#''people i as a lesbian would not consider myself attracted to''

[animeyanderelover]

Confession

Hey, everyone. I have something to tell you which has been on my mind since over 4 years now and which I feel like I have to get out of my chest now. I don't want to write for character x male reader anymore. There are lots of reasons and thoughts behind this decision that have accumulated over many years and now I have finally made the decision to stop writing for the x male reader entirely.

The first reason for me is that I was born a woman and that I 100% identify as one. I started this blog mainly because I wanted to write my own fanfics about characters that I love and that is why I started in November 2020 my own blog on this side. However, I wanted to be inclusive which is why I decided to add the option to ask for an x male reader as well. However, I have figured out over the years that I experience less joy writing for requests asking for a male character because deep down this never was what I wanted to write for but I denied those thoughts because I was afraid that people would think that I hate people who identify as men in fanfiction. Part of me also always thought that maybe I would be a hypocrite. I feared to open a pandora box.

After all if I write about a character who is in a happy relationship, married and has a child in canon does that make me a homewrecker? I write about characters who are still teenagers and find myself writing Nsfw about them too so does that make me a pedophile? If I write about a female character x female reader despite the character never having been indicated to have any romantic interest in another woman am I just making everything lesbian to satisfy my own desires? There are women who write about male characters who are gay in canon with a female reader and I admit to having read some of those works too so does that make me homophobic? If I were to write about something like that too because I feel attracted to those characters does that make me a terrible person? Such doubts and worries constantly held me back from getting rid of that option but now I do not have those doubts anymore.

I had a bad start in the anime community by getting involved with some weird fujoshis and their fanart. That has already led me to the decision that I won't write any Nsfw posts with a male character x male reader and with my own consciousness I could never accept to write anything Nsfw related with a female character x male reader. The truth is because I’m an afab writer I could have never inserted myself in a reader with a dick.

Fujoshis and my own preferences are only two reasons though. The last reason for me is because I have had experiences with actual men on this side who pestered me via chat that they wanted me to write for an x male reader and even though I was not comfortable with it they continued anyways. Those experiences are rare but they added to my overall conflict nevertheless. A while ago I had the "pleasure" of being graced with such a person who really wanted me to write about the women of Arcane with a male reader, a phenomenon that I know has been not uncommon in the x reader community of the series on this app. He was awfully entitled and kept whining about the fact that no one seems to be willing to write about the x male reader for characters like Jinx or Vi and that he considers my writing to be good and that I was his last hope. I have blocked him together with the few others who asked the same of him before in that arrogant and pushy way.

None of those three reasons that I have named are the sole reason for that decision, it is more the accumulation of all of those reasons over the last years that have finally led to this post. So here is my final decision:

I won't write for the x male reader anymore.

I am sorry for all those who do not belong to the entitled male reader community and still felt included in my blog but I cannot write about something I do not feel motivated about and feel no joy in writing either. To all those arrogant male readers who my read this and feel insulted, here is my own opinion. Fanfiction is fanfiction. I do not have the right to call you out for writing about male readers with female characters who are gay because I have found myself guilty on the other side by thirsting about male characters who are gay and I might one day find myself writing about them with a female reader as well.

I don't mind shippers either as long as everything is kept within a legal range because if you come up to me and confess to shipping some brainrot vomit like Sebastian x Ciel (Black Butler), Toji x Megumi (Jjk) or All Might x Deku (My Hero Academia) I will not let you anywhere close to me. And yes, those are ships that people actually support and write about!! I personally just don't care about a ship unless the series is a romance but if you just keep it normal with the gay ships I don't care if you ship something like Gojo x Geto or Jayce x Viktor. Just don't be weird and then get all offended and mad when others, including the author of the work (!!!) doesn't ship them.

However, if male readers want fanfics then you just have to build your own fandom community and do it yourself. The fujoshis have done it, the whole x female reader community has done it. You have to do the same. No one of the writers on this app has started in here with any previous experience. I for example didn't write any world-changing book series before I started my blog and I guarantee you, none of the other writers have done that either. Just don't be a fucking whiny bitch about it and get all offended about it with writers who only write x female reader.

Listen, all of us have some weird fantasies here. I myself take even the most sunshine characters and turn them into obsessive freaks who abduct the reader and kill for them. I write for dub-con and non-con which is ultimately just a euphemism for fantasising about a fictional character r*ping me. I fantasise about male characters baby-trapping me sometimes but if any man in real life were to say something to me like I have written fictional characters say to the reader I will scream, bite and get a restraining order. Does that mean that I support everything that I see online? Fuck, no. Let's be real, who does? There are people who are weird and then there are people who are just gross and I usually stay away from those communities because arguing with them will only cost you your sanity because they clearly have none. On Tumblr I usually resort to swiftly blocking such people the moment I read their content and you are free to do the same to me if you don't support my writing.

Heck, I’ve even blocked people who ranted in the tags about Yandere or dub-con/non-con content and claimed that everyone who writes and reads such posts sick in the head because I believe I did them the favor of sparing them to come across my works. Speaking from experience, such people usually don’t avoid but feel the need to insult and lecture so I probably did them a favor by doing what they don’t want to do because they thrive on being on what they view as the morally high ground. The block button is there for a reason and not just for fancy decoration after all.

It's been more than 4 years on this app for me and I have grown as a person in real life and strive to do so as I continue each year which is why I have decided to not be a pure people pleaser anymore and only write what I can accept within my own consciousness and what I want to write about. It's my blog, it's my rules and if I can be proud with what I write and accomplish on here then this is how I should continue. To anyone who has requested something with a male reader and is still waiting for it to be answered, I cannot promise you that I will still answer it so you should be prepared that it's going to be most likely deleted. I am unfortunately not the right blog to write what you want but I hope that you can find one who will fill the role that I can't anymore.

[boartits]

men will always be inherently less attractive than women simply because they are incapable of yuri and therefore incapable of true love

[nonuggetshere]

I'm gonna continue with the requests later, but I also felt the need to doodle my two PVs with a little bit of gender on the side

They're both still very much genderless, but because not every non-binary/agender person will have the same perception/feelings regarding their gender and won't have the same gender presentation, I decided to mess around with it a little

Hallow is genderfluidv(though after some consideration I realised agenderflux describes them more accurately, but oh well, these labels don't even exist in their story so who cares), they're non-binary but their alignment fluctuates between fem-leaning, masc-leaning, something in-between and neither. They're fine with any terms and pronouns but mostly go by they/them.

Luna is genderfae/transfem, their gender fluctuates between agender and fem-aligned non-binary. They mostly go by they/them and gender-neutral and feminine terms, they're fine with she/her and some neopronouns, but any masculine terms and pronouns are a big no-no for them. Currently, I'm considering making them an enby lesbian, but that might change in the future.

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

first of all, this is all legit, and not bait, though i have a feeling it may come off that way, this did happen to me. please don't publish if tumblr sends it off anon.

i'm a lesbian with gender dysphoria, and while i haven't had much sexual experience, i would consider myself a stone top. in the last year and a half i began reading "terf"/radical feminist writings and reading "terf" tumblr blogs fairly actively, largely out of frustration with misogyny i was experiencing IRL. though i never engaged with the community i did stop identifying as genderfluid and started understanding my dysphoria as stemming from the trauma of being bullied by other girls for having a high-androgen DSD, and using different pronouns/transition thoughts as unhealthy coping mechanisms. i'm happy with this, but i also don't know if i'm attracted to women anymore.

i've always been attracted to women in a way that's stereotypically guy-like; i find feminine women very attractive and not so much fellow(?) butches, want to penetrate with a strap on, don't like bush much, cursory interest in BDSM/daddy kink. i read/watched het erotica and porn sometimes and identified with the man. what i read problematized pretty much every aspect of that- femininity as a cage, penetration as violence/straps as disidentification w the female body, infantilization of women, bdsm as abuse etc. also, desisting making me more conscious of dysphoria/knowledge of how extensive sexual dimorphism is putting me off both women with larger breasts and hips AND smaller breasts and hips/unrealistically masculine body types as well. so a lot of what turned me on before isn't arousing anymore, or i feel guilty about it, and i haven't been able to find butch4butch stuff which is much healthier very interesting.

i consider my sexuality healthier now on a political level but my ability to get aroused/jerk off has plummeted (used to be i could jork it sunrise to sunset) and thinking about being in a relationship w another woman makes me feel uneasy and weird, especially since a lot of what i read emphasized reciprocative cunnilingus/tribbing (which i don't like) as the healthiest sex options. i also think about both my dysphoria and my sexuality issues 100x more than i did before, even though i was promised the opposite (freedom from dysphoria and feeling happier as a lesbian), and it's stressing me out day-to-day. i'm aware based on your general ethos that you probably think i'm a terrible person right now, but i figured it'd be useful to seek the opinion of someone who radically disagrees with what i've read on what i could/should do next, since i admittedly miss being at peace with my sexuality.

thanks for reading.

hi there anon,

it's a bummer that you'd think I would assume you're a terrible person based on everything you've told me here. I generally try not to consider people terrible unless they're actively being shitheads or hurting other people, which doesn't sound at all like you're describing. from what you've told me, you've been up to your eyes in some information that's made you feel deeply uncomfortable in your sexuality and now you're seeking out a new perspective to help you make sense of that hurt. that describes most of the people who send me questions!

it's so striking to me that much of what you're describing is very reminiscent of what's recounted in The Persistent Desire, an anthology of writings on butch/femme identities edited by femme historian and archivist Joan Nestle that was released in 1992. in various essays and interviews countless butches and femmes recount their discomfort with the feminist turn against butch and femme identities that too place in the 70s, when both roles were declared problematic recreations of heterosexuality and summarily decried as politically "incorrect" for lesbians. it's shocking to me how much what you've described echoes these accounts experienced by lesbians half a century ago - the disowning of women who are "excessively" feminine or masculine, the demonizing of penetrative sex, general insistence that there are "correct" sex acts that every lesbian is supposed to enjoy, and the deep discomfort and insecurity that this causes among people who don't fit into the very rigid standards of proper lesbian identity set forth.

here's a link to a PDF, if that's interesting to you at all. it's very long, so feel free not to read it straight through; it's a great project to skim and an incredible way to get in touch with the lesbians who came before us. their accounts of their lives are so wildly different from the boundaries of "good" queer representation that feel so universal today; in discussing their own lives many of these women speak very bluntly about their experiences with abuse, drugs, sex work, and violence. it's a great glimpse into the lives and history of a lot of very ordinary lesbians just living their lives, and I'm very grateful it's been preserved.

now, as for what you're actually gonna do: hey. listen. first of all, if you haven't given up reading this stuff yet, you've gotta. you simply cannot keep internalizing stuff that makes you overanalyze your own sexuality so hard that you feel uncomfortable about being attracted to women. that's not "healthy," that's conversion therapy lite. there are other places to talk about feminism without being made to feel ashamed of yourself.

listen: there's nothing unhealthy about anything that you described about yourself. being a stone butch, being attracted to certain looks and aesthetics, watching porn, wanting to use a strap and roleplay during sex and not being interested in other sexual activities - all of those thing are completely normal and, yes, healthy. certainly healthier than feeling the need to repress your sexuality so hard that thinking about being with a woman doesn't feel right!

should we run through that list?

femininity as cage - sure, okay, femininity isn't for everyone, and there are parts of it that suck. that doesn't mean there's anything wrong with women who like to wear dresses or put on makeup or shave or whatever, or anyone who's attracted to those women. genuinely I cannot think of anything less interesting or important to feminist organizing than getting hung up about what people want to wear. it's clothes, dude. it's fucking clothes. pick a more important hill to die on, I implore you.

penetration is not the same thing as violence. there's just nothing to debate about that one; it's patently absurd to pretend that every act of penetrative sex is rape and you'd have to fundamentally misunderstand how consent works to believe that.

straps are not about "disidentification with the female body," they're about augmenting a sexual experience. a strap-on is not more problematic than a vibrator or a massage oils or a pillow used to prop up a body part. unless those are also bad? are those bad? are pillows disidentifying from the female body also? I'm not up to date on this.

straight up I don't even know which part of your whole deal the infantilization of women is supposed to address, but a thing that I've always found interesting about a lot of radical feminists who are deeply distrustful of sex is the way that many of them seem to assume that women can't be trusted to understand their own sexual desires and need to be taught what's appropriate. seems kind of condescending to me, personally.

BDSM isn't the same thing as abuse. abuse, crucially, is not a situation that people can safe word out of or negotiate the constraints of. it's kind of like how, you know, I purposefully pay people to shove needles in my skin when I want a tattoo, but I wouldn't be stoked about it if somebody just ran up to me in public and started stabbing me without any warning or conversation. context is crucial. there can certainly be abusive people within BDSM spaces, but that's true of people of literally every sexual proclivity on earth, and certainly not an innate feature of BDSM. it's just make believe, dude. it's dress up. it's sex LARPing.

also, psst, hey. that thing about being attracted to women in a "guy-like" way? no such thing. men are humans, dude; they experience attraction in as many different ways as anyone else. for every dude interested in the same stuff as you there are men yearning for hairy women, muscular women, masculine women, women who will dominate them, women who would rather be eaten out then penetrated, and so on. to say nothing of the men who aren't into women at all! and, as is obvious from your own experience, men don't have a monopoly on those kinds of feelings, anyway! there are no men or women feelings, dude; it's all just people having feelings and fighting for their lives trying to figure out what they're into to.

I want to particularly talk about that last bit, where you mentioned not enjoying or wanting to engage in cunnilingus or tribbing. that's totally fine! people like different shit in all kinds of combinations - I'm personally a huge fan of getting eaten out and scratched up or bitten, but I don't do penetration and I've genuinely never met anyone who actually liked tribbing - and there are absolutely people out there who will, to paraphrase the poet Tinashe, perfectly match your freak.

(have you heard about the perpetual, critical shortage of tops that the queer community faces? you'd be a godsend, just saying.)

also, actually, hey I wanted to circle back to another thing as well: it's deeply alarming to me that whatever radfem stuff you've been reading has you feeling "put off" of women with wide hips and large breasts as well as women with small breasts and hips. what is wrong with either of those? both of those are just ways that women naturally look. women just look a wide variety of ways, and it's sad that that's upsetting you now. just thinking about this, conceptually, is giving me hives.

having been up to your eyes in all of this, I can definitely understand why you'd feel the urge to overanalyze you own gender and sexuality to the point of completely talking yourself out of identifying with anything that feels good for you. as I said, that's actually not healthy in any way, and as a sex educator I can't say that I think anyone genuinely invested in your well-being would want that for you.

entirely aside from their feelings on trans people, which I obviously disagree with pretty vehemently, one of the things about radfems that's most endlessly vexing to me is the insistence that such an extremely narrow range of sexual behaviors are appropriate. seems like a miserable way to live, and I sincerely hope you can detangle yourself from the morass of shame it's landed you in. you deserve better.

[foundfamilynonsense]

Sometimes I just want to sit down and say, like… Gay men, lesbian women, and straight people. You could wake up tomorrow and discover you’re actually bi.

Tomorrow you could meet someone of the sex you do not think you are attracted to and go “oh fuck���. There is no rule— nothing—that says that could not happen to you at any moment.

“I’ve lived forty years without—” so?

“I can just tell I’m—” how?

Now, we can get into the conversation of how these labels aren’t actually law, and that you can be a lesbian even if there was that one guy and you can be a straight guy if there were those two guys in college and etc.

And that’s totally true and valid and we should normalize that. But that’s another post.

My point for this post is that, yes, you are one strange meeting away from being bisexual. It will probably never happen. But you can never say with 100% certainty that it won’t happen.

But that doesn’t mean every gay, lesbian, and straight person should start calling themselves bisexual just in case. That would be a completely absurd thing to expect.

Can you imagine if we go around to gay men and were like “but how do you know you’ll never be attracted to a woman?” Imagine if we did it to straight people? The idea you have to call yourself Bi just in case?

This is easy to understand. So why is it so hard for people to understand when it comes to asexual and aromantic people?

Like… I suppose I could wake up tomorrow and catch some feels for someone. I… doubt it. But it could happen.

But I’ve been alive 22 years and it hasn’t happened yet. So why should I expect it? Why should I spend time thinking about it? Why should I label myself based on that slim possibility?

The number of straight people who have said to me “well you never know” or “maybe you just haven’t met the right person” or whatever. Can you all IMAGINE what they would say to me if I threw it back?

“Oh, sally, you don’t like any women yet but you never know. Maybe you just haven’t met the right woman.” Their heads would explode I think.

I am an adult. I have been through college and it’s social life. My brain is (basically) done developing and I finished puberty quite a while ago. How late do you have to be before people concede that you’re not a “late bloomer” you’re just not gonna bloom at all?

Maybe tomorrow I will wake up and be attracted to someone. I still would consider myself on the aroace spectrum. But to be honest I think I know myself enough to trust it’s not going to happen. And I don’t think I should have to plan for it or expect it.

[gay-otlc]

Note: Even if in retrospect you don't think you were actually attracted to a certain gender that you labelled yourself as attracted to (for example, you identified as bisexual but later realized you were never attracted to anyone and now identify as aroace), vote as though you actually were attracted to that gender. If poll options did not have character limits, it would be worded "I considered myself to be attracted to [gender]" and that's the way it's meant to be interpreted. So the person in the example above would vote "Previously attracted to multiple genders, now attracted to none"

Another note: The first option is supposed to say "gender(s)", I typed it wrong, I'm sorry

*for example, went from identifying as a lesbian to a straight man

**for example, went from identifying as a straight man to a straight woman

***for example, went from identifying as a gay man to a lesbian

This is something I was wondering about, since I know a lot of people whose sexuality labels have changed before and after coming out, and I felt like doing a tumblr poll about it

[ultfreakme]

So.

I finished She-ra.

I wanted to watch it because I realized I rarely watched anything with a female-centric cast and I especially didn't interact with sapphic content despite being sapphic. Abundance of cishet male-specific stories and a love for action-adventure led me to not exploring the latter in stories centering women because I had my own biases. I didn't think there were nearly enough action-adventure stories centering women out there in comparison to men. I just gave into convenience. Also I'll be real, internalized misogyny.

She-ra was so breathtaking and impactful because close to a decade after watching Legend of Korra and the beginning of Korrasami, I got to watch a fully-explored lesbian relationship on-screen with all the action and adventure I wanted.

I saw too much of myself in all the characters. In Glimmer & Angella's mother-daughter bickering, in Catra's insecurities, in Mermista's distance and aversion to people but still wanting companionship. I saw me in bits and pieces across all these girls and women.

It's a rare moment for a POC queer woman like me to truly see myself anywhere. My identity is often considered rare enough to be mythic (although queer POC are fucking everywhere lbr).

I remember being an eight-year old, and watching The Little Mermaid for the first time. I was mesmerized, I sung "Part of Your World" and re-enacted in my tiny apartment with only enough space for a bed and a cupboard and nothing else where my entire family were. I'd sing it on top of my lungs and then I'd look in the mirror and see brown skin and black hair and the spell of being a mermaid underwater would break.

Then fast-forward to 2024, I see She-Ra and her magical princess friends say they need to recruit a powerful Sea Princess to their war efforts. I am excited only because my fascination for mermaids has never really gone away. Then our main crew arrive and what do I see?

A brown woman, a woman with my skin tone and my eyes and my wavy kind of hair. She's stand-offish and a little emo, and she controls the ocean. She can switch her legs for fins and swim!! Suddenly I'm eight again.

I also remember watching The Swan Princess for the first time and feeling strange butterflies every time I saw Odette in her beautiful white gown. I didn't know then that girls could like girls, all I had was this feeling. A buttery, soft feeling where I wanted to sit beside her and see her smile. As I grew up I understood it was me being attracted to her and thinking "there's no love story showing the way I love".

Enter Catra and Adora. I felt a silly kind of nostalgia seeing Catra in love with a magical girl in gold and white.

I could go ON AND ON with all these little details where bits of me were in the show. It made me a little less lonely, and made me a lot more hopeful. Seeing yourself in media is important. Obviously you don't need it to empathize with a character or understand them but seeing parts of your own experience on-screen is a different kind of high. Like, like woah I can be a protagonist like that? I don't need to erase myself?

A story which treated parts of me- all the good and the bad parts- with kindness and gave it all a happy ending. I am so used to reading tragedy, expecting cruelty from even fantasy that I truly treasure stories with hope.

This show gave me that. I have been doing pretty bad in terms of mental health for months, maybe over a year actually. This was a nice reprieve and I hope the message of the story sticks with me, and that I start 2025 stronger and braver.

[doubleca5t]

What do you think gay men are attracted to in men that they can’t be attracted to in women?

It can’t be anything about femininity or masculinity obviously. That’s both sexist, and cultural so can’t be what drives men-only attraction.

It can’t be anything about stated identity because someone could lie just as easily as they could tell the truth in such a statement, and it makes no sense because homosexuality and heterosexuality exists in other species with no stated identities. It’s not like other animals without gender are all pan.

Saying idk it’s the vibes or some indescribable trait men have that women can’t but “I can’t explain” is a nonanswer.

Soooooooo what is it? Or do you think any sexuality but bi/pan is just cultural performance or an identity rather than an inborn orientation?

- [ ]

see I can tell that this is a bad faith ask because I've been getting an influx of terfs on TikTok lately but I'll take the bait and answer this legitimately. I think the *actual* answer here is that sexuality is complex and even though we put a lot of labels on it, those labels are ultimately never going to account for every possible corner case and so rather than constantly redefining the terms of our sexuality I think it's better if we just embrace the messiness of it all as part of the game.

Like I consider myself a lesbian (and you would probably consider me a straight man) which *should* mean I'm only attracted to women. But I've also found myself attracted to drag queens and femboys and some non-binary folks who identify more on the masculine side of the spectrum. Does that mean I'm actually bisexual? I don't think so, because I don't feel any attraction to dudes (cis or trans) who aren't actively playing with gender in a way that's either flirting with femininity or wholeheartedly embracing it.

I imagine plenty of gay men have a similar experience seeing women who present very masculine or a non-binary person who's more on the femme side. And before you accuse me of insisting that lesbians can be attracted to men, there is a HUGE difference between saying that gender non-conforming people throw a wrench into people's sexual identities and saying that "lesbianism includes men".

In short, the reason why I don't have a definitive clear cut answer to your question is because I think human sexuality defies such an answer. I just so happen to be ok with that because I think it's a better, easier way to live

[erinwantstowrite]

Hi I know you mentioned you being aroace just a couple days ago and I was wondering if maybe you could explain more in depth about how you found out your sexuality and what not? If it’s not too personal…

I’ve always sorta struggled since I haven’t had any crushes as a kid except for maybe one and that’s just cause ppl kept asking me who mine was… so I don’t even think it was a legit crush?? So not only do I not know who (looks,gender, that sorta thing) I would like … am I ever gonna like someone to even find that out???

I know you said Superman on the new trailer was hot ahaha so do you still experience that sort of physical attraction? I’ve been told when people question which gender they like, to pick which one looks more attractive to them but I’ve never really experienced that sort of physical attraction so I can’t tell that way either…

I think any thought of a crush forming was more towards their personality as well. Looks I guess are more of a second thought I think..? Even then I can’t tell if this is “you’re such an awesome person I wanna be besties with you” really strong feeling or an actual “I wanna date this person” feeling.

The only person I’ve gotten really close to discerning it as officially crush was someone from work who was older by a good amount… which can be/is pretty weird.. Lots of people my age are just a little too crazy for me.. I guess??? Idk and even now I can’t tell if that was just “glad to have someone as a friend sorta thing. I’m really sorry if this is too personal and u don’t have to respond to the ask directly either I was just hoping on maybe some advice for some clarity if possible… as I get older and realize I’ve never dated/had that sorta infatuation it feels so excluding at times.

Also I am hoping for a feast AND desert with this “‘soon’ but still haven’t posted it two days later” chapter plz and thank you

I hope this made sense and wasn’t too invasive!! :(

when i was younger, i was reading about this kind of thing online and i didn't find anyone like me. i think it's about time that i come full circle and make my own post. i've got like half of my frontal lobe developed and i've been figuring out a lot of things about myself these past couple of years, and there might be someone out there who needs to hear this (´-`ʃ♡ƪ) so if anyone is interested, below the cut is a very long talk about how i figured some stuff out

when it came to my sexuality, i only started considering it when i was in middle school, going into high school. (which would be when i was 12-13). that's when a lot of my friends started having crushes on our classmates and i realized they were being serious when they said they had crushes on people. they had figured out their identities as being a lesbian or bisexual, and they had relationships. (or as close as you can get to that in middle school).

i started to panic and think that i was lagging behind. and i really started to repress my feelings about dating people and romance and what that would entail. i found out through the internet about being pansexual. at the time i thought "oh, they have the same attraction for everyone!" and i slapped it on myself because i thought it would fix everything. i even came out to my parents as pansexual and for a while i left it at that.

i had an idea of romance. i shipped characters in media and i knew that my parents really loved each other. there were a lot of examples for love in my life that weren't the best, but having two parents that actually did care about each other made me want that for myself in the future...

but that's in the future. i personally didn't think about it much because we were still kids. for a while i didn't think anyone else was being serious, that they were just trying it out quicker than i was ready for. it was a strange feeling. i guess i still believed we were playing make believe, or copying what we saw on TV or with our parents. often when my friends asked me who i had a crush on and i felt pressured, i would pick someone that i thought i wouldn't mind dating if i had to. someone would be "interested" in me and i would say "okay" because i felt like that was part of this game we all seemed to be playing. i've had a few "boyfriends" over the years that got people off my back when i had them. in elementary school it was this boy that didn't pick on me, another boy that was my parents' friend's kid. in middle school i had an online boyfriend and a couple of "crushes" on friends of friends, someone just a little far out of my circle that didn't shake anything up. my friends would help me get together with a person and they'd seem so excited for me, so i just went along with it.

then it hit me that they weren't doing it just to do it, or playing pretend. they actually felt something when they were interacting with their crushes. i started to reread books and rewatch media and really grasp what they were saying. the feeling of having butterflies inside them when they talked to each other, blushing when something was said? i thought that was about a general anxiety people get when talking to other people. but there was always something more to it that i just... didn't get. no matter how hard i tried, i didn't understand what that something was.

then started coming the pressure to do the same, to fit in. that's why i accepted a label of pansexual. it was "strange" but at least it didn't feel "broken." i could deal with people telling me that i was wrong for liking more than just boys. but to say that there was no one on the table gave me an anxiety i'd never felt before. like i would be letting down my family, that the entire course of my life would shift. i wouldn't walk down the aisle because there would be no wedding. my parents wouldn't have grandkids. my friends would go on to have lives completely separate from mine, we'd have nothing in common anymore. so i stuffed it all down and made myself believe that this wasn't who i was.

it really mixed me up because i did have a couple of "crushes" that felt real. there were a few girls i was friends with, there were boys in my classes (usually class clowns...) that i'd get excited to see every day. when i thought about dating them, it felt nice. any other time when i thought about dating someone, i'd get this awful feeling in my gut that i later realized was dread. i was fully convinced it was different from all the other times. that "different" that i didn't understand before.

it was different! but not for the reason i thought it was. those people made me laugh, they listened and remembered things about me (that i didn't get much of during that time of my life), and most of all: they didn't like me back.

there were literally no expectations in their eyes for things to go away from friendship. and i think that's what made me like them, but not as a crush. it was relief. there was always an expectation for other people (specifically boys) that if we were friends, things would stray from friendship at some point. not with these people. that relief, combined with all the other good feelings they gave me (class clowns...) made it so much easier to fall into a friendship that i didn't have with other people. and i was in denial for so long that i thought of those friendships as crushes because they were different from other friendships.

there were a couple of times that i got close to having to face my sexuality and it felt like a gut punch. there were a couple of people i was friends with (that i didn't have crushes on) that i had previously thought "if i had to pick someone" about. but when they actually told me their feelings, i would run away. in one case, i literally ran away. i changed my entire routine so that i wouldn't have to face them. and i'm a creature of habit, so of course i took that step back and asked myself why i was having such a strong reaction. my friends didn't understand why i was so panicked about these confessions. especially because before, i "liked" people and had no problem with it.

part of my feelings were that no one would actually like me (which only furthered me not wanting/not considering romance). some of the confessions that i got were fake/pranks, and it would really mess with my head. i wasn't skinny, i knew i was strange and awkward, and i could be very brash and stubborn. i had a weird sense of humor and i missed social ques. i got a lot of "you should be a lawyer" and complaints of being bossy when i was growing up and i always knew they really meant "you're a bitch." i wouldn't understand why i felt so othered from my peers like that until i learned i was possibly autistic, and i only found that out a couple years ago. combined with being plus sized and not conventionally attractive, i didn't get much breathing room. if i wasn't perfectly calm all the time, if i didn't force myself to be overly nice to people, and if i wasn't funny, i'd get told i was "draining" to be around.

i did a lot to try and fit in. i kept my hair long because people would compliment it, i tried to wear skirts instead of pants/shorts, i'd wear comfy clothes and the like so i didn't look like i was trying too hard. a lot of my personality was forced and i was the one who was being drained instead. i ended up having to get a radar for when people were just messing with me. and so when a real confession happened, there was a combination of anxiety about if they were faking or not, doubt that they could actually like me, and then a deep rooted fear about if they were being serious.

instead of the relief i should have felt when i learned it was a real confession, i still felt scared. it would be the same anxiety as if someone asked me to get on the world's tallest roller coaster in the world and i had just seen a chunk of the roller coaster fall in front of me.

that part made it even harder to come to grips with my sexuality. i thought if i gave up on being a hopeless romantic, i'd be giving in to all the times someone told me "I just don't see you dating anyone." being unlovable was a death sentence in my eyes. and it didn't help that i've lived in the south all my life. i was already strange and going to hell for a multitude of things. turning around and telling them that i was going against every expectation set of me to get married and have kids by 24????

(i should clarify that my parents had never been the ones to put this in my mind. when i came out as pansexual, they had only been confused about what the hell that was. the rest of their reaction was "i mean... we could already sort of tell." and while my parents had hopes for my future, i knew deep down that while they'd be a little sad not to have those expected memories with me, they wouldn't turn me away. and they would very likely be happy to create a whole different set of memories with me.)

i have my current friends to thank for me coming to terms with who i am. by the time i was in college i had started to question everything. my middle school friend group had been majority queer but we had gone to different schools or just faded apart. in high school, a majority of my time was spent in band. and while i was one of those people who had friends in a variety of friend groups, the closest friends i had were the people in my section that i sat next to every day. and in the present time, only a couple of them remained straight churchgoers. even though they've changed now just like i have, during high school i was a different story.

going to college opened me up to a far different experience. by this point i'd shifted from pansexual to bisexual. my college experience wasn't... ideal. or really healthy in any aspect. but meeting these people did dislodge the mindset i'd had for most of my life. and my current friends have changed my life. the fear that i had about being aromantic has now become the relief i needed my entire life. it doesn't feel broken, or wrong, or strange. sometimes i do feel sad about it, or question if this is really the case. maybe one day i'll meet someone who shows me that "different" feeling i'd been waiting to understand. but i grew past the societal expectation of needing a partner to be fulfilled in life and i'm so much happier.

life doesn't need to be about that partner. i have many, many friends and family to grow old with. i have a godchild!! one day i'll have my own house to celebrate holidays and achievements at, to host my friends and family. i'll have pets that i love and i'll have my own career, and i'll be happy because i never needed to fit expectations to be happy.

when it comes to anything sexual, it's sort of the same feeling as when i had "crushes" on people in real life. though also different? i don't look at real people and feel an attraction beyond knowing that they are attractive, objectively. i can feel attraction sometimes in a physical sense, but i have no interest in having anything personal happening between us. a fictional character has no interest in me, and so it feels safe to think that they're hot and to express it. like sure, yeah, i have a crush on them! i get giggly when Captain Smoker from One Piece shows up on the screen, and the new Superman makes me think "oh! okay!" but if they were real and in front of me? i'd probably... lose that attraction, like it was never there.

here's the kicker, though, and might sound weird at first: you don't have to put a label on yourself

yeah, i do consider myself aroace. but the world is ever changing and so is the human experience. it helps to have a basis, to understand your feelings and work through them. it's nice to be like "there is a name for this" and to find a community through that. i'm not saying there's anything wrong about figuring out your identity and saying "I'm this, this, and this!" nothing at all wrong with that. but we're all figuring ourselves out, all the time. it doesn't end when you put the label on. you have the entire rest of your life to continue learning things about yourself and the world around you. i wish i'd known in middle school that i didn't have to rush it, that i have every opportunity to take it one phase at a time. a human life seems fleeting, especially when you're looking back on your past and feeling like the time flew by. but that's just our perception of it as we look back.

what i mean to say it that it's okay to backtrack. it's okay to change your mind. it's okay to not put a label on it. it's okay to put a label on it. it's okay not to tell anyone, if you don't want to. it's okay to say "i'll figure it out." and it's okay if you don't. it's okay if you sit up in bed one day when you're 60 years old and go "that's what it is." as long as you live your life listening to yourself and not trying to meet an expectation you think you have to, then you're doing it right.

and it's okay if you lived your life like i did, and you didn't do any of that. being a human is messy and that's part of life. you're not gonna get it right the first time- but even then, sometimes you will! there's a nuance and a spectrum to everything you experience. take pride in who you are even if you don't have a clue yet. be kind to yourself. you're gonna be okay.

[genderqueerdykes]

how do i try to put this for people who get confused about aromantic lesbians and gays. not every aro lesbian is like this so disclosure: i am talking about my experience as an aro lesbian, but i feel like it's still important to discuss. lesbians can be aromantic and asexual, and even both- i am on the ace spectrum, so i can be considered an aroace lesbian. the thing is, i still experience lesbian and sapphic attraction even if it's not necessary romantic.

the way i try to phrase it is i have a deep attraction toward all dykes: butches, studs, bulldykes, femmes, lesboys, transbians, non binary dykes, intersex dykes, transmasc, ftm & trans male dykes, transfem dykes, genderqueer dykes, male dykes, bigender dykes, genderfluid dykes, two-spirit dykes. and sapphic identifying women, men & people. i'm dyke oriented. i want to be around other dykes of any identity- i want to live in domestic environmnets with other lesbians & dykes, taking care of one another, making sure we're alright.

i want to be there for other dykes in my community. i want to come visit to check on how they're doing when they're sick. i wanna be there to listen to the stone butches when they feel estranged. i want to give them groceries that i didn't end up liking but i know they would. i want to laugh and joke and goof off with other dykes. i want to be there to listen when they have gender or identity dysphoria. i wanna go bowling with the butches. i wanna workout at the gym with the bulls. i wanna go clothes shopping with the lesboys & boydykes to find them clothes that make them feel like themselves. i want to give other dykes a place to stay when they're going through hard times. i want to befriend with the weird "crazy" "ugly" dykes who are freaky. i want to be there when something scary happens so i can provide comfort and support. i want to help give resources and aid to other poor dykes who need it.

there are a lot of ways to be a dyke, lesbian, or sapphic. whatever you want to call yourself under this umbrella, there are a tons of ways to express it. i don't have to want to cuddle, kiss or hug other dykes in a romantic fashion. maybe i like surrounding myself with other dykes. maybe i just really prefer the company of other dykes. it's not that hard to wrap one's brain around once you break it down like that. there's a million other ways to be in someone else's company and spend time together. i assure you there is more to adult relationships than sex and romance. those are wonderful things for the people who enjoy them, but for those of us who are aromantic and/or asexual, there are many other ways to enjoy the company of other folks in a very queer fashion.

happy pride to every aromantic spectrum lesbian, dyke & sapphic person, you deserve to be seen and heard just as much as every other dyke. you matter

[dapperapple]

Mike's crush on El does not necessarily contradict him being gay rather than bi

I wanna start off by clarifying that if you see Mike Wheeler as bisexual rather than gay, THAT'S 1000% VALID don't let anyone take that from you babe

this is just my perspective as a lesbian who thought she was definitely straight until the end of 10th grade (age 16, a bit older than Mike and Will are in canon)

I was rewatching a lot of scenes from the show, mainly s2 and s3, to see if I thought that Mike's feelings for El came across as weird/forced or if their relationship felt off

and honestly it left me (a Byler shipper) pretty confused at first

because YES there are a lot of odd things about his feelings and their relationship

BUT ALSO

there are a few moments that are so cute and feel so genuine I didn't know what to do with them for a sec

mainly all the scenes where they're together at the Snowball dance

because that shit seems real to me, it's cute as fuck, that is a Mileven win right there if there ever was one

and honestly, the forehead touch when she and the Byers are about to leave, and again when they reunite in s4

dude that shit is so sweet okay

(Mileven shippers are valid even if I disagree with it for the narrative)

ANYWAYS here's where my personal experience comes in to help out with my confusion over this

Mike in s1 feels the most obviously comp-het to me

because I had a big crush on a boy in kindergarten, another in gr2/3

I didn't even know what gay people were, I knew girls liked boys, so if a boy was my friendly, and nice to me instead of mean, I probably would've liked him or thought I liked him

Mike in seasons 2-4 reminds me of myself in gr7/8

the most intense crush I had on a guy was in gr7/8

I was more used to being friendly with guys at this point but this guy was becoming a close friend of mine

a cute confident guy who was nice, funny, and taking an active interest in me as a person was like wooaahh

I really do believe that Mike unintenionally idolized El, putting her up on this pedestal, with his self esteem all wrapped up in her liking him back

but I also don't think that's his fault, when you're young you don't know any better

the pressure to date starts to increase a bit, and low self esteem is kicking your ass

I did the exact same thing with the guy I liked, I had this whole other version of him in my head and I started liking him less and less the more he didn't act like that ideal

(insert Mike's behavior towards El after she assaulted Angela)

even after I figured out that the kind of person and the kind of connection I wanted in a relationship was something I was far more likely to find with a girl, I still thought I was straight, so it just made me kind of sad

like- I had resigned myself to the fact that I would struggle to find a guy that I TRULY liked

maybe it was lingering internalized homophobia, idk, I had lots of gay friends, but I just hadn't felt that way about any girl at all before, I didn't think I was capable of being attracted to girls

and then there was her

we became very close friends, she was such a kind person, so fucking funny, an incredibly skilled artist, and absolutely gorgeous

and it finally clicked

finally my mind registered the fact that I COULD be attracted to girls

I still consider her my first love

and then there was no turning back

WHICH IS WHY

I wouldn't be surprised AT ALL if it takes Will coming out to Mike/the party in order for him to consider Will romantically

not because he isn't already in love with him subconsciously

but because I don't think he has registered it as a possibility for EITHER of them

moral of the story:

COMPULSIVE HETEROSEXUALITY IS REAL GUYS AND IT CAN FEEL MORE REAL THAN YOU'D EXPECT

especially since when you're young, the differences between boys and girls (both physically and how we're socialized) are much less apparent

MIKE WHEELER I KNOW WHAT YOU ARE (because me too!!)

[seldarinesorcerer]

I feel like now the queer community is at the point where we should be able to have the conversation that sexuality can be influenced without worrying that cishets are going to use that as a talking point against us. Sometimes sexuality can be influenced by outside environments or even a conscious choice. I've been straight, I've been bisexual, I've been lesbian, I've been aroace, I've been alloace, and now I'm achillean. That was a choice that I made because I discovered calling myself achillean was less stressful and made me feel the best about myself without worrying about how well it realistically fit me in with the community. I understand that for many people, sexuality isn't a choice, but for me, it kind of was. No one gets to define my queerness for me, and I shouldn't have to worry about what the religious and political right wing has to say about it.

For the longest time, I tried to deny that my asexuality had nothing to do with sexual trauma because I didn't want to push the narrative that sexuality can be a choice. I didn't want people to use that against the community as a whole by insinuating that any sexual orientation that isn't heterosexual is unnatural because being queer isn't unnatural.

But my asexuality doesn't feel organic to me. It feels like a result of trauma. But that doesn't mean I'm not asexual. That doesn't mean I should be excluded from using the label or denied access to the community because it defies the "I was born this way" narrative.

Activism around education within the medical field, increasing understanding from doctors around the existence of asexuality would obviously help people who have never experienced sexual attraction from suffering with medical discrimination, but it would also provide options and less judgement for everyone who experiences a decrease in sexual interest, ability, or attraction for any reason.

I understand the reasons behind wanting to create boundaries around an identity. It serves to give queerness a kind of legitimacy. It makes it simpler to explain to people who have never heard the term.

But, to me, these boundaries are becoming their own form of gatekeeping. It's more useful to consider queerness as spectrums of both experience and identity. Applying absolutist statements to define what all queer people are or aren't does more harm than good if helping people understand themselves is a priority in the queer community.

The right has always used the perception of sexuality being a choice or being able to change to justify the claim that queerness is immoral and to deny us our civil rights because of it. I understand the fear of wanting to push back against that narrative.

I also, at the same time, think it's unfair to claim that people whose sexualities have changed over time, either deliberately or as a result of an outside experience, are harmful to the communities under the queer umbrella. We aren't harmful, and we aren't feeding into the conservatives' narratives either. We are queer too and deserve the space to exist and to access the resources we need to understand ourselves and our experiences better.

[officialspec]

What do you think gay men are attracted to in men that they can’t be attracted to in women?

It can’t be anything about femininity or masculinity obviously. That’s both sexist, and cultural so can’t be what drives men-only attraction.

It can’t be anything about stated identity because someone could lie just as easily as they could tell the truth in such a statement, and it makes no sense because homosexuality and heterosexuality exists in other species with no stated identities. It’s not like other animals without gender are all pan.

Saying idk it’s the vibes or some indescribable trait men have that women can’t but “I can’t explain” is a nonanswer.

Soooooooo what is it? Or do you think any sexuality but bi/pan is just cultural performance or an identity rather than an inborn orientation?

- [ ]

first off i hate this ask and i think youre a freak. in any other world i wouldve blocked you for this but unfortunately for both of us i actually like this type of philosophy. dont send this shit to anyone else though

i dont think its right to compare human sexuality to the same thing in animals, to get that out of the way. im sure until a certain point it comes from the same biological impulses, but human beings have way more complicated social structures and reasons for coupling that just do not exist in other animals. our social behaviours are what make us unique in the animal kingdom and that definitely extends to gender and sexuality. so theres that

people love to tout 'gender is a social construct' around like its a criticism in and of itself, which i think betrays a misunderstanding about social constructs in general. theyre the foundations we build language on to better understand each other, and affected by a whole host of cultural and historical factors. just because theyre subjective and complicated doesnt mean they arent real. in terms of the effect they have on peoples lives they may be the most real thing that exists

for example, 'kindness' is a social construct. the definition and ways it is enacted differ greatly across personal and cultural lines. but no one would ever suggest a world where kindness doesnt exist or loses meaning, because its an essential part of the way we interact with each other (in the same way i dont really see a world where gender entirely ceases to exist, mainly just one where people have more fun with it. im not a psychic though so who knows)

similarly, sexuality in humans is another social construct. i think the driving biological forces behind it are very real, but the labels people attach to those impulses are subjective attempts to express their inner world to the people around them if that makes sense. and those same biological impulses are ALSO subject to social ideas of gender, because those ideas are established at birth and reinforced over a persons entire lifetime

to use myself as an example, im a gay trans man. ive identified as other things in the past, because i was trying to pick apart feelings i had and express them to others in an attempt to find community. my identity might change as i get older and experience new things, or it might not. i identify as gay because im not attracted to the social concept of women, and someone i would otherwise be attracted to might lose all appeal after i find out they fall under that concept (this has happened before w transfems pre and post coming out lol)

of course, the real REAL answer to this is that trying to give queer identities rigid and objective definitions is a fools errand, and also lame as fuck. someone might identify as gay and be more attracted to general masculinity than men as a social category, maybe they fool around with a couple of butch women without considering themself any less gay. two otherwise identical people might be a butch lesbian and a gay trans man without either of those identities coming into conflict. they might even be the same person at different times of the week

the labels people choose to use are communication tools, not objective signifiers. if you dont understand them, they probably arent talking to you

social constructs are everything. we as humans have the unique ability to interpret our own messy desires and impulses into words that other people can use to form an idea of someone else in their mind. its how we build connections, and of course it isnt perfect because trying to squeeze someones entire personal history and the centuries of context that defined it into a handful of syllables is going to leave some room for error. but its all we have, yknow? so we keep trying. and i think thats much more human than any imposed objective 'truth' could ever be

tldr we live in a society dipshit. get with it

[t00thpasteface]

tell me your favorite M*A*S*H* headcanons please

aaaaaa that's so vague (" ´д`)ゞ but i do have a lot of random headcanons that are admittedly just projection from myself and my family, like...

hawkeye was a really lanky kid who knew a lot about fish anatomy and biology but couldn't actually reel anything in to save his life, and he's lost multiple big catches as a result; his dad poked fun at him for it but still invited him to every fishing trip. hawkeye also got kinda desensitized to gore pretty early on while helping his dad clean fish they caught.

part of the reason mulcahy and kathy are so close is because they were hellish to each other as kids. just full on trying-to-kill-each-other brawling. mulcahy has a small dark mark on his chest where kathy stabbed him with a pencil and the lead broke off in his skin; he thinks it's funny and will tell people about it because he can take anything in stride at this point, then gets surprised when people are appalled by it.

klinger would absolutely crush it at sewing little plushie animals and dolls, and he considers it a thrifty use of scrap materials. sometimes he looks for patterns in catalogues, other times he improvises them. he gives pretty much all the dolls away.

potter knows a bunch of lasso tricks; he can still make a big lasso loop and jump through it, and whenever there's a little kid in camp they like to try and see if he can lasso them while they're scampering around (he totally can).

Comphet Lesbian Houlihan. being surrounded by an overwhelmingly male-dominated and sexist institution from day one, and therefore constantly surrounded by obsessive and disparaging remarks about women and the attractiveness thereof, she just figures everyone is as attracted to women like that, and takes her own lesbian attraction for granted without examining it further: of course she thinks women are attractive, everyone does!

bj's nicknames for erin once he's back home are "baby erin" and "er-bear" and everything she owns (clothes, toys, room decor, etc) is either baby pink or grass green.

[butchpeace]

If a trans man were dating another trans man, would they be lesbians? Or would they only be lesbians if they desisted/detransitioned?

Yep, my view is that it’s a lesbian relationship regardless. I understand it sounds counterintuitive or invalidating at first, but this is actually a really common situation, and I was in it too.

I considered myself a lesbian before transition. While transitioning I called myself pansexual and experimented with all kinds of people, before realizing I’m only really attracted to females. I settled into dating other trans men and eventually realized those were lesbian relationships. Physically, mentally, emotionally, I was dating other female-attracted females.

So I realized that they felt the same way about me, whether they were ready to see it or not. They might not say it, but other women never saw me as an actual man - they saw me as a masculinized lesbian. Straight women weren’t attracted to my body. Why would they be?

Even within the trans community, female homosexuals are still dating each other, not mtfs. And that really pokes a hole in the idea that attraction is based on gender identity rather than sex. It’s just not factually true when you look at real people’s actual dating patterns.

There’s also the fact that plenty of lesbians have always been attracted to trans men and masculinized women. That doesn’t change their sexual orientation. We’re still accepted by the wlw community and belong with them 🌈

[thyfleshc0nsumed]

definitely ignore this if it doesnt interest you as a question but i'm wondering, you call yourself a butch , does that mean that you feel attraction only towards hard-line women? i'm interested because i've long felt a kinship with the butch identity and the promise that it makes to the individual and the community, but i'm not sure if i'd be considered a lesbian, per se. i don't see gender as a factor to be considered in my sexuality at all. for context im 19 and questioning my gender and sexuality after coming out of a 6 year relationship (11 months ago now, haven't dated since.) and i've been trying to get different peoples perspectives.

-modestmasc

Hi, thanks for the question.

Others may disagree but to me, being butch is an adjective first and an identity second. Frankly, I didn't choose to be butch just like I didn't choose to be CAMAB. I get to choose to embrace it, I get to choose to find it a meaningful experience, I get to choose to call myself butch, and I get to choose to love my experience being butch, but I don't get to choose to be or to not be whatever it is that "butch" is.

So, are you butch?

There's a phrase ive heard a couple hundred times over the last two years: "you're a member when you say you are." I like this phrase a lot. If you say you are, I don't get to doubt you. If you don't say so, I don't get to doubt you on that either.

So, are you butch?

We have such a beautiful variety of experiences, and such a wide variety of ways we talk about them. Many butch people relate butchness to "lesbian masculinity." Doesn't land for me, mostly on account of the 'masculinity' bit. To me, being butch is its own thing. I don't consider myself masculine in almost any way, I'm just butch, whatever that is. It's not so much that I think those who describe it like that are "wrong," it's just not been my experience.

The word 'lesbian' in there doesn't function to say "women who are only attracted to women, instead, it just means "women who are attracted to women." Even so, I personally would disagree with the premise that butchness is exclusive to gay people (I say gay as an umbrella term here), I mean I've met some butch ass heterosexual women.

Certainly as gay people, our experience of butchness is going to be different than that of a heterosexual, but like that's true for every facet of identity that can be paired with butchness. My experience as a young fat white bisexual TS butch woman is gonna be different than a middle aged able bodied Black person who's butch, and their experience is gonna be different than an elderly Puerto Rican butch lesbian. But no matter what, we're still all butch.

So, are you butch?

I consider myself bisexual. No fucking doubt I love men. Doesnt stop me from being butch.

So, are you butch?