#they fulfil every other bi stereotype

[moonmoonthecrabking]

all i want is a chaotic bisexual character who is, in fact, bitchless

[butch-reidentified]

Yet another time someone has sent me a screenshot from this random woman spreading 100% baseless, very obviously made-up ('i wonder if") bs about me due to who knows what deep unfulfilled need of hers, though she's never had the spine to come for me directly in any capacity. I so do not understand why I'm coming up again now, given I've not been on tumblr much for months, but 🤷

I'm not going to tag her like I usually would bc I have less than zero desire to invite that toxicity into my life so directly atp (I've @ ed her in the past when she started doing this ages ago), but I am gonna say something ab both the accusations she makes/spreads and ab the behavior itself.

She's been spreading unhinged rumors about me being into men for literal years, including accusing me of fucking my brother, and apparently doesn't find it at all fucked up to be harassing a lesbian trafficking survivor with literally COMPLETELY baseless accusations of sex with m*n (which I have never remotely desired and as I've literally made memes about, would sooner die) just bc I didn't think her treatment of macroclit was entirely fair, as the person who had actually known macroclit for years irl before even being on radblr. I don't necessarily think I would do/say all the exact same things now that I did at that time, for deeply personal reasons I don't owe anybody an explanation of, but that doesn't justify any of the toxicity on her part.

I don't think it's acceptable or even non-lesbophobic to act like lesbians need to be a complete monolith when it comes to their experiences with bi women and views. Nothing I ever said claimed lesbians can be into men or anything of the sort, nor supported polilez, and outside of shit like that, I don't think we need to all have the exact same takes on every single issue down to the smallest nuances.

I also don't think it's acceptable or feminist to completely invent and spread rumors about other women like some wannabe Regina George, as if women don't face enough of that stereotype already. Especially if these rumors undeniably play on themes of your target's trauma history. Especially when you yourself certainly know you're completely inventing said rumors, that they're purely weird parasocial (& blatantly dishonest) speculation.

yes, macroclit is my ex, and we were friends after dating but never "fwb." we did not "meet up and have 3sums," we met up and watched movies and went clubbing, and we have not even slept together since like a couple of years before she realized she was into guys. yes i had a "poly" experimental phase in/around my college years - and I'll admit I didn't formally & vocally end said phase until long after it had materially ended - but this was with exclusively other women, as should be fucking obvious, and frankly was mostly in name only; I just never had any meaningful urge to seek out more partners, and tbqh have never had a very high sex drive. I don't fuck anyone but my wife atp & very much don't want to (nor did I want to feel like I had to air my entire sexual history on tumblr to thousands of ppl).

idk what need is being fulfilled by doing shit like this, i rly cannot fathom it & have never in my life engaged in this behavior toward any other woman. in all honesty, I thought it was just a fully fictional misogynistic stereotype that women do this at all, bc I've never known anyone who does. I've seen rumors spread ofc but usually airing ppls real dirt or exaggerating it, not just lying outright. wild.

all that said, if you want to go toe to toe regarding actual irl feminist action, lmk. otherwise, fix your own shit and drop your obsession w imagining me liking d*ck, it's super creepy and weird.

[theoldlesbianwithcats]

prev anon here: the article is far too long, but i quoted the section. this article is from the 1970s, but it was reprined in this issue on the request of some other reader, so there are women who still think this way.

"HOMOSEXUAL – This word should also, in my opinion, be erased from our language: les-bian language. According to Webster’s Dictionary, the homosexual is one who has, or “exhib-its sexual desire toward a member of one’s own sex.” As has been pointed out by others before,such a definition puts the total emphasis on the sexual aspects of our lives – homosexuals aresimply sexual beings (i.e., resulting in such questions as “What do they do in the daytime?”).Calling ourselves homosexuals almost seems to reinforce the stereotype that lesbians are over-sexed women who will be “cured” (sic) as soon as they meet the man (penis) capable of fulfillingtheir vast sexual desires. Another possible misleading undertone to the word homosexual is theimplication that female homosexuals are attracted to women in the same manner that males areattracted to women. Of course, the primary reason a man is attracted to a specific woman isbecause of her physical beauty, and I doubt lesbians love women solely for their physical charac-teristics. And despite what the general public believes, generally a lesbian who’s attracted tosome woman acts nothing like most men would (i.e., whistle, grab, put the make on, hustle, try toscore, etc.). The term homosexual almost implies that lesbians feel and act like straight men,since both simply “desire” women, but thankfully this is far from the truth. In her book LoveBetween Women, Charlotte Wolff states that a lesbian would more correctly be labeled “homo-emotional” rather than “homo-sexual,” making the important distinction of placing the emphasison the emotional, instead of the physical, part of her orientation. Yes, I enjoy sex with womenmore than I did with men, but that is basically because my emotional relationships with womenare so much more intense and fulfilling than those with men could ever be. It is because of theserelationships that I am a lesbian; I am not a homosexual."

"i am not a homosexual" we know lol.

"homoemotional" really in every generation bisexual women were busy inventing the split attraction model because they simply dont understand that bad or boring sex with men because men are shitty to women does not make them lesbians, preferring sex with women does not make them lesbians.

this whole argument is so dumb i dont even know what to say. its like when you tell TRAs a woman is a female so they respond with "oh so you think woman are breeders?" um no? also how is saying lesbians are attracted sexualyl to women implying they need penis to satisfy them? disgusting and stupid.

i understand why homosexual is the one word all gay and lesbian people are increasingly using, because all these fakers and appropriaters hate it.

Thank you! :)

As always, polilez can't help projecting their own feelings and showing how lesbophobic they are. Being homosexual is being sex-crazed, shallow, etc. and of course they denounce the lesbophobia of lesbians having a supposed male exception... even though they had sex with men and call themselves lesbians anyway (In a way, "abusive men made me a lesbian" / "comphet made me have sex with men" are just negative variants of "lesbians have male exceptions")

In my case, I was thinking of a big proponent of political lesbianism in France and Europe, Alice Coffin, who said in her book Lesbian Genius (right after talking about her ex-boyfriends...): "I am not lesbian because of orientation or attraction, like the wind veers north. Lesbians are not homosexuals."

(Speak for yourself, dumbass!)

So many bi women think preferring women or being disappointed in men makes them lesbians, and they outnumber us so easily that they can enable each other and marginalize us... I've even seen fakebians have an obvious crush on a man and being told by other "lesbians" that its doesn't mean anything and it's comphet! How does that confusion help anyone??

Homosexual doesn't have any ambiguity, which is definitely a good thing, but I don't want to abandon the word lesbian either... (and I think gold star sounds cute!)

[cowboyjen68]

Hi Jen! I hope you are doing well.

I need some advice. I am a young butch and I have just started university half a year ago. I made a friend (a bisexual guy) and we’re really open about ourselves and our struggles. There is a huge difference in experiences we’ve had so far. I’ve never been intimate with a girl in any way, I'm aware that my circumstances are different as a lesbian and because I come from a culture that is homophobic but I still feel very connected to.

Two days ago, he invited me and a few other friends over to hang out. He specifically mentioned his good friend who is also a lesbian as well as the opportunity for me to pursue her. I admitted that I didn’t quite feel comfortable with the idea of being in a romantic relationship with someone who didn’t have a similar cultural background as mine. I wonder if I am just limiting myself with this sometimes…

Friday comes and the girl and I get along well—she spends almost the whole evening talking with me, we have similar interests. She even shows me photos of her in tight and kinda revealing clothing and I probably misread that as flirting.

Anyway, she offered to drive me home and I accepted. At that point I had already given up on her picking up any hints that I just straight up asked: “Do you find that as a lesbian you interpret signals wrongly or not at all?”. Which was my way of basically screaming “Do you even realize that I have been flirting with you”. Lol. Her answer did not go in that direction at all. I didn’t get an outright rejection either. After that I even said “Jeez, going home at night sucks. I’d rather just sleep over at a friend’s if it’s already so late” to which she agreed… but still no rejection or offer! Lol I give up.

It all left me feeling weird… I talked to friends about it and they agreed that she probably just wasn’t into me like that. It made me rethink how I interpreted her actions and I can’t shake the feeling that my own actions came across as predatory even though there is enough proof that would dispute this. I feel like I was being impatient and unrealistic but I also think that this wouldn’t have been the way I approach someone I was romantically interested in. I would still very much be interested in lesbian friendships! But now I feel like I blew it.

I am sorry this is delayed longer than I would like it to be.

There is a ton of pressure in our younger years to date and even have sex to somehow fulfil our lives and it is just as prevelant, if not more so, in LGBT culture as in the straight world. We are given signals that we must be curious and interested in sex and that drives many of us to flirt with women, who, if there were more choices, we probably would not look at twice.

When we are given limited dating options, there are just fewer lesbians and bi women than straight women, we get a bit desperate or maybe just impatient. IT is a common thread shared among lesbians of all ages.

IT does sound like she was just not interested in you in any way beyond friendship. She was on purpose, but in a kind way, deflecting your hints so as not to hurt your feelings but also not give false hope. But, like you, she might be unsure how much say and how to interpret things.

It took me years to realize that hints, subtle flirting and trying to read into every word and movement is impossible. The best way is to say "Is it okay if I flirt with you?" Or "I think you are interesting, would you go on a real date with me next weekend?" Being clear about your expectations or what you are experiencing is truly the best course of action.

Being butch does not give us the automatic confidence or instinct to understand what a woman is thinking, even if the stereotype is that we are "in charge".

I would text her and be honest that you had a good time and might have come off a little strong or awkward because it was nice to spend time with another lesbian. Ask if she would like to hang out and clarify if you would like to take her on a date or if you think you should just do something as friends. That clear communication will relieve some her your stress and hers because you will know what is expected. IF you are vague she will be over thinking and analyising every move instead of just enjoying time spent with each other.

[redheadbigshoes]

I feel really depressed as a bisexual women seeing statistically most of us ending up with men. I am not here to bash or discriminate bisexuals who are in opposite sex relationships but this is just a vent. It feels like it’s rare to see a bisexual women in a same sex relationship or the relationship with another women is often short or even a fling. I know this is a stereotype but I don’t find fulfillment in a relationship with a man. With women, it’s an opposite story. I find more fulfillment in a relationship with a woman. I’m not sure if it’s due to the relationships with guys I was in, but I forced myself to conform to the heteronormative idea of what a relationship is. It makes me scared because what if I realize I’m actually a lesbian and I’m not bi? Will I become like every other bi woman and succumb to men???

A lot of bi sapphics are in m/f relationships not because they prefer men but because it’s easier and safer to be with them. If you think dating men or not feels much like a choice, you’re still bi, but only choosing to engage in relationships with women. If you eventually realize you’re a lesbian and not bi that’s okay, sexuality isn’t always so easy to figure it out. There’s a lot of videos I uploaded from Tik Tok here that talk about lesbian experiences that could help you understand more your identity if you wanna check (they’re tagged as #source: patronsaintoflesbians).

[thoughtlessthinkythoughts]

Why your bisexual, polyamorous, down for anything utopia is actually exclusionary as hell

*and also manages to be aphobic, homophobic, and biphobic all at once

So, there’s been a post going around that imagines what the world could look like in a more queer friendly future. It posits that in an ideal, prejudice free world, most people would identify as bisexual, and being straight or gay would be considered slightly odd, limiting, and boring. The post doesn’t even acknowledge that ace or aro people exist. The general theory is that if there were nothing to stop people, almost everyone would be interested in having sex with almost everyone else.

Now, this idea isn’t new. Look up Free Love Future on TVTropes and you will see a ton of entries. If you’ve seen Doctor Who, it is basically the Jack Harkness vision of what the future could look like. So, I’m less responding to the specific post I saw and more to this concept of the free love, everyone is bi future as an ideal. There’s quite a few reasons this idea is appealing to people, which I’ll get into. But there are also a lot of reasons why it actually incredibly limiting and misses the beauty of the diversity of queer experiences.

First, why do people like these sorts of tropes? Well, I think it is fair to say that more people would identify as something under the LGBTQIA+ umbrella if doing so was completely accepted. You can see a definite trend in statistics comparing Boomers, Gen X, Millennials, and Gen Z that as society has become more accepting, more and more people are categorizing themselves as something other than cishet. It’s also definitely true that sexual behavior (distinct from sexual identity) can be influenced by societal norms. So, a future where significantly fewer people ID as straight or only have sex with one gender does feel plausible. People want to imagine a future where straight isn’t the assumption, and that I completely can get behind.

But this image of the future isn’t any sort of queer utopia. It’s just creating a different norm, one where the standard is that almost everyone is interested in almost everyone, and those that aren’t are the weird ones. This vision excludes huge numbers of people from being considered part of the norm. It’s a future where there would still be enormous pressure to conform to a set standard of sexual behavior. One where considering people different or odd for having certain identities is still seen as fine and dandy. And that doesn’t sound like a queer friendly future to me.

Let’s start with the ace and aro phobia. If people who “limit” themselves to one gender are considered boring in this future, imagine what people would think of those of us who’s answer to either sex, romance, or both is “no thanks.” This future might be even harder on aces and aros than our modern day is. Now, I can see someone trying to argue that this vision of the future actually does a fair bit to knock down amatonormativity...but does it? Sure, in this vision, monogamous relationships perhaps aren’t the norm and the nuclear family may be less of a basis for society. But it is still creating a norm about what relationships should look like. It’s creating a norm around how much and what kinds of sex people should be having. It’s still leaving anyone who doesn’t want those things an outcast.

It also seems to imply that the main reason people exclude certain others as potential partners is repression or societal expectations. Now, I imagine aces, aros, gays and lesbians, and anyone who has ever dealt with someone who doesn’t understand that you are not fucking interested in them can understand why this assumption leads to mountains and mountains of bullshit.

This idea is homophobic. It says to every gay person “actually, the fact that you aren’t interested in other genders is weird. How does that work, anyway?” How the hell is that a vision of progress?

I’d also argue the idea is biphobic, and in many ways it is similar to the idea that any immortal would eventually end up being bisexual. How can an idea that most people would be bi if only they were free from societal constraints be biphobic? Well, how many bi people have had their identity treated as less valid or less queer because “isn’t everyone a little bit bi?” Treating bisexuality as the inevitable result of time or sexual freedom is refusing to treat it as a unique identity.

There’s also the fact that these sorts of hypothetical futures tend to take the concepts of bisexuality, polyamory, and being down for anything and assume that these categories completely overlap. Now, obviously some people fit into all of them, but not everyone does.

Again, I get where this is coming from. A lot of it is coming from a desire to not be judged if all of these categories happen to apply to you. Some of it is also pure wish fulfillment - some people just like the idea of a future where everyone is having lots of casual, judgment free sex because they would like that. And an ideal future should absolutely be judgment free - but that means not creating a new set of expectations, ones that feed into some pretty common stereotypes.

How many monogamous bi people have had their ability to stay faithful to a single partner called into question? How many bi people have had to fight the idea that they must be promiscuous.

For that matter, how many poly people have had to fight the idea that being poly always means an open relationships or promiscuity? How many people have to fight the idea that an open relationship means they’ll sleep with anyone? This proposed bisexual, free love utopia actually feeds into a bunch of shitty stereotypes and doesn’t include a lot of the people it was meant to.

Here’s the take home message. Don’t imagine a world where one particular type of queerness and one particular model for sexual behavior is considered the norm. Imagine instead a world where there are no assumptions, no expectations, and no judgment surrounding sex, romance, and identity. Where all orientations or identities are welcome. If your dream of a queer friendly future is to create a new restrictive norm and ostracize a slightly different set of people than our current society does, your dream is shit.

[highsviolets]

at this point, im surprised that none of you pedro writers have written a crack smut fic of like. the bachelorette, and all the pedro boys are the contestants. like dressed as their respective characters.

you mean like this??

(Photo found on Pinterest by @obitwo)

OKAY BUT I CAN SEE THIS:

Marcus Pike - the token gentleman. Everyone roots for him bc how can you not?? But he’s a little vanilla, a little too nice for a show as cutthroat as this.

Oberyn Martell: frat boy who might not totally suck? Brags a lot about how great he is in bed; you’re surprised to see that he actually IS that good. Fulfills every (positive) bi stereotype there is. Has a jealous streak though, which is definitely not cute.

Javier Peña: his best friends made him do it, but now that he’s here, it’s not as bad as thought. Shirt is always unbuttoned (major plus) and he DEFINITELY uses that low rasp on purpose. He asks permission before he kisses you the first time and whoooo boy does he know what to do with his mouth. Has adorable puppy eyes but gets voted off for not being involved in the drama.

Frankie Morales: also did not sign up for this, but somehow finds himself in the middle a big controversy. What did he do?? He’s so confused. Like Marcus, he pursues you endlessly, but in a more quiet way — he’s all about lingering touches and gettting you alone in the hallway or snuggling up to you on the couch. Curls are 10/10. Co-shirt whore with Javi. Fans overtly thirst for him 24/7. Pope is jealous Frankie got on and he didn’t.

Pero Tovar: where did he come from? what is it that he does, exactly? you don’t know, and you honestly don’t care. The ultimate mysterious bad boy; when you ask him about the scar, he just shrugs. Stays on longer than he should, honestly.

Dave York: gets kicked off right away for trying to surveil the other contestants, but he makes sure to wreck you before he leaves (you’re so glad he did, you had the marks for days).

Agent Whiskey: you should not like him. You should toss him into the pool for using all those pet names in that horrendously attractive drawl, and burn his Stetson while you’re at it, too. But something about the way he smiles and speaks up when the talk gets a little too rough — “manners matter” — makes you weak in the knees. The most considerate lover you’ve ever had. The final comes down to him & Din.

Din Djarin: wants to take a nap and go pay a visit to his godson, whom he affectionately terms “the Kid.” But don’t let that fool you. The man is peak non-toxic masculinity — broad and strong and has definitely defended your honor, judging by the black eye that showed up midseason. doesn’t speak much, but does little things for you like making your coffee. Don’t underestimate him though; he’s competitive and when he knows what he wants — you — nothing is going to get in his way

[thehmn]

I used to watch my brother play the Metal Gear Solid games and it’s actually really interesting to look at Hideo Kojima’s games in the context of how homosexuality is viewed in Japan.

I’m not going to speculate on Kojima’s own sexuality, I’ll leave that to himself, but his games are famous for being very horny, homoerotic and having a ridiculously high number of bisexual male characters. People will point out that they’re all villains, but that’s just the explicitly bisexual characters. His two main characters, Snake from Metal Gear Solid and Sam from Death Stranding, are also implied to not be straight.

This is where Japanese culture and the extensive lore of Kojima’s works comes in.

Homosexuality is taboo in the west and Japan for different reasons. In the west it’s seen as sinful, but in Japan it’s seen as disruptive. Don’t make a fuss. Don’t call attention to yourself in any way. Don’t mess with the status quo. Most queer people choose not to come out to their families for this reason. And to make matters worse, even if a small majority of Japanese people are in favor of queer people having rights the government is very conservative and it’s even illegal to depict homosexuality positively in some parts of Japan.

So what does Kojima do to appease his government and the culture of his people? He does what people did in Hollywood in the 30’s and make the explicitly bisexual characters villains and make his heroes covertly bisexual.

Kojima always had an interest in sexuality and gender. In high school he wrote a story where all women succumbed to an illness, leaving the men unsure of how to continue. Remember, at the time the majority of women in Japan quit their jobs when they got married and took care of their husband and children. So who was supposed to take care of the house and their sons? Could men just stop craving intimacy or would they have to turn to each other? And how would they make more babies? I’ll get back to that.

One of the most famous scenes in Metal Gear happens when Snake disguise himself as Ivan, the lover of Volgin. Volgin walks up to what he assumed to be his lover and grabs his crotch, looks confused, grabs him again and asks “Who are you? I know the major better than anyone else” Volgin and Ivan are undoubtedly villains, but their love for each other is surprisingly the most human thing about them. If Snake puts on Ivan’s mask during his bossbattle with Volgin, Volgin will hesitate at first, then double his attacks in anger, but also cry because he’s trying to kill a man with his boyfriend’s face.

Snake/Otacon is the most heavily implied relationship in the whole series that hasn’t been confirmed. In the first game Snake could end up with Otacon at the end, and since then they’ve moved in together, raised a child together, talked at length about how they taught each other to love, teased each other about their libido, and the list goes on. They also notably get call-backs to two other canon romantic couples; Raiden and Rosemary when Otacon tells Snake that he won’t be let back inside before he takes a shower (Rosemary wouldn’t let Raiden back in because he got pee on him), and Volgin and Ivan when Otacon says he knows Snake better than anyone else. My point being, Snake and Otacon are very heavily implied to be a bisexual couple.

Then there’s Death Stranding. The game is definitely written by a more mature Kojima who has been hanging out with a lot of Americans. His view of sex and love is more nuanced and he understands that there’s a difference between sexual and romantic orientation. We still got Higgs, a flamboyant villain who acts very predatory and is heavily implied to be bisexual, though never confirmed, and Sam who’s implied to be asexual (he has an Ace of Spades sticker on his bike) and biromantic, and we get our first confirmed good bisexual character, Die-Hardman.

Kojima never got to play around with gender much in Metal Gear Solid, but he made up for that in Death Standing. Remember that story he wrote in high school? We see a lot of inspiration from that here. The solution the men came up with for having healthy babies in the story was to have men carry pods around on their stomachs where the fetus could grow in the most natural way possible.

There’s still women in Death Stranding but there’s a lot of men carrying babies around on their stomachs, men forming family unions, and the main character Sam acts more like a stereotypical mother than father. There’s literally a scene where Deadman puts a hand on Sam’s pod like it’s a pregnant belly and basically asks him “The three of us are a family, aren’t we?”

Sam later tries to give the baby to a woman, Fragile, but she only sees it as babysitting and gives it back, so Sam gives it to Deadman who declares it “our little one”.

By the end of the game the three of them are seen together, depicted as two parents holding their child. Throughout the game people are constantly trying to hug and touch Sam but in the end the only person who gets a hug is Deadman.

It’s also worth noting that in the universe of Death Stranding Sam and Deadman are believed to be a couple before they actually are. Deadman made sure of that so no one would question why they spend so much time together.

There will no doubt be more bisexual men in Kojima’s next game, and I’m curious to see if there’ll be any development in how openly he depictes queer characters. He’s a middle aged man so no matter what his own sexuality might be I don’t expect him to easily shake the expectations of Japanese society off, but he has started hanging out with a lot of Danes, most notably Nicolas Winding Refn who despite making extremely violent movies is very open minded and has, when asked, been very honest about his own sexuality (to spare you the pain of digging though Danish interviews, he’s a straight, slightly bi-curious man with an interest in BDSM, but who’s also satisfied leaving a lot of his fantasies to his imagination because his movies gives him an outlet for a lot of it).

You can see a lot of Scandinavian/Nordic influences in Death Stranding and I’d be surprised if Nicolas didn’t expose Kojima, intentionally or unintentionally, to the Scandinavian view of homosexuality. I can best describe it with a news report I once saw on national television. Parents were worried about a dangerous road that their children had to cross every day to get to school but the government wasn’t doing anything about it. The parents they interviewed were a gay couple but they were treated exactly like any other worried parents. No fuss, no spectacle. Please think of the safety of these parents’ children.

I can imagine that approach would go over very well with a middle aged Japanese man who clearly wants queer people to be able to live happy, fulfilling lives with families and children but doesn’t seem to want to upset his society.

Other people have pointed out that Kojima and Nicolas seem to inspire each other a lot and have taken an interest in each other’s cultures, and Nicolas was the first person to announce publicly that he’d be in Kojima’s next game, so I’m really interested in seeing what that will do, if anything, to how comfortable Kojima is with depicting his queer characters. Something certainly happened once he started socializing with a lot of Americans.

I am of course not saying Kojima is a saint who’s doing everything right, but he is an interesting guy to follow.

[g00ngala]

normally, this is the type of post i would put on my side blog, but i think i want to make a point that people actually see. feel free to unfollow for this i guess, but please finish reading before you do.

i'm gonna start out saying this. i am pan critical. please, if you're pansexual or pro pan, don't stop reading this. just listen for a second, with an open mind. i used to be pansexual, actually, and after that, when i realized i was a lesbian, i was just a supporter. however, the more research i did, and the more bi people who were critical of the label i listened to with an open mind, my preconceived notions stopped lining up with the facts i knew.

i'm gonna let you in on a secret: nobody who's "panphobic" thinks pansexuals aren't lgbt. nobody! well, that's a bit of a generalization, but what i'm saying is thats not the argument.

one thing i want you to know is that if you are pansexual, you and your experiences with sexuality are valid. the only issue i and many others have is not the people, but the label.

it's been covered in many posts before, and in some of my own, but the tl;dr of it is that the label itself not only has a problematic past, but a problematic present.

there have been a few different definitions of pansexuality. in order to prove my first point that there is no fundamental difference between bisexual and pansexual, i'm going to go through the most common ones i see in order of use and briefly go over why they perpetuate biphobia and transphobia, and i will link to some sources explaining stuff in more detail, and probably better because i am not an expert, nor am i bisexual. i am operating off of the information that trusted articles and bisexuals have shared. bisexuals, please feel free to correct me if i present any innacurate information or it i mess up my wording, and feel free to add on if i missed anything!

"hearts not parts": pansexuality is inclusive of trans people while bisexuality is not - this is completely false. it's incredibly transphobic to say that some sexualities include trans people while others don't, and it is also incredibly biphobic to insinuate that bisexuals don't like trans people. trans people are included in every sexuality.

pansexual means being "gender blind"/ caring more about personality while bisexuals have preferences - also false. this is wrong because bisexual people without preference have existed for ages. to say that they are pan instead of bi because they don't have a preference is ahistorical and biphobic. additionally, saying bisexuals only care about gender/ physical appearance is literally a biphobic stereotype. it insinuates that they're in it for the sex and they aren't committed/ they don't care about the emotional connection they have with people.

pansexual means all and bisexual means two/ two or more (most common definition i see today) - false. this is where i direct you to the bisexual manifesto from Anything That Moves: Beyond the Myths of Bisexuality (1990) by the Bay Area Bisexual Network, where it states this: "Bisexuality is a whole, fluid identity. Do not assume that bisexuality is binary or dougamous in nature; that we must have "two" sides or that we MUST be involved simultaneously with both genders to be fulfilled human beings. In fact, don't assume that there are only two genders." pansexual has always been inclusive of all genders, and this is also evidence as to why bisexuality has always been inclusive of nonbinary people. saying that nonbinary people are not included in every sexuality is entirely wrong. nonbinary people are not a monolith, nor are they some magical third gender. you can't say you're only attracted to some genders. you can't divide attraction to nonbinary people based on identity when it comes to sexuality, because no nonbinary person looks the same! please read more about this here, this explains it way better than i can.

now that i've gone through that, i'd like to point out the problematic history of pansexuality, a masterpost on what I've gone over and more by a bi person, more reading on why pansexuality perpetuates biphobia, and even more evidence.

i would recommend checking out all of these sources, as they do a fantastic job covering some of what i tried to cover in this post but much better.

now, where do we go from here? the reason pansexuality rose to popularity, in my opinion at least, is because of internalised biphobia. knowing what you know now, that pansexuality and bisexuality are in no way fundamentally different, why do you choose to identify as pansexual?

i know how it feels to have the word you use to describe your identity, which is such an important part of you, attacked. trust me, i get it. but you have to step past that and look inside yourself a little bit. that discomfort you might feel with the bisexual label? that's internalized biphobia.

i can relate to this to some extent, but obviously not in the same way. as i stated before, i identified as pansexual before i identified as a lesbian. i liked the word. it was inclusive and it had none of the negative connotations lesbian or bisexual had. later, i realized i wasn't attracted to men, so i made the switch to lesbian, but it was hard. because of all those negative connotations from society, i still feel uncomfortable with being a lesbian sometimes. and i recognize that it isn't because i'm not a lesbian, but it's because of how society views lesbians. pansexual is a relatively new term to come into popular consciousness, so it has much less stereotype surrounding it compared to bisexual.

i'm not asking you to change your mind because of one post. i'm asking you to seek out information and other posts by bisexuals, ones you may not agree with, in order to get a clearer picture. and then just think about it for a while. that's all i'm leaving you with. come to your own conclusion. all i ask is just for you to listen, and PLEASE stop acting like actual arguments are in any way similar to "exclusionism" like aphobia, truscum bullshit or making fun of people with unconventional pronouns or ways of describing their genders.

[sokos]

what's your stance on "gold star lesbians are the only ones who can be lesbians and women who have had any romatic or sexual relationship with a man is an homophobic bisexual in denial"?

I feel like people who are not lesbians shouldn't talk about this issue because this is something that mostly affects lesbians. but i'm going to share my thoughts anyway because sometimes it does affect bi women. lately i've been reading blogs like @goldstarlesbianpride @comphet-critical @sighing-is-a-song and what they say make a lot of sense to me, i encourage you to look through their blogs if you want to understand more the POV of people who defend the stance above.

I agree that a lot of women who identify as lesbians with comphet are actually bi women. I'm not going to say they're homophobic (they probably are, but like i said lesbians can talk better about this part) but I do think they have some internalized biphobia.

I've read the comphet masterpost and it's just so offensive to me as a bi woman. They make it seem like bi women center their entire lives and attraction around men. They say you can be a lesbian if: have conflicting feelings about men, only care about your own satisfaction when having sex with men, if you feel disgusted by male bodies but keep being with them anyways, liking the idea of being with a man but getting uncomfortable when a man actually makes a move on you, liking getting attention and validation from men but not actually wanting to act on it, seeing relationships with men as a chore and a burden, dependency with a man for romantic feelings, picking a guy at random to be attracted to, having really high standards for men that none of them can really meet them, only liking GNC or feminine men, only being attracted to unattainable men, feeling anxiety or discomfort when dating a man, wishing you weren't attracted to men and wishing you're a lesbian, etc. For me ALL of these things sound like they're saying "bisexuals don't experience any of this" which is a really harmful take. They make it seem as if bisexual women never feel uncomfortable or disgusted with dating men, they sound like those biphobic and misogynistic people who say bi women are d*ck worshippers. When actually i know A LOT of bi women who relate to those talking points. And how do they know the difference between a lesbian with comphet and a bi woman with trauma or with different experiences? I have conflicting feelings about men, feel disgusted by their bodies, the only thought of having sex with them makes me sick, I would see relationships with men as a chore and a burden, I only like GNC men, I feel discomfort and anxiety around all men, I constantly wish I was a lesbian so i didn't have to deal with my attraction to men. And guess what? I'm still bisexual. Whenever I say these things about men, people immediately question my sexuality and assume i'm a lesbian. Why? Because they're biphobic and think bisexual women are obsessed with men.

Biphobia is a big issue and when bi women hear everywhere things like "bisexuals are cheaters, bisexual women always end up with men, bisexual women only want to satisfy their men and only think about threesomes, bisexual women are not actually opressed and are always privileged, bisexual women need men approval to survive, bisexual women never get their sexuality questioned, bihets will always prioritize their man over women maybe their attraction to women is not real, bihets are actually straight women in disguise, febfems are actually lesbians in disguise" then of course nobody is going to want to identify as bisexual. It's a self fulfilling prophecy. You're making every bi woman think that if they genuinely prefer women then they must be lesbians because there's no way a bisexual would actually do that. There's a post I don't remember that said something along the lines "People who are mad at bi women for dating men have now caused what they’re mad about. How do you expect to see bi women in relationships with other women when you’ve convinced bi women that they’re not really bisexual unless they fit your biphobic stereotype??" and i think that sums up perfectly what i'm trying to say.

Whenever a "non-goldstar lesbian" gets told that she's not a lesbian for being with men in the past, she says something like "why do you think i enjoyed my traumatic experiences with men? why do you think i'm impure? why do you think men's d*cks are so powerful that they change who I am?" and again that sounds biphobic to me, it's like they're saying that bi women who have traumatic experiences with men actually enjoy them, or that bi women are impure. Of course I would never argue with a woman about wether she's a true lesbian or not, especially not on social media, to each their own. But I wish they didn't perpetuate harmful stereotypes against bi women when trying to defend their sexuality.

All of these things are something that I tried to adress in this post which is by far one of my favorite posts i've done on bi women. I wish I could make all bi women understand that you don't have to love men, prioritize them, or feel comfortable with your attraction to them to be bisexual.

[gettin-bi-bi-bi]

hello! I'm nb, bi, and dating a man. we've been in an ldr for a little while (a few years) and in the past few months, I've started feeling things for some other people. one is a friend and one is someone who I know slightly, but in both cases it feels like a crush. there is a possibility the friend likes me back, although I haven't said anything to her. I've had dreams about her and I've imagined kissing her a bunch of times. my partner and I are monogamous, but with these recent feelings I'm not sure that's something I want all the time. I feel a bit like the bi stereotype of someone who can't commit, although tbh it's not that - I love my partner and want to be with him in the long term. but sometimes I think about the future and never being able to act on these kinds of crushes (which I'm sure will keep happening) and it saddens me. do you have any words of wisdom that might help? thanks <3

I think that it's normal and not automatically a big life-changing or relationship-changing situation when someone has a little crush on someone else even in a monogamous relationship. It's unrealistic to expect that you or your partner would never be attracted to other people. So to a certain extent I think that someone in your situation wouldn't even have to do anything and just enjoy the butterflies without acting on it.

However, because you say that you feel sad at the thought of never being able to act on that it makes me think that maybe you would be more happy in an open relationship or with some sort of polyamory arrangement. Maybe this is only because of the long distance situation with your partner or maybe it's something you would have come to realise anyway even if your partner was living close to you. But if this is something that sounds appealing to you or even if you just want to try non-monogamy to see if it works for you, then you should talk to your partner about this to see if he would agree to that. If he says that he doesn't want that then you gotta decide if you can live with that and still feel happy and fulfilled in a monogamous relationship with him or if you would rather break up because the desire to explore relationships with others (be it those current crushes or other future crushes) is too big.

And lastly: fuck the steroetypes. Yes, some bi people are polyamorous. So what? There's nothing inherently immoral about polyamory. There is a way to do it in an ethical way and just like monogamy it has its pros and cons. Most of all it's a personal choice and every person is different. Some people are happy in monogamy and others aren't. This doesn't mean that polyamorous people "can't commit". It means that they are wired for a different kind of relationship model and that's all good as long as they are open about this with their partner(s).

Maddie

[antiyourwokehomophobia2]

There is so much pressure placed on ssa women to be perfect romantic partners . The idealization of lesbian relationships is doing more harm than good because so many young/older lesbians/bi girls(women) constantly worry about their lack of perfection instead of enjoying the process. I wish women interested in being in ssa relationships understood that just because we are both women doesnt mean everyday is disney land.

Very much so this. I think it's because society portrays lesbians as "missing out" on a "fulfilling" relationship with a man so ssa women try their hardest not to make their partners feel anything other than good vibes.

And you know what? I wish I could say it was unfounded but it's not lmao. I pursued a bi girl in high school and one minor thing happened (I stopped talking to her for a few days because I wanted to lessen my romantic feelings for her due to the fact that even though she said she was interested in me, she still flirted with others and when I confronted her about it, she said "I'll let you know when I'm ready for a relationship") and she dropped me for this but then she started going out with a boy who threw a hissy fit when she asked him if he had an STD because the people who knew him said that he did and they had already had sex. She really dropped me over not talking to her for a few days and yet stayed with this guy who wasn't forthcoming about his sexual health lmao.

Women truly do expect same sex relationships to be perfect and when it's not--when women turn out to be actual, complex people--they pull a surprised Pikachu face.

I think a lot of women grow up thinking that they're the only complex woman and every other woman has to perfectly fit stereotypes, and when they don't then they drop the relationship.

Women are consistently taught to make room for the nuance's of men that there's no place for understanding other women by the time they're through.

[rentheadcanons1996]

What's your take on Maureen's sexuality? Obviously in the nytw version she was a lesbian but in the acc broadway version (and later in the film) she is basically portrayed as bi, despite Larson writing that she was still a lesbian. Either way she fulfills a prevelant and negative stereotype ("bisexuals cheat" or "lesbians are hypersexual"), so I was just wondering - if there was a revival, would you prefer to see her written as a lesbian or bisexual and why?

Oh my god thank you I LOVE this question. So first of all, I don’t think he wrote she was still a lesbian, as one of his friends who WAS a lesbian corrected him that if she dated men she couldn’t be. (I know, a little problematic, I think now we’d say if she was ATTRACTED to men she couldn’t be a lesbian - but queer labels, identities, and definitions change over time.) As for Mark’s mom I think she is just behind the times, though I love the “let her be a lesbian” line. As for the stereotypes - when I first listened to RENT I identified as bisexual and I didn’t think her cheating was as much about a stereotype as it was more about portraying two people in a problematic relationship, but now my identity is more “queer” so my take has changed a little though I still think it’s less about a stereotype. HOWEVER I can see how the movie leaned more into the stereotype. As for the lesbians are hypersexual - that’s a stereotype? Again. Trans man here, I don’t represent the whole LGBT+/queer community so I don’t know every single stereotype/debate. Though I can understand where the stereotype comes from, with specifically cishet men sexualizing lesbians & other WLW every chance they get. But ALSO I don’t think the NYTW version is going for the “lesbians are hypersexual”, mostly because sex is just a lot more prevalent for EVERYONE in that version. Especially since Mark is the ONLY one without HIV in NYTW, and in the demo he’s concerned even he might have it. As for the revival, I like both lesbian & bisexual Maureen, but I’d rather see her as bisexual because that does seem what she leans more towards. The 20th anniversary cast I saw also seemed to portray her as more bi. Of course, that’s not saying they can’t update the script to make her more explicitly bi - RENT Live did this with Angel and making her more explicitly trans (“now I feel like myself”, etc.) (Oh my god I have so many thoughts on RENT Live, mainly how it WASN’T AS BAD AS PEOPLE SAID. Pls ask me about all my thoughts. I love RENT.)

So there is my extremely long, rambly take on Maureen’s sexuality. Hope you enjoyed. :)

-Felix

[mondscheinprinzessin]

"#give either of them a flannel and my bi self will get a heartattack" glad to see the reaction to flannels being 😳🥺🥰😭😍💖✨💞 is a shared bi character trait 😂 people in flannels.... 😳💖🥰🌈💃

If I wouldn't think that I'm looking bad in flannels, I would wear them all time around. But on other people, oh my god, I'm fulfilling every bi stereotype. On men, yes. But on women, oh hell, marry me please. Like you're attractiveness rises unbelievable high if I see you in one. They go with so many things too. Okay, now I'm dreaming, thanks for the pictures.

Also Joonas bi energy is already off the roof, and he's worn that green plaid blazer, which was just heavenly. Give him a flannel, and I don't think I'll survive it. Other than him, I think I would like to see Olli and Aleksi in one. Well, I know what I'm dreaming about tonight💖

[miraculouscontent]

(non-ml asks)

Anonymous said:

So the Pokémon anniversary a couple of weeks back showed two very different takes in the future of Pokémon. What are your thoughts on the Sinnoh remakes and Legends Arceus?

I really hate the Sinnoh remakes. It’s not that I hate the chibi style (I mean, Pokemon started that way), but like--remake the game but just make it “the 2D game but 3D”???? Why? And it feels disrespectful because every other remake has used the style of the other games they were in (so FRLG looked like RSE, HGSS looked like DPPt, ORAS looked like XY, and most of the time, the remakes looked outright better than the style they were based on). It’s a shame because I really wanted to see an improvement from Sword and Shield, which didn’t engage/interest me and... I don’t know if this will make total sense, but instead of an upgrade from Sun & Moon, it feels like an upgrade of XY? Like, XY’s problems but with better proportions.

I’m cautiously optimistic for Legends Arceus, if only because, “YES, AN ACTUALLY SINGLE GAME INSTEAD OF THE DUAL STUFF THEY KEEP PULLING” (which was absolutely unacceptable when they got to console stuff). I actually didn’t notice the framedrop issues because I’m used to running games on a laptop that clearly isn’t made for them, so I’m sort of immune to it. I haven’t decided if I’ll get it for sure but the premise intrigues me and I really like Arceus.

Anonymous said:

How is Moroha the Marinette of Inuyasha?

- needlessly tormented by the narrative

- things that other people do to her don’t get addressed

- people closest to her are usually awful

- awesomely overpowered yet narrative will constantly have her screw up and put her down/make her feel worthless

- gets sidelined/ignored in favor of other characters

Anonymous said:

In one of your Askplosions(don't remember which one, sorry), you said that you can't stand the Tomboy Lesbian stereotype, which, to be honest, I kind of agree with. But what about Tomboy Bisexual? I guess it's not as bad if a female character's tomboyishness/girlishness isn't used as a clue as to her sexuality(like "you know she's a lesbian because she's BUTCH!!!"), but there aren't really stereotypes associated with being bi that are based in masculinity or femininity(due to bi erasure sadly.).

kfdngjdfgd I like how you had to had that bis don’t easily get stereotypes as much due to bi erasure because you’re absolutely right.

“Tombis” are fine, I have no problem with them. Any stereotype to avoid then are just the general bi stereotypes.

Anonymous said:

I was just reading TV Tropes' page for "Gratuitous Princess" and holy shit the sexism on display here is really nauseating. It's exactly like "Improbably Female Cast"(there are too many female characters here and it's uncalled for, despite it being okay for characters to predominantly be men), in that it's basically insulting any story that has anything to do with princesses at all by saying it "isn't needed". TV Tropes has always had a way of including underhanded sexism when talking about female-dominated/aimed works or tropes having to do with female characters or anything designed to appeal to female audiences; the more feminine, the more ridiculed it is by TV Tropes, despite claiming to believe otherwise.

Similar to how I complained about their "Improbably Female Cast" trope, Gratuitous Princess claims that stories with "more princesses than is plausible for the setting" are this trope because any abundance of princesses is somehow bad or doesn't make sense, even if it would make sense for there to be that many princesses/all the characters to be princesses.

For example, they claim that an entire school of princesses is implausible and "gratuitous", but if the school is intentionally meant to be a "royal" school for girls to learn to be princesses(whether or not they were actually born into royalty), then it's not actually gratuitous and makes sense within the setting! If the story follows a monarchy, it makes sense to have lots of princesses, especially if it's aimed at young girls.

If the main characters are a group of normal girls who wish they were princesses and the story follows "fantastical" versions of their imaginary princess selves, then that also makes sense, especially if the story has "every girl can be a princess" as their moral or something. There's nothing wrong with stories like that, but TV Tropes claims they're unnecessary because anything involving princesses(stuff little girls like) are automatically shoehorned in.

Just look at the examples, which are all written in an unnecessarily derogatory way, with statements such as "for some reason, she's called a princess", or "the rulers should be queens, and yet they're princesses"(when it COULD just be a principality; do your research, TV Tropes), or "how this has anything to do with princessing is never explained", as if the mere fact that she's a princess is something bad or worthy of scorn.

They even claim Sailor Moon is this trope when Naoko Takeuchi simply wanted the story to revolve around a group of girls who just so happened to be reincarnated princesses who ruled over their respective planet. It's supposed to be a girl power wish fulfillment fantasy that appeals teenage girls by showing all the girly things they like as implements of power!

And yet TV Tropes disses it for just that, because anything that's made to appeal to girls can't ever make sense. Now, if they were complaining about how, in aggregate, shows about princesses or in which every female character is a princess can reinforce the notion that the only way for a female character to be noteworthy in any way is if she's a princess, then that would be different, but that's not what's happening. They're dissing princess stories just for existing. No matter what, TV Tropes always finds something bad to say about female-driven storylines.

Always. Just look at their page for "Most Fanfic Writers Are Girls", "Pony Tale", and "Frills of Justice". There's always a mean-spirited undertone, as if they hate the very idea of these stories and narrative devices existing just because they're designed to appeal to little girls. I'm not saying you're never allowed to critique those stories the way you would any other, it's just the WAY TV Tropes does it. They're not critiquing, they're sarcastically mocking. They're going about it all wrong! And it's especially obvious when they never do it to boys' shows, even though those shows often do have messages that can actually be harmful and even ignore or objectify women. But I guess the latter is why they don't care. Boys will be boys, am I right?

Oh joy, internalized/intentional misogyny!

Ugh, I’ve been lucky enough to stay away from those articles on TV Tropes. I hate it when opinions clearly start seeping into the article.

For example, “Kiss Your Hand” (I think that’s the name) sums up the whole “hand kissing” thing and goes into detail about how nowadays it’s considered more uncomfortable/creepy, which isn’t necessarily an opinion but just detailing how the times have changed.

AND JUST LET US FEMALES HAVE GIRL SHOWS WITHOUT MAKING BACKHANDED COMMENTS.

It’s the same thing with stuff like “chick flicks,” y’know? Maybe it’s just been having to hang out with my father and hearing him make dumb blond jokes and talks about how chick flicks are boring/bad but UGH, I’m sick of it.

Anonymous said:

Hi, so I was thinking about what you said about how there aren't words for guys who act either masculine or feminine, and I agree, it's totally unfair, but technically feminine boys are called janegirls(or femboys, I don't know if that's specifically an LGBTQ+ term or not, so excuse me if it is, but I've heard it used this way before), or tomgirls(even though last time I checked, the term "tomgirl" referred to either a girly tomboy or a tomboyish girly girl, but I digress).

As for masculine guys, I'm not so sure there's a term for it, I guess since deviation from masculinity is less acceptable for men than deviation from femininity is for women(because, you know, femininity=lesser. ;(), although there IS the term "macho"...but that tends to be used in a derogatory sense nowadays. I've also heard "boys' boy", "manly man", etc. TV Tropes has a trope called "Sensitive Guy and Manly Man" as the male counterpart to Tomboy and Girly Girl. So I guess there are terms.

I also just wanted to add that the term "tomboy" technically was originally a male phrase to describe a young boy who was boisterous, loud, mischievous, and out-of-control; in other words, a misbehaved, trouble kid. I don't know how or when it got attributed to girls, I think there was the term tomgirl at one point(though now it's just used for an in-between type of girl), but even that is barely used anymore. Not sure where or when the term "girly girl" came about, though, sorry to say. ;(

Yeah, that’s true. I’ve honestly never heard the term “janegirls” before, but I’d prefer if a “““masculine”““ girl was just called “tomgirl” instead. It feels less like “girl acting like a boy” and--yeah, calling a girl one thing or another just makes it look like they’re “““different”““ from “““normal girls”““ and I just roll my eyes.

Anonymous said:

Hi, I know the post you're talking about(in your fourth non-ml Askplosion) about a boy who related more to female characters! It was on BoredPanda and it was by Damian Alexander(it can also be found on his official Tumblr), and it was called "Guy Illustrates How Boys Develop Sexism From Seemingly Small Interactions With Adults" and it was all about how he loved female characters like Matilda, Alice, Mulan, Dorothy, Anne of Green Gables, and The Powerpuff Girls, and was routinely made fun of and discouraged from liking them, even from the teacher, who assigned everybody a paper(I mean not really they were probably in pre/elementary school but whatevs) about a fictional character they looked up to, but wouldn't let Damian write about Matilda, even though she let girls write about Spiderman, Harry Potter, and Peter Pan. And he basically talked about how this kind of societal attitude conditions boys to see girls as inferior and not worthy of being looked up to. It's really interesting.

Thank you! Now people can maybe go read it~

Anonymous said:

So you talked about how shows for women are considered lame and overdramatic, while shows for men are allowed to sexualize women and still be seen as good because they're MANLY, and it just reminded me of how TV Tropes has a page called "So You Want To Write A Shonen Series" and one of their points was literally that since teenage boys are horny, they'll relate to a male lead that pervs on girls and peeps on them dressing, but that you shouldn't have the girl be aware or actually hit the boy, because that has Unfortunate Implications. What were those Unfortunate Implications according to TV Tropes, you ask? Double Standard Abuse: Female-on-Male. Wow. So basically they're saying it's perfectly okay for a boy to sexually harass a girl and show absolutely no respect for her privacy because it's what "all" teenage boys want to see/do, but the second a girl actually defends her agency it's a bad thing, and they have the NERVE to say it's sexist against BOYS on top of that. Ugh. I just...

S...sexist against boys...

I can’t--I just--

Also, cue the girl punching/hitting and then the girl is immediately considering “aggressive” for defending herself from being perved on, and even if people say that the girl didn’t deserve to be perved on, they’ll be like, “bUT SHE DIDN’T HAVE TO GO tHaT fAr.”

Anonymous said:

I just realized something: the term "uncanny valley" literally comes from the Japanese words "bukimi no tani", meaning we LITERALLY wouldn't have the English term without the Japanese one. So, yeah, tropers can shut the fuck up now about tropes having Japanese names because "no one will know what it means!". -_-

These people DO know that words in the English language are compromised/inspired by a bunch of other languages, right???

eggchjf said:

someone probably pointed this out but ALSO not only does Marinette have Homura's VA, but Alya is voiced by Mami's VA (Carrie Keranen)

why did you have to ruin everything for me

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh

Anonymous said:

Hi, I'm the Madoka salt anon. And I just wanted to say that I'm really sorry for bombarding you with all those asks. I didn't mean to be a "monster", I guess I just got carried away because, let's face it: there aren't a lot of people who dislike this show. Almost everyone glorifies this show as feminist empowerment while dismissing other Magical Girl shows as lesser than or somehow less feminist despite being written by women for women. These people won't give female authors the time of day and so when a man shows up suddenly they jump on the Magical Girl Fan bandwagon and praise it for doing what the genre has already done.

And when you do hear a different opinion, that person gets told off, insulted, blocked, downvoted, whatever because how dare you hate this show written by men for men rather than the stuff written by women for women? I once saw someone on Quora ask why Madoka was so popular when all it did was use the cliche "time loops" concept in so many other plots, and the response was literally "You didn’t know what you were looking at, so mistook your opinion for relevant commentary."

Let that sink in. If you don't agree with people who like Madoka Magica, it's because you're simply too dumb to understand how deep and complex it is, and your opinion doesn't matter. I've also heard the similar "You have no idea what you just watched" or "You're not smart enough to understand it" or "It's too complicated for you" nonsense and I hate it. Because most of what Madoka does isn't even that twisted or hard to understand; it's relatively simple when you look at it. The show just makes it dark. Monsters stealing energy from teenage girls? Sailor Moon did that and did it better(and didn't just go after teenage girls/women, so it wasn't based off sexism and "teenage girls are hysterical"). Hardships of being a magical girl? Girls uniting against evil? Female friendships/romance? So many other Magical Girl shows did that, too.

Come to think of it, Madoka Magica didn't even have the girls fight back against the system because only Madoka found a way out and purified the girls souls? Girl realizes she's been going about being a hero the wrong way and is confronted with her own selfishness? Look at Utena, which mastered this much more skillfully. Magical girl gets in a love triangle with another girl, vies for the affection of a fragile white-haired boy, and loses? Princess Tutu, except that the other girl was also a Magical Girl, they became friends and actually rebelled against the system together, and Ahiru(aka Princess Tutu) didn't fall into the pit of despair because girls should be punished for their sexualities and compete against each other for men and if a guy doesn't like you, you're worthless.

Even the whole "these girls are liches" thing wasn't very complex and well-handled as a lot of people like to think: the gems are called Soul Gems because your soul is in a gem. Wow. So clever. And they're Grief Seeds because they're seeds released from grievous witches. Also(not) clever. Even the fact that the acronyms are reversed(SG, GS) because Magical Girls turn into witches just made me go "yawn, I get it".

The whole show is just very lazily done and designed and tries too hard to be scary and deep and complex and "not like those other Magical Girl shows" while also trying too hard to make the girls super cute but also super badass so that we both are led to think it's a traditional Magical Girl show AND feel bad when these girls die because whoops they weren't so strong and badass after all!

Not to mention the whole "Magical Girls become witches just like how girls become women" thing really pisses me off because it shits on the whole coming-of-age aspect of Magical Girl as well(strong girls embracing their agency as they prepare to enter womanhood) by instead demonizing the very concept so that "becoming a woman" is a bad, vile, horrible thing(because being a woman makes you "more powerful", so the more powerful a woman is, the more mentally unstable she is) and then topping it off by having Madoka save the girls from becoming witches, aka women, making sure they never achieve a more mature state and maintain a level of childlike naivete.

It has so many misogynistic themes and concepts(girls are emotional, girls are weak-willed, girls are impressionable, girls shouldn't be selfish, girls shouldn't try to be heroes, girls should be pit against each other especially over a guy, girls shouldn't achieve power or become women, and more, and more, and more), that are stated matter-of-factly within the story and always proven right by the narrative, and yet people gobble it up and anytime somebody points it out, they are met with utter hostility.

Some people even defend it by saying those things are true! People only like Madoka because it's written by a man and depicts women suffering, in a genre written by women and meant to empower girls, which they don't like. And also because anything a man writes is automatically deeper and more valid than anything a woman writes.

So that's why when I found out that you didn't like Madoka either I was more than happy to discuss it with you, but I realize now that I was going overboard. I was just so happy that there was someone who agreed with me and actually understood what I was trying to say and found it problematic, and the fact that you say you're not that well-versed in Magical Girl proves my point even more because you don't even have to watch much Magical Girl to know that this is fucked up.

If you want me to stop sending Madoka salt asks, then fine. I'll stop. I didn't mean to bother you with these asks, I just wanted to see your point of view on Madoka Magica when everybody else is singing its praises left and right and never stopping once to actually think about it(while also claiming that people who don't like it are the ones "not thinking".). Hearing someone who's actually critical of this nonsense show is refreshing.

Firstly thank you for the ask! It’s honestly not your fault, I’ve just been struggling a bit lately with ask overloads.

That doesn’t necessarily mean I want you to stop, but I’d rather discuss it over Tumblr DMs so things are more balanced. Walls of text can be a little overwhelming for me (that’s why sometimes I try to balance my own walls of text with screenshots).

Anonymous said:

I've been thinking of how much I hate the misogyny in Puella Magi Madoka Magica, so I decided that instead of just salting about it(even though I still do from time to time because they're legitimate critiques and boy is it fun), I'm going to start talking about what I would do to improve it. Now doing this may mean it won't be the "dark" anime many people have wanted it to be, but I've been thinking of it for a while and it's my personal opinion, so let's get to it:

First, I would still have the Incubators, though they would probably have a different name because the name "Incubator" is pretty skeevy and part of a lot of the misogyny in the show. They would still recruit magical girls(who are called "Puellae Magi" in-universe, at least in the English dub and possibly some other dubs as well), only they do it for a different reason: Incubators go after teenage girls who are leading rough, difficult lives, and the magical girl contracts help them to improve their lives and give them a reason to live. They still make wishes, but the wishes don't screw them over because of their secret "selfishness".

However, if a potential magical girl is unclear or unsure of what she truly wishes for, this may lead things to go haywire. Basically, the whole magical girl thing is more heartwarming and the Incubators truly want to help the ladies in need, not just leech off of them. There's also no Soul Gems, or at least, their souls aren't actually in the Gems. They're called such because the Gems are powered by their Souls, and rather than the girls losing consciousness and "dying" when their Gems are too far apart from them, they simply lose their ability to perform magic and their magic becomes weaker. They still have stronger bodies though, much stronger than average humans, because becoming a magical girl gives them super strength/speed/stamina and all that, just WITHOUT making them liches.

Their Gems are non-interchangeable, so you can only use your own, not another girl's. As for the witches, they still exist, but witches weren't the intention of the Incubators; they're due to a botched experiment and it's up to magical girls to not only fight and defeat them, but return them to their original selves, thus showing that hope always does triumph over despair. I would also have the magical girls fight not only witches, but ordinary criminals as well, because having them fight only witches gets a little boring and predictable.

And finally, while there would still be only teenage girls who are chosen to become magical girls, it wouldn't be because they're "the most emotional" or some Hysterical Woman shit like that. It would be something more empowering, like, maybe only teenage girls are chosen because they're the most capable of magic and are simply more powerful magically than everyone else. They would still have their powers as adult women, but you have to be a teenage girl(well, one with a difficult/horrible life) to be recruited in the first place, if that makes sense.

And maybe older magical girls(well, women) would be able to mentor and assist younger ones(which is very much in-line with the coming of age themes present in magical girl, women supporting and uplifting younger girls as they advance into womanhood). This would make the claim that women such as Anne Frank, Joan of Arc, Cleopatra, and Queen Himiko were magical girls less...iffy, but I still wouldn't make it so that ALL influential women were magical girls, nor that humanity would be in caves without the Incubators. There'd also be transformation/detrasformation phrases of course.

In short, the magical girl system exists more so as a form of wish fulfillment, both in and out of universe, since it's for teenage girls with rough lives who are "empowered" by becoming magical girls and getting to live out a fantasy of fighting crime while looking pretty, as an exchange for getting a wish fulfilled that will help them improve their lives. Only teenage girls have this ability because they're the strongest magic users, not because of "female hysteria". In other words, the magical girl system exists to support and benefit the girls, rather than exploit them.

Now, since I mainly went over the magical girl system itself, I'll talk about the characters. Kyoko still loves to eat, is still relatively selfish, and still has discord with Sayaka, but they overcome it and become friends MUCH sooner and in a much more natural way. Mami and Kyoko's relationship will actually be stated in-universe, not just in some side material. Sayaka still has a crush on her male friend, but confesses to him before Hitomi does. At this point, he either says yes and they hit it off but eventually don't work out and decide they'd be better as friends, or he says no and she's sad but perfectly fine with that, and encourages Hitomi to go after Kyousuke. Hitomi may do it if Kyousuke turns down Sayaka, or she may feel bad about going after him after her best friend just got turned down, especially if she's worried about getting turned down herself, since Sayaka has known him far longer so she has even less of a chance, right? If Hitomi does confess, Kyousuke WILL say yes, but because his arm was healed due to Sayaka's wish, he's more concerned about playing the violin than spending time with his alleged girlfriend and they eventually fall out. This is keeping in line with Gen's claim that Kyousuke isn't a good match for either of the two girls. Though they may get together in the future.

As for Sayaka...well, she gets with Kyoko and it's actually made CANONICAL in-universe. I don't know about Madoka and Homura though, if she's less possessive of Madoka than she was in canon then perhaps she has a shot. Either way, I would really love if the ships were actually canon and not just queerbaiting. Regardless, Sayaka and Hitomi stay friends. Also, on a meta level, I would really love it if there were more female writers on Madoka Magica, and that the show was targeted towards a female viewing audience, which would mean toning down the fanservice(if not removing it entirely), as well as the troublesome aspects, as I've talked about earlier. And no "torturing young innocent girls and restricting their agency" since that's not what the magical girl genre is about and it never has been. This probably means more episodes though. Anyway, there's probably more stuff I'm forgetting, but to sum it up, this is how I would fix Madoka Magica. What do you think?

I think it’s a really good idea!!! Refreshing~ You know I’m all about fix-its.

Plus, all I heard was “Madoka Magica without being edgy” and I’m like, “yes please, I’m here for it.”

Anonymous said:

About Improbably Female Cast, it has come to my attention that Madoka Magica has been removed from the list. Someone in the discussion section of the trope removed it saying that since it's a magical GIRL show, it having a majority female cast isn't "improbable". The Touhou example is still there, though, because there's apparently something wrong with stories that have less men than women or have next to no men in them. Because a prominent male character is a requirement to tell a good story.

They also removed Strawberry Panic! because it takes place in an all girls' school, and Y: The Last Man, because it takes place in a futuristic world where almost all the men died. But still, the fact that those examples were there at all speaks volumes about the double standard there at TV Tropes. Even if the story has a realistic and plausible reason for the setting to be mostly female, as the examples above are, TV Tropes still considered them improbable. It's as if TV Tropes doesn't just dislike/question stories about a mostly female cast when it doesn't "have" to be, they dislike/question majority female casts in GENERAL! And the closest they have to a Spear Counterpart is Cast Full of Pretty Boys, which is a totally different trope: a cast in which most of the characters are "bishounen" aka pretty boys, because it appeals to a female demographic.

So it's "justified" but female casts aren't. And the playing with section reeks of "Stay in The Kitchen" sexism, with statements can be okay or even exist is if it's a harem or exists to titillate men who crave girl-on-girl interaction(and in fact, the main page lists this as their FIRST reason such a cast would exist, appealing to little girls and/or queer women is secondary/tertiary in their eyes), and the situations they propose in which the trope could be played with almost all involve the few boys attempting to hook up with as many women as possible or manipulating the women to fall in love with them, with the so-called justification that "the viewers just like their lesbians". And almost all their quotes(same on the Playing With page) are about people whining and complaining that the cast has too many girls in it. The Image Links section even has a link to a picture of two boys griping and bleating about the lack of boys in whatever show they're watching("They don't appeal to our demographic!" "Why are there no boys in our story?"), which TV Tropes has the nerve to call a "witty observation".

But what pisses me off even more is the fact that a predominantly female cast even NEEDS a justification in the first place. They only pulled specific examples of shows that supposedly dictated that the cast MUST be mainly female: Magical Girl shows, all-girls school settings, stories in which the entirety of men were killed off...only in extreme circumstances can you "resort" to using female characters but if the situation was reversed, the male equivalent wouldn't be considered improbable to BEGIN WITH. And this is despite the fact that the discussion page is FULL of people saying the trope should be renamed because of sexism, detailing many things I'm detailing right now, to the point where it's even gone off TV Tropes and is right here on Tumblr itself(one troper called it "PC whining", just ugh)! I just wish TV Tropes would realize the inherent sexism in calling such a cast improbable, since it makes it look like they're unhappy with the representation. Then again, they might be.

I’VE NOTICED THAT TOO, YEAH.

show: *has predominately female cast*

people: oKaY I guess that makes sense bUT ONlY BECAUSE--

And because misogyny isn’t as widely discouraged as... example, people would be absolutely crucified for complaining about a show having “too many POCs”... it means that those comments usually get ignored.

Anonymous said:

The Improbably Female Cast talk, especially the part about men complaining when stories have mostly female characters/seeing spaces that are 1/3 female as "majority female", reminded me of how I saw a study somewhere talking about the differences between how men and women dream, and it was saying that men's dreams tend to have more men than women in them, while women's dreams tend to have an equal amount of members from both sexes. Yikes. Even in their sleep men want women out of the picture.

And just in case you're curious, I found the study itself! It's called "Gender Similarities and Differences in Dreams", though if you look up "differences in how men and women dream" it should be the second thing under the link that also includes a snippet of the article. To quote the study itself: "there is a gender difference in how often men and women include male and female characters in their dreams: men dream twice as often about other men as they do about women(67% vs. 33%), and women dream equally about both sexes (48% men, 52% women). This is the largest difference between American men and women." Ouch. Granted, it's specifically talking about Americans, but I don't even want to imagine how even more skewed it probably is in men's favors for men in other countries(not gonna name drop any ACTUAL countries obviously.)! Internalized misogyny runs deep, to the point where men can't even conceive of women having a more significant role than them in anything, even in dreams.

And it runs deeper than that, too. I saw a post on Micechat called "The Smurfette Principle" by JMora. You probably already know what that is, but just in case you don't(or anyone else reading this doesn't), it's a trope describing the tendency for works to have a disproportionate amount of male characters with only one female in the group, if not the whole cast(named after Smurfette, the only female Smurf). The entire article is really well written and it discusses the gender disparity in fiction quite nicely, but what I'd really like to call your attention to is near the end, where they talked about how this effects kids, especially boys.

Movies that make most of their characters male while shoehorning females in female-specific roles are treating maleness as the default while femaleness is a special case, and this leads to films about men being seen as "unisex" while films about women are seen as "for girls" only. As a result, this leads to little girls being willing to watch movies about boys AND girls, while little boys watch movies only about other boys.

This also extends to the stories they write. Girls write stories with male and female protagonists equally, while boys almost exclusively write stories with male protagonists. Girls' stories tend to have a mixture of boys and girls, whereas boys' stories have all boys in them. It relates to what I was saying earlier about how men's dreams have mostly male characters while women's dreams are equal: how our society conditions boys to think that girls just aren't important and don't matter much. To quote the article, "Girls already know they can be the main pirates; it's the boys who aren't getting the message". Thankfully my little(male) cousin likes shows about girls and shows about boys just as much: he likes Pirates of the Caribbean, and he also likes Enchanted. But the majority of boys still dismiss shows for girls as "girly" as if girly is a bad thing but boyish isn't, and when they don't it's weird.

The best part is that this led someone else to realize their own mistakes regarding overrepresentation of men vs underrepresentation of women. A guy named Mouse Macabre realized that the comic he was working on had 8 main characters, 6 male, 2 female, and had to go back and work so that there was an equal amount. All he had to do was make two of his male characters female, and there you have it! Four male main characters, 4 female! Then why is it so hard for the majority of men these days?

Ugh, I don’t know. Like, as soon as people hear “we’re adding more characters for equality/to give women more attention,” it suddenly becomes “““forced.”““

Alright then I guess we’ll just have a bunch of white male shows then because adding diversity is forced and uNnaTuRaL.

We had POCs and more female characters and suddenly certain white males feel ignored and disenfranchised. :|

Poor things, not like there are ten millions other things they could be watching instead.

Also, inevitable response to the dream thing: men agreeing to dream more about woman... but they’re sexualized.

[army-of-mai-lovers]

Idk why but I’ve always seen Toph as as ace (even though she had a few moments crushing on a few characters) so it just feels a bit odd to me when I see people ship her with other characters. She’s the type of person that doesn’t want/need a romantic partner to fulfill a major goal in life (imo). What are your thoughts?

Totally valid anon! I personally just see her as aro mostly (sometimes I hc her as an aro lesbian, aroace, or a demiro lesbian, kinda depends on what mood I’m in), but I’m really not tied to any specific hc, nor am I going to criticize anybody else for their hcs of Toph (or any other character we can all have different readings of the show). I’m more pissed off when people criticize other people for hcing Toph as a lesbian? Like I’ve heard people say it’s “stereotypical” to hc a gnc female character as a lesbian but like. the reason that a lot of lesbians like to hc Toph as a lesbian is because gnc lesbians are a huge, underrepresented part of our community. we see ourselves or members of our community in her.

and that doesn’t mean you or anyone else has to hc her as a lesbian! I don’t always hc her as a lesbian! Have the hcs you want to have, by all means. My bigger qualm is that I feel like people are *so* resistant specifically to lesbian hcs of female characters. And they’ll say it’s because “they had a crush on a guy canonically!” but these are the same people who can’t see Zuko or Mako or Wu as anything but gay even though all three of these characters have histories of dating women or actively pursuing women in canon. I’m not mad about the hcs themselves, hc whatever you want, but it’s frustrating to me that so much grace is afforded to people who hc male characters as gay, and yet that same grace is so rarely extended to people who hc female characters as lesbians. so you can understand the concept of a man muddling through an m/f relationship bc he doesn’t realize he’s gay yet but you can’t do that for a woman? what? and like, we know comphet is a huge part of the lesbian experience, and yet for some reason lesbian hcs are so taboo and it drives me nuts. 

And I do really want to clarify that if you read any or all of the female characters of atla/lok as bi/pan/ace that’s completely valid (and in fact if you try to hc Korra or Asami as lesbians that is bi erasure you’re fucking biphobic get the fuck off my blog) and there are numerous female characters that I hc as bi/pan/ace myself (or whose canon bisexual depictions I absolutely adore, *cough* Korra and Asami *cough*) I also get that in general we’re all so starved for representation that we are fighting for crumbs. I can see how bi women might feel alienated by hcs that paint female characters’ relationships with men or crushes on male characters as comphet, or how aro/ace people might feel alienated by lesbian interpretations of characters like Toph who as you said don’t seem like people who want/need romantic relationships in their lives. My personal philosophy as far as lgbt+ hcs go is to live and let live. Like, they’re headcanons, you see the characters and you draw your own conclusions, and my conclusions aren’t necessarily going to be your conclusions (for example, if you couldn’t tell by me ranting about it constantly, I see Zuko as bi, I’m always going to write Zuko as bi, I’m extremely aware that I am in the minority as far as fanon goes, and that’s completely fine. You have your hcs, I have mine). 

Where I have an issue is when people try to say that for whatever reason you shouldn’t hc x, y, or z character whichever way, either because it’s “stereotypical” (this is what I’ve seen said re: hcing Toph and Azula as lesbians) or because there’s no canon basis for whatever hc you have (tbh, I have seen this wrt to basically every single atla/lok lgbt hc. it’s exhausting.) Idk, this isn’t necessarily worded the best and I’m sorry for that, and I want to reiterate here that your lgbt+ hcs are valid. all of them. please do not stop hcing a character a certain way on my account. however, I would also love for my fellow lesbian fans to be able to hc characters as lesbians in peace.