#that was wordier than i thought it eould be sorry

[ithilien-writes]

So I've been sitting on this for a bit cuz I wanted to ask you about it but I didn't know how to word it without sounding awful. I'm still not sure I'll be able to, but I'm going to try. I was watching that clip of Alec apologizing to Magnus on youtube a while ago, and a comment was made that sort of gave me pause. Somebody mentioned that if that scene happened with a straight couple, they would have kissed at some point. I don't know why I thought about it so much after reading it (pt1)

(pt2) It did make me wonder though, and it I’m sort of curious if it’s going to show the casual physical intimacy that straight couples get written on shows. Though, I remember watching a documentary series that Ellen Page did called Gaycation where they explored various aspects of the LGBT community around the world and it was noted that in a lot of places that sort of thing was pretty fetishized, which I definitely don’t want to happen. Anyway, I was just curious about your thoughts on that

that’s a really interesting question. i feel like there’s a couple of good points you bring up:

casual intimacy of gay couples vs. their straight counterparts - ok so like this is definitely a thing and i’ve watched it happen on just about every show with a canon queer character i’ve ever watched. that being said, i think it’s too early to make that call with shadowhunters. the fact is, alec and magnus aren’t even really dating yet. i know that may seem confusing to some people bc of the kiss at the wedding but as alec has now confirmed (ironically in that same scene they’ve referenced) he did that as a statement about his own sexuality moreso than as an actual declaration of feelings for magnus (tho obvs he does have feelings developing). so tbf malec isn’t actually at the kissing stage yet and it would have (imo) been a little weird if they’d kissed in that moment

fetishization - so if i’m reading this right it sounds like your worried that the more malec is allowed to be casually intimate, the more fetishized they’ll be, but honestly i think the opposite is true. the more gay relationships are normalized, the less ‘exotic’ they’ll start to seem, which is a huge piece of fetishization. of course that’s not gonna stop the cadre of straight girls who will continue to laugh about how they’re such ‘sinners’ for all their gay ships, but i don’t think there’s anything that a piece of media could do to explicitly prevent that so