[ SECRET POST #5636 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #5636 ⌋

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


01.



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02.
[Met Gala]


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03.
[Mr Ballen on Youtube]


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04.
[Satoru Gojo from Jujutsu Kaisen]


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05.
[Twisted Kaiju Theater]


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06.



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07.



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08.








Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 50 secrets from Secret Submission Post #807.
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)]

The way it feels like any time a queer relationship doesn't have sex in it... leads to people going "Oh no they did this because somehow Sexless queer relationships are so much more palatable blah blah blah it's awful" and what not. Just feels... bad. I feel I've seen several comments relating to such a thing recently here on F!S that really made me kinda :/ if that makes sense?

IDK, it just gets tiring sometimes. IIRC there was a thing about Heartstopper and it felt very much like it was "Ewww look at this romance that's so pure and fluffy and sanitized" like... some of us actually live life like that or at least want relationships like that? Sometimes it's okay for there to be pure fluffy romance that doesn't devolve into super heavy making out and sex! There's room for both and Maker knows there's plenty enough sex in most romantic things.

Turned me off western shows for the longest time, because it always seems to go:

They meet
They fall in love
They admit their in love
immediately leads to heavy makeouts and/or sex.

Like that feels like it's the vast majority of things? Maybe I'm out of touch now since I left for the East Asian bubble of "Occasionally you'll get a spicey makeout scene or a fade to black" and haven't really.. looked back much at all. Side rant about how Thai BL seems to be constantly pushing the spice envelope, which I know a lot of people love but I hope it doesn't go too far

One of these days I'm going to sit down and write the trans queer ace book of my dreams. But it's not going to be any time soon. Bah.

[(Anonymous)]

"They meet
They fall in love
They admit their in love
immediately leads to heavy makeouts and/or sex."

This is all over the place with m/f, but we very rarely get to see it with m/m or f/f. Even rarer that we get it and it doesn't end in tragedy.

[(Anonymous)]

This is it for me. It's such a totally normalized dynamic with M/F ships but so rare with M/M or F/F ships that yeah, you'd better believe I want to see them having heavy makeouts and/or sex the same way M/F ships get that.

[(Anonymous)]

They meet
They fall in love
They admit their in love
immediately leads to heavy makeouts and/or sex.

Yeah, I'm ace and I tend to like my ships on the extremely-horny-for-each-other side. However, I also really appreciated that Heartstopper didn't go immediately to heavy make-outs and sex. I get that a lot of actual teens are very eager to get busy as soon as they find someone willing to get busy with them, but that feels like 99% of what's depicted in western film media these days, to the point that it's treated as a matter of course that the characters are raring to go, and many of them are already super casual about having sex. I suspect a lot of writers believe they have to write teens that way or it will be seen as silly and immature and out-of-touch with real teens. And that can sometimes feel quite alienating to me. It's nice to see teen characters who don't want to go further with each other right away and it's not a big deal that they don't. And it's really, really nice that Heartstopper doesn't put a ticking clock on it. It's not like, "They're going to do it soon; not right now, but soon; they're going to wait...a little; they'll do it when they're read...which will be soon."

[(Anonymous)]

Just feels... bad.

Yeah. I feel like I'm seeing a lot of the sort of sentiment described in the secret lately, and it really makes me feel sad and like I'm not valid. A friend sent me an article awhile back about...some show I haven't seen (can't remember what it was, but I don't think it was Good Omens) that was written by someone who thinks one of the characters is asexual and the comments were just awful (apparently asexual representation is automatically homophobic and non-sexual relationships can't be romantic and all sorts of other bullshit). It's just exhausting and...demoralizing (maybe that's too dramatic a word but I can't think of a better one at the moment) to continue to never see yourself or the type of relationship you want in anything, ever.

[(Anonymous)]

"apparently asexual representation is automatically homophobic and non-sexual relationships can't be romantic and all sorts of other bullshit). It's just exhausting and...demoralizing "

I feel you, Nonny.

[(Anonymous)]

The comment about Heartstopper you're talking about might have been mine, so I want to explain that I was mainly talking about the fandom holding it up as better than other queer media, not saying the show itself was bad just because there was no sex.

On the other hand, I found out after I made that comment that the author of the comic said some similar things about BL and gay fanfiction that is mainly sex, and echoed the old and incorrect belief that they're bad because they fetishize gay men. Because there's sex. So author intent is a thing, and I am side-eyeing the reason for the show's fluffiness now.

[(Anonymous)]

DA I love Heartstopper for the sweet romance that it is, but I side-eyed the author real hard after I saw that comment. IIRC She doesn't want to depict any sex between the characters because they're minors, which is perfectly fine, but tacking on that bit about BL just made it sound all "I'm not like those other girls" and it left a bad taste in my mouth.

[(Anonymous)]

The part about them being minors also sets of red flags for me in the internet age of antis. If it's outside her personal comfort zone to write minors having sex then there's nothing wrong with that, but that's not most of modern fandom's issue with minors and sex. They want it not to be written at all by anyone because they think sex is something minors don't do, and adults writing it are all pedophiles. Never mind that high schoolers on TV dramas and YA fiction characters and oh, also REAL teenagers having sex is normal. Always has been. If you personally just don't want to write about minors having sex, you should just say you didn't want to write sex and leave it at that.

[(Anonymous)]

You do realize that lesbian porn and manga that fetichizes gay men are all popular things right? (and I say that as a BL fan, but I know some are 100% fetichizing, no plot.) Maybe the author just meant to say that they wanted to create something that felt diametrically opposite to that popular trend? Which is not the same as "eww sex is bad". I didn't see the author's comment at all and I believe it may have been worse than this though.

[(Anonymous)]

Yes, they're a thing. Nobody who likes those genres is shocked by this news. We know, darling. We can't talk about liking it without being told that's ALL it is, by people who only know the genre by hearsay that that's all it is and don't realize there's just as much valid work in it as fetishizing work. And that's not even going into how a lot of what you'd call fetishizing is in fact actually created and enjoyed by mlm/wlw, because so many baby queers and straight "concerned" allies have a neoconservative viewpoint of what fetishizing IS. Nobody thinks there are no problems with the BL genre, but at this point it's just bad faith to talk about it like it's first and foremost fetish fuel for straight women when that's only a tiny bit of what it really is.

[(Anonymous)]

DA

Judging by a lot of the discourse, a lot of people seem to think "fetishizing" means "this might potentially turn the 'wrong' kind of people on."

AYRT

[(Anonymous)]

I got that, that's why I was saying I didn't read the author's comment and it could have been way worse than this, "darling".

And again, I said: "not in a 'sex is bad, ew'" way. Fetishizing could even be a good thing depending on where you come from. But it's a trend. And MAYBE. Maybe the author wanted to create something different. Maybe, damn.

[(Anonymous)]

"fluffy romance that doesn't devolve into super heavy making out and sex"

DEVOLVE? Really?

It's fine to not want sex and to want stories that don't have it (and there actually are a lot out there) but "devolve into" is really gross the way it implies that relationships that are very sexual are inferior somehow and that being mutually horny for your partner is some kind of degradation.

[(Anonymous)]

You're not wrong, but your refusal to extend a microgram of empathy to AYRT is sucky.

Nothing about AYRT's comment makes me think they are idealistically sex negative--more that they are just tired and somewhat frustrated, and those feelings are coming out in their word choice a bit.

[(Anonymous)]

This.

More and more I'm seeing people online, particularly in LGBTQ+ spaces, expressing that they don't want to see sex in media and it is... antithesis to what has been fought for. It took so long to to get to the point that we can show gay intimacy and I don't think a lot of people, often of a younger generation, realize what they're vouching for when they complain about sex in gay media.

[(Anonymous)]

How about you find a gram of empathy in your heart for why some people want a space where non-sexual affection is considered *enough*.

Most ace people I know are plenty supportive of queer sex happening in media. I've seen some fascinating, beautifully written, explicit M/M and F/F fic written by openly ace people, because they're capable of supporting something that isn't explicitly for them.

So some grace from you would be much appreciated.

[(Anonymous)]

Jesus christ, we are not talking about ace people creating niche art online.. we are talking about main stream media which would prefer it if all queer people remained celibate and sexless forever. Please have some sympathy for that fact that no laws are going to be passed against anyone not having sex, but the criminalization of gay sex is again a reality. It is nessecary and vital to normalize same sex physical love.

[(Anonymous)]

+100000

[(Anonymous)]

Okay but here's the thing, though: for years, non-sexual affection was all gay people were allowed to have in media. It wasn't ALLOWED to have same-sex kisses or sex scenes or anything like that. We had to consider it enough because we weren't permitted to have any more than that.

So forgive us for wanting to be able to see the same things that het couples have been able to have in media without question for decades.

[(Anonymous)]

often of a younger generation

Maybe it's a generational thing then, because I feel like gay people being portrayed as overtly sexual and ONLY caring about sex is something I see significantly more often in gay media than anyone ever saying there shouldn't be sex.

[(Anonymous)]

Where? Seriously, which ones? I'd love to find this treasure trove!

I mean yes, there's porn and erotica by queer creators for queer audiences where that's what the genre is for, but mainstream movies and TV? Really?

[(Anonymous)]

This, absolutely.

[(Anonymous)]

I think you're being pedantic here. I frequently get annoyed when fans try to diminish ships with sexual language (like saying "they're fucking" instead of "they're a couple" in a derogatory way in order to show they dislike the couple and think it's bad) but this just seems like AYRT made a careless word choice and it's not that deep.

[(Anonymous)]

AYRT

"Pedantic" is the wrong word. It's more like I had a brief visceral emotional reaction to the kind of language that was pushed on me as a queer kid raised in the Bible Belt.