#though i would like to note the following line from Howl for the destiel shippers:

[fourohfourlifenotfound]

honestly the more i skim the surface into the beat generation writers, the more i become astounded that Supernatural was EVER considered to have been intended for a straight audience

let me back up

Kripke, creator of Supernatural, has cited Jack Kerouac's On The Road as a major inspiration for the show. Dean Winchester was named for Dean Moriarty, and Sam was inspired by Sal.

The general premise of the novel is, at first glace, a story about two men roadtripping around 1940s america. (supernatural: the show about two guys roadtripping around america hunting monsters)

But the novel was ACTUALLY a roman à clef based on Keroac's own experiences with his friends, the Beatnik generation writers. The novel's main character Sal is Jack himself, Dean Moriarty is Neal Cassady, and a side character Carlo Marx is their friend Allen Ginsberg.

Allen Ginsberg, who, notably, had a sexual relationship with Neal Cassady and who published a poem extremely famous for being censored for its depictions of homosexuality: Howl.

So once you scratch the surface of Supernatural's "major inspiration", there's easy ties of gayness to Dean Winchester. Just like that. Dean's namesake is the stand-in character for a guy who fucked the guy who wrote one of the most famous queer poems of all time.

I think we all like to think of supernatural as this show that started as For The Guys that we as an audience turned gay by shipping two characters too hard. but i think that the gay undertones were ALWAYS there, whether intentional or not. we just uncovered them, brought them to light, celebrated them.

if that isn't a beautiful metaphor for queer self-discovery then idk what is