#men with fetishes

[coochiequeens]

A dress, purple hair and "tits on display" don't make you a woman dude.

[idolomantises]

lol, so after posting my comic on twitter, some guy quote retweeted the post and said they "regretted" making comic dubs of it and was going to delete every dub featuring my comic.

I asked them why (though the answer was obvious, considering i usually draw hot girls with big boobs, and this comic featured a gay man with a pup mask) but i wanted to be sure.

They claimed it was because they're no longer a fan of sexy demons and angels, but i pointed out that they've made several hazbin hotel/helluva boss dubs as well as praised a recent helluva boss episode not too long ago, so they definitely don't have issues with sexy demons. So I decided to be forward and say "is this because the this character made you uncomfortable (the gay man in a pup mask) and they said yes LMAO

anyways, moral of the story, if you can't handle my queer men at their kinkiest, then you don't deserve the sexy lesbians

[sarasade]

One of the most generally useful things to come out of Hbomberguy's plagiarism video and Todd in the Shadows' similar video on misinformation is how they bring transparency to the internet phenomenon of "I made up a guy to get mad at".

Seriously, I've seen people make up a lot of stupid shit on the internet over the years and it's often just a manipulative attempt to paint a group of marginalized people in a bad light.

That's the TL;DR version of this post. 

ANYWAY here is the long version

Those videos are mostly about James Somerton's plagiarism of other queer people's work. However I'd like to talk about that 20-30% of Somerton's original writing- and oh boy. It's mostly about complaining about White Straight Women and misgendering well-known trans creators such as Rebecca Sugar and calling Becky Albertalli a straight woman while it's pretty common knowledge that she was forced to out herself as bi because she received so much harassment over "being a cishet woman who appropriates LGBT+ stories".

One thing that irks me especially is how in his Killing Stalking and Gay Shipping videos Somerton brings up how straight women/ teen girl shippers exploit gay men for their personal sexual fantasies. This gets brought up several times in his videos.

Being all up and arms about Somerton being a "White Cis Gay Who Hates Women and Queer People tm" is not that useful because the kind of rhetoric he's using is extremely common in fandom and LGBT+ spaces on Tumblr, TikTok and Twitter. We really don't need to bring Somerton's identity to this since he is in no way an unique example.

It's hypocritical to make this about an individual person when I've seen A TON of posts, tweets and videos where queer people talk about these Sinister Straight Women who are supposedly out there fetishizing and exploiting queer men. It's pretty clear to me that this is just an excuse to shit on women and queer people for having any sexual interests. At worst these comments are spreading misinformation about BL, a form of media that has been excessively studied by both Asian feminists and Asian queer women.

This all sounds really familiar and I think it's good that people are calling it out as what it is: misogyny and transphobia. I'd also point out the potentially racist motives behind being this hypervigilant about Asian media.

People can absolutely be misogynist regardless of gender or orientation. I really don't know why we need to create some kind of made up enemy to get mad at. I actually think it's almost sinister how "anti-fujoshi" people call Slash shippers and fujoshi misogynists or claim that they have internalised misogyny while being dismissive about women's interests and creative pursuits under Japanese obscenity laws, China's censorship, book bans in American schools and various other disadvances that are part of being a queer and/or female creator.

I think we shouldn't be naive about the bad faith actors who want to turn queer people against each other. For example Fujoshi.info mentions anti-gender (TERF, GC etc) movement using this kind of rhetoric as well.

Anyway if you want to read more:

- about the false info around BL fandom fujoshi.info

-There is the scholar Thomas Baudinette who studies gay media in Japan. Here is a podcast with him and the scholar Khursten Santos

-James Welker is a BL scholar as well. Here is a podcast interview about the new international BL article collection he edited.

-I've already talked about this Youtube channel by KrisPNatz and his great Killing Stalking video that actually engages with the themes of the manhwa

- There is also HR Coleman's thesis DO NOT FEED THE FETISHIZERS: BOYS LOVE FANS RESISTANCE AND CHALLENGE OF PERCEIVED REPUTATION where she interviews 36 BL fans and actually breaks down why fetishization has become such a huge talking point in the fandom discourse. Spoilers, it's mostly about young queer people and women being worried that they will get judged and pathologized for their interest in anything sexual.

-Great podcast about Danmei and censorship with Liang Ge

[coochiequeens]

Another poor kweer who thinks it’s ok to steal clothes from the women in their family.

[cock-holliday]

The ask has got me thinking more about how attraction is seen as synonymous with fetishizing or objectification. I do not think there is anything wrong with men being interested in queer women, or women being interested in queer men,

1. Because yes, they could end up being trans and suddenly a guy into queer women is really a queer woman being into queer women/a girl who liked queer men is a queer man himself

2. Bisexuality or other fluid identities exist and men who like men sometimes also like women, and women who like women sometimes also like men

3. No one is entitled to returned attraction!

The issue is not ever attraction or interest or even expressing attraction, it all entirely has to do with respect. I find a queer man who chats up a queer man with the expectation that “hey we’re both queer so you MUST like me back” to be significantly more entitled than a man inquiring politely if a queer woman might like him back.

If you ask nicely, do not make assumptions, and crucially do not act like a cunt if the person says no, then I do not think you have done anything wrong.

The recipient’s orientation may very well exclude your gender, or they simply may not be interested, and a conversation based in respect and appreciation is not an assault on the recipient.

I know the fear of being predatory or “like men” is so pervasive that it doesn’t stop at men courting women, so that many women are afraid to approach women because they think expressing their attraction is somehow an assault and it ISNT! You are not evil for your attraction, you are not predatory for being interested, and as long as you are respectful and will be a safe and understanding person to say no to, then there is no actual harm that has been done.