldn't be gendered to begin with... even we leftists need to hold ourselves accountable for upholding gender roles. also, if you're not affected by male-specific gncphobia, you should be a good ally. i know this is the horny male blorbo website, but gay men shouldn't be our laughing stock all the time either. we shouldn't infantilize them or fetishize them or dehumanize them. people who don't face male-specific gncphobia should keep their sexism and homophobia in check too.

some of y'all, and me back when i was a teen honestly, really do at times objectify gnc behavior that should be a totally normal thing. we turn it into a spectacle. we re-enforce the guy in a dress looking embarrassed and laugh at it instead of seeing it as the result of him being aggressively kept in a box since toddlerhood to not do anything that wasn't a Boy Thing. often involving parental trauma and violent bullying as well. i want gnc people to be comfortable and normalized and be totally normal. i want to wheel past a guy in a croptop and not immediately think "omg he's so obviously gay" bc het men can just look/act that way! women ABSOLUTELY can be horrible sexist bullies and at times full-on abusers and keep gnc men in sexist gender roles. i have seen women say the most vicious gncphobic shit to men.

the reverse, of course, also applies to gnc women. sorry for committing the crime of caring about both gnc people and women. sorry for mentioning men & transfems who face gncphobia that we just can't relate to. i know it's seen as cringe, don't think about men even existing if you don't want to, idc. i have an equal foot in the women community and the gnc community. i do not care for sexist, gncphobic women, outside of generic feminist sisterhood. i as a gnc woman do not feel safe if all gnc people aren't respected. i know bisexual women protect bi men from biphobic women all the time, and woc have to protect men of color and get shamed for speaking up too bc they're all seen as "male bootlickers" or whatever. at this point sexist women make me shake my head and move tf on. immature, childish, defensive, and assuming bad faith. i align with disabled men before i align with abled women in some instances. at times, i align with gnc men before i align with sexist women. sisterhood is not unconditional. breaking gender roles will free us all.

[fox-steward]

hi, your blog is incredibly interesting- i genuinely didn't realise there was a not conservative side of the gender critical sphere. i've been on testosterone for about 7 months now, so far this has been making me feel more like myself. personally I am not thinking about 'gender' but rather what i want to look and sound like- this has been working better than the whole 'gender is a feeling' thing..which is definitely a theory! If its okay to ask, what are your thoughts on medical transition?

i think medical transition is, broadly, very harmful.

it harms the individual: disrupts natural hormone cycles, negatively impacts cardiovascular health, negatively impacts reproductive functioning, creates an artifice which the individual comes to rely on to "feel like themself," thereby severing that person from true authenticity, necessitating the person remain a lifelong medical patient to keep all effects of hormones, subjecting the person to unnecessary risk of surgery, including death. it costs a lot of money and time that you don't actually have to spend. there is no evidence it correlates with mental health improvement, and it is my opinion that by focusing on transition, people do not attend to the areas of their lives that actually need and would benefit from attention and intervention.

it harms the group: gays and lesbians are disproportionately impacted by medical transition; gender non-conformity (which homosexuality is a form of) has become pathologized; now young lesbians and gays are not only growing up in a culture dominated by heterosexuality and rife with homophobia, they also have to navigate the pervasive message that they might benefit from transition. when i was a kid i was told by adults that i was "trying to be a man," that real women are not lesbians, and eventually i agreed with them. that gender non-conformity is seen as a precursor to "trans identification" only makes this worse--it's like, you get the "what, are you trying to be a man >:( ??!!" but also, "what, are you trying to be a man <=D ??!!" messaging. and what chance do we stand against attacks from all sides?

it is harmful to all women: look around at misogyny--devaluing women's opinions as vapid or lesser, assuming women are weak and fickle, dismissing women's perspectives and ideas, preying on women and girls sexually, seeing women as one-dimensional vessels for the transformation of the men around them--of COURSE girls don't "feel like a woman" these days, who would? instead of looking at the way society treats women and the disidentification it is producing among youth as the blazing alarm that it is, trans culture has wedged itself between women and liberation with the suggestion that "maybe you're not a woman if you don't feel like one?" never minding that "feeling like one" generally means liking being objectified, belittled, seen as weak, ignored, simultaneously not being taken seriously but being blamed for things. not only does this derail the actually important conversation about misogyny, but it leaves women and girls vulnerable to the predation of medical transition, which as i mentioned above, is harmful physically, emotionally, socially, and financially.

also, i would argue there are actually no conservative "gender critical" people. conservatives tend to reject gender non-conformity and embrace traditional gender roles; ain't no way to be critical of gender while holding central traditional gender roles. conservatives may be "trans critical," but they're not actually "gender critical." trans ideology has a lot in common with conservatives when it comes to gender, actually. both reinforce traditional gender stereotypes; how different is "i'm masculine and fit in more with boys than girls, so i must really be a man" from "i'm not a man, so i can't act masculinely, i must act femininely" really? they are threads of the same rope and that rope holds us prisoner, it doesn't free us. true gender non-conformity is being female but realizing that your masculine nature doesn't change anything about you (trans ideology), nor does it need to change itself (conservative ideology).

i know you didn't ask for this part, but you're here in my inbox, so here you go: doesn't it strike you as strange that it's taking synthetic medical intervention to make you "feel like yourself?" is the route to authenticity really via the path of cosmetic surgery and synthetic hormones?

it's either intellectually dishonest or intellectually lazy to stop at you're just "thinking about...how you want to look and sound." WHY do you want to look masculinized and have a deeper voice? there is a zero-percent chance the answer to that question is entirely separate from how those traits get you treated in society. and that's the impact of misogyny. and please don't misunderstand this as me suggesting you should not be masculine--i just don't think you have to subject yourself to the harms of medical transition in order to BE masculine.

and i say this as someone who took these steps, who masculinized with a mastectomy and many years of testosterone. i get that there are certain advantages to appearing as a man in society despite being a woman, but largely these are individual advantages for ME that come at the expense of WOMEN. thinking i'm a man, men take me more seriously; this impacts women by reinforcing the idea that men deserve consideration when women's voices don't, and it means that i don't have to advocate for women to be taken seriously because I don't personally need it; it runs the risk of making me complacent to this phenomenon, convincing me that surely women are exaggerating when they share their experiences because i don't have such a hard time of things, all the men are nice to me. see how pernicious it is?

because i'm 5'10", skinny, and with a flat chest, many people think i'm a man when i'm running. this means i can run at night, with headphones in, in new places--all basically without fear. the stories other women tell me make it clear this isn't the case for them. some women i know don't run outside anymore at all because of how men treat them, sexualize them, harass them, prey on them. so i get that it is a clear advantage to appear as a man sometimes; this is one thing i'm actually really grateful for. but it is not worth the damage i did to my body, it isn't worth the sense of alienation i sometimes feel from women, a sense i also felt with men, even when i was pretending to be "one of them," it isn't worth the money and time and effort i spent trying to convincingly imitate men that i could have spent on things that would actually nurture me and my life.

"gender is a feeling" certainly is a theory, but so is "transition makes me more myself," and one is about as good as the other.

we are not alive to simply take our thoughts and feelings at face value! interrogate your feelings and your ideas! we live in a culture and none of us are immune to that. something something unexamined life.

best of luck, i'm rooting for you.

[super-hero-confessions]

"he's so fruity and subservient lol what a crybaby! look at his mommy issues how pathetic hahaha i hate men!"

wow.

of all the things i expect from homelander fan girls, deeply rooted sexism and homophobia wasn't part of it. i shouldn't be surprised because i've gotten used to all the other issues across the fandom but in truth i shouldn't have to get used to any of that and this is really gross.

this kind of stuff is exactly the reason men will refuse to be vulnerable. if every single time they show just a hint of it, they're made fun of, called "pathetic" and made to feel ashamed of their own vulnerabilities and humanity, they'll learn that the very same humanity and vulnerability is "undesirable" and not something they should show or ever share. it will hurt them and they in turn will hurt others.

this is the kind of stuff that kills off the empathy men could have and perpetuates toxic masculinity, and it hurts to see that in predominantly feminine spaces because y'all should know and understand exactly what it feels like to have your humanity or vulnerability belittled or questioned, but then you turn around and do that to others?

the masculine side of homelander fans have their own issues and i won't deny that, but i've never seen them blame homelander for getting groomed into severe "mommy issues" by madelyn stillwell or try to reverse the victim/abuser dynamic between them. i've never seen them belittle him for having a reason to cry or just doing anything that is genuinely human. i've never seen them dehumanize or objectify him in such a way that he is an infantilized caricature of stereotyped feminine ideals that just ooze toxic heteronormativity and secret self insert hiding in his skin.

i've never seen them laugh at him for the automatic trauma responses he has as a result of his upbringing, like how camera trained he is. that's fucked up that he has involuntary responses to cameras being present, and i saw some fans concerned and sharing their empathy for that. but i also saw some fans laughing at that and it wasn't the men.

i won't even deny that i'm sure there are masculine fans who do all of these things, but consider that it may be for all the wrong reasons. and those reasons may be the same regardless of where they are.

the internalized misogyny where femininity and victimhood is forcibly tied to submissiveness or bottomhood and how either are treated is nauseating. even if homelander were more effeminate or truly did enjoy feminization, why is this something this part of the fandom acts as though this is shameful or something to make fun of, or some way to "punish" him? this isn't championing progressiveness and free expression. when consistently attached and implicit as something "negative" in a man, framed in a way that's not unlike "bullying", it's ignoring complexities or trauma, misunderstanding them, disregarding humanity and free expression, and showing off homophobia and misogyny among other things.

if you can't make or don't like your "gay" ships, especially but not limited to, as anything besides a hypermasculine "straight" dominant top and a hyperfeminine "twink" submissive bottom and will look for any excuse under the sun to justify fitting the characters into these preordained molds, negating alternative possibilities such as two masculine gays or two feminine lesbians or vice versa and anything in-between? it may be time to reevaluate your own biases and prejudice as an "ally".

the above is what heteronormative fetishized "gayness" looks like, in which queer people are just caricatures for the enjoyment of straight people.

i don't mind people having fun, i want them to. but some critical thinking and self awareness would sure be nice.

let's be clear.

being a victim, showing vulnerability, humanity, having trauma responses. none of that is "pathetic" and the constant shaming of it is what destroys the humanity and empathy in people and normalizes the abuse.

what's "pathetic" is the ableism, victim blaming, victim shaming. what's pathetic is the abuse that even homelander dishes out, but people are still so trained to idealize and revere and respect abuse and abusers. in this case, there's an added edge of toxic masculinity, internalized misogyny, and homophobia, but it all leads back to the same place. deeply ingrained in our own culture, and especially white and religious culture, though certainly not limited to it.

i shouldn't be surprised because of the world we live in, but i would have liked to have a bit more hope for this fandom and media because of what it's trying to teach people. maybe i should know better by now but i won't stop hoping.

"humanity" is not "pathetic".

it's human.

[nightswithkookmin]

3D SLAYS WITH JACK HARLOW

I'm not here to tell anyone how to feel but I'm just saying Jackie killed those bars.

I don't want to get into this whole debate over whether or not Jack Harlow's verse was offensive because Jack is for the black girlies and the queers and I'm black and queer. Let's leave it there

And frankly I was too busy deciphering all the Easter eggs and black and white themes and weirdly familiar lyrics and all the diversity in there to notice anything off with Jack.

He's a white guy in a predominantly black space who is not only aware of this but is also less misogynoire-cist than a lot of these gay hating black rappers out here. I'll take Harlow over any day because I ain't tryna hear another homophobic rapper with internalized racism make caricature of black women and call it music.

Yall hate misogynists, I hate homophobic misogyny targeted at black queer women specifically even more and to me Jack is far from that. So may be there's a conflict of interest here somewhere caused by my intersecting identities.

And as a feminist I have a problem endorsing the slut shaming of men just as much as I disagree with the slut shaming of women.

How are we shaming this man over openly talking bout thoting.

And it's crazy cos we all be put here drooling over BTS openly talking bout wanting to be choked to death by these boys but God forbid a grown man says in his songs he is polyamorous.

Equality of genders means we can not slut shame men from expressing their sexual desires any more than we can slut shame women.

And 2023, monogamy isn't the only valid relationship model. Why does this feel like monogamy is the new heteronormativity?

And it's not as if he's glamorizing cheating on a partner, or drugs or gun violence.

I feel we've been fighting misogyny and objectification of women by men for so long we can't even tell what a healthy expression of male desire looks like.

I think Jack is so real for those lyrics. Some men and even women do like to fantasize about getting with different women. And having female attention really is form of validation for lots of men. For a lot of them it's deeply tied to their self worth.

Women will always be the object of desire for straight men. But that don't mean any time they talk about that subject that they are objectifying women. That's like saying men hurt women for pounding them at night- sex is not inherently oppressive. It's the lack of consent, and the treating women as if all we are good for is sex that makes it oppressive.

As long as he isn't berating women calling us slurs or promoting the objectification of women he and I are good.

From where I sit all I heard was a man discussing and bragging about his insatiable lust- for that I'll recommend he speaks to his therapist. Jesus can't help him.

He has an appetite. We shouldn't slut shame him for that. Misandry is not how we are going to fix misogyny.

If a girl sang the same lyrics we would be tweaking right about now.

Plus these lyrics are even pretty tame in comparison. Lmho. Jack has always been vulgar and explicit. Jack's personality to me is why I like him to be frank. He's pushed for visibility and acceptance of the gay community more than any non queer rapper you can think of.

As far as his talent as a rapper goes- I only care about his songs when he's featuring lil Nas X or Jungkook

I'm just gonna have to throw him back to yall

BUT PLEASE LEAVE 3D ALONE.

PLEASE AND THANK YOU.

[officialpenisenvy]

Since it seems down your alley and idk if youve talked about it before to my knowledge im really curious about your thoughts on trans exclusionary radical feminist fixation on pederasty (see: germaine greer’s the boy) + lesbian desire in relation to the like, archetype of the ganymede + the relation between that and sexual objectification of transfems and the utilization of said ganymede archetype in art as a sort of “agencyless transfeminine” 

okay so i want to say first of all that this is just me talking out of my ass and basically reflecting out loud (most of my blog is, but especially right now), so i don't know how coherent this will be, and i apologize preemptively if any wording on this is questionable or offensive, that is never my intent. i haven't looked into or researched this subject, so if you have any recommendations i would love to hear them! ramble answer under the cut

im very familiar with germaine greer's the boy, i have read it (as much as anyone can be said to have read what amounts to a pederasty-themed photo album) and reflected on it for some time: while the purported effort of the book is to "reclaim" pederasty from gay men towards women, i feel like the very desire to enable women to be pederasts is entrenched in greer's radical feminist background. trans-exclusionary radical feminism is built around bioessentialism, the assumption that men are ontologically different from women, and specifically that men are essentially evil, strong and predatory whereas women are essentially good, weak and preyed-upon: the young boy, however, somewhat disrupts this paradigm, being as he has been historically and culturally objectified and preyed upon and victimized in the same way women have. though he will inevitably grow up to become the evil strong man who harms women, therefore, the young boy can still be enjoyed by the woman while he is weak and essentially harmless, a more even relationship than that between a woman and a man that still allows a potentially heterosexual woman to satisfy her desire for a man; i don't need to specify that in real life we know any relationship between an adult and a child cannot be even and is more often than not deeply harmful to the child, and that the vast majority of adults who do sexual harm to children do so not necessarily because of physical attraction but because of attraction to their helplessness.

all this above is my attempt at finding a terf-ist rationale for female pederasty, but it does also somewhat mirror societal attitudes to the young boy, especially in a gay male context — starting from ancient pederasty up to basically the present day, the young boy is consistently the feminine or feminised party, at least in part due to his fragility and weakness in comparison to the (necessarily) stronger adult lover. the young boy, who i will now start calling the ephebe in this more archetypal context, therefore becomes a very powerful cultural figure of androgyny: ganymede's gender is important insofar as zeus chooses to bring him up to olympus and train him up as a cupbearer (a social role unthinkable for a girl), but his vulnerability and sort of waifishness are properties both of the ephebe and the girl/woman, and the same goes for all other popular depictions of ephebes, they are young boys noted for their beauty and androgyny who are functionally interchangeable with girls. as many queer people are, i find androgyny to be very attractive in all its variations and potential combinations, and i think that's why im so drawn to the ephebe as an archetype (needless to say i don't want to fuck actual young boys): the fascination with this concept of a beautiful boy who's devoid of most stereotypical characteristics of masculinity and who's somewhat forcibly put in the social role of a girl is to me a similar drive to the one that makes me attracted to very masculine women, i really enjoy the deliberate blurring of gender lines (and it would be pointless to hide that i also enjoy the element of coercion, though that is a recurring theme in my sexuality which is not limited to the ephebe).

obviously, all this discussion is separate from attraction to actual trans women: my attraction to trans women is motivated by them being women, so my enjoyment of a fem trans woman is paramount to that of a fem cis woman, my enjoyment of a masc trans woman is paramount to that of a masc cis woman (so coming from that place of liking androgyny), and so forth. of course, whether or not one is attracted to trans women is secondary to whether or not they actually treat trans women as women and respect their identity — plenty of people are attracted to trans women and behave like absolute monsters towards them.

like you said, trans women are horribly objectified and sexualised: to my understanding there's two broad categories of sexual objectification trans women face, being forcibly put in a submissive position (so basically recycling the ephebe archetype, especially coming from people who see trans women as particularly feminine boys), and being forcibly put in a dominant/active position (especially from people who see trans women as men and thus inherently sexually domineering, and who potentially fetishize their genitals as well). the forced submission, while obviously horrible and transmisogynistic and often meant as punishment for the transgression of manhood, isn't in practice terribly different from the forced submission cis women tend to experience to a lesser degree, so it can be in some measure rationalized as assimilable to the sexual treatment one would receive if she were as a cis woman (intersectional parenthesis demands i point out that cis and trans black women sexually interacting with non-black men are more likely to be put in a place of forced domination than forced submission). the forced domination, however, is pointedly and manifestly transmisogynistic in a way that specifically portrays the trans woman in question as "really a man" and "really secretly dominant", often with a very phallic emphasis, and this can be an obvious source of discomfort and dysphoria for trans women, some of whom will try to counteract that by making themselves deliberately more submissive and pliable and non-dominant, basically embodying the feminine and ephebic archetype of passive sexuality, or the "agencyless transfeminine" like you said.

i am not sure any of this makes sense, i hope i was able to be at least somewhat coherent for you anon! i would really love any input or criticism my transfem followers might have on this, since im obviously only speaking from what i have seen and am not a trans woman myself but just a tme yapper on the internet — again im very sorry if any of this comes off as offensive or insensitive, please let me know so i can correct myself if needed.

[not-goldy]

So according to not goldy the people who tag ministry in hundreads of numbers to tell them that a man is gay (mind you the man never came out as gay they just decided he's gay) and is forcing his sexuality to their fav are not the worst but people who yapp about jungkook calling jimin ugly is shitty on sns are the worst. Jungkook is not coming to see who's calling him what with not even 20 likes but when you tag ministry in hundreads of numbers they sure see it and want to look at dumbasses. If i remember correct someone on twitter themselves has posted about their interaction with officials and how they might look into it. Mind you they're trying to drag their own fav in the nastiest Scandal one could get in a homophobic country like sk but sure that's not worst according to not goldy.

And you can't go to jm's childhood to drag him neither you can go to his adulthood to question him cause guess what? There's Hardly anything to drag that man cause he's raised that way. a gentleman who taught others how not to be toxic mascular guy at his own childhood. He had that level of thoughts before even 18 when others used to go "men don't look at their selfies" lol. you can try all you want you can't drag jm. There's a reason he's called an angel by the fandom. "I can also go to jimin's childhood" you can't susan you can't. He's jimin.

"Persons who yapp about Jungkook calling JM ugly-"

When did Jungkook call Jimin Ugly????

Don't treat that as facts cos that never happened.

And most times he ranked Jimin last he ranked himself second to last so that's neither here nor there.

And I don't think Jungkook ranking Jimin last in looks is yalls issue. The issue is yall branding him AN EVIL HUMAN BEING, DEMONIZING him for teasing Jimin, playfully avoiding him on camera,

Ya running around people's blogs trying to convince them Jungkook lives in hell next to lucifer yall ain't shit.

Yall: JUNGKOOK IS EVIL

Your evidence: he teased Jimin when he was child.

THATS WHAT MAKES YALL BITCHES

Well if your problem is with Jungkook's toxic fans tagging ministries take it up with them. Jungkook is not the one tagging the Ministry so yall can leave that man alone.

That's hardly anything to complain about Jimin from his childhood....

YOU SURE ABOUT THAT???? LMAO

And when I say yall fools set Jimin up- you are no better than the JJK dragging their fave in one of the nastiest scandals in Korea.

So may be hop off that high horse?????

Yall and JKKs are the same breed cut from the same claw

And between them being homophobic and yall being child abusers, I'll pick the homophobia just as I will pick a bear over a man 🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂

Jimin is HUMAN he's done things that are equally problematic but guess what HE'S GROWN AND LEARNED FROM IT.

Yall need to stop stripping his growth and humanness away from him.

At this point you are just objectifying him.

Damn

[thelesbianpoirot]

It's fine...

I did not like the Barbie movie. I didn't hate it, it was just a slog to get through. I was cringing, bored or annoyed. I didn't expect it to be groundbreaking, but I also didn't expect it to be a generic pop culture icon comes to the real world hijinks movie either. I thought it would be this eras Mean Girls, oddly insightful message hidden in a unassuming package. I was a bit let down. 1. The messaging in the movie is so convoluted. There is some basic feminism about women being allowed to be imperfect people, who grow and change, but then they have women save the day by seducing men, feminine wiles to distract them, and sew discord amongst them like woman are accused of, instead of any real innovative non-stereotypical plans. Men aren't really shown to be malicious, just misguided, unappreciated and incompetent, but they essentially wanted to run barbieland/kendom as a gentleman's club/hooters/ a brothel (if they knew anything about sex), they suffer no consequences for this. The movie "don't worry darling" that people shat on last year because of drama had a way more consistent message and theme than this. 2. The kens are so ugly. The Barbies except for like one or two are supermodel types, yet all the kens are just men you'd find in a parking lot of a Walmart, even the ken that belongs to the stereotypical Barbie is old and has an old man's body. If the Barbies are supposed represent perfect womanhood, why not the men? I know i'm a lesbian but other than the barbie that is clearly a man with plastic surgery uncanny valley face, and nasally voice, they all are hot. They just picked random men to be ken, like if Kens are supposed to be decorative accessories, how come Kens can be shlubby and old. And Barbie can't. You could say it's supposed to be that way, but they write it like Ken's are equally objectified, or a perfect specimen of manhood, but they don't have to look nearly as good as the barbs. 3. I expected weird Barbie to be our lesbian representation, I hoped a subtext of her weirdness meant she wasn't het, they didn't even have to give her a girlfriend, Kate carries lesbian subtext with her, but they had Kate McKinnon say a line about wanting to see Ken's smooth privates despite earlier in the movies Barbie and Ken don't know what sex is. Was it written just to make sure we don't think she's a lesbian? Alan is implied to be gay, by a line or two, but I just think it is a wasted.

4. The dialogue is too plain to be surreal. It wasn't transported to this world, I was lectured to, by a teacher speaking through dolls/puppets. I won't complain about it not being funny, because I know comedy is subjective, but the dialogue did nothing for me. It was preachy in a lot of areas, and I wouldn't have some a problem with preachiness if the message didn't suck. "We just need to coddle and comfort men to get/maintain our rights?"

5. There wasn't a single line or reference to tomboy girls, masc girls, gnc girls/women, like the existence of women who may not want living bright pink empty existences. I wouldn't count weird barbie as gnc, because it wasn't a natural feature of hers, not something she chose. Main Barbie at the end just looks the same, and probably has the same interests, she just wears flat sometimes. GIVE BARBIE A BUZZCUT and some combat boots. IDK Mean Girls had a more radical consistent message in the 2000s.

I don't think I am explaining it right, but why not have Sasha, gloria's daughter be a tomboy that genuinely isn't into this stuff, instead of just pretending she's too cool for it. It is just always a little bit of a let down when a film/movie claims to be speaking to women but instead it speaks to femininity/instead of femaleness. i.e, I do like that barbie when to the gyno.

6. I don't think this movie would be as popular as it is, if it was just about a generic doll, and not connect to the barbie brand name. There is absolutely nothing in this movie that stands out to me. It is barely better than a sonic comes to the real world, or smurfs come to the real world story to me. It's fine. Every woman who said she felt a deep connection with the women they watched it with, I am jealous of you, like what are we connecting over? Our joint love of clothes, pink, our goofy yet lovable boyfriends? I feel nothing.

7. Ken, Ryan Gosling, was given too much screen time without Barbie. Everyone online is singing his praises. Saying that he was the best one in the movie, what were they talking about? He was doing Saturday night live worthy performances. I am starting to think these people just love men. Because the only value this movie had is the few scenes where Margot Robbie is allowed to show genuine sadness, dismay and existential dread.

8. The parts I appreciated: a) Barbie meeting that older woman on the bench, b) am I a man without power a woman? c) Barbie deny Ken's any real power. (They should have exiled the Kens to fucking the desert!).

Overall, I like a line or two lines, but all together it is just a confused movie. Not confusing, but this was a movie talking in circles to distract you that it is saying nothing of value really. Real throwing shit at the wall kind of messaging. It's like a whole movie of not a single new or exciting idea or concept being is introduced to you. I wouldn't care to watch it again, or spend time ranting and raving about it online. But I just felt like sharing. I will forget the contents of the movie in a day or two.

[sorcerous-caress]

You're right and I know you are but I actually got so upset that I am now violently sick. I am literally only sharing this because I am fairly certain you're also autistic and BPD but I hate so much that like the one time in mainstream media we are given a bi/pan man who is effeminate and prefers men but isn't a derogatory stereotype but every post about him is like He’s The Most Masculine, Actually and actually the reason we don't see him express attraction to women is because he's so shy actually ignore that he can hookup with Laezel who would not stand for that and is main character trait is confident (and I don't think I've started fights so at least there's that)

I used to not understand the problem with the Astarion fandom but then I came to painful realization he has straight fans who actually seem to hate his canon character

Anyway sorry for all the Bobstarion… gay bpd bitches are gay bpd bitching. You're the best for reading this tho 😭💀💚

I know this feeling very well anon.

You've completely summed it up, he is finally a non-derogatory representation of an effeminate queer man and straight fans burnt his canon to the ground so they can make their dream masculine babyboy shy twink.

God it fucking stings doesn't it? It literally hurts just to think about how much Larian risked by even putting Astarion in the game. A western game at that too where forum after forum are full of incels complaining about women not being inflatable sex objects in their game.

Baldur's gate 2 and 1 never was this inclusive, it was strictly hetro except for the remastered npcs. Astarion by himself probably made them lose half their "old-school" homophonic demographic.

And the fandom takes all of that and makes him another fucking joke of a character? All the people who have never played the game would search up the Astarion tag and get a completely wrong impression of him.

Not once did a character before him made me leave a game because I was disgusted with myself. His storyline and writing is phenomenal because I too objectified him at the start then the game called me out for it in act 3 and it changed my world view so much.

God did you know early access had Gale and Wyll be awkward if a male Tav hits on them? That only Astarion was the always accepting person regardless of gender?

Even now he is still the only male character between the two who openly expresses his interest in men! Who embraces being flamboyant and doesn't try to fit into a narrative.

I completely understand anon, and I know how much bpd and autism highlights these feelings and make them dig like nails at your brain. Yes I have them too. And I'm glad you feel comfortable enough to share your thoughts with me.

It must be more frustrating for you tho, for liking Astarion and being lumped in with the rest of his weird fans without your consent. You can't even filter their posts out because they treat their takes as "normal" and how it's not them belittling a queer character no! They're just being "wholesome"

Fuck the batstarion shit still gets on my nerves. I saw one with a baby bottle feeding him??? It just feels so infantilising because he isn't some cute animal he is a fully grown and matured person. If it's just a kink then sure idc but please tag it at least.

Then they make him "shy" around women. You know why that god awful take was probably born? Because most of his straight fans picked women and went into his romance. So they think that his clumsy personality in act 2 is because they're a woman and he is so used to men.

It's fucking disgusting, Astarion would treat both men and women with the same clumsy romance, all my Tavs were nonbinary and he never treated them differently.

You have every right to feel this way, you have every right to be furious at this. Especially with a character you care about so much.

But people will take advantage of that, people who want to start fights for the sake of fights or drama blogs who are itching to make a callout post. People don't like others poking holes in their logic no matter how good your intentions are.

Homophobia exists, racism too, look at how ignored Wyll is by these supposed fans. Look at how popular Gale x Astarion is than x Wyll because both of them are white.

It's okay to vent and it's okay to feel frustrated and stuck. God knows during some bpd episodes I come very close to deleting this blog bc of the smallest of reasons, so Imagine actually having a valid reason to be mad like you.

Take a step back, fuck those people honestly. Fuck anyone who ever did this shit just for their own self indulgence, who left all the media that panders to straight people and came and took Astarion too just to strip him of all of his traits and put him in the hetro box.

So leave them be, they suck, they're shitty and never willing to listen. Don't waste your frustration on them, it's better to yell at a wall, at least, unlike them, it might reply back with something productive one of those days.

Again, I hope you feel better soon. I genuinely do, these feelings suck beyond words can describe. Do something you like or revisit your favourite works that stay true to Asterion's character. Ground yourself with anything that might help.

Don't feed them or reply to their arguments, please. hopefully, they leave the fandom once the new manufactured tumblr sexyman is released and the Asterion tag.

[yallemagne]

So far asking for textual queerness in Dracula media since it's not the 1890's or Hays Code era anymore to self-censor as much is a monkey's paw, because so far we've got: 1) "bi-homicidal" Dracula in love-hate with woman Van Helsing 2) queer Lucy who punishes Mina for not loving her back and gets killed by Dracula over this (and for being the promiscuous sapphic trope in two cases)

I'd rather have the

You cut off there, bud. I'm guessing you're saying you'd rather have unhealthy straight than unhealthy queer dynamics displayed. I'd just rather have good media.

Yeah, I don't enjoy the tendency of casting queer people as these evil, corruptive, predatory creatures rather than... ya know. Human beings. I feel like the tendency of making queer people just straight-up awful is probably left over from when we could get no representation whatsoever. In order to publish stories featuring themselves, queer people had to write morally dubious/evil queer characters that always die in the end. That's fair. Until you get straight people writing those fucking stories so they can claim diversity whilst also shitting on anyone not cishet, white, and Christian.

So, "bi-homicidal" Dracula... it's telling that they felt the need to make VH a woman. Not only a woman but just a very strange and homophobic woman. Agatha van Helsing would corner a gay couple and harass them until they told her who was the bottom and who was the top. Everything about the Dracula miniseries was annoying. It's telling that they were so uncomfortable with the bi part of bisexual that they killed Jonathan off in the first episode and replaced him with a woman. AND IT IS VERY TELLING that they gave all the queer characters and the characters of colour the most unnecessarily brutal deaths. HMMM MOFFAT.

It's because of heteronormativity that Dracula had to switch from Jonathan to Agatha. The bisexuality is less representation, and more of a crutch. Dracula can switch off his attraction to men whenever the straight male writers get too uncomfortable with it, but whenever they need it for a horror scene, he can turn it right back on.

Lucy who punishes Mina is just promiscuous Lucy but reclaimed as a "girlboss". It casts sapphic people as predatory, it casts bisexual people as more promiscuous and willing to cheat and homewreck, it's annoying. You can write a story where Lucy is queer (in fact, most do, but they just make that part of the sexual deviancy of the Bloofer Lady), but because of the rule that you're not allowed to depict healthy relationships onscreen because they're "boring", we get this shit. Lucy's just Dracula at that point. She's the replacement Dracula who gets punished by the actual Dracula for stealing his idea.

The issue here is adaptations' refusal to have Lucy be the sweet young woman she is in the book. No adaptation can accept more "submissive" or "girly" girls, they have to be subversive and manly (but not in a butch way, never in a butch way). Women have to be overtly sexual and sarcastic and just basically toxic men but with tits. The only way to be femme in a movie is to be a femme fatale who objectifies herself to? Get back at men? Great plan. But sometimes you don't WANT to be fatale, you just want to be fucking femme and kiss your girlfriend. But since these movies are made with only the male gaze in mind, you can't.

And listen, I know someone's gonna blame me if I keep begging for Holmward and then an adaptation comes out where Jack like... I dunno, kills Lucy so he can have Arthur all to himself, but that's just the cards we're being dealt here. The solution isn't to settle for eating shit, it's to demand something better than the shit on our plates. It's not our fault for asking for representation. We aren't inflicting this upon ourselves. If I asked for a movie about an ace person and Hollywood responded with a movie about a sex-repulsed serial killer who kills people who have sex, THAT ISN'T MY FAULT. THIS ISN'T A MONKEY PAW SITUATION, THIS IS JUST BAD WRITING. I'm not being karmically punished for challenging the laws of nature, mainstream media just sucks in terms of representation.

[cherienymphe]

I love that opinion lmao I love when people don't infantilize women. I'm a fan of Sydney but it's obvious she doesn't mind that kind of attention and plays into it, like you said. This might be unpopular and a hard pill to swallow for some women but the facts are if you don't want people, and men specifically, to engage with you in that way, there are ways to discourage it. And obviously you can try very hard to protect yourself and still be targeted - I am not negating that whatsoever and have been a victim myself - but the bottomline is that de-centering men from your life is not a joke and actually takes serious work. You simply don't get the kind of respect you want from men when you make yourself vulnerable and are "in on the joke about you" like she is. And I'm not saying it should be that way, but it IS that way and we have to be real about it. At the end of the day, I'm always gonna be about protecting women and it's considerably harder to help the ones that don't want to protect themselves. There is also the possibility that it simply does not bother her like it would bother me... so while I wish better for her I'm not here for the pity party.

Yes some women are perfectly content to play into that role and I won't judge them for it because hey. Do what you feel you gotta do to get ahead or make that money but it's a case of I hope she knows what she's doing. If this is a wave she plans on riding for the rest of her life I just don't see it turning out well.

I mean look at Margot. We all saw her treatment following WOWS and she could've easily been the butt of jokes and projected onto as conservative men's perfect woman for years but she did a hard left with the trajectory of her career (good for her) and now those same men are calling her mid and reminiscing about the good days in which she was parading around Leo in lingerie but girlie was just in one of the biggest and record breaking movies of the decade and has a solid fanbase consisting of the girls and the gays that never treat her the way straight men did.

And also in the case of Sydney, as you said, that treatment doesn't bother every woman. I know it's hard for some people to accept but there are women who enjoy being objectified and who enjoy being the fantasy and who even laugh along with the jokes they're the butt of because they genuinely find them funny. Sydney has made her feelings on this matter perfectly clear so I very much feel like if she likes it then I love it 🤷🏾‍♀️

[tomwambsgans]

I can’t find the post for the life of me but on reddit I saw somebody talking about homophobia in succession and interestingly the person with the second most homophobic comments (after surprise surprise Logan) was Shiv. I just wanted to know your thoughts on this I’m conjunction to tomgreg and in general Shiv and her self characterisation as “woke”

idk if it's the same post you were trying to find but i made a post about that too

my take on WHY it's shiv who is the most guilty of overt homophobia after logan is tbh quite simply that shiv has the most to gain from it. there's a lot of posts on here about gender in succession which i think essentially sum up the way that shiv is kind of required to be "one of the guys" or at least "the good kind" of woman in order to have logan's approval. shiv really is the most like logan in many ways and she's learned from him how to have power over men: it's to deny them their own masculinity. and homophobia is the main way a woman can do that to a man.

shiv's personal "wokeness" i think comes exclusively from her womanhood and basically all the ways she fails to get logan's approval or otherwise have power in a room full of men, because those supposed values are enthusiastically eschewed the moment that she has power. i think this same thing in essence happens with basically every character of course, like with kendall's own very performative feminism and supposed respect for women that he revokes the moment it benefits him personally to be misogynistic. and that's basically ALL it is - that they do what benefits them. sometimes it benefits shiv to be the moral voice of reason in the room bc she has nothing to lose otherwise and it's retaining a sense of superiority at the least. and certainly some things she does sincerely believe are wrong, like mencken being elected president, and in fact most of the main cast clearly thinks so but roman who is a lot more naive, politically. speaking of, there's then the fact that shiv has a career in all this so she's especially aware, basically, about how fake it kinda is. she's a classic rich democrat. that's simply the default horse she's chosen because it works for her.

as for how it relates to tomgreg... i'd say it obv firstly relates to tom and the fact that tom is shiv's partner because he's safe. and a huge part of tom being safe is frankly that he's gay. i don't think shiv is very consciously aware of this (but i don't think she's utterly oblivious either) but it's no coincidence that she's with a guy who's submissive and effeminate and also clearly insecure about those things. and it's not JUST that his lack of objectifying desire is safe, but also that it makes him easy for her to control him, and the thing with shiv is that quite like her dad she needs to have someone around to control.

now shiv being this way def overlaps with tomgreg specifically, since like tom's repression is linked to his stifling homophobic environment and shiv is a part of that, but i think that's one thing that shiv doesn't really know about. i think she has thoughts about gay little cousin greg, and they're all probably along the lines of just, yeah that's cousin greg and he seems pretty gay, whatever. if she has ever had a real whiff of tomgreg (prior to accusing them of double-teaming girls together) i doubt that it was along the lines of tom's desire and much more likely that she saw gay cousin greg sidling up to her man. and even then i really don't think it was on her mind. i think she saw tom having a weird relationship with greg and didn't mentally factor any desire in there, but just saw masculine posturing and respected it, maybe? like tom needs some outlet after being submissive to her and she prob knows that much.

but actually that does make me think of how homophobia in succession is almost always akin to a greek sort of bottomphobia, like being gay is bad because it takes away your manhood, it's the bad thing to take it in the ass or to suck cock, etc - almost never the reverse. the one instance of the reverse that i can think of is when logan is accusing kendall of trying to fuck the waiter in the sense that gay desire is predatory. that's of course the dichotomy of (male) homophobia, that it asserts either an unforgivable personal gender or the perversion that makes you ruin others. but the latter is as self-contradictory as manhood itself is and not nearly as pervasive as it used to be. the latter doesn't interfere with one's manhood at all and that's really what's at stake in the world of succession. logan is just an old, old dinosaur who will whip out any ol' homophobia as long as it gets his sons under his control.

anyway i think shiv could be driven to whip out similar accusations to hurt tom (and the "i hear you fuck models now" stuff did kinda feel along that vein) but isn't very likely to. funnily enough i think she wouldn't even know exactly how much that sort of thing would hurt him on the basis alone of making implications about greg.