[ SECRET POST #3834 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #3834 ⌋

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

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 28 secrets from Secret Submission Post #549.
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)]

By this logic, any character that says they are gay might actually be straight. maybe they are just confused!

[(Anonymous)]

You make that sound like it's a joke but I don't understand why they couldn't be bi. Willow claiming "I used to be in sexual and romantic love with men but nope, gay now" is the classic example of this.

Now, is it questionable taste to turn a gay character bi in your fanfic? I don't know, people can decide that for themselves.

[(Anonymous)]

If a woman who has been in love with a man chooses to self-identify as gay, that's their call, I think. It seems extraordinarily invalidate-y to deny that. Like, this might just be me, but I kind of feel like any attempt to talk about fictional characters and identity that doesn't acknowledge the social context of heterosexuality and homosexuality is pretty fundamentally flawed. I think it's valid to say that Dean Winchester and Willow don't work the same way here. Reading Dean as bisexual is different from reading Willow as bisexual, because of the distinct circumstances.

I guess people are mad about how that's unfair to straight people, or something. I don't really understand the underlying logic tbh. And I don't think it's a problem however you want to portray the characters in your fic or your headcanons or whatever. But, in terms of how we think about those characters, yeah, I do think there's kind of a difference based on the context.

[(Anonymous)]

AYRT

"If a woman who has been in love with a man chooses to self-identify as gay, that's their call, I think. It seems extraordinarily invalidate-y to deny that."

Oh, I agree. I just don't think fictional characters written by a team of writers who constantly change count as "women" or "men" like real people do.

[(Anonymous)]

Sure.

What I would say is that the character is canonically portrayed after season... whatever as explicitly identifying as gay rather than bisexual. So at least to that extent, it's textually an element of her fictional character.

[(Anonymous)]

I have no dog in this fight really, I only brought her up as the classic example of the "gay now" character that people fight over.

I do think there is a difference between being functionally bisexual and identifying as gay, vs. feeling no bisexual feelings whatsoever and identifying as gay, but I don't think the text in question delved into that.

[(Anonymous)]

Sure sure sure.

[(Anonymous)]

Willow made a declaration about herself. Once she found Tara she did a 180 on her sexuality. Of course maybe as an inexperienced person she was only capable of declaring herself whatever she was in the moment, unlike some bisexuals who feel a need to be out with a capital O, even when they are in a relationship, but we only have the canon to make that determination.

[(Anonymous)]

Like I said above, I have no dog in this fight really, I only brought her up as the classic example of the "gay now" character that people fight over.

I can see reading her as both 100% gay, because she clearly identifies that way, and bi because she could be technically bi or have bi attraction but choose to identify as gay. /shrug

[arcadiaego]

They sort of skirted around this in the show - Willow feeling like Tara, who had been out for longer and had never had boyfriends was looking down on her somehow, the general theme of her being unsure of other aspects of her identity - and it's a shame they never did directly. It would have been an interesting topic.

[(Anonymous)]

Or, like me, some people thought they were straight and weren't actually.

[(Anonymous)]

this "retort" would only make sense if there were as many cultural reasons a straight man would claim to be gay as there are reasons a gay man would stay closeted. you cannot remove that context from this hypothetical.