[ SECRET POST #3519 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #3519 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 41 secrets from Secret Submission Post #503.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

I think there are historically times when people in fandom have used it in a way where "Gay For Only You" equates to "Not Gay Except For You" equates to "Not Really Gay", which is homophobic and problematic. I think people perhaps are still leery of it for that historical reason.

[(Anonymous)]

Well, I mean, as a bisexual person...it kind of makes sense though? Why is this homophobic? If some guy is VERY MILDLY heteroflexible and suddenly falls in love with a man, it doesn't mean he's suddenly "really gay"???

O_o

[(Anonymous)]

NAYRT

Right? Either sexuality is fluid or it isn't, one exception doesn't make someone suddenly gay if their core sexuality is still entirely straight except this one anomaly.

[(Anonymous)]

I'm trying to be careful with my words here, because it is tricky. And I want to be very emphatic that the narrative of Gay For You is not at all homophobic. There's nothing close to homophobic about it. The idea of "really gay" is problematic and probably kind of nonsensical, and I'm not endorsing it.

But I do think those ideas and narratives have, at times, been in the heads of some fan writers writing slash. And that for those writers, Gay For Only You was something that they understood as distancing the characters they were writing from homosexuality, and it appealed to them because they weren't entirely comfortable with homosexuality, and so you had a specific kind of fic where Only Gay For You was used in problematic ways. Even though the trope itself isn't problematic, it was used to produce problematic fic. And so the perception of that kind of fic conditions the way that people think of the trope.

[(Anonymous)]

nayrt

Yeah, I recall reading somewhere - probably some sociological study of fandom from 20+ years ago - that slash writers often liked to avoid making characters "really gay" for those reasons. It could be used as kind of an out - "They're not gay, they're just in love!"

[(Anonymous)]

Yes! This right here. I was in fandom back in the day and there was definitely a homophobic flavor of...they're in love, not really gay - don't get that icky gay on my masculine, purely hetero male macho characters I love, they're just hot for each other because love.

And so I think this trend toward writing characters as bi but it happened between the scenes, maybe they had boyfriends (or girlfriends if it's femslash) that just weren't in canon, is healthier than the olden days of "gay just for you." Sorry for OP, though.

[arcadiaego]

The context is exactly this, in my memory.

[(Anonymous)]

OMG I suddenly flashed back to my time in the Buffy fandom, when I got into arguments about how I hated Willow's "gay now!" line, because she was not gay, she was bi. She had explicitly, canonically been attracted to a guy before she met Tara.

And then getting an avalanche of "HDU contradict Willow's own feelings about her sexuality!"

And I was like, "....Yo, Willow isn't a real person, she doesn't have any feelings about her sexuality, the writers made her say that and they are stupid."

And then I got buried under the next avalanche of "HDU tell me Willow isn't real, you suck, you suck at fandom, you killjoy, you moron."

But real talk, Willow was not gay, she was bi, because liking someone of the same sex does not retroactively invalidate all those feelings you had for people of the opposite sex. You can have both! Amazing!

[darkmanifest]

That whole thing really baffled me back before I was in fandom and I watching Buffy in my circle of friends, there were always hints that Willow was into women long before she met Tara (i.e. vampire!Willow), but there was never any suggestion that she didn't find guys attractive, too, that there was anything reluctant or platonic about her feelings for Xander and Oz and a couple other one-hit-wonder dudes. They just kind of brushed all those relationships aside with no explanation beyond "gay now bye". For a real person, that would be her prerogative, but, like you said, she's fictional and it's just awkward writing.

[(Anonymous)]

With Willow, I can kindasorta justify it as internalized biphobia. I've been experiencing attraction to people of multiple genders since I was in kindergarten, but it wasn't until my mid-thirties that I started to apply the word "bisexual" to myself.

[darkmanifest]

Huh, I could believe that. Although I wish the show had been willing to explore it that way even a little - the biphobia seems to be on the part of the writers.

[arcadiaego]

Oh yeah, I remember that argument. Didn't the Buffy Bot's display say 'recently gay' when it looked at her? :D Plenty of people do define as a lesbian even if they've had past relationships with a man, though to me that's inevitably wrapped up with the massive levels of biphobia in society.

[(Anonymous)]

I have a problem with this because someone having one exception doesn't make anyone suddenly gay. A lesbian with an exception of one man doesn't make her not a lesbian.

[(Anonymous)]

I tried to go into more detail about this in the post above, but I totally agree. But I think that some fic writers did think in those terms, and tended to write problematic fic as a result of it.

[(Anonymous)]

I think I get what you meant to say? It's the same kind of homophobia that makes some slash fans insist characters are "too straight to bottom to another man because that's Really Gay"? That kind of thing is dumb for sure.

I just wanted to stress that having an exception doesn't make people really gay. I agree that how some fans used to insist or focus way too hard on how the character was straight otherwise was homophobic though.

[(Anonymous)]

I completely agree.

[(Anonymous)]

It kinda does though. They'd be bisexual.

Call yourself what you like, but going by definitions if you find yourself attracted to people of both sexes, no matter how low the number... it's bi.

[(Anonymous)]

Disagreed. Finding a deep enough emotional or romantic attraction to one member of the same or opposite gender despite their gender and having the gender be a stumbling block is not how I would define bisexual. It also doesn't mean you're open to any further relationships with someone of that gender, because you're still not attracted to that gender as a group and never were.

Signaling availability is part of sexuality, and if you're 100% straight or gay besides this one exception and 100% not available to anyone else of that gender, you're not bi in any sense I would agree with.

[darkmanifest]

Eh, I dunno. It's like saying someone isn't asexual just because they're not repulsed by sex with someone they really care about, they're not suddenly capable of sexual attraction in general just because they're not disgusted by sex with a very specific person. So it doesn't feel quite right to me to say someone who looks at virtually every member of a gender and their libido still goes "ew no thanks" is into that gender.

[(Anonymous)]

I'm guessing this is where "demisexual" comes from - giving a name to that particular exception to asexuality.

And yep, I agree on the bisexuality thing. There's a difference between a guy going "I love both men and women" (bisexual) or "I love you, I don't care if you're a man" (straight with an exception).

Given how fluid sexuality is though, I'd love to live in a world where labels aren't needed and you just love who you love. (But I also recognize that in our current world, labels are needed still.)

[darkmanifest]

There's a difference between a guy going "I love both men and women" (bisexual) or "I love you, I don't care if you're a man" (straight with an exception).

That's a nicely concise way to put it. And yeah, if one day people can just chill with or not chill with any consenting adult without being pushed to explain why, it'd be fantastic.