#also i can’t wait for someone to be like ‘omg op is a proshipper of course they think this’

[jeromiah]

i saw another take about how sexualizing dick grayson and ignoring his character is bad or whatever, and the argument includes the fact that he’s been SA’d and that if he was a female character people would be up in arms about it.

first of all this man is sexy as fuck. i know it. you know it. DC knows it bc they keep selling me sexy comic variants and i keep buying them. it’s okay to sexualize him because he’s a fictional character who will never know. and if we used the “oh but what if he was a woman” claim that means we shouldn’t sexualize anyone, leaving the only historically sexualized characters to be women. also, his sexualization by DC leads me to believe that his comics are more often read by women and queer men—and they’re catering to it. not a “win” per se but an interesting observation.

his sexy persona doesn’t negate his experiences nor his character as a whole. (if we really wanted to get into the nitty gritty of it, i could argue that dick’s sexualization and objectification are a self-imposed unhealthy coping mechanism for his trauma but that’s too meta for DC to have thought of) he can do both. part of his character is brushing off his trauma in front of others, so can we mistake fans for falling for his misdirects? also…people who have been SA’d can still be sexy and be sexualized (with consent if they’re real people) and like being SA’d doesn’t mean you shouldn’t ever see them in a sexual context again. if that were true i’d be miserable and a virgin lol

also, we’re literally talking about batman here, one of the most widely-loved franchises in the world where most people haven’t actually read a single batman comic let alone all of them, it’s impossible. same goes for nightwing, who has a more reasonable solo series to finish, but still isn’t for the faint of heart. you don’t have to be an expert on dick grayson to like him and think he’s hot. he is a kind, light-hearted person who’s just too hard on himself and struggles to find a sense of identity.

“and here we slap the ‘sexy’ identity on him.” well…yeah. we’re allowed to do it. turning to fanfiction of all things and expecting it to portray dick honestly is just a dumb expectation because a large chunk of fanfiction is sexual and even if you aren’t reading sexual fics, you’re still reading the works of amateur writers who don’t write for DC. the fun thing about fanfiction is that you can do whatever you want and some writers choose to ignore things and you’re reading their work for free.

dick grayson as an objectifiable character is so fascinating. like i think asking questions about why dick became the sexiest character in DC, why DC embraces it, why his current writer is all over it despite being a straight man could be fun. what does this say about comics culture and the state of sex in popular sequential art? what happens if he does become a sex icon, and is that even truly possible? how does it interact with DC’s growing cast of queer characters? what does it say about the relationship between DC and queer audiences?

i think coming to the conclusion that sexualizing dick grayson is bad and it shouldn’t happen leaves out so many interesting nuances and factors at play that have created this unique situation. and like…he’s sexy as fuck. i love owning a dick grayson swimsuit cover.