#it was the first time id felt heterosexual attraction

[immortalratking]

had a dream I tried to fuck a friend

[auberginesdonthavelimbs]

[ID. Photos of pages of a book. Text transcribed below.

Lesbians Who Sleep with Men

If heterosexual involvements by lesbian-identified women were once taboo, by 19go, the time of my interviews, a greater tolerance for slippages of identity seemed to be in evidence. Many women I spoke  with, including some of the most politically engaged lesbian feminists, acknowledged that lesbians occasionally stray from homosexuality, and they felt this to be acceptable, as long as it didn't happen so often as to threaten their lesbian identities. They had come to believe that behavioral inconsistencies do not necessarily pose a threat to lesbian identity, that a lesbian could sleep with men and still be a lesbian. Many acknowledged that the dividing line between homosexuality and heterosexuality was highly variable and subjective, and that for some women a sexual involvement with a man could actually confirm their lesbian identity.

Several women reported to me that they had had affairs with men long after they had come out as lesbians, sometimes out of curiosity about heterosexuality. This was particularly true if they had come out very young, when they had little or no prior heterosexual experience. Meg Dunn came out in south Florida when she was seventeen, and she quickly became part of the lesbian subculture. Fifteen years later, when she was in her early thirties, she began to wonder, "What is all the fuss about men?" By that time, she felt freer to experiment. "It was interesting," she said of her affair with a man, even if it only served to affirm her sense of lesbian self. "I found that I can't get emotionally close to men. I can sleep with them and have an okay time, but not great, and I can be friends with them, but I can't get any closer."

Sometimes it was precisely this lack of connection, coupled with the fact that men were more sexually available, that made such affairs attractive. It was easier to meet men than women, several interviewees observed. Lesbians were, after all, women first, and thus treated as potential sexual partners by men, particularly by strangers who assumed they were heterosexual. As they aged, life cycle changes drew more and more women, even those who had lived their early adulthood in a largely homosexual world, into mixed settings at work and into heterosexual networks. Taking advantage of these networks, sometimes lesbians had affairs with men because potential lesbian partners were difficult to find.

"Lesbians don't know how to date," forty-year-old Muriel Pepper, an office administrator, complained. "They're either too scared of rejection, or they want to marry you right away." This attitude is captured in an often-repeated lesbian joke: "What does a lesbian bring on her first date?" Answer: "A U-Haul." Gay men commonly had little trouble finding casual sex, but found it difficult to establish intimacy and long-term relationships. Lesbians generally had the opposite problem: they reported having difficulties initiating relationships, particularly casual ones. But once established, such relationships became intimate very rapidly." Indeed, lesbians who had affairs with men often reported that they found them enjoyable simply because they perceived them to be free of the emotional demands of relationships with women.

Meg Dunn told me that she often had short affairs with meneven at her "most extreme lesbian feminist stage," in the mid1970s-simply because "they were quick and easy." Throughout her twenties and thirties, she met men at bars about once or twice a year, particularly if she was between lesbian relationships. It is difficult to know exactly who among my interviewees pursued such affairs; my sense is that only a small minority had. But in view of the stigma attached to such activities-even if now somewhat lessened-it is unclear how many would have admitted to similar affairs, despite my efforts to let them know that I would in no way condemn them for such a revelation. While several women described having affairs with men "for the sex," a few had a rather different experience: they had a connection with men that was emotional and indeed largely devoid of sexual pleasure.

Muriel Pepper recounted how she had recently rekindled a relationship with a fellow she had dated when she was in her twenties. hen he visited from out of town, they ended up in bed together: "We didn't have intercourse, but we were kind of sexual with one another." Muriel was forced to reintegrate that experience into her sense of lesbian self. "I was totally flipped out for about a week after that. I felt that I had to turn my whole life around. I wondered, what does this mean? Does this mean I'm not a lesbian? It seemed to call into question who I was." But after a few days, Muriel said she began to realize that because they had known each other so long, and had gone through "so many changes" together, she and her friend had a "unique" relationship. The affair left her sexually dissatisfied but with deep emotional connections to him. Recognizing this, she "calmed down," because "it doesn't mean that you have to come out or go in or whatever." By thinking of a particular involvement as an aberration and labeling a particular man an "exception," some lesbians were able to integrate occasional involvements with men into their sense of lesbian self.

Though tolerating temporary violations of identity, most women I spoke with perceived a hierarchy of transgression; a high frequency of heterosexual involvements could threaten one's lesbian identity. When asked if women who sleep with men are in fact lesbians, Judy Orr responded, "It depends how many times. The people I knew did it once in ten years. If they're still relating to women, and they still feel very much inside that they're a woman's woman, then they're a lesbian.... In my heart of hearts, I'm a lesbian." For others, it was a matter of subjective experience. Sunny Connelly differentiated between her own experience of having occasional affairs with men and the experience of her ex-lover, who now identifies as a bisexual. Her ex-lover, she said, was "more open to her sexual feelings about men. ... For me, being sexual with men is about having sex. I don't want to cook breakfast for them in the morning. And I don't want to go to the movies with them, and I don't want to know their whole life story. I just want sex. That's not true with [my ex-lover]. She wants the whole package." In this understanding, valuing a man as a "whole person" threatens one's lesbianism, while objectifying men does not. However, few women admitted to telling close lesbian friends about these affairs until after they were over, a reticence that reveals the extent to which, among many lesbians, such behaviors continued to be stigmatized. Heterosexual involvements that happened suddenly and unexpectedly were more tolerated than those that resulted after women "went out looking for it." A particular spontaneous affair could be attributed to an attraction to a particular man or could be written off as situational, as "experimentation." But a prolonged affair with a particular man or discussions about attractions to men were viewed as more serious, as posing a possible threat to identity.

Can a lesbian sleep with men and still be a lesbian? By the late 198os, the answer seemed to be a qualified "yes." Several women managed to embrace a certain degree of inconsistency between sexual identification and behavior, if one or more of the following conditions were met: (i) such affairs were kept private, (2) they were isolated occurrences and not long-term liaisons, and (3) it was understood that individuals were "in it for the sex" only-and not emotionally attached. However, if those whose behavior demonstrated such occasional lapses were often tolerated, women who had a prolonged relationship with a man were generally not.

End ID]

arlene stein, from sex and sensibility: stories of a lesbian generation, university of california, 1997

[cruelsister-moved2]

I love your blog soooo much!!! everything you say is just soo true. The thing about focusing on what we enjoy is so liberating. I focused way to much in trying to understand my undesirability to men, when I can just forget about men and not give them my imaginary time and just enjoy my attraction to women <3<3

aw thats sweet im glad that sentiment is helping u to find comfort and enjoyment!!<33 its so sad to me how many ppl think ur identity designates what u enjoy rather than vice versa...

as a lesbian talking abt it always feels like ur opening urself up to that judgement so i always immediately want to be like 'but i am personally really disgusted by men and the idea of having anything romantically or sexually to do with one is hideous to me!!!' but i always stop myself bc its like well... it wouldnt actually matter how i feel towards men though, because my autonomy is absolute on its own and if i know that i WANT to be involved with women and not with men then like.. the conversation can end there! in the mainstream imagination i feel like so many gay men's stories start w the realisation of their attraction to men, but lesbians' with the realisation of their non-attraction to men. my moment of absolute clarity was the first time a girl asked me out & i had the rapid realisation that like, oh i would ENJOY that, i WANT that, when i had been saying yes to guys who asked before just bc i was like idk...ig i dont have a reason to not. it sounds funny but like until that point i had literally never thought about what i might want, only like.. if id be able to stomach a serious relationship with a guy. so even though i kind of felt by then that the answer might be no, it hadnt really brought me any answers & it wouldnt have mattered if i had decided i could, because it was immediately obvious at that point that a heterosexual relationship with a man wasnt something i wanted for me in my life when i could have a gay relationship w a woman. i felt sooo free in that moment, not bc my feelings abt men had been conclusively revealed to me but actually bc i realised i didnt even gaf.

its kind of a double bind for us between the fact that heterosexual people need to be reassured that gay people are ontologically so in order to respect us (and not feel threatened by us😳), and the various layers of misogyny incl the expectation that we are passive participants in the equation of desire, which alienates us frm our desires & the very experience of desire itself, and also fosters the assumption that any ability to experience male desire will supersede anything else if at all possible so therefore it has to be completely ruled out to be allowed to ignore it. we need to prove that we are not CAPABLE of having a relationship with a man in order not to want one, whether right now or ever. so the fact i personally do feel genuinely unable to experience that without like genuinely wanting to kill myself feels like its basically irrelevant to anyone but me, and only self-determination matters to anyone else. i feel like im more interested in defending the right of other women to want&seek&enjoy sexual&romantic relationships with other women, regardless of why, rather than proving that i personally have done all my homework and can prove that i wouldnt be happy with a man. like wtf, women are hot and dating a woman is the most beautiful experience of my life, who wouldnt want to seek that out !! its irrelevant what the alternatives are bc none of them are preferable. the continued survival of this rhetoric in lgbt spaces only really reinforces that being gay is a bad thing to be and gay relationships are worse than heterosexual ones and no one would ever want that unless they had no other choice and i just soo strongly do not feel that!!

[phoneybeatlemania-bit-the-dust]

Re the John aromantic ask—that reminds me of a pizza and fairytales episode where they talked about whether John’s attraction towards men was more romantic before it became sexual whereas his attraction towards women was romantic/sexual (in the context of John telling Yoko “if I’d met a guy that was attractive enough I could’ve had a gay relationship’ and similar sentiments.) I thought that kind of hit the mark for me given John’s sort of “i COULD if XYZ” sentiments... I def agree he was a romantic person and I wonder if his sexual attraction relied on a strong emotional connection, at least towards one gender. Just speculation though—it fits my impression that John had more criteria/“hesitation” for lack of better words when it came to relationships with men although he knew he wanted relationships with men, although that might be explained by other factors. I’m also not asexual/aro, though I had a gf who was demisexual and used to identify as that myself.

Re: John and aromanticism

“I wonder if his sexual attraction relied on a strong emotional connection” - I think that this is really possible anon! I mean, he talked about being dissatisfied in his relationships with women (see here (x)) and he talked about only being able to be able to date a man if he found him attractive beyond a physical level. Its evident that he still had sex with people who he had little to no emotional connection with, so it obviously wasn’t an exclusive rule or anything - but as evidenced by the Yoko quote, perhaps he just couldn't find a man who he felt that kind of connection to, who would reciprocate his sexual attraction.

And I definitely get that impression too anon, about John having more hesitation or a higher standard or something when it came to relationships with men. I feel like maybe it was just a bigger deal with men, rather then with women, if that makes sense? Id assume thats largely to do with just heterosexuality being far more hegemonic and understood, especially during that era - but I imagine as well that it would also just be related to his own romantic/sexual preferences.

I suspect that this is partially why things didn’t work out between him and Brian. How their relationship appears to me, is as though: John saw this opportunity to experiment with his sexuality for the first time, and he took it, despite perhaps not being genuinely attracted to Brian. Im not saying he didn't care about Brian, but im not sure he was really sexually attracted to him tbh* - and in some ways I feel like they might've been too similar to be sexually compatible. But maybe just being young and naive John thought "oh yeah it doesn't matter if im actually into him, its only sex" - and then when the moment came, he sort of realised it actually does matter.

(*My opinions on John and Brian are very much subject to change, but at the moment this essentially what I feel like their relationship was like)

[our-alterous-experience]

Reblogging this because of my personal experience in regards to this. I’m gonna rant a little about my experience that I think is relevant bc I think sometimes what helps the most is hearing an experience that mirrors your own and if my story can help you Id like to share! Im aromantic (aspec, afab trans, etc) and before I was aro I spent seven years thinking I was pansexual! I’ve identified as pan for a longggg time. Now I call myself panalterous, but I mention this because I talk a lot about Amatonormativity and Compulsive Allo-romo-normalization or Compulsive Monogamy because it affected me sooooo heavily as a kid, especially as someone in american christian alligned cultures. There was always a pretense from a young age when I was interacting with a boy that it was a romantic exchange. I believe that’s what drew me to identifying as pan, because i felt attraction towards both genders but it wasn’t romantic, nor platonic, which was striking when I realized I was aplatonic and that’s why I was so confused about wording and labels for so long.

Of course, there’s a difference between being pressured into liking someone (which, again, since i was like 4 pressuring happened with multiple relationships) and being compulsively allo. Especially since at times it’s very different from compulsive heterosexuality. Especially since there’s a dichotomy usually when someone thinks they romantically like women or men but they don’t actually. It gets harder when it’s an open field. We talk about the pressures to have sex and be sexual, but not often about the pressures from society and everyday people about being in a Relationship. Because it happens to us and we see the perpetuation of it so often. Which can get harmful to certain people.

When I was in school I remember being pressured to think my best friend had a crush on me, and I after that over time I thought I had a crush on him. Obviously as I’m aromantic now I know I didn’t romantically like him, that being said it wasn’t romantic attraction but alterous attraction. I liked him a lot but not in the manor which I was trying to emulate. We eventually dated years later and I broke up with him because something didn’t feel right (and while mental illness and figuring out my gender identity played a part in that struggle) I think can identify being young and getting close to another queer person for the first time and how things still didn’t feel right. I was always exaggerating in some way, I was always playing into things. I would look at people and go “Do I have a crush on them?” and decide yes or no. I looked at everyone like that. Any person who I grew close with, and could trust I thought I had romantic feelings for. And this was only halted when I made friends with lesbians and people who were older enough to me that it was obviously not a question with them. I have this poem about this girl who I thought I had a crush on in this very eureka moment, oh I liked her! I had a crush! and while I believed that, I didn’t have a crush. I wanted to be close to her. I liked her a lot but it wasn’t a romantic crush no matter how much I believed that rush in that moment.

How did I identify these things as comp allo? Well…….. I woke up one day after a lot of relationships, after a lot of fails and a lot of happy moments, and I really loved someone again. And I took a good hard honest look at my relationships and the last girlfriend I had had. I looked at how I had been asking people what romantic attraction before I started dating her, I looked at how I had been imagining a sapphic love dream, i noticed how so often i was happy and enjoying myself but we often had trouble connecting. Then after we started dating it was awkward trying to reach each other, and I always felt like I was a beat off. One of the worse things I feel bad about but it feels surreal to think on now because I was really in denial, I was being so compulsive that I ignored myself when I told my friend I didn’t know how real the feelings were and I didn’t think things would last. Which is strange because I know I said that while really wanting to be close with her for a long time. But that’s the thing, I did love her, I did care, but I was trying to fill in a glove that didn’t fit me. So the fingers were too long, the palm too big, I couldn’t access what I was supposed to because my hand didn’t fit.

And that’s why I identify why I do these days. Being Aro, Aplatonic, Panalterous and such has really freed me in a way I didn’t expect. In my situation I was compensating the ENTIRE time, in all of my relationships I was performing to some degree even when I genuinely love who i did. And it doesn’t invalidate my experience but I know none of that was genuinely me, it was at least always half of a performance. In a certain way that’s why I had to come out as aromantic. Because I had a pattern and I couldn’t continue it. Of course, for some people it’s not going to be “every relationship wasn’t ever romantic” especiallly if someone is on the arospec.

What was important for me and the advice I like to give is, What do you want from a relationship? Have you ever actually gotten it, or have you gotten close with people who never fit quite right?

Was the reason you were dating those people because you romantically liked them? Or did it all just work out and it was good to like them?

And I guess, if you’re searching for an answer to any of you’re questions. I think the heart of a story or an action is always something that matters enough to know about. But at the same time, if you don’t care it doesn’t have to matter. But has it been hurting you? Has it made relationships fail or result in others getting hurt?

I remember feeling like a heartbreaker. Like I liked the game more than I liked the person. I would call it “The Competition” which is a very monogamous allo or sirve phrasing to look at that dating scene as. Sometimes the person and I clicked just right enough but I didn’t have my heart with them, and so that harmed me and the situation via my own misunderstanding.

So I’m questioning if I’m aromantic again.

Something I’m learning about now is comp allo which Comp allo is the compulsion to feel romantic or sexual feelings. I know I’m demisexual that’s for sure but am I actually demiromantic or am I aromantic? Oftentimes I feel like I should be dating because that’s what I’m supposed to be doing as a young woman ( I’m agender but for the sake of the conversation I’ll be referring to myself as a young woman)

Now I identify as a problem /j ( as a lesbian) but again learning about comp allo really makes me wonder and think. Also learning of ​amannormativity.

It’s weird because sometimes I look back at myself and my crushes(?) and I can clearly see I was crushing on them and wanting to date them but why

Does the why matter?

[crusty]

literally can’t understand what you’re trying to say with the exclusionist post can you reword it

YEAH, I appreciate u asking, here's the gist:

The terms exclusionist and inclusionist are another example of Tumblr/Twitter trying to put people into categories of GOOD and bad, similar to the usage of anti/proshipper.

It's impossible to put people into binary categories, the usage of "Good" vs. "Bad" never works in any given context. This is also why having a gender binary doesn't work. Humans are very complex!

Now, that being said, this statement should not inherently tell people that I am an 'exclusionist'. That leap of logic does not make sense. Nowhere are the words "Asexuals are not LBGT" (which, to my understanding, is the main signifier of an 'exclusionist) anywhere present on my page or my posts.

That's all I said!

(If you want something deeper than my surface-level thoughts, feel free to click the read-more. I appreciate you asking for clarification.)

What do I believe then, if the terms "inclusionist" and "exclusionist" are overused and continuously abused in Tumblr/Twitter discourse spheres?

It's a nuanced situation. That means both sides are fucking stupid. The notion that inclusionists are DA GOOD GUYS and exclusionists are DA BAD GUYS makes the whole discourse pointless and completely antithetical to what the ace community should be focusing on.

Asexuals are people just like the rest of us. The need to consistently belittle them and claim that they do not exist has been tiring ever since the term first became popular/known in leftist circles. Many people do not feel sexual attraction, and there should absolutely be a conversation to teach others that sex is not the end all be all for a lot of people. The topic of "Sex or No Sex" shouldn't be something people actively care about.

//CW BELOW: r slur, CSA mention, heavy subject matter//

Here is a bit of personal information I feel comfortable sharing now.

I distinctly remember feeling very ostracized as a teen. (FOR MANY REASONS, but for this point, I'm specifically on the subject of sex/sexuality.) Everyone around me was falling prey to the horror that is heterosexuality and society's expectations of sex and the exploitation of young girls.

I actively did not feel sexual attraction at an age many of my peers did. I remember arguing back and forth with my dad in 2014 that there was a small community of people online that didn't feel sexual attraction, both boys and girls, and he called me r*tarded, saying that every man wants to have sex, and every girl wants sex with men. I was mortified by what he said to me. It stuck with me long after that conversation. At this time, I already knew my dad was a sexual predator who had no problem ruining my life, so it makes sense why at first the asexual community resonated with me.

//CW end//

From the time I was 15 to about 20, I considered myself asexual to a specific degree. I was a sex-repulsed ace for many years. I remember IDing as demi as a teen, back when I was stuck in MOGAI hell, and later in my life, I focused more on the bigger LGBT labels, searching for the perfect fit.

Eventually, I grew up and realized it was no one's fucking business how I personally felt about sex and what my relationship to it was. Ace is a modifier label to me. When I realized I was a lesbian who had been ashamed of my attraction to women and nonbinary people I was literally euphoric. That was the most important thing to me. Being able to have lesbian sex was literally more healing than anything else in the fuckin world.

Sex is a really fucking personal thing, and when I hit 21 years old I stopped giving a shit about acecourse. I'm on my own now and I got bills to pay and shit to do.

Even though I personally don't think being ace makes me intrinsically LGBT, I'm smart enough to understand that most who ID as ace are also queer in some way. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

----

Now the biggest reason why I stopped associating with the worst fucking discourse-ridden community on Tumblr.

There are a group of asexuals that have been some of the most tone-deaf, obnoxious, bigoted pieces of shit I've ever seen on the internet. The push amongst this very specific portion of aces on the internet to demonize sex completely, lump the LGBT community (a community that is largely filled with people who are, you guessed it, not asexual) with cishets solely on the basis that they are 'Sex Havers' (which is... extremely weird and invasive in general), consistently harassing lesbians and leaving them out of any sort of pride posts/merch, and misusing terms like TERF (a term that should ONLY be used when talking about transmisogynistic radical feminists.... an actual fascist hate group that has caused the real deaths of real women), is not something other aces should be actively supporting, and it should not be up to your fellow LGBTs to teach you shit you should already know. ESPECIALLY if you're fucking white and your main target of harassment is against black and brown people. You got all that time to bitch about shit and somehow no time to reblog a person of colors donation post. Okay.

I'm way past the point of giving a fuck, so please, if you disagree with any of my points, gladly grow up and leave my page. I shouldn't have to hide my thoughts to please a small minority of idiots on the internet. I'm too fucking old for this and so are y'all.

[twopoppies]

Hi, Gina! I hope I'm not bothering you with this question. I tried to get an answer for so long but I couldn't find anyone appropriate to answer this. I'm from a VERY conservative country, there's very few lgbtq people who are open about themselves. We don't even have proper heterosexual sex education, let alone lgbtq. So I'm a bit confused about my sexuality right now. I'm a girl in my late teens and I've always been attracted to guys. I've only ever dated them and crushed on people of the opposite sex. But since about a year ago, I've found myself questioning my sexuality. I sometimes fantasize myself with another girl and even think about it while I'm pleasuring myself. So I'm wondering if I'm bisexual. I have never had a crush on a girl and have never felt that intense desire i feel when i meet someone of the opposite sex. Yet, thinking about being in a relationship with a girl doesn't make me uncomfortable and I feel like I'll do well in it too. I haven't been too concerned about it because i know that labels don't really matter and I probably don't have to think about this seriously until i find myself being attracted to a girl in real life and experimenting to find out what i like isn't really going to work out because of the kind of society i live in. If i were to date a girl, I'd have to be very secretive about it. But I really would love to know if you think i could be bisexual and maybe i just haven't met a girl who was good enough for me to be attracted to.

Hi sweetheart. First of all, given the country you’ve grown up in, I’m so happy to hear that you sound so at ease with exploring your sexuality. It sounds me that it’s very possible you may be bisexual. You don’t ever have to act on your attractions or thoughts in order to identify as bi. Sexuality is also fluid… your feelings could change with time and you find yourself more/less attracted to women than you are now. And, in case you didn’t already know this (because I didn’t when I was younger), you can literally be 99% attracted to people who ID as men and 1% attracted to people who ID as women, and you’re still bi. AND… some people are not sexually attracted to the same gender, but can be romantically attracted to them or vice versa (I’m sure there’s a term for that, I just don’t know it). I guess, what I’m saying is that there really isn’t a need to put a label on it now (or ever) and labels can change with time. What matters most IMO is that you’re aware of the possibility that you could be bi and you’re ok with it.

I hope that was a bit helpful. ❤️

[lyrebirdswrites]

How did you distinguish between comp het and genuine attraction, if that's something you ever experienced before/while IDing as lesbian? - sincerely, a questioning sapphic! 💛

Hi anon! I have experienced comp het before, and I’m happy to talk about how it felt for me vs the actual crushes I’ve had ^^ I’ll whack it under a read more because my answer involves a lot of rambling about my personal experience.

A quick note that comp het can be different for everyone and I am certainly not the word of god on the subject. Also, I’m asexual, so sexual attraction did not factor into comp het for me, and I previously thought I was bi so I was already comfortable with the idea of me being attracted to girls. That might not line up with your situation, but hopefully my experiences can give you some insight regardless.

Anyway. There was this guy I really liked back when I was in high school.

When I was ‘crushing’ on him, it was pretty cerebral. I was always asking myself questions, trying to figure out how much I liked him and whether I could really see us together. I remember thinking to myself, “well, he’s not exactly conventionally attractive - but that’s okay, that doesn’t bother me, I would never be so shallow as to not date someone just because they’re not the most drop dead gorgeous person in town” (the issue had nothing to do with how attractive he actually was; rather, the problem was that I wasn’t attracted to him and I didn’t know it). I’d ask myself, “do I feel butterflies when I think about him?” And lo and behold, the butterflies would spontaneously appear! So I’d have to assume, “well, there they are, there’s your answer.” When I wondered, “can I see myself with him” the answer was a firm yes - but it was the kind of yes that was firm in order to push down tiny doubts, so nebulous and vague it was difficult to even know they were there at all. Not the kind of yes that was organically certain.

Typing it out like that makes it seem pretty obvious that whatever I thought I was feeling, I probably wasn’t feeling it after all. But what made it confusing was that I honestly, genuinely, really liked this guy. He was one of my best friends and one of my favourite people on the planet. He had a good heart, he was confident, he was intelligent and articulate, we could talk about anything. I cared about him very deeply, and that wasn’t fake. So when I started hearing from my friends that he might like me that way, and when I started noticing things in his behaviour that indicated he might want to be more than friends, it made me wonder - this care I have for him, is that love? Maybe it is. I like him a lot. I like spending time around him. I like that he likes me. If I like him so much, then I want to go out with him, right? It’s called compulsory heterosexuality, but at no point did I feel consciously compelled or pressured - when he asked me out, it was my choice to say yes, and in all that thinking I’d done I came to the conclusion that this was something I wanted. I felt all the warm fuzzies I was supposed to feel right afterward; I rang my best friend the moment I got home and we had a big long squeal about it together.

Except very quickly I figured out that this was not something I wanted at all, because once the initial warm fuzzies wore off and I was actually dating him, the gulf between what was expected of me and what I felt turned out to be massive. The main thing I remember from that relationship is that it felt stifling. Not because he was doing anything wrong or coming on too strong, but because I had fundamentally misinterpreted my own feelings. A hug from him or a hand on my shoulder became something I had to grit my teeth and endure instead of something I enjoyed, practically overnight. Physically, I did not want him near me, because the new meaning behind his gestures made me feel like my personal space was constantly being invaded, like I had to get away. Needless to say, that relationship did not last very long. He was very gracious and understanding, but I felt really guilty about the whole thing. 0/10 would not recommend sorting out comp het by actually dating a guy.

I have had crushes on girls since then, and to me it feels very different. I think the biggest difference is that when I’m experiencing comp het, I wonder if I’m feeling something and then the feelings may or may not manifest; when I’m experiencing a genuine crush, the feelings come first, and then I identify them, however long it takes to do so. That’s not to say that I don’t question whether I have a crush - but I’m not responding to the thought that a relationship might be on the table, I’m figuring out an emotion that already exists, if that makes sense. The angst involved is less do i really like him tho and more does she like me back. I’m not up late at night imagining what it would be like to be in a relationship and trying to figure out if I’d be comfortable with that in the first place; I’m either thinking oh wouldn’t it be nice, or I’m going to bed early because it means tomorrow will come quicker and I can see her again lol. My thoughts about the crush are less self-focused, because I’m too busy focusing on how lovely she is. I ask myself less, and try to prove it to myself less, because it just is.

I do remember that after the whole situation with the boy from high school, I stumbled upon this big long google doc about comp het. If you haven’t read it, I’d recommend doing so - it was helpful for me at the time.

Hopefully this was helpful, anon! I wish you all the best while you’re figuring things out, and whatever answer you settle on, I hope it’s an answer that feels comfortable to you <3

[love-to-lgbtq]

Hi, so I'm a cis girl, and I'm thinking I might be bi but I'm not sure and it's driving me a bit crazy bc I feel like I should've realized before (?) Or maybe I just think that I am but I'm really straight (?) Idk

1- I just started college and I'm living on my own for the first time in my life, and ever since getting to this city I've been like "wow, girls are hot", but I never had that feeling before

2- I've only had one (1) actual serious crush in my life, and it was on a man. But I am notoriously terrible at identifying how I feel, and I've had some mini-crushes on other guys, as well as some rather confusing and unclear feelings for some of my female friends (one of which is bisexual and even had a crush on me at one point, so I always felt like I was just responding to the attention, but maybe I had an actual crush on her as well???)

3- Obviously, I have no romantic nor sexual experience to speak of with anyone of any gender, so...

4- I play a lot of videogames and interactive fiction where you have like romance subplots and the like, and I've almost always romanced men in those. And the few times I chose a woman, my character was an OC instead of a self-insert. However, lately I've become more and more interested in exploring some wlw romance routes on some of the games I'm playing with a self-insert

5- It makes objectively no sense for me to be somehow repressing my sexuality. I grew up in a fairly liberal country, my parents are not homophobic at all, and 3/6 of my closest friends (and many of my more casual friends) are in the LGBTQ community. I don't know why I wouldn't have known before or why my mind would be hiding this information from me

6- I'm not even crushing on anyone. It's not like I fell in love with a girl or anything, I'm just noticing them more. But it's like a switch flipped. On my first day, I was asked my orientation by a very nice lesbian and I said "straight" without hesitating, all the while thinking "she's cute, but I don't think I'd be into her even if I were into girls". The other day I crossed her on the hallway and I was like "whoa 😳". I thought sexuality was something that was always there, but in my case it seems like I somehow acquired it here or something idk 😂

7- I'm scared to start identifying as bi because that would mean becoming part of the LGBTQ community, and I don't want to enter those spaces only to later realize I was straight all along. It would feel dishonest and wrong. Especially since absolutely everyone I know knows me as a straight woman. Not in a "assumed heterosexuality" kind of way, but in a "a lot of people thought I wasn't straight and I've been verbally communicating my heterosexuality for years" kind of way.

8- I also don't want to ID provisionally as bi bc I don't want to feed into the "it's just a phase" myth

9- Sorry for the long ask, but it's just that I needed to vent and to get advice from someone who doesn't know me irl. Should I wait until I actually get a crush on a girl? Is there a way to know for sure if you're attracted to girls? What do I do???

Dear anon,

Oh, honey. Its as if I actually know you. You sound just like so many people im acquainted with. First I will tell you a joke that my mom and i have which is "straight people don't question their sexuality" if youre thinking you might be bi, ive got some news for you. You probably are. College is a time where a TON of people figure out their sexuality. Also I will note another queer joke that queer people tend to "flock" so yes you may be the token straight friend now, but all your queer friends have probably just been waiting for you to realize youre queer too. Different people figure themselves out at different times. Some people figure out in their 40s or later! Theres no shame! And if you realize you arent bi (but I'm almost certain you are) then thats fine! Labels only hold as much power as you let them. They change. Thats life! Ive changed my labels before. I used to identify as gender fluid and now I identify as nonbinary.

I think you should act upon this to your comfort level. If you want to experiment, go ahead. If you want to wait and see, that's fine! If you want to just tell people youre questioning, that works too! It's up to you. Its your identity. It sounds to me like youre bi, but if youre not ready to accept that or if you still arent sure, then that's fine. Live in the moment. Feel whatever you feel without questioning it. The rest will come later. Theres no need to stress over it.

Good luck, let me know if you have any more questions or just need to vent.

-Day

[elftwink]

im medicated so it is hot take time. first of all while i agree that straight women often treat gay/bi men like fetishes i think certain sentiments are also indicative of like... real feelings that should be given thought and sensitivity rather than brushed off. like people who are like “i wish i was a guy so i could be gay”. i understand the knee jerk reaction of being like ‘thats fetishistic’ especially because that sentiment is so often followed with complete and total nonsense about mlm relationships, or something actually fetishy (because they’re cuter/hotter than m/f relationships, for example)

but like. someone who is almost certainly currently iding as a cis straight girl expressing the idea of “i like the idea of being attracted to men as a man more than as a woman” is saying something. most likely that they’re not a woman or that they’re not attracted to men. like speaking as a trans guy into guys, pre-transition i often found myself wishing i were a guy specifically so i could be gay, because i knew i was attracted to men but the idea of being someone’s girlfriend made my stomach turn.

like, in the eyes of cishets gender and sexuality are inextricably linked. performing your gender ‘correctly’ depends on you also being heterosexual. being in a relationship with a man prior to knowing i was trans was baffling because i hated it despite being fairly certain i liked men. at the time i didn’t know why, but in retrospect it’s obviously because being the ‘girlfriend’ was not just about the person i was dating, it was intrinsically about me being the girl. which obviously was not fun for me.

but like, you don’t have to be a trans guy for that sentiment to be deeper than it appears to be. like, maybe they are a cis straight woman, but their conceptualization of m/f relationships is of toxicity and imbalance, they might be wishing they were a gay man as a proxy for wishing they had a healthy relationship. obviously this doesn’t justify saying anything fetishistic and it does require someone to come in and be like ‘hey m/m relationships aren’t inherently better or worse than m/f [or f/f] relationships, that’s an idea you’ve internalized and it is damaging to both yourself and also actual gay/bi men” but the actual sentiment behind it is, for lack of a better word, valid and expresses a real fear that person has. maybe they are gay and just feel they’re not “allowed” to be gay as they are (i know i often felt that while it was fine if other people were lgbt+, i wasn’t “allowed”), so it’s easier to imagine being gay as a hypothetical man than as the person they actually are. and it’s really only through being allowed to explore their ideas of gender and sexuality that people will people able to understand why they feel that way

like.... no doubt that the way these sentiments are expressed is often homophobic and fetishistic and damaging and that should be confronted but the problem is not actually that someone wishes they were a gay man the problem lies in what they think defines gay/bi men and m/m relationships. if there are no problematic assumptions about mlm being made then it’s just someone trying to articulate how they feel about their own sexuality and gender, admittedly in an overly simplistic way

also if you dismiss "i wish i were a gay man” as straight girl nonsense talk out of the gate it does make it that much easier for transphobes to argue that gay trans men are fetishistic straight girls who transitioned to trick gay men into sleeping with them. you are arguing that their attraction to men is fine if they are [cis] women but becomes predatory if they are [trans] men, and implying there is something laughable or disgusting about someone who was assigned female at birth who wants to love and be loved by men as a man.

moreover that knee-jerk negative reaction is doing nothing to deconstruct any harmful ideas that person may have about m/m relationships, and instead it’s just telling them they’re only allowed to love men in the pre-approved, heterosexual female way (a way they clearly think is harmful or unpleasant since they’re expressing they don’t like that even though they are attracted to men). which i just don’t think is good for anyone except maybe conservative think tanks. 

[sugar-petals]

idk if it's common but i'm queer and i had a while when i questioned my attraction to men bc i felt like so much of being attracted to men was about liking the masculine, dominant man while i just didn't fit into the picture of the submissive woman. and it was so freeing to realize it doesn't have to be like that. but also through that i realized i have prejudices against men who for ex are muscular bc id think if they look the part they must be the part which is unfair.

your thoughts are going into the right direction imo. attraction to an ideal doesn’t equal the real deal sometimes, especially when you’re not heterosexual, and most importantly: a certain visual VS sexual behavior can be miles apart.

where the bias comes from: if you ask me, women have made the association of muscles = dom more than male doms themselves 😅 among the younger ones, they treat it as an aesthetic or self-improvement/health/image thing rather than the sign of a master in particular. what makes a real dom remains intent and skill. being strong as hell you need in fewer bdsm disciplines than you think, it’s a huge irony.

a certain baseline strength is good and needed, standard rough sex or punishment 101, but even in bondage where gravity indeed is sometimes at play (think creating a suspension), what you need first is good memory and diligence. there’s no reason other than visual to be jacked when all you do is complicated knots. if you’re a passionate rigger, you don’t have time to work out in the first place 😂 

that being built makes a difference, you really have to be into the hardcore things that take a lot of money, maintenance, experience, and vanilla inclinations, believe it or not. the freakier brands of male doms of any sexual orientation often rather resort to dress codes to signify something instead. us dommes are no different 😄 the actual mega ripped macho guys are usually far away from being your certified dominant (even if they claim it) with ten thousand kinks and a play room, did you notice? 

my arguably bold hypothesis is that they don’t need much more to ‘gain’ power while someone who becomes involved in bdsm is not the bodily type to do so — hence they use other means. they’re into the minutiae, the details. meaning tools: say, restraints do the job for you. 

using a cane multiplies even a small impetus. you see the appeal. some guy walking around like a unit doesn’t need kink unless they are of course way into the sex toy side for its own sake. but you get the principle. you’re too kinky to bother with lots of gym time. that’s why most dommes don’t walk around like xena the warrior princess either 😂 we do like swords though

meanwhile, subby guys with masculine appeal or muscle are quite a thing, they should be. as i always say: unless you’re a gentle domme, pragmatically speaking it’s better if your sub is reasonably sturdy. mind you, the opposite is also very juicy and just as preferrable (how else would the fandom coo at yoongi all day 🐱), but you get the logic.

if he’s working out, he wants to be appealing to you in a way, too. ripped guys and submission are not mutually exclusive, nor are they a threat to your dominance (unless they’re abusive). example: look at jungkook being the most popular bts member in the femdom community lmao! like, this guy out of all possibilities. it’s hilarious.

and it’s not wrong to be attracted to that, nor is it wrong not to like it vice versa. the personality and subbiness will shine through anyways if you’re really getting into the person 😁 hope that clears things up.

[domesticangel]

I'm sorry if this ask makes you uncomfortable, I'm not sure, if it's something to discuss with strangers. But do you think there's a concrete way to tell your sexuality?

I've considered myself straight, since I've never felt romantic feelings towards women, but I had sexual fantasies about them even before I had them about men. Your Yugioh post made me remember hoping my barbies would turn alive to do horny things with them... And now, when I'm lucid dreaming (so it's conscious), I go for whoever there is, no matter the gender.

My confusion stems from being an extremely visually stimulated person, so even fashion Items or makeup can make me h word. So I'm really not sure if I'm bi-sexual, or just find women pretty and trying to be spicy straight.

Sorry again if it's inappropriate, I'm not sure who to even talk about this. And I'm not really in a place to find out through trial anytime soon lol

NAH YOURE FINE but its the kind of ask i could see making maybe someone else uncomfortable, so in the future you might wanna ask someone before sending something like this! but it doesnt bother me personally, so ill go ahead and answer ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ

cramming under a cut since it got kinda long LOL

sooo i dont think for everyone sexuality is going to be a “concrete” thing. for some people it very much is, which is great, but for some people it can be very fluid and changing. i dont think either way is better than the other; they just Are. i only mention this bc i have also very much been where you are so i know it can be pretty stressful and frustrating, feeling like you cant even really tell what your own sexuality is, especially since my brain has never been the best at handling grey areas. i identified as bi for the vast majority of my life before realizing i was actually a lesbian. and i dont say that to equate bisexuality with confusion, but rather to illustrate just how long of a process really understanding the nuances of your own sexuality can be, and how truly normal and okay it is to explore different identities

i would suggest considering why you dont think youve ever had romantic feelings towards a woman or never could; this can actually be a very common thing for wlw bc of compulsive heterosexuality--women live their entire lives in a world that for the most part tells them that love between two women could never be “real” or romantic. its kinda like that whole messy stereotype that biphobes and homophobes like to propagate about bi people being confused, and that bi women are just confused straight women and bi men are just confused gay men. it centers around men. so when women’s sexualities have always been defined by their relationship to men, it can be really hard to figure out how you feel about people who ARENT men, and can def lead to the kind of confusion it sounds like youre having. mainstream Love as a concept is really so eaten up with heterosexual archetypes that they can muddy up your own feelings on what it means for you specifically to love someone regardless of their gender if that makes sense

re: visual stimulation: i think that can differ for everyone, and may or may not play a part in their sexuality. for example, you might become aroused because you associate fashion and makeup with women you find attractive/youre attracted to femininity, OR you might find them stimulating because of a certain mood or vibe they evoke for you, like feeling sexy, the idea of dolling yourself up for someone, etc. or it could very well be both!!!

just from what i can gather from this ask, it sounds to me like youre sexually attracted to women but struggling with figuring out the romantic side of things. ill make this clear first and foremost; i dont believe in the split attraction model, so im not positing youre “bisexual but heteroromantic” or anything like that. HOWEVER sometimes certain aspects of attraction as a whole are easier to parse than others. i know for sure that way before i ever considered IDing as a lesbian i was wildly physically attracted to women but really only gave credence to the crushes i got on men  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

tbh i wouldnt worry too much about it. and i dont mean that in a brushing off kind of way; more in a you absolutely have time to figure this out and explore your options type way. let yourself feel the way you feel about people, try to think about it without OVER thinking, and just be open to things. treat it like a journey at your own pace rather than a timed exam. if you dont want to figure things out by trial as you said right now or for a long time? thats fine. that option will always be waiting for you when youre ready for it. and remember, if bisexuality is something youre considering may be a proper fit, it doesnt have to be 50/50. you could be 90% attracted to people of different/dissimilar gender and 10% attracted to people of same/similar gender and you would still be 100% bi, not a “fake,” not spicy straight. try calling yourself bi. try calling yourself straight. see how it feels and if it fits. dont be afraid of thinking youre one thing and turning out to be the other. this isnt something you can get “wrong.” sexuality can be totally messy and confusing for a lot of people, even after you think youve gotten it all figured out; one of the best things about being alive is how you feel about and interact with other people, but thats such a vast and varied experience that its totally normal imo for it to be nonlinear and not always clear cut. either way your sexuality is yours to explore no matter where you end up

[allthephils]

I hope this is not invasive and you can just say you don’t want to talk about it. I am curious about being an adult with grown children while being queer or dating a woman. What I’m asking is did or do your children know? Most of the time it’s the other way around and children come out to parents. But I know alot of children have come out to a parent and the parents has been like “I think I’m bi too, or I use to date girls before I married X.” I think it’s beautiful and Id love to know everyone’s story. We need more queer women’s stories. We need more stories from women who didn’t know they were queer till later on. If that’s in their 30s, 50s or 70s. (Not that I’m saying that applies to you) I know women who didn’t know they were even attracted to girls till they were into their adult years. Like me. I just want to say you and your partner seem very happy. I wish nothing but the best for you both.

I don’t mind talking about it at all! I agree that telling our stories really helps to make the world a little smaller and hopefully safer feeling for other queer people out there. I am nothing if not wordy though so I’ll put my response under the cut.

I have to say first that we are not a typical American family. My kids were raised as gender neutral as I could muster so they could figure it out on their own and queerness has always been openly acknowledged and discussed in our family. Feminism and sexual health, as well as civil rights have always been topics of discussion at our dinner table. I have three adult kids as well as a little one. The adult three are all queer and out. Even in our family, it took all of them some time to come out and then to come out to me. Which just goes to illustrate that it’s not about anyone but the person figuring it all out. My family, at least the ones close to us that we actually talk to, is super accepting too. My close family is not religious or politically conservative. I am very lucky.

I knew I was attracted to women my whole life, my first kiss was with a girl when I was around 11. Still, compulsory heterosexuality is some real bullshit. I told myself everyone thinks women are beautiful, everyone finds them attractive, everyone feels sexual desire toward them, doesn’t make me bi. Lol. What does that say about what our society values in human relationships? What does it say about the way women are framed in our culture and what that does to young people and the way they see themselves? I can’t even imagine how much more difficult that culture makes it for people who don’t experience sexual desire or don’t prioritize it to figure out. There are so many layers I could go off about but I’ll save that soapbox for another time. I had a lot of shame. I felt like I didn’t deserve to be queer, like I hadn’t earned it somehow. I was attracted to gender-nonconforming people and masculine presenting women and somehow I used that as proof that I was a fraud. There was definitely some internalized biphobia as well. I spent my adolescence with a very gay group of friends. All my time was spent at gay bars and goth clubs. And yet, I still couldn’t get to that place of comfort even though I knew there was something missing for me. Honestly, watching my kids figure themselves out taught me so much and changed my perspective on so many things. I’ve always said kids teach you more than you teach them, if you listen. They really helped me out but they didn’t know that at the time. (Can we learn from our kids without making them the parent in the scenario please? Thank you) This phandom also helped me grow comfortable being open about my queerness.

I finally figured it out/admittted it to myself in my late 30s and didn’t come out to anyone till I was at least 40. I told my mom and she literally forgot. That’s how much she didn’t mind. Again, I’m lucky but I also felt like she didn’t take it seriously. When I told her about my relationship, she asked if i was “switching sides or just trying it out.” Lol. I gently reminded her of my previous coming out. I never actually came out to my sisters but they just kind of figured it out. My daughter, who is gay, has known the longest. We hang out weekly (precovid) and we talk about everything. My other two kids only found out recently. They are both trans and their path has been winding and complex. It just wasn’t time to make it about me. All of them are supportive and so happy for me. My 7 year old knows all the words to discuss his family so he can be proud. It’s just normal to him because it is normal. He knows I have a girlfriend and he knows I identify as queer and/or bi. The only people I’ve had to ”come out’ to in the traditional sense of the term are my co-parent’s family. They weren’t surprised after knowing my family. Some of them are supportive, some not. I genuinely don’t have time for anyone who can’t love me for who I am. If you have to leave pieces of me out of your stories about me, then maybe you just don’t get to have those stories. If I make them uncomfortable at family gatherings, they can leave. I’m still telling people all the time but it’s usually just , “oh I’m in a relationship with the most wonderful woman.” And my friends are happy for me. I don’t know many straight people though :) There’s my story. I hope I get to read your story too at some point, anon. 🖤🖤

[joan-deactivated20230204]

tangentially related & idk how to frame this in a way that tme people will like... get, but it seems to me that my experiences as a trans woman with gender & sexuality are different enough from tme people that it feels like framing myself within the ‘clearly delineated’ boxes of cis sexuality will always be a failing endeavor.

like just off the top of my head the fact that before i recognized being trans as a possibility, i ID’d as a bisexual man bc it felt closer to a femininity i didn’t yet know i was after, then when i discovered i was trans i started calling myself a lesbian bc i idolized cis lesbians & to bring myself closer to them was gender-affirming, but at the same time heterosexuality is intrinsic to womanhood and attraction to men is also gender affirming in a way which is not visibly separable from genuine attraction, moreso when i stopped idolizing cis lesbians, but ALSO being aware of the high risk of violence trans women are at + the desire to express emotional intimacy with someone who understands, at least to an extent, these experiences that im talking about here, makes me wary to enter into any kind of relationship with a cis person in the first place

and when you put all that together i cant really just say “oh im a lesbian” or “oh im bisexual” bc the reality is more complicated & somewhere in between. like personally id just consider my sexuality “trans woman” bc its best expressed as a complicated culmination of my experiences as one, when im with cis people i just say im bisexual bc its the easiest way to say “im into women and sometimes men but the latter is because of trans woman stuff you wont get”, and when im with other trans women ill call myself a lesbian, bc in my experience other trans women will generally understand that its not that clearly cut, yknow?

but anyways my point with all this is tme ppl telling trans women that our sexualities are wrong and bad bc we’re not fitting perfectly into “lesbian OR bisexual” should shut up and let us be lol

[groundramon]

So curiouscat has stupid short reply lengths so i had to post this here

Tw for: bullying, fatphobia, discussion of sexual harassment (oh it feels good to have enough characters to write a proper tw)

So it might surprise ppl to know that my favorite frontier character is JP, the raging heterosexual. But like, to me...hes so much more than that. JP is a character that I saw so much of myself in. His social isolation from his peers, leading him to push away others to avoid getting hurt...its not that people outwardly bully him, its that no one sees behind his surface and nobody bothers to truly care about him. People only recognize him as the class clown - no one actually wants to hang out with him. And that...that hit me HARD as a kid. It was the experience i had growing up. I wasn't outright bullied, I just felt...excluded. Judged. I wanted friends but was too afraid of being judged or excluded. And sometimes it caused me to be dismissive of genuinely good people. And quite frankly, that's STILL a problem I have, not even a year after an exfriend of 7 years said that our interests were one of the things driving us apart. My intense fear of being ridiculed for my interests drove me as a kid, and sometimes even now as an adult, to completely stop caring what my peers thought about anything. For all intents and purposes, im a bit of a hipster - i hate on what's popular and i tote my more obscure interests. Because I feel like that's the only way. Obviously i have fairly mainstream interests but lemme tell ya, i went to a christian school in the late 2000s/early 2010s - goddamn pokemon was obscure/counter-culture in a setting like that. But despite my desperate attempts not to care, I DO care, just like JP. It fuckin stung. And now i have depression and social anxiety whoops. Honestly ngl, it got so bad that I genuinely projected that it was implied JP was isolated for being fat/not conventionally attracted, until i was like "wait a minute...frontier didnt go that hard"

But what makes JP such a tragic character to me now is that at the end of Frontier nowadays when i watch it, im left asking myself....DID JP make any friends?

I know JP is a raging heterosexual but quite frankly, he is dealt such a shitty, judgemental hand for an innocent crush. JP's most nsfw fantasy is marrying Zoe and holding her hand, like... And yet, despite this, he's accused time and time again of being a perv. JP is, well, a big fuckin guy. As such, he thinks "its probably a good idea to let all my friends climb up this latter before me, so i dont crush them all if i fall - plus ill look chivalrous too!" But he unfortunately forgets that Zoe has a skirt on and, y'know, not pants. I understand Zoe's hesitation completely - i wouldnt trust a man who kept hitting on me either. Her relationship with JP is completely justified. Like, its not like JP doesn't take no for an answer - he just still has a crush on her. Yes he should probably give it a rest but like, he's 13 and his most nsfw fantasy is to hold hands and marry and respect his crush. Inb4 you say "but its a kids show of course it is-" literally everything about Zoe is sexualized so no the fuck its not lol

What gets me the most though is the beach episode... again, not because of Zoe. She thinks someone has peeped on her (understandable but it was a digimon) and confronts them about it. But koji and takuya IMMEDIATELY suspect JP, and only believe his immediate denial when Tommy points out that JP was with them the whole time. Like first of all, YOU FORGOT HE WAS THERE??? it took the baby of the group pointing that out for you to remember???? Second of all, JP has never done anything to warrant not being believed - again for zoe id understand, a bitch has gotta be weary, but not for the guys? And thirdly, and perhaps most importantly of all, YOU GUYS CONSIDER SOMEONE YOU'D EASILY SUSPECT OF SEXUAL HARASSMENT YOUR "FRIEND"???? i would NEVER be friends with someone who i could see sexually harassing another one of my friends!! What the shit!! I realize they're kids but GEEZ. And i know its implied JP only cares about the perpetrator because he likes Zoe but idc, despite being persistent in his crush JP has literally NEVER done ANYTHING to disrespect women. And if the scene where takuya and jp run into Zoe's changing room to see whats wrong after she screams counts - well lol takuya was there too.

Zoe was dealt a terrible hand by the writers (worse than JP imo) so I understand people being weary of JP, but - in the dub at least - he literally did nothing wrong... dont confuse the writers sexualizing zoe and being misogynistic with JP sexualizing zoe and being misogynistic.

And im gonna say it - JP is only treated this way cuz hes fat lol. Its not a coincidence that the only MC in the digimon anime who's treated like a perv (despite the fact that they failed in writing one, cuz hes not a perv) is the fat guy. Japan LOVES the fat otaku stereotype (America, look what you did, you made it fatphobic) and in JP's case he's treated completely differently because he's fat. Takuya doesn't have an explicit crush on Zoe but just look at how he treats her vs JP. And which one is demonized lmao? Like, frontier has major problems in general, but to me this isnt a coincidence.

Also, I think JP's crush on zoe is initially just flirting/wanting to impress a girl to fill the void in his heart, but then he genuinely comes to respect her and like her for who she is. He likes that she's kind but stands up for herself and even though he's hopelessly infatuated with her, he just wants her to be happy, even if its not with him. He relates to her struggles to fit in despite not understanding how someone so beautiful and charismatic (in his eyes) could be disliked by her peers.

Hackers Memory discussion coming up, but the spoilers are minor/vague. Frank discussion of sexual harassment and...pedophilia i guess? But its like...ephebophilia, not literal children.

I realize the Story games and the anime are two different beasts entirely, and Cyber Sleuth especially is targeted at an older audience. BUT... compare how JP is treated in Frontier to how Chitose and even Keisuke are treated in HM. Chitose goes after countless women and isn't even reprimanded for going after someone he considers a CHILD. To clarify - Ryuji and Chitose both call Arata a child. Arata is canonically older than Yuuko. Chitose flirts with Yuuko. It is gross. Like he gets the physical embodiment of the cold shoulder and you get to insult him for it, but that's not proper reprimanding. In comparison, yes JP is older than Zoe...by a year/grade. But JP gets accused of SEXUAL HARASSMENT BY HIS "FRIENDS" and Chitose just gets "haha good ol chitose, hes a wild one." Plus i think Chitose and JP get the shit smacked out of each other an equal amount of times in the story, which like...one of these people is worse than the other!

Then there's Keisuke, the protagonist of HM, who's significantly better than Chitose but still gets dirty thoughts about Yuuko and is only reprimanded by Erika. And honestly I love Erika but HM plays up the tsundere heterosexual couple aspect. So imagine the only person who calls you out on your shit is your fucking love interest, who also beat the shit out of you with a plush toy for entering her room without knocking, not knowing anyone was in there (id say hes not a playboy but considering he befriends a stranger to practice "getting chicks" at chitose's recommendation, hes totally a playboy) and yet all she does when you start thinking weird shit about Yuuko is be like "hey. Stop that. Get some help"

Also Erika's best friend is chitose so like, someone save this poor girl PLEASE

But my point is that Chitose is conventionally attractive and...well they play up the idea that Keisuke isn't but hes not conventionally unattractive like JP is.

Gee, i wonder why they're treated differently? /s

TLDR: JP drinks respecting women juice and i kin him

[justsomeguycore]

lmao idk what lesbian needs to hear this but you’re not being oppressed by bi women just bc they would like to not be excluded from lesbian history... bi women are a part of lesbian history whether you like it or not

and this shit is part of why it took me so long to realize i wasn’t even really attracted to men at all, because i felt like i couldn’t be a part of the lesbian community as long as i was questioning or identifying as bi

and i only identified as bi in the first place because i was so shamed by people who would make fun of the “i don’t like labels” crowd, even though the reason i didn’t like labels was because i was so full of internalized homophobia and compulsory heterosexuality that NO label felt right bc the real label i wanted would mean admitting i never wanted to be with a man, and that went against everything i had trained myself for my entire life

i was calling boys my husband and wanting a boyfriend for literally as long as i can remember and it was only upon actually hitting puberty and developing sexual attraction that i realized i had to force myself to be attracted to men. i would choose boys to have a crush on, i always had. i cried when the boy i liked asked me out in sixth grade; i cried when i found out my best guy friend liked me even though i thought i liked him back; i cried every single time a guy i liked wanted to date me or sleep with me, and i never understood why because i liked them, i liked them, what was wrong with me?

when i first fell in love with a girl i was sixteen or seventeen and the first thing i thought was “i want to be with her forever but if i do that then i’ll never know what it’s like to be with a man”

we obviously were NOT together forever and were actually never officially together at all, and she graduated and i dated boys from my senior year of high school through my sopohomore year of college, absolutely miserable most of the time (for both related and unrelated reasons.) all my relationships felt wrong and i blamed it on them not understanding me, blamed it on myself for being too much to handle, too specific with my needs, too desperate, too crazy.

i’ve been single and largely celibate for almost six years now. i know all my friends must think i’m repressed and a coward. but the truth is i just don’t know how to connect with women in a romantic way. i always used to say “boys are easy and women are terrifying” but i realize now it’s because the stakes with a man rejecting me are so low, it’s like a game to me, getting men to like me. and women are terrifying because it’s real.

anyway. the point is. i know it’s hard for lesbians in the world bc i’m literally a lesbian in the world. but as a lesbian who used to ID as bi just to have something to call myself while i’ve actually literally been questioning for the last ten years, i just wish the lesbian community on tumblr had been more ready for me. not closed off to me. not interrogating me about my relationship history with men. not making fun of people like me who didn’t like labels and needed to experiment to be sure. because i didn’t have any lesbian role models in real life, i barely knew any lesbians in real life at all. i needed an online community and all i found were gatekeepers. and that’s it, isn’t it? part of why it took so long. because i kept telling myself “well, at least men want me.”