[ SECRET POST #2287 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2287 ⌋

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

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 04 pages, 084 secrets from Secret Submission Post #327.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 1 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Um, perhaps I've missed a corner of the internet, but how exactly does a girl reading slash end up questioning her sexuality? IDGI.

Guy reading slash, sure. Girl reading femmeslash, sure. Gay guy reading het and realizing he's fantasizing about being the guy penetrating the girl, maybe. Asexual reading anything at all...

But I cannot, for the life of me, figure out how someone could legitimately question their sexuality based on fetishism of a relationship between two people with which they do not share a gender.

[(Anonymous)]

I wondered the same. Slash fans get a lot of stupid ideas, but I have no observed this particular problem.

[(Anonymous)]

I think it has something to do with the assumption that someone who supports gay rights (yeah, I know, =/= reading slash, but I think to some people "supporting" extents to"enjoying media with gay people in it" and in the worst case "not openly disapproving of homosexuality) is gay themselves.

[(Anonymous)]

same anon

And believe it or not, irl, I have been asked if I'm a lesbian because I read slash. (Well, I actually am a lesbian, but I didn't know back then, and I'm pretty sure it has nothing to do with reading about two guys doing it.)

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah, when my mom caught me reading a book with two gay guys snogging on the cover, she kicked me out of the house under the assumption that I was a lesbian.

Funny enough, when I told her that I was a trans guy, she was suddenly okay with me being a "lesbian" and would rather I were that instead! Bigots are weird.

[(Anonymous)]

Nth to your last sentence. My homophobic mother has gone on long tangents about how horrible men are, and I've been dearly tempted to ask her why she doesn't want me to become a lesbian, then, instead of getting involved with an icky male.

[(Anonymous)]

I've seen it before. The questioning comes with them wondering if being straight and getting off at the thought of two guys is somehow not normal, since straight women enjoying the thought of two men together isn't really something that's talked about as much as straight men finding two women together is hot. When it is talked about (outside of most fandoms, that is), it's generally treated as weird or somehow deviant, so I think a lot of fans who are young and haven't stopped to think about it before think this somehow makes "deviant" and less straight, too. Flawed logic, definitely, but I can sort of see where people are coming from, if they're young and/or sheltered.

[(Anonymous)]

i agree with this comment, i've seen this myself.

[(Anonymous)]

Well, for me it went like:

Discover fanfiction > Discover slash fanfiction > Read a lot of m/m at first because it was more readily available > Become slightly more comfortable with the idea of a same sex relationship/simultaneously start noticing girls more because I was at that age > Struggle with confusing feeling for a few more years > Finally accept self as a gay woman.

I would have discovered my sexuality eventually anyway. This was just how it happened. Suppose I never read fanfiction, but instead befriended a group of gay dudes. That probably would have led to me questioning myself. Yes, they're guys, but since we're lumped together in the 'gay' category, we'd have that in common.

Sexuality and gender identity kind of crisscross a lot too. For a lot of us, especially during the teen years, it's like a puzzle that we have to figure out and we might try on different identities. Some girls spend their early years wanting to be a boy, and later realize that they are in fact, a gay/bi/queer woman. Some people identify as lesbian, and later come out as trans* guys.

Basically what I'm saying is we all have different experiences and different ways of seeing the world and figuring things out.

[deenaa]

Uh. I can put my hand up here and say that as a confused teen, reading slash did make me question myself. My reasoning went that if I was heterosexual, then why would I be interested in ~teh gay~?

Of course, I also had a lot of misinformed and dumb opinions/ideas on how being gay actually worked, so that didn't help AT ALL. It was only after I got a bit less stupid that I realised that it really doesn't work like that.

However, I do think that I enjoyed slash because there were no girls in it. Hetero smut aimed at women always seemed to have that 'insert your face here' kinda feel to it and that made me very uncomfortable. Slash let me have my dumb teenage libido without being uncomfortable with the fact that I personally wanted nothing to do with anybody, male or female.

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah, no offense to your past self, but I think that if this is a common thing, it'd happen to those who are homophobic or misinformed to begin with. Homosexuality is seen as such a taboo in some circles that if you start sympathizing with or appreciating a gay character, you've already been 'tainted'.

When people apply critical thinking, they realize this doesn't hold up. After all, you wouldn't worry about giving your child a book about a tiger because then they might not want to be a human when they grow up.

[deenaa]

No offence taken! Past me was a dumbass. Most teenagers are. @.@

I would say that when I was growing up, a lot of people were ignorant. 'Gay' was a normal insult, we had no explanation of what it meant to be homosexual or why it wasn't a bad thing, and it certainly wasn't covered in sex ed. Slash was a 'weird internet thing', and with no context but the one perpetuated from idiotic teen to idiotic teen, it's no wonder you end up confused.

I think there's a lot more attention and positive focus put on it than there was seven-eight years ago (AHHHH), and with information getting out there and great gay role models in media and ADULTS getting in there and cutting off that flow of misinformation, less people are going to be in a position like mine - misinformed and homophobic because of it. I hope that's the case, because we NEED people to be more attentive to queer issues, and keep pushing to create a more accepting community/culture/future!

Critical thinking goes a long way, but it's more effective if people are given the chance to do so in the first place.

[(Anonymous)]

Agreed, and I think this is why people tend to be tolerant of grandparents, etc, having these kinds of attitudes; because it was accepted in their formative years.

[anivad]

well, I have had lesbian friends get confused over why they enjoy m/m slash.