#Effemiphobia

[bijoumikhawal]

Part of the problem with MLM fetishization discourse (mainly found onTwitter, but i see it here too), is that people see effeminacy and femininity in men itself as a fetish, and therefore can't be assed to understand actual issues we face with regard to sexuality

It's impossible to talk about fatphobia, underlying assumptions often related to white supremacist beauty standards, adultification, ageism, etc that feminine men experience because people are too busy getting in a tizzy over a guy wearing skirts in media. One of the big issues for me is hypersexualization- I was getting sexualized at a very young age for being what I am, it's a big issue historically, and a lot of media I could access when I was younger was basically just porn/erotica. And that porn/erotica was often like. Racist, it hypermasculinzed Blackness in comparison to white effeminates, and it only portrayed fem men as submissive bottoms (which isn't itself bad) whose effeminacy was humiliation, and submission was bc they're worth less than "real men"

And like, the joke is people are so focused on wether or not people writing femmes who bottom is bad (it's just a thing that happens irl) that you can't talk about anything else. It's also a form of hypersexualization. The only other thing ppl wanna discuss is "heteronormativity". Fiction where femmes are fucking isn't a bad thing with that being said, and desexualizing us is also a common homophobic thing to do, and tends to loop back to the "less than a real man" thing.

And like, "yaoi"/"BL" isn't the big driving factor in hypersexualization here. If nobody in the US knew what that was I still would've been getting hit on by men twice my age at 16 (who sometimes would loudly advertise their interest in femmes specifically, or more accurately, "femboys" and "tr*ps").

And honestly when you deal with just like- grown ass men looking at you that way, people moaning and bitching that the big concern for fetishization here is basically wether or not the character exists only deepens the shame felt from those interactions. I was made to feel uncomfortable and gross because my gender presentation was seen as sexual when I was a teenager, and all this shit does is go "yeah, it is sexual, when I look at people like you I think about sex and how the sex you have is bad". And part of my Ick with portrayals of femmes is that we're assumed as submissive bottoms because I'm not, but this is still deeply harmful to people that are because you're telling queers the way they fuck is morally wrong and you're instilling shame over it.

And like... actual fetishization for me is more often when femmes as objects of sexual desire are seen that way through a lens of "you're a faggot so you're beneath me, you should thank me when I call you slurs and do xyz, you're trash, shaving you so you have less body hair (so you look more feminine) is a punishment and symbolizes my superiority" because it's just intracommunity femmephobia/effemiphobia with a boner.

Its not that other things are non-issues but cis women clumsily writing a masc/femme dynamic is probably more likely to make me laugh than feel ashamed or disgusted, and instances of feminizing a character for bigotry reasons in fandom are less common than people complaining about effeminacy existing at all (including with femme transmasc characters, especially because usually those aren't being written by cis people). The actual things that have made me cringe with shame and disgust about cis women's view of feminine and effeminate men sexually are more difficult for me to unsnarl because I see it less often, and it's sometimes more visceral because while I was sexualized by men I was actually abused by women, but I'll be frank; those things usually aren't occurring in discussions about fandom.

When I get disgusted in fandom discussion isn't about femme characters existing at all, or top/bottom/switch- they're about people acting like writing romance/erotica about men fucking is the sacred right of cis women and any discussion about equity in publishing means you're attacking fandom when they're two different things, and that that right is more important than the fact that queer men can struggle to get published in romance- and subsequent issues with poverty. Or the insistence that to be fetishized you need to be a woman because fetishization is stored in the pussy (revealing they haven't thought about racism in the romance genre, and don't think about trans women). Its about queer men in fandom writing smut and getting harassed by women who write the exact same type of it because the way they do it is somehow bad. It's about my sexuality being seen as piece of land to fight over, that I'm not supposed to be on, not writing about men in fishnets.

[mrsvalbaker]

Okay so

Femininity isn't a gender thing. Anyone can be feminine just like anyone can be masculine okay?

The effemiphobia has got to end.

Completely 10000% feminine boyyyys

Who like pretty thing and genderless clothing and makeup and being 100% bottoms is okay

Like ppl who ignorantly think because a guy has a dick thinking he wants to stick it in something eventually are toxic.

Sometimes boys just kinda want you to treat their Dicks like giant clits ever thought of that?

Being soft and submissive and not wanting to penetrate doesn't just belong to women.

Like please we need to be more open minded than this.

[beatriceportinari]

......

[ganondorf]

this is such concise and perfect example of what i talk about regarding effemiphobia from a progressive perspective. the implication that effeminacy in men is lesser. the suggestion of masc4masc, but no suggestion of fem4fem + "let men be masculine"

there is a valid criticism in the CONSTANT portayal of masc/fem couples and the way particularly in shipping culture it feels like an attempt to more or less emulate heterosexuality (i.e. the classic seme/uke dynamic), but instead of approaching it from that angle everyone's first instinct is to posit the fem one as The Problem

[who-the-fuck-knows-blog]

“[wrt izzy’s homophobia/effemiphobia] In ‘Act of Grace’, Izzy’s emphasis makes it clear that ‘twat’ is standing in for a much stronger word.”

is it? is that clear???? is that clear?????? is that an easy surface level read of that scene??? or is izzy—as he has been shown to do—stuttering and getting tripped up on his words in his fit of passion and his limited vocabulary & lack of grammatical imagination allow him to use the word he uses most commonly as a baseline insult because he can’t think of anything better to use???????

[stranger-rants]

Well, I was only talking about Billy, so of course I only labeled something he did as a hate crime. A little baby hate crime. Honestly I think the stuff at the roller rink in S4 should count, since they clearly are fucking with her cause they think she's mentally deficient.

Breaking up homophobia into little bits and pieces and implying it's only homophobia if he called the other boy a f*ggot sounds like cope, but from you I fully believe it's sincere. Like how you keep calling Steve queerphobic cause he specifically called Jonathan a queer. You can say it's homophobic even if it's not the big daddy f slur.

My point is that he did do something homophobic, in a flashback, parroting his dad. And it's clearly something he does not remember fondly since it's in that big dark mental hurricane space. I don't think Billy is canonically homophobic, but he did do a homophobia.

With the race stuff, "Billy isn't racist" is definitely a valid interpretation but imo it deserves to be a minority opinion (same for "Billy is homophobic" btw). The clear, obvious interpretation of his behavior towards Lucas is that it was racist. I choose to ignore that shit cause it's not fun to write about and fandom isn't activism. Though if I did I'd prolly go the "Billy's smart enough to figure out racism is stupid and he'll get better about it as soon as he's out of his abusive home and has the mental space to work on himself" route.

Anyway, I'll stop clogging up your inbox. Obviously we disagree on stuff, but I really like your blog and I hope you have a nice day :)

I'm very specific in my language because these things, while related, represent different facets of bigotry. I also don't like using "baby hate crime" to describe most bullying behavior committed by children, for similar reasons why we don't diagnose children with ASPD. I don't like setting children on a course for incarceration for their behavior when they are children and hate crime is explicitly a crime. Bullying is dealt with very differently and as a person who works with children, I do think this distinction is important.

I use queerphobia because it encompasses more than homophobia. I use hegemonic masculinity and effemiphobia to talk about how boys use the word "pussy" to bully other boys into masculine behavior. It's important to be precise, especially when bigotry can take on many forms. I don't consider this as a clearcut example of Billy being homophobic. He was a child beating up another child who we assume was a boy repeating the same words his dad said, but also probably something he hears quite often. The fear that men show and teach young boys to feel towards femininity is not just a matter of homophobia.

I also think it's silly, personally, to downplay Billy's racist behavior while harping on Billy - as a child - bullying another child using the word "pussy," which he was also told and/or may not have fully understood at the time. To me, his racism is much more evident and it's something we should be more critical about. Still, he doesn't go around hate-criming people. A lot of his violent outbursts are incidental and not exactly targeted. Using that word continually to describe his violent behavior ignores context and assumes Billy just does these things regularly.

I'm glad you enjoy my blog, but I say what I say for a reason. His bullying behavior as a child is still wrong, but I don't agree that it's clearcut evidence that Billy is/was homophobic. As I've said, people accuse him of saying and doing things he never actually said and did and that includes the "Billy is homophobic" bs.

[deepspaceclawstation]

Personal trauma dump under the cut

Content warning for homophobia, effemiphobia, bullying, fatphobia, depression, ableism, and blanket warning for possibly heavy mental health topics

Uhh also for oversharing I suppose. Feel free to skip, it's just a self-serving rambling you won't be missing on much

I recently got invited to the wedding of one of my former batchmates, someone you could say was part of my closest friend circle in uni, and I have been of two minds about attending. Thinking about those people in that setting has led to some retrospection about the kind of person I was at that time. I am... not proud of that person to say the least.

While I was never really close to this particular person (they are more of a friend of a friend), I need to be clear that I really really loved and still love my friends. I think of them as my siblings (except one but I'm not talking about them here). I forgive them stuff I won't forgive anyone else for, accept them with all their follies, wish them nothing but happiness.

And yet. I kind of dread meeting these people again. That (along with the travel) has been one of the main reasons I'm thinking of declining. I can't face these people. I love them but I can't look them in the eye anymore. I don't want to. Because unwittingly or not, these people have hurt me. And they have hurt others like me, this one very much deliberately.

I have always been a person with attributes that have led to me being one of the 'bullied' rather than a 'bully', provided the assumption that you can treat these as mutually exclusive groups (hence the quotes). This kind of stopped sometime in 3rd grade which was when I got ill and the entire school knew about me as the sick kid with the weird-looking brace. Kids are cruel, yes, but they are also socially conscious. No one wants to be the asshole who picks on the openly disabled (at that time) kid, because doing so will get them labelled as a bully, and it's fine to be a bully but getting labelled as such is a social death sentence. Everyone knows that, even the kids (getting cancelled is not a new phenomenon). The same logic followed me to college even though these new people didn't know my medical history. I have that something which makes people hesitate before picking on me, a kind of social disadvantage that is so obvious that anyone taking advantage of it is seen as repugnant by others. An armour of sorts.

These people, my friends, they never picked on me. And they never 'bullied' bullied anyone. They didn't make someone's life miserable or difficult, not by themselves. They just fed into the already present stigma. One person who was IN the group with us they teasingly fat-shamed. Not in a mean way, always couched in concern about their health, they did it almost lovingly. Even the jibes were wrapped in 'we are not laughing AT you, we are laughing WITH you'. Just good-natured teasing. And if it did get overbearing at times, the tone just a breadth away from a sneer? Well, someone has to practice 'tough love'! We just have been Concerned, that's all! I am fat too, much more than the person they teased (bullied). But their fatphobic comments were never aimed towards me. I didn't think much about it, deliberately so, because if I thought about it I would realise what I am being a bystander to. I was a good little sheep who just tried to change the subject, or let out a few half-hearted 'hey! don't bother them!', or sometimes just... kept quiet. Not a peep out of me. Absolute mum. You want to know what the worst part is? I don't that person even blames me. Or even them. They most probably internalised that shit. I lost touch with them years ago but I got a status update recently that they have not been doing well mental health-wise. They aren't coming to the wedding.

That's not the only person I've wronged. One of my classmates was (when I knew him) an openly effeminate queer guy but he wasn't 'out' out yet. Everyone knew, of course. He called me a friend but I never treated him as such. He was annoying, there's no doubt about it. He used to cling to me as I was openly a part of the queer club (as an ally of course). He used to cling to me and skip class and ask me for notes and never took a hint. My 'friends' (the close friend circle he was NOT a part of) didn't like him but they were always friendly, always cordial, always polite. When we talked about him in his absence they never mocked him, they were just amused by his antics. They rolled their eyes and gave each other long-suffering smiles. I did too. I liked him and at the same time... I was embarrassed of him. He was always asking for my notes. I wished he would pay attention in class himself and not miss so many lectures. I wished he would keep his head down. Blend in a little. I knew I was queer myself and it wasn't his homosexuality that was a problem, I told myself. He just needs to tone it down a little. Stop making a pass at the straight guys, that's just asking for trouble. After all, our campus is pretty tolerant, it's not like anyone will dare to be outright hostile to him for no reason, and if they are he has us. As long as he stays out of trouble.

You can probably tell where this is going. I later learned that he was being bullied in his hostel, so much so that he had to transfer to another. After a point I had refused to give him my notes. It was at the convocation (last year graduation ceremony) that he confronted me about it. He said, "I was suffering at that time. I was slipping in academics and you didn't help me. I will remember that." He still sat beside me during the ceremony. He had a girlfriend at that time and he still chose to sit beside me. He looked beautiful in a saree.

I came out as bisexual to my closest friend circle in 3rd year. I first came out to that guy, at the same time he came out to me as the same. He was walking me back to my hostel and he told me, casually as ever. It felt like the easiest thing in the world to tell him right then. Five days later, I was in a Starbucks for the first and only time in my life with four of my 'close' friends and we were playing some trite party game and I came out to them. They took it well. I think they mostly had questions about what that meant. I remember being alone in the rickshaw back to campus with my crush (one of them but not really) and asking them, "Did I make things awkward?" They assured me that I didn't, albeit in a distracted way. I'd like to think they meant it. The next day, I was sitting at lunch with another of the circle friends (not one of the previous four). I don't know how or why it started but they started ranting, enraged and vitriolic, about my bi (now partially out) friend. I don't remember the specifics but the phrase that stuck out, or rather slapped me in the face was - 'you can't feel safe around a guy like that, can you?' I... didn't see that coming. In my mind, all of my friends, though ignorant about the finer points, were undoubtedly queer allies. All of them knew I was a part of the queer group, I attended queer meets, I volunteered for the events, and though I wasn't very out and proud about myself my gender presentation was clearly not conforming. I was devastated. This person was the second closest friend I had in the entire campus. We were from the same state, same caste and we had found a shared comradery among the mostly North Indian populace. I loved them like a little sibling and I felt Betrayed at that moment. I don't know what came over me but I did the only thing that felt right. I asked them, "You may not know this but I like both girls and boys. I'd like to ask you, do YOU feel safe around me?" At the time it seemed like the hardest thing I'd ever done in my life, this pathetic too-late retort exhausting almost all of my courage. They didn't answer and we didn't talk for the rest of the meal.

I don't remember how we got back from that. I think they apologised. I just know that no one made any disparaging comments about my friend in front of me after that. I could have done this before. I could have done more. I could have helped my other friend who was being 'teasingly' bullied. I could have spoken up in time.

I won't go into details but I also had some problems with sensory issues in my last year which made me miss out on some social events. A reason which I learned one of these 'friends' had been calling bullshit on behind my back (interestingly, this was the same person who was being bullied who was also the only person who had been homophobic (I think? it was weird) to me after I came out). It got so bad that I had to shut myself in my room and ghosted all contacts, and there were... check-ins to make sure I hadn't done anything stupid. I don't want to blame anyone for that, they were all concerned (for real this time) about me but being with them wasn't great for my mental health.

All this to say, I feel ashamed of the person I was at the time I lived with these people. I'm sure they are all different people now, some better, some worse, I'm both better and worse than before too. Things won't be the same. I haven't kept in contact, I'm sure they miss me and this is their way of reaching out to me. I just... can't. I can't establish contact again. I still love them, despite all judgement, but I don't want to let them in my life again. I'm making a decision which is going to have consequences and I'm so scared. But I'm going to do it. This feels more like cowardice than bravery on my part but it will still take every bit of my courage to do it. I don't have a lot of it, as you can tell.

[skewedmoralcompasses]

Anti-Authoritarianism and “Choice Feminism”

If you’ve spent a significant amount of time in feminist discourse, you’ve probably heard the term “choice feminism” get used a few times - usually as a pejorative.

Opposing the concept of gender roles, by itself, is very much an anti-authoritarian position. However, some feminists will then push the more authoritarian concept that women should reject “femininity” entirely - including the colour pink and cute things. This, effectively, makes it harder for women to do anything without being criticized by anyone. Not to mention that’s it’s also possible for one to like both “feminine” things and “masculine” things.

[orionsangel86]

1/2Prob. biased becuz I'm not a con person & think the amount they do is odd, but don't the actors get paid to do them? His response WAS a little rude. The ?? wasn't disrespectful or offensive. Ur there for the fans, u can respectfully disagree, but

2/2 why do Q&A or Cons at all if you can't handle a harmless question? I'm ok with his opinion, but the delivery, no. I'm sure there are other ??s they've been asked a million times. It's gonna happen. Chill.

Well, I am not a con person either and even though I have spoken to people who are con people and rave about how good they are I am very hesitant to even consider attending one. I do think that they do too many, and that it ruins the experience for the cast themselves. If they are constantly up on that stage having to be performing monkeys to a crowd of people who are all very demanding and set in their own ways (think-bibros) asking the same bloody questions over and over again (think-prank questions) and always having to smile and joke and be engaging, I can kind of understand why Jensen might sometimes loose his cool with questions that he is uncomfortable with. Honestly the whole idea of it seems exhausting to me.

However, the very fact that it is the destiel/bi-Dean/LGBTQ+ questions that make him get snappy and rude says a hell of a lot more about Jensen that it does about shippers and the people asking the questions. It also says a lot about the kind of crowd you get at a J2 panel (another reason I would NEVER attend a J2 panel).

Why do the Q&A and cons if you can’t handle the question? Well I suppose imagine what would happen if he STOPPED doing the Q&As and cons in general? Think of the hate and drama that would come from THAT. Plus yeah he probably gets paid a lot for it.

Is it really bad that I would be more inclined to go to a con if J2 weren’t there and it was just Misha and Rob and Rich and the angel crowd and spn ladies? (basically the entire cast other than J2) because that way no bibros would show up and it would probably be a lovely relaxed con where everyone is relaxed and joking about and having fun. But that’s just me and I have made it no secret that I am really disengaged and unimpressed with J2 in recent months anyway.

I think that Jensen’s tone and whole delivery of answer was out of order. I don’t care about his opinion on destiel at all. As far as I’m concerned he is Charlton Heston during the filming of Ben Hur and I couldn’t give a damn about what he thinks because its simply not true. Jensen has no control over the story and still believed Dean is the dudebro asshole from season 1. Proves how much he knows. 

But yeah, his tone was out of order and someone should really give him a lesson in how to handle questions if they don’t reflect his archaic viewpoints.

I should probably write a disclaimer here that I don’t think Jensen is homophobic and certainly don’t need people jumping down my throat about that. He isn’t homophobic. Outwardly. Internally he is suffering some serious character bleed with Dean with his effemiphobia and gets uncomfortable at the thought of Dean (therefore himself) being with other men. This isn’t homophobia as such as it is the idea of himself with other men that is the problem. Jensen doesn’t like it. Its as simple as that. It is a point of view that I find baffling as a bisexual person who is totally cool with anyone shipping me with anyone else (except family members) so yeah I struggle to understand that but I reckon it is based in a deep rooted internalised homophobia stemming from his upbringing.

[sayitwithsarcophilus]

We need to be meaner to terf-adjacent cis men.  

Because it’s harder to frame a conflict as “trans people vs women” or “trans rights vs feminism” when the advocate for the anti-trans position is a cis dude.  And it makes the “terf is a misogynist slur/trans rights supporters are just misogynistic lesbophobes” line less credible to uninformed outsiders when straight men are getting just as much high-profile pushback.

And really, I don’t think any kind of feminist should encourage cis men who like to demonize a relatively small and socially vulnerable gender minority as “the REAL bad, dangerous kind of dmab person, unlike nice normal men like me!”  This just seems like a recipe for, at best, a willful obliviousness to one’s own ability to perpetuate or benefit from a sexist status quo.  While at worst, they’re trying to frame themselves as trustworthy allies against a fiendishly deviant Other as a means of drawing attention away from their own bad behavior.  (”No, it’s those bad transes who are insinuating themselves into women’s spaces in order to gain access to young women!  Certainly not me!  Pay no attention to all those boundary-violating emails I’ve been sending!”)

Plus, if gender-conforming cis men are out to indulge in homophobia, effemiphobia, sex-negative moral panics, lewd speculations about the love lives of strangers, insulting the appearance of random women on twitter, etc., they should not have any excuse to try to spin this as feminist allyship.  

[rottenboysclub]

Thank you for answering my ask! I have noticed though from the fandom I'm in that the ones complaining don't really say anything about the straight guys crossdressing in canon/ fanart but whenever it's the gay guy that gets the treatment , the artist immediately gets accused of making the character weak despite there being no context in the drawing. I'm really just confused and worried as I have drawn such fanarts simply cause I thought it's cute.

Treating the gay character as being unable to perform femininity because it’s ‘stereotypical’ but the cis straight guys are allowed to? Seems pretty fishy to me. Also there’s another implication that dressing in clothes or acting in ways typically associated with women is “weak”. There’s nothing weak about wearing dresses or being feminine, but even if there was, being weak isn’t inherently a bad thing. It’s all effemiphobia from what I’m hearing. Gay men don’t have to perform masculinity to an absurd degree in order to be valid as gay men.

[theteablogger]

Hi! Massive props to you for all the work you've done on the timeline. Regarding part V, with Nov. 2 2012 being the date Andy starts watching SPN, I wonder if you're aware that Nov 2 is an important date within the show. Of course that might be coincidence, or someone familiar with the show deliberately introducing him to it on that date, but with Andy's history of acting like he has a personal connection with fictional characters, it doesn't feel quite right. Thoughts?

That didn’t occur to me, but then, I’ve only watched SPN casually (and only through season four–I’ll pick it up again one day). For those who haven’t seen it at all, 11/2/83 is the date on which the demon Azazel killed Mary, Sam and Dean’s mother. John, their father, made Dean responsible for getting baby Sam to safety while he tried to save Mary and/or kill Azazel. He subsequently became a hunter to avenge Mary, and thus Sam and Dean had a severely fucked up childhood. 22 years later, on 11/2/05, Sam’s girlfriend, Jessica, was killed in the same way as Mary–and Dean rescued Sam again. That’s the very basic background to the show, skipping some things about the events of 11/2/83 that we learn long after the pilot. 

Andy did identify with Dean on a number of occasions, ranging from "joking” about being possessed (not funny, given his years-long history of claims about channeling), to writing extensively about Dean’s “effemiphobia” as a cover for his own misogyny. He also tried pretty hard to draw parallels between Destiel and his relationship with Brittany, with himself as poor, damaged Dean and Brittany as the angel who saved him. I don’t remember his drawing attention to the date that he started watching, though. While I agree that it feels weird, I’m not sure whether it was a coincidence or not. Maybe someone who knew him then can shed some light on it.

[stranger-rants]

I keep seeing you say billy did nothing homophobic, but didn't he do like, baby's first hate crime in a flashback in s3?

Not saying he's homophobic, he obviously was super young and just parroting his dad when he did the tiny gay bash, but it's a valid interpretation.

First of all, I think it’s a choice that people use “hate crime” to describe bullying behavior when it comes from Billy and no one else. That is especially so when it’s a seconds long clip without much context other than the fact that Neil used the same language against him. It does not mean Billy is more or less homophobic than anyone else, but it does say a lot more about gender which I think Billy has internalized a lot more grief over than sexuality. We don’t know who Billy is attacking or why, but young boys calling other young boys a “pussy” when they’re fighting is such a common occurrence and more so a reflection of effemiphobia and hegemonic masculinity.

Second of all, while queer men may be subjected to this more often, queer men can also weaponize this language. We know Neil doesn’t limit himself to calling Billy a “pussy,” but also a “f*gg*t” which is used as an attack on Billy’s gender presentation. Billy may have lashed out at boys and men who he perceived as less masculine. At the same time, Billy doesn’t do anything to change his appearance to appeal to the masculine ideals Neil wants him to uphold. So, Billy may be tough and masculine enough to get by without being challenged but he can’t escape his father’s judgements.

Still, there’s no hard evidence that Billy is homophobic or that he seriously believes every bigoted thing his father believes. There’s no evidence Billy goes around “hate criming” people and I think it’s inappropriate to use that term loosely to describe any and every instance of bullying or violence. The intentional targeting of marginalized people for the expressed purpose to be hateful is what makes a hate crime to me. With Billy, every instance of violence is triggered by something unrelated to his attitudes towards other people. e.g. Neil threatening him or beating him. That doesn’t mean his own biases and prejudices don’t impact how that violence plays out.

Furthermore, I mention this not because I think people can’t interpret him as homophobic - though, why would you? It’s more so because Billy has faced this kind of violence, which is ignored. Billy has never used specifically homophobic slurs, which is ignored. Then there’s the fact that white queer people both speak over black fans of Billy to say that Billy would hate crime them and claim solidarity with black fans of the show who critically discuss Billy’s racist behavior, which is… a choice. Too many white queer fans want so badly to have a personal justification for hating this character so they build up this “Billy is homophobic” narrative that is just not there.

Also, it’s just ironic because one of the most beloved characters in this show is/was queerphobic and now they treat him like a queer icon…

[todaydreambelieversfic]

Chapters: 2/10 Fandom: Glee Rating: Explicit Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Blaine Anderson/Kurt Hummel Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Genderqueer Character, AFAB Blaine, Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Sequel, Friendship, Friends to Lovers, Intimacy, Slow Burn, for "this story is under 20k" values of slow burn, Cissexism, effemiphobia, Audition Woes, Songwriting, One Three Hill, New York City, Food, Vintage Underwear, Navel-Gazing Both Literal and Figurative, Shocking Authorial Self-Indulgence Series: Part 2 of Genderqueer Blaine Summary:

In which, in conversations and coffee cups, feelings develop, and the measure of a year is taken.

This is a sequel to Untitled Clubbing Scene. Better read the porny one-shot first!

[kanadabiscuits]

I’m having an emotional moment as I ponder how long Chris and Will have been together. 

How amazing it is when you consider that Chris came of age in a fish bowl surrounded by fans and haters and hemmed in at all sides by media who either wanted or needed him to be one thing, or just wanted to a forum to vent their homophobia and effemiphobia. He’s said before how hard it was to meet and date people who wanted to date him and not Chris the celebrity, so how incredible that he met this man who matches him in humour, geekiness, intelligence, and love of words. It makes my cheeks ache from smiling to think that he has a boyfriend who will dodge the spotlight with him, push him to outdo each year’s Halloween costume, and who will stand beaming on the sidelines as small children and grown fangirls alike stand starstruck and tongue-tied in front of Chris. 

And here they are four years later (at least from when we first started asking who Disneyland Boy was) and I am just kind of emotional about it. Because the best thing I can wish for, for those who I admire and who inspire me, is happiness and love, someone to laugh with, cuddle with, and lounge in pjs with while eating take-away and filling the silence with the tapping of keys and the happy snore of a spoiled retriever....

[postmodernmulticoloredcloak]

trisscar368 replied to your post “What about, instead of getting mad at Jensen for the way he engages...”

....oh... see this is why I like following as diverse a crowd as possible, I hadn't entered the early wincest shipper behavior (let alone the tinhatters) into a larger calculation for Jensen x shipping. It's always been apparent that he's uncomfortable with any sexualized discussions at cons, but I thought that was him being private not reacting to fans... ugh. Some days I'm really... not happy with this fandom...

I wasn’t there myself at the time, but from what I’ve gathered by conversation with people who did, the first years of the show were bad. The hate was strong with those ones. Danneel, Lauren Cohen, Katie Cassidy, Cindy Sampson were regularly sent hate and even death threats. Misogyny mixed to SamandDeanonly sentiment was a very bad combination (and never really stopped being - in Misha’s case the hate isn’t due to misogyny itself, but Misha is very far from the model of mainstream masculinity, so there’s always a large layer of effemiphobia there). That was what Jensen first experienced of the fandom - people harassing his girlfriend, sending hate to his co-workers... and even now that portion of the fandom still hates on Misha, who, Cockles or not, is someone Jensen cares about a lot. So Jensen has never really stopped having people very dear to him being target of fandom hate.

People often compare the image of the ‘fangirl’ that emerges from the Kripke era (most notably Becky) to the image of the ‘fangirl’ that emerges from the Carver era (Charlie, the girls in Fan Fiction) and the comparison is kind of like shooting against the Red Cross. The Kripke era portrayed a creepy W*ncest shipper with no sense of personal boundaries and I don’t think that was because they ignored the ‘good’ parts of the fandom. (It’s not a coincidence that the show has Dean express revulsion for the incestuous shipping multiple times, either.) Carver and Thompson decided to make a tribute to the “positive” fans, while Kripke’s wasn’t a tribute - it was a condemnation.

(While we’re on this topic, we need to remember that Kripke’s show was mainly a horror show, while Carver’s was mainly a drama show. A creepy fangirl with sexual assault tendencies fits in a horror story, while a realistic portrayal of a ‘normal’ fangirl fits in a drama story.)

Anyway, yeah, Jensen Ackles has ALL THE RIGHTS to be wary of the fandom and avoid, or shut down, certain topics like the plague.

Jensen isn’t Misha. We are probably spoiled by Misha - Misha is a politician. He’s a PR monster. If you ask him, “is Destiel real?” he’ll give you a speech about interpretation or maybe a speech about Astroglide and gay porn but after he’s over you’ll realize he hasn’t answered the question. Jensen does not have the skill (and training, Misha has studied that stuff, we can’t expect Jensen to be magically able to do it) to talk about a topic without saying anything about it. So, if he can’t avoid to answer, he’ll answer no.

(Who was the person who asked the question, anyway? An actual Destiel shipper or someone who wanted Jensen to shut the thing down just to create drama?)