I think you're spot on about mlm relationships feeling more equal, and thus women being drawn to them rather than het pairings. The popularity of mlm ships, as you say, could have a lot to do with the trends in media: shows tend to have better developed male characters, and more of them, in contrast with weird power dynamics between het ships. So how do you get a relationship with equality AND established trust and friendship? Ship the men! Especially with the layer of it not being 'inevitable', like you said you can explore what actually draws two people together rather than they're the only man and woman and thus they must be dating. Also agree with the general point about sidestepping the mess of judgments on women's bodies and the feeling of not wanting to have a fantasy where you insert yourself as a female.
I heard the point of mxm relationships being a safe space for young girls to explore romance and you hit all the points about how and why in a concise and relatable manner. I was definitely intrigued by them as a young girl and shipped various male anime couples but never dove into it, probably because I knew I wouldn't easily get out. After realizing the potential of fetishization I stayed farther away from fanfic in general. On another note I TOTALLY know what you're talking about with getting pregnant being the worst thing that can happen to you when you're young. I was of the "why would you ever risk that, are you stupid?!" mindset lol. I wasn't personally a Twilight fan but when Bella got pregnant I was mortified, I was like, how are you all okay with this?
Personally, I hate it when people try to make excuses for fetishizing MLM relationships. Yes, it is fetishizing. I'm not talking about those who have a ship that is MLM when they aren't. I'm talking about those who fetishize our relationships. For example, yaoi. (Which was actually made by MLM folks before it was taken over by straight women) to me, I see this as bad as a straight man fetishizing WLW relationships. People need to understand that the LGBT community was not made for the pleasure of straight people. Yes, there is a problem with how straight romance is portrayed especially to young women. However, that does not excuse the actions of those who turn to fetishizing our relationships. Instead of doing that, we need to address & create new media with healthy relationships that young women can look up to. Because no matter what, fetishizing a group of people is wrong no matter what.
Absolutely agree. Although, while I am not a fan of yaoi nor am I that knowledgeable of it, it always seem to me it was more along the lines of basically Fifty Shades of Grey kind of stuff but for gay men. It just consequentially picked up a Fanbase of young girls, fetishizing these men. By the way if you thought this was something that was encouraged or seen as OK in Japan, there’s actually a condescending term for teenage girls in Japan who get off to yaoi relationships. Think of it like how the word Otaku is condescending in Japan, basically what I’m trying to say is, it’s not a super mean word, it’s more like a negative descriptive label if you know what I mean, but I didn’t know if I gave any assurance that in Japanese culture while Japanese culture tends to be pretty open minded to know not perfect but tends to be a bit more open minded than American culture and please don’t try to convince yourself that American culture is excepting because we all have to admit it’s one of the most judge mental cultures in the developed world, but that aside, the fact that there’s a word for girls who fetishize gay relationships in Japanese I hope give some sort of amount of hoping you in terms of knowing that it’s not something that’s commonly excepted or encouraged in Japanese culture to just fetishize gay relationships
uhhh, i love yaoi/BL but i don't fetishize it, i never want to. I never looked too deep into that Japanese culture of fetishizing gay ppl n such, but def going to do more research into it so i stay far away from fetishes, specially when i'm trying to write stories involving BL - i just do it to explore dynamics, ships, mutual respect n cute scenarios, i rlly don't want to be put in the fetish territory even when that isn't my intention…
I've always wondered about this as a gay man and what the reasons behind the large number of women (often lesbians) who write gay fanfiction. Very well explained, never considered the pregnancy part. I wonder how that focus on pregnancy can change an adolescent or young women's view about herself, her body, her self worth and her gender?
I think the way pregnancy is handled when taught to young women can have an enormous impact. That's true whether it's vilifying teen pregnancy or treating pregnancy as next to godly. It's something normal and natural that we talk about in abstract ways rather than as a complex bodily function. It is damaging, especially when when the consequences for things labeled as "poor decisions" or even often times the consequences of rape all fall onto young women who have to bear the medical and bodily trauma as well as the stigma. I think finding an escape from all of that by removing female bodies from the equation in romance is a natural move for some women. Which isn't to say that's the only reason women like mlm relationships, but I do think it's a larger factor for teens especially than we talk about.
I appreciate how kind and patient this take is with the young women involved. In order to chip away at the harmful aspects of non-mlm making up the majority of mlm in fandom, there first needs to be an understanding of why it got this way. Can't re-bend the lightning if you don't see where it's coming from.
Loved this analysis, you're one of the first persons I've seen that has a different perspective on the matter, most people just make fun of young women. Thank you so much for this!
Honestly it's kinda strange and something I've been thinking about lately. A lot of fanfics write gay relationships so we'll that it's kinda hard not to see it as cannon especially when the characters aren't written that different from their cannon counterparts. Also there seems to be thing where a gay relationship is between two characters. And heterosexual relationship is between a character and a love interest. Often the love interest isn't a character either a trophy and that one that needs to be saved like you said. Which led to the strong female characters. I think this whole topic is interesting to learn about. Because I kinda want to write my own gay character, but have some reservations since I'm not a part of the community.
As a gay boy myself I love BL and most of my fav authors are women and I don’t mind the fetishizing however what bothers me is the forced heteronormativity and gender roles
I’m a bisexual woman and I hear you. I don’t mind WLW/bisexuality being fetishized either, as long as it’s a realistic portrayal that doesn’t enforce stereotypes, “gender roles” or relationship dynamics that don’t actually exist in same sex relationships. If I’m with a girl then we are both girls. One of us doesn’t have to be some pale imitation of a man, especially not during sex. If you can’t write a same sex relationship well, please abstain from writing it at all. It’s especially problematic when it comes to straight women writing MLM relationships, where they always seem to force one of the guys to play the role of a woman with male parts. They also can’t seem to wrap their head around the fact that non-penetrative sex is still sex - and that it’s the most prevalent kind.
My question as a gay man is: Would straight men be criticized for doing this kind of thing to lesbians? The answer is an emphatic no. We see this very clearly in video erotica which straight men lean towards. Lesbian is the 3rd most searched term globally and 1st most searched in America accounting to the 2023 year review on the hub To be blunt: 1) I really don't like double standards 2) If what women are doing is problematic, their behavior is orders of magnitude less than straight men 2b) Straight men's activities involve real people as opposed to fictional stories So while two "wrongs" don't make a right, dealing with stage 4 cancer is a higher priority than a slight fever Now that we have addressed the double standard, we could delve into the meat and potatoes but.................. ehhhhhhh. Like idk. MLM fan fiction may be unethical. A lot of things have unethical elements. If writing and consuming MLM fan fiction is a safe and enjoyable activity for women, I don't see any "harm" resulting that is substantial enough to warrant a conversation regarding the ethics of it. I notice a lot of women's hobbies are merciless ripped apart and criticized by society. I don't think doing that to MLM fan fiction is productive
I think there is a distinction between straight women who love gay ships in fiction versus the much shallower women who want a gbf. I can tell when they engage with me as a person vs. as an idea, and usually the fanfic writers and obsessively creepy ones are different people
Well, this pregnancy-focused analysis is super interesting. In Europe we aren't even remotely as obsessed with teen pregnancy, it's more of a thing everybody knows exists but nobody wants to bring up. And it's weird because in my anecdotal experience girls get pregnant way earlier in the US than in any European country. So I don't think it is a central piece of the equation, since straight girls loving BL is a phenomenon way bigger than the US school system, but it is a factor at least in some environments and I never though of that!
I feel like instead of bashing hetero girls for liking yaoi ppl really should ask why they'd rather stay home reading a/b/o fanfics instead of spending time trying to connect with people they are naturally attracted to and who are supposed to like them back whether they look like models or not
As a gay guy and prolific ao3 user, I love that straight women (and lesbians for that matter) are creating this content. Most of the fics are beautiful and fun to read. A few fics have elements of infantilisation and projection of hetero dynamics onto gay ships, but those authors are very much in the minority
I believe that at the end of the day, shipping is more like a matter of projection and feeling comfortable with the characters(or liking them platonically or not), if you learn how to do/control that you can project or imagine any type of relationship dynamic
Thank you for sharing your point of view! Very interesting. I plunged into shipping and fandoms at a very young age, but I never understood why others are so actively interested in yaoi. I liked to create heterosexual couples, but I am calm about those whose tastes and views differ from mine. Therefore, after watching the video, I still have questions: 1) In fan fiction, the author decides what events will happen next, then why are girls so scared of pregnancy? After all, only you decide whether she will get pregnant from this sexual act or not. These events take place in a fictional world where the heroine can avoid pregnancy even with unprotected sex. You can write that she is infertile... So why is this such a bright reason for rejecting a female character? 2) Why is it that if a female character is poorly spelled out, then you make it even more terrible? I'm not talking now about you giving up a yaoi couple, but rather about why there was a desire to make female heroines even more insignificant for them to be together? 2 guys love each other. If one of them is married in the original work, then why should the spouse / girlfriend be a bitch? After all, they can disperse for some household reason or be only friends in your fanfic. 3) Sometimes in the works the female character is so faded that I don't want to rehabilitate him. Then why not change the gender of one of the characters? For example, Captain America remains a guy, and Bucky becomes a girl, while retaining all his other qualities. I sometimes did so if in the work: a) no women b) none of the women is suitable for the character I like c) I like 2 male characters and their communication, but I want a hetero relationship 4) Why is there no desire to think over a female character better if he is poorly disclosed in the work? If there is at least something a little catchy in the heroine, and I see that she could be a good character, but just poorly spelled out (there may be 1000 reasons why: disinterest of the screenwriter, cutting of the script due to timing, weak writing skill) then I come up with a cool story for her, supplement her biography with interesting events, make her story equal in the thoughtfulness of the story of a male character I really would be very interested to hear your opinion and your experience ^_^ (I used google translator, so I'm sorry if there are mistakes somewhere)
I think the answers to both 1 and 2 are the same. It can be so deeply ingrained from real life social expectations that it's hard to convincingly separate from it when it comes to writing fiction. I think it's something many writers do get over as they grow older and develop a healthier relationship with their own bodies. Infertility can be scary for many people too. A lot of younger people react to something causing panic by distancing themselves from it. But we also can't write out all the people who are simply fascinated with the potential for what the body can do also. Then for your #2 , in order to make the same sex relationship work there are some (often young) writers who think you have to demonize the canon relationship to make that possible. Not healthy, and again something I think many women manage to simply grow out of. For your #3 question, I'm not always a fan of gender swapping a character, but that is an option. If you prefer heterosexual relationships and wanted to do that in your writing that would be totally fine. The only issue there would come from trying to erase potential canon homosexual relationships in favor of forcing heterosexual ones, and that's mostly a problem because there is so significantly less homosexual representation in media and so many options available for you to enjoy that are already heterosexual, so some people might take offense due to that. But again, it's your writing so you should be allowed to do what you want when you write for yourself. For #4, I think a good writer especially in fanfiction WILL create a better character out of a trash one if they include them in their story. However, much like you mentioned in #3, they may just see the better relationship and communication between the male leads and want to focus on that instead. I think it's also necessary to mention that there's no black or white when it comes to relationships, how they work, or how you can write them. A better writer will find a better solution for issues they perceive in a story, and they will cater that to their personal taste or to the limits of their understanding of the world. I think all your solutions CAN be solutions, but nothing is a blanket solution and nothing can solve the issues one individual has with original text except for the way they choose to interpret and write about it.
I think female fanfic writers are really attracted to men, so much so that they make the female characters bitchy so that the men won't try to compete with them and they can focus solely on male sexuality.
I’d just say it’s not as quite sophisticated as people always make it out to be for straight women to like that stuff, which is fine. My only real problem is its strange because I know that tons of women find even fictional porn or fanfics objectifying or fetishizing to women, however with women reading or looking at fictional or irl gay men for their entertainment or pleasure, I find that there is always a sophisticated “reason” for why women pretty much “fetishize” and do the exact same thing to others, like gay porn, yaoi, MlM, etc. Meanwhile men doing the same with lesbian porn or any fictional women and fanfic stuff is “oh men are just horny and they fetishize people”, which is why as a straight dude I cannot just view women doing the same thing as now sophisticated even if it’s because men can’t get pregnant or because it’s more ‘wholesome’ and a safe space for straight women to be sexual, though im part of the new generation where it seems like women have a bit more freedom to be sexual or write sexual stuff regardless. Even gay fanfic stories can commonly share the same exact relationship tropes or sexual tropes that is deemed as too ridged in fictional straight relationship dynamics by those women who wrote those fanfics and MlM (one man being cold or big and strong, macho, the other being soft, small and submissive, tons of sex, sexual violence to one of the gay men, etc), I think the tropes just don’t bother the reader anymore because it’s for her, it’s a hot or cute gay dude in the scenario instead. Regardless I’d say let people read whatever porn/ships/yaoi they want, women, men, gay men, etc. Sorry if this seems overly critical.
I think you're exactly right about that. When you said, "made for her" I think you hit the nail on the head. So much media (especially porn) has historically been made specifically to appeal to straight men, including fetishes and power dynamics. When women feel like the content is aimed at them instead they're ravenous for it because there's simply been less.
I also grew up in the 90s and early 2000s and I can totally see this. I still slash all my favorite stories in my head canon lol. As a gay teen back then, straight girls provided my safe spaces too. Much love!
Straight white women are so nice , I'm bi and my first gf made me comfortable and said it's okay even tho she was a hyper straight woman . She had to leave America sadly we broke up . I've felt uncomfortable around women of other races and even bi women i don't talk to them . And my sexuality with men is slightly different you know what's "side" ? I researched on it . Even tho i don't wanna use labels anymore just live my life . I love straight white women they are like angles .
I'm bisexual and I'm writing LGBTQ fanfiction that includes a gay prince and a gay sorcerer who end up dating as well as a lesbian princess who ends up dating her lady-in-waiting (possibly in a QPR) and I'm going to work in an elf who is genderqueer and falls into one of the 15 billion gender categories recognised by the elf kingdom of which they are from.
These spaces aren’t safe for LGBTQ+ though or for them. Go into one of these ‘safe’ fanfic places and suggest that the ‘bottom’ character could be written as a ‘top.’ Or that anything in these fics are stereotyping m/m. Or that it’d be nice if the fics featured a little less non/dubious consent and more romance. See how safe the spaces are then.
It's true there is a lot of fanfiction that is just straight up pound town with little or no consent, but I've read plenty of really beautiful and thoughtful romances in fanfiction communities also. There's a huge spectrum. You definitely have to find and carve out what you feel is a safe space for yourself when you go into them. Never disregard the tags!
My personal take on this (As a Lesbian ((questioning pans))) Is that straight girls.... like men. Because they like men, Seeing two pretty men make out or have cute romance instead of just one pretty man, makes it more appealing.
As a straight man, for me, it’s true with me liking lesbian relationships because two pretty women is better than one pretty woman. But I keep it to fiction
This was an interesting video. I wanted to know why women ship gay men and now I do. I personally don't ship anyone. I'm not an anti-shipper, I'm not even against frtishization sense that's simply an extension of our human sexuality. As long as you show real people respect I don't care what fanfics you're writing or what pictures you draw.
I know this is a few years old, but I have a wonderful list of queer men writing queer fiction. If anyone sees this, check them out. They are amazing. FIrst, self promo, I do have one book out, Larger Than Love. Here are my friends J.P. Jackson Blake Allwood CD Rachels Andrew Grey Shane Morton Kelvin Young Brent Archer Kristian Parker Marvin Neu Jr. R. Frank Davis David Gray M.A. Wardell Micah Carver
One of the reasons people don't account for is because of women's body standards. When Im reading about a female protagonist I'm more likely to project my insecurities onto her the way I wouldn't with a man.
I don't begrudge anyone their personal right to write what they want, especially if it's of generally legal content. My beef is with those that'd stymie them.
Listen- I am a fan girl of gay men- I support them fully, and I’m glad there is some diversity in this world! :) Now me myself am not a straight white girl, I actually happen to be lesbian myself, and I’m part Native American. (Tan squad fr fr.) I don’t know why but I’ve always imagined myself as a boy dating another boy- Just saying tho once I find a guy couple I will fr support them like they are making the world a better place- Cause it’s just a natural thing I do so idk how to explain it 😂
Yes!! I'm a lesbian as well and most of the content on ao3 is mlm and its always great to see some rare wlw fics. But I've always found the mlm trope so interesting to me and I've wondered how I would act in a situation similar to that which these characters face.
One of the two most famous BL novels (The Untamed and Husky And His White Cat) in the world was written by women and was loved by people all over the world. But somehow when it comes to writing two gay men have sex with each other, they suck at it. It clearly shows that they don't know what is sex like between two men (I read some of the sex scenes in the book and it makes me cringe so hard). But the love story is on point and the plot is chef kiss.
I wrote a pretty angry comment, but I deleted it cause it was fueled by too much negative emotions, here's a more constructive comment on my part: I feel as though its hard to find gay content made by gay men due to the extent at which straight women produce MLM content. I have really mixed feelings, on one hand, this creates more MLM content to consume, but on the other hand, it makes searching for the genuine for gay men by gay men content WAY harder. I can't help but get a little upset finding a MLM novel to read only to see a straight women wrote it, and all the innacuracies that come with that. I think there's a point to be made for staight women finding comfort in gay relationships, but I also don't like the idea that our relationships are used as a coping mechanism for straight people instead of as representation for gay men. I think using us and our sexualities in this way is objectifying and unethical unless executed properly, but I also don't necessarily think anyone writing gay relationships is "wrong". My reccommendation is that you PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE, do research into gay relationships and talk to gay men before writing a gay character, I don't wanna see anymore straight coated dynamics between two gay men.
That's a really good point. I can see why your original comment was fueled by anger. I think the anonymity in some fanfiction circles especially is a double edged sword. Bad or uneducated content becomes normalized and alienates the group who the content is actually about. On the other hand, someone can write very openly about content that they do have experience with and still fit into the circles where the content is popular but maybe overrun by outsiders. In published fiction I think you're right that especially in romance and YA it tends to be dominated, at least marketing wise, by straight women. It's harder to find the genuine MLM written by a gay man. I know it's out there, but it isn't being broadcast as loudly. I still think a good story is a good story, but you're right that there is a certain amount of assumption and heteronormativity that gets overlooked in the name of "story" and probably just seems straight up gross or infantilizing to actual gay men. I'm sure it's refreshing when you're able to read something by someone who actually seems to have a clue what they're talking about!
@@KayeSpivey Thank you for replying with such care, it means a lot, looking back I have no idea why I was angry, I've never been a keyboard warrior, but something about the topic struck a nerve I guess. As long as you're willing to acknowledge gay men's opinions in the subject of writing MLM, I have no problem with anyone, no matter who they are, writing MLM. And even if you didn't see it, sorry for writing a pretty angry comment, it wasn't meant to insult you, more so to scream about the subject in general. It was a very well made video and changed my outlook on women writing gay men a lot, keep up the great work!
I'm a bisexual guy, and it makes me deeply uncomfortable with this, and I don't think there are very many arguments which justify gay media being consumed by women. First of all, inherently, there isn't a massive problem with straight women consuming this content. However, there is a deep-run fetishisation of gay relationships which straight women enjoy. Generally speaking, I think it's the same concept as straight men consuming lesbian porn- inherently that might be ok, but the reason it is rightfully deemed wrong is because invariably it ends up just fetishising the relationship for the straight man's pleasure. I want to say that I am not equivocating the two; fetishisation of lesbian relationships is more harmful than the other way around, but I am trying to demonstrate that principle to use this point. There is less societal awareness about women fetishising gay men, which I think can be explained for the following reasons: Homophobia has generally been viewed as virulent and overt, whilst lesbophobia has always explicitly been associated with fetishisation. If we are primed to recognise homophobia as acts of violence or cruel words, when it manifests itself in other ways which still plays into a system that disadvantages queer people, we won't realise that's also homophobia. The second thing is that it is also done by women. In the patriarchal society women are often characterised as weak, docile, and submissive, so I don't think people realise they can do as much harm. There is the other thing being that women are oppressed whilst men aren't (loosely speaking, of course there are various advantages and disadvantages to living in the patriarchy) so I think people again don't expect an oppressed group to be discriminatory. For the argument that it pushes straight women to escape a space, I don't buy this as sufficient justification. Women (straight people in general, but in this case, women), define their pornography and media more loosely by heteronormative standards. The issue with this is they read gay relationships and don't realise they are as fetishised, because gay porn, and gay erotic media in general, is fetishised, simply in different ways. Fetishisation is not exclusive not sex and portrayals of hyper-dominant and hyper feminine couples in gay relationships is a prevalent fetishisation. In 3:53, you talked about sexual violence against women. Except, gay portrayals by women are incredibly rapey, and one of the gay community's main objections to the genre. Meanwhile, rape is massively downplayed by women, who view it as a crime of passion. The other thing is, when the internet exists, there is an infinitesimal litany of media of any type to consume. Out there, there will be plenty of porn which isn't violent against women, tv shows which aren't misogynistic, etc, etc. Jumping to gay erotica is not a sufficient excuse when there is simply a ton of media out there which will have healthy relationships between women and men. The other fetishisation thing I wanted to touch on is sex and portrayal. Gay relationships are presented as sanitised and fluffy, which again is a fetishisation. There is a distinct lack of sex in a lot of gay relationships, and even when there are it involves very easy, clean sex, which is not an accurate portrayal of gay sex, which involves loads of preparation in comparison to straight sex. Again, transposing heteronormative ideas onto queer relationships is wrong. I want to re-iterate that the consumption isn't inherently bad, but, inevitably it does permeate how you view gay relationships. There are other reasons adduced by straight women, but every time I see it they seem to miss the point. Everything that they think escapes traditional gender norms, ironically, tends to conform to heteronormativity. A common point is escaping traditional gender roles, only to consume a BL manga with a hyper feminine guy and hyper masculine guy. In my opinion, the correct response to accusations of heteronormativity is just to listen and say "yes, thank you for informing me." A lot of straight people don't recognise they conform to heteronormativity, after all it is a system, and people who benefit from said system tend do be worse at recognising it than those who don't. And, as I tried to articulate earlier, I think that ways we recognise homophobia as solely being violent or don't view women really that capable of discriminating blinds us to recognising how far this goes. I do finally want to address claims of "stop policing our sexual preferences" argument. I am a guy, so I understand I will never appreciate the depth of policing women's sexuality has gone. But. The reason I am against it is not as a controlling measure, but a defensive one. It is not about women. It is about gay men, and they decide whether what is being done is problematic or not. In conjunction with the rest of the internet's media argument out there, I hope I have articulated why I think this is problematic. In summary, there is excuse. I understand why women might be driven to do this, but this is not an debate where both sides are equal. Consuming gay media (specifically erotic media) as a women more often than not will fetishise gay men. I can't force people to not do something, so I will just ask- to any women (especially women) who consume gay media, please ask yourself- is it fetishising and are there parts of this which are more made for me than the gay community. If you think yes, and you decide to stop reading, great. But if you continue to keep reading, please be aware of how these biases affect gay men, which is really a problem. If you detach yourself from the media, great. Please also be aware this goes beyond pornography- shows like heartstopper are victimes of such fetishisation- Verilybitchie has a good video which touches on this- th-cam.com/video/dQY6iVJlAH0/w-d-xo.html Sorry about the long comment.
It's entirely up to you whether or not you want to read them, but I genuinely thought the first book was fantastic regardless of your feelings on straight white women writing queer characters. As a breakdown and reimagining of the kind of fantasy worlds that became popular after a Harry Potter it is absolute genius. I'd advise giving the second book a pass entirely and skipping to the third if you enjoyed it though 😅
@@KayeSpivey okay, thank you! I also wanted to say, that I really liked your video, bc I sometimes worry if I‘m reading to much mlm and if it‘s fetishisation. I don’t know why, but I started to read fanfics (and now also books) with mlm ships at an early age and I kind of stuck with it, because it gives me comfort and it doesn‘t have the stereotypical straight story lines. But I also recently started to look more into wlw books (if you have recs please let me know)
Fetishization means idealizing some aspect of a person or thing in order to get sexual gratification from it. For example you may have heard of a foot fetish? It's the same sort of thing. Basically someone seeing relationships between two other people as consumable for their own gratification and getting off on it even when the relationship is not sexual in nature or not presented as porn.
Straight women in fandom are at least nominally supportive of gay rights. Straight men I've encountered who watch lesbian corn usually don't give a sh!t about gay rights, or women's rights for that matter. And also most media is already catered to straight men so they're taking over a space they really don't need
I can’t get over the fact that most of these characters in mm books are so straight passing like oh you they are always so masculine. They only ever drink beer cuz that’s the only acceptable drink for sexy masculine guys. I love reading them tho but every character just seems like the copy of other
I'm not sure which books you're referring to, but I'm sure some of that has to do with the fast fashion of the book world and whatever's popular at the moment being published to death before the new trend takes hold. 😅
I think you're spot on about mlm relationships feeling more equal, and thus women being drawn to them rather than het pairings. The popularity of mlm ships, as you say, could have a lot to do with the trends in media: shows tend to have better developed male characters, and more of them, in contrast with weird power dynamics between het ships. So how do you get a relationship with equality AND established trust and friendship? Ship the men! Especially with the layer of it not being 'inevitable', like you said you can explore what actually draws two people together rather than they're the only man and woman and thus they must be dating.
Also agree with the general point about sidestepping the mess of judgments on women's bodies and the feeling of not wanting to have a fantasy where you insert yourself as a female.
Yes exactly! That was really well said! :)
I heard the point of mxm relationships being a safe space for young girls to explore romance and you hit all the points about how and why in a concise and relatable manner. I was definitely intrigued by them as a young girl and shipped various male anime couples but never dove into it, probably because I knew I wouldn't easily get out. After realizing the potential of fetishization I stayed farther away from fanfic in general.
On another note I TOTALLY know what you're talking about with getting pregnant being the worst thing that can happen to you when you're young. I was of the "why would you ever risk that, are you stupid?!" mindset lol. I wasn't personally a Twilight fan but when Bella got pregnant I was mortified, I was like, how are you all okay with this?
Personally, I hate it when people try to make excuses for fetishizing MLM relationships. Yes, it is fetishizing. I'm not talking about those who have a ship that is MLM when they aren't. I'm talking about those who fetishize our relationships. For example, yaoi. (Which was actually made by MLM folks before it was taken over by straight women) to me, I see this as bad as a straight man fetishizing WLW relationships. People need to understand that the LGBT community was not made for the pleasure of straight people.
Yes, there is a problem with how straight romance is portrayed especially to young women. However, that does not excuse the actions of those who turn to fetishizing our relationships. Instead of doing that, we need to address & create new media with healthy relationships that young women can look up to. Because no matter what, fetishizing a group of people is wrong no matter what.
Your points are all really fantastic. I'm going to give this comment a heart so it'll hopefully be easier for people to see it.
Absolutely agree. Although, while I am not a fan of yaoi nor am I that knowledgeable of it, it always seem to me it was more along the lines of basically Fifty Shades of Grey kind of stuff but for gay men. It just consequentially picked up a Fanbase of young girls, fetishizing these men. By the way if you thought this was something that was encouraged or seen as OK in Japan, there’s actually a condescending term for teenage girls in Japan who get off to yaoi relationships. Think of it like how the word Otaku is condescending in Japan, basically what I’m trying to say is, it’s not a super mean word, it’s more like a negative descriptive label if you know what I mean, but I didn’t know if I gave any assurance that in Japanese culture while Japanese culture tends to be pretty open minded to know not perfect but tends to be a bit more open minded than American culture and please don’t try to convince yourself that American culture is excepting because we all have to admit it’s one of the most judge mental cultures in the developed world, but that aside, the fact that there’s a word for girls who fetishize gay relationships in Japanese I hope give some sort of amount of hoping you in terms of knowing that it’s not something that’s commonly excepted or encouraged in Japanese culture to just fetishize gay relationships
uhhh, i love yaoi/BL but i don't fetishize it, i never want to. I never looked too deep into that Japanese culture of fetishizing gay ppl n such, but def going to do more research into it so i stay far away from fetishes, specially when i'm trying to write stories involving BL - i just do it to explore dynamics, ships, mutual respect n cute scenarios, i rlly don't want to be put in the fetish territory even when that isn't my intention…
I've always wondered about this as a gay man and what the reasons behind the large number of women (often lesbians) who write gay fanfiction. Very well explained, never considered the pregnancy part. I wonder how that focus on pregnancy can change an adolescent or young women's view about herself, her body, her self worth and her gender?
I think the way pregnancy is handled when taught to young women can have an enormous impact. That's true whether it's vilifying teen pregnancy or treating pregnancy as next to godly. It's something normal and natural that we talk about in abstract ways rather than as a complex bodily function. It is damaging, especially when when the consequences for things labeled as "poor decisions" or even often times the consequences of rape all fall onto young women who have to bear the medical and bodily trauma as well as the stigma. I think finding an escape from all of that by removing female bodies from the equation in romance is a natural move for some women. Which isn't to say that's the only reason women like mlm relationships, but I do think it's a larger factor for teens especially than we talk about.
I appreciate how kind and patient this take is with the young women involved. In order to chip away at the harmful aspects of non-mlm making up the majority of mlm in fandom, there first needs to be an understanding of why it got this way. Can't re-bend the lightning if you don't see where it's coming from.
I love the way you phrased this! Thank you!
Loved this analysis, you're one of the first persons I've seen that has a different perspective on the matter, most people just make fun of young women. Thank you so much for this!
Thank you! I'm glad you liked it! It bothered me when people had a pretty negative view of it, so I'm glad you like my perspective on it. :)
Honestly it's kinda strange and something I've been thinking about lately.
A lot of fanfics write gay relationships so we'll that it's kinda hard not to see it as cannon especially when the characters aren't written that different from their cannon counterparts.
Also there seems to be thing where a gay relationship is between two characters. And heterosexual relationship is between a character and a love interest. Often the love interest isn't a character either a trophy and that one that needs to be saved like you said. Which led to the strong female characters.
I think this whole topic is interesting to learn about. Because I kinda want to write my own gay character, but have some reservations since I'm not a part of the community.
As a gay boy myself I love BL and most of my fav authors are women and I don’t mind the fetishizing however what bothers me is the forced heteronormativity and gender roles
That is a really good point!
I’m a bisexual woman and I hear you. I don’t mind WLW/bisexuality being fetishized either, as long as it’s a realistic portrayal that doesn’t enforce stereotypes, “gender roles” or relationship dynamics that don’t actually exist in same sex relationships.
If I’m with a girl then we are both girls. One of us doesn’t have to be some pale imitation of a man, especially not during sex. If you can’t write a same sex relationship well, please abstain from writing it at all.
It’s especially problematic when it comes to straight women writing MLM relationships, where they always seem to force one of the guys to play the role of a woman with male parts. They also can’t seem to wrap their head around the fact that non-penetrative sex is still sex - and that it’s the most prevalent kind.
I don't care either I've read few and it's okay .
Ding ding ding!
@@enfant00x What is non-penetrative sex?
My question as a gay man is: Would straight men be criticized for doing this kind of thing to lesbians? The answer is an emphatic no.
We see this very clearly in video erotica which straight men lean towards. Lesbian is the 3rd most searched term globally and 1st most searched in America accounting to the 2023 year review on the hub
To be blunt:
1) I really don't like double standards
2) If what women are doing is problematic, their behavior is orders of magnitude less than straight men
2b) Straight men's activities involve real people as opposed to fictional stories
So while two "wrongs" don't make a right, dealing with stage 4 cancer is a higher priority than a slight fever
Now that we have addressed the double standard, we could delve into the meat and potatoes but.................. ehhhhhhh. Like idk. MLM fan fiction may be unethical. A lot of things have unethical elements. If writing and consuming MLM fan fiction is a safe and enjoyable activity for women, I don't see any "harm" resulting that is substantial enough to warrant a conversation regarding the ethics of it. I notice a lot of women's hobbies are merciless ripped apart and criticized by society. I don't think doing that to MLM fan fiction is productive
Is it unethical for men to watch lesbian porn?
I always find it alittle cringe with the women who are really obsessed with gay men
I think there is a distinction between straight women who love gay ships in fiction versus the much shallower women who want a gbf. I can tell when they engage with me as a person vs. as an idea, and usually the fanfic writers and obsessively creepy ones are different people
Well, this pregnancy-focused analysis is super interesting. In Europe we aren't even remotely as obsessed with teen pregnancy, it's more of a thing everybody knows exists but nobody wants to bring up. And it's weird because in my anecdotal experience girls get pregnant way earlier in the US than in any European country. So I don't think it is a central piece of the equation, since straight girls loving BL is a phenomenon way bigger than the US school system, but it is a factor at least in some environments and I never though of that!
I feel like instead of bashing hetero girls for liking yaoi ppl really should ask why they'd rather stay home reading a/b/o fanfics instead of spending time trying to connect with people they are naturally attracted to and who are supposed to like them back whether they look like models or not
Very good points!
As a gay guy and prolific ao3 user, I love that straight women (and lesbians for that matter) are creating this content. Most of the fics are beautiful and fun to read. A few fics have elements of infantilisation and projection of hetero dynamics onto gay ships, but those authors are very much in the minority
I believe that at the end of the day, shipping is more like a matter of projection and feeling comfortable with the characters(or liking them platonically or not), if you learn how to do/control that you can project or imagine any type of relationship dynamic
Thank you for sharing your point of view! Very interesting.
I plunged into shipping and fandoms at a very young age, but I never understood why others are so actively interested in yaoi. I liked to create heterosexual couples, but I am calm about those whose tastes and views differ from mine.
Therefore, after watching the video, I still have questions:
1) In fan fiction, the author decides what events will happen next, then why are girls so scared of pregnancy? After all, only you decide whether she will get pregnant from this sexual act or not. These events take place in a fictional world where the heroine can avoid pregnancy even with unprotected sex. You can write that she is infertile... So why is this such a bright reason for rejecting a female character?
2) Why is it that if a female character is poorly spelled out, then you make it even more terrible? I'm not talking now about you giving up a yaoi couple, but rather about why there was a desire to make female heroines even more insignificant for them to be together?
2 guys love each other. If one of them is married in the original work, then why should the spouse / girlfriend be a bitch? After all, they can disperse for some household reason or be only friends in your fanfic.
3) Sometimes in the works the female character is so faded that I don't want to rehabilitate him. Then why not change the gender of one of the characters? For example, Captain America remains a guy, and Bucky becomes a girl, while retaining all his other qualities. I sometimes did so if in the work:
a) no women
b) none of the women is suitable for the character I like
c) I like 2 male characters and their communication, but I want a hetero relationship
4) Why is there no desire to think over a female character better if he is poorly disclosed in the work?
If there is at least something a little catchy in the heroine, and I see that she could be a good character, but just poorly spelled out
(there may be 1000 reasons why: disinterest of the screenwriter, cutting of the script due to timing, weak writing skill)
then I come up with a cool story for her, supplement her biography with interesting events, make her story equal in the thoughtfulness of the story of a male character
I really would be very interested to hear your opinion and your experience ^_^
(I used google translator, so I'm sorry if there are mistakes somewhere)
I think the answers to both 1 and 2 are the same. It can be so deeply ingrained from real life social expectations that it's hard to convincingly separate from it when it comes to writing fiction. I think it's something many writers do get over as they grow older and develop a healthier relationship with their own bodies. Infertility can be scary for many people too. A lot of younger people react to something causing panic by distancing themselves from it. But we also can't write out all the people who are simply fascinated with the potential for what the body can do also.
Then for your #2 , in order to make the same sex relationship work there are some (often young) writers who think you have to demonize the canon relationship to make that possible. Not healthy, and again something I think many women manage to simply grow out of.
For your #3 question, I'm not always a fan of gender swapping a character, but that is an option. If you prefer heterosexual relationships and wanted to do that in your writing that would be totally fine. The only issue there would come from trying to erase potential canon homosexual relationships in favor of forcing heterosexual ones, and that's mostly a problem because there is so significantly less homosexual representation in media and so many options available for you to enjoy that are already heterosexual, so some people might take offense due to that. But again, it's your writing so you should be allowed to do what you want when you write for yourself.
For #4, I think a good writer especially in fanfiction WILL create a better character out of a trash one if they include them in their story. However, much like you mentioned in #3, they may just see the better relationship and communication between the male leads and want to focus on that instead.
I think it's also necessary to mention that there's no black or white when it comes to relationships, how they work, or how you can write them. A better writer will find a better solution for issues they perceive in a story, and they will cater that to their personal taste or to the limits of their understanding of the world. I think all your solutions CAN be solutions, but nothing is a blanket solution and nothing can solve the issues one individual has with original text except for the way they choose to interpret and write about it.
Woah, this is one of the best comments.
I think female fanfic writers are really attracted to men, so much so that they make the female characters bitchy so that the men won't try to compete with them and they can focus solely on male sexuality.
I’d just say it’s not as quite sophisticated as people always make it out to be for straight women to like that stuff, which is fine.
My only real problem is its strange because I know that tons of women find even fictional porn or fanfics objectifying or fetishizing to women, however with women reading or looking at fictional or irl gay men for their entertainment or pleasure, I find that there is always a sophisticated “reason” for why women pretty much “fetishize” and do the exact same thing to others, like gay porn, yaoi, MlM, etc.
Meanwhile men doing the same with lesbian porn or any fictional women and fanfic stuff is “oh men are just horny and they fetishize people”, which is why as a straight dude I cannot just view women doing the same thing as now sophisticated even if it’s because men can’t get pregnant or because it’s more ‘wholesome’ and a safe space for straight women to be sexual, though im part of the new generation where it seems like women have a bit more freedom to be sexual or write sexual stuff regardless.
Even gay fanfic stories can commonly share the same exact relationship tropes or sexual tropes that is deemed as too ridged in fictional straight relationship dynamics by those women who wrote those fanfics and MlM (one man being cold or big and strong, macho, the other being soft, small and submissive, tons of sex, sexual violence to one of the gay men, etc), I think the tropes just don’t bother the reader anymore because it’s for her, it’s a hot or cute gay dude in the scenario instead.
Regardless I’d say let people read whatever porn/ships/yaoi they want, women, men, gay men, etc. Sorry if this seems overly critical.
I think you're exactly right about that. When you said, "made for her" I think you hit the nail on the head. So much media (especially porn) has historically been made specifically to appeal to straight men, including fetishes and power dynamics. When women feel like the content is aimed at them instead they're ravenous for it because there's simply been less.
I also grew up in the 90s and early 2000s and I can totally see this. I still slash all my favorite stories in my head canon lol. As a gay teen back then, straight girls provided my safe spaces too. Much love!
Straight white women are so nice , I'm bi and my first gf made me comfortable and said it's okay even tho she was a hyper straight woman .
She had to leave America sadly we broke up . I've felt uncomfortable around women of other races and even bi women i don't talk to them .
And my sexuality with men is slightly different you know what's "side" ? I researched on it . Even tho i don't wanna use labels anymore just live my life .
I love straight white women they are like angles .
I'm bisexual and I'm writing LGBTQ fanfiction that includes a gay prince and a gay sorcerer who end up dating as well as a lesbian princess who ends up dating her lady-in-waiting (possibly in a QPR) and I'm going to work in an elf who is genderqueer and falls into one of the 15 billion gender categories recognised by the elf kingdom of which they are from.
Merlin?
Those sound great!
These spaces aren’t safe for LGBTQ+ though or for them. Go into one of these ‘safe’ fanfic places and suggest that the ‘bottom’ character could be written as a ‘top.’ Or that anything in these fics are stereotyping m/m. Or that it’d be nice if the fics featured a little less non/dubious consent and more romance. See how safe the spaces are then.
It's true there is a lot of fanfiction that is just straight up pound town with little or no consent, but I've read plenty of really beautiful and thoughtful romances in fanfiction communities also. There's a huge spectrum. You definitely have to find and carve out what you feel is a safe space for yourself when you go into them. Never disregard the tags!
Thank you for giving me tips to make an actual safe space
This was an exceptional answer to the question, thank you for your perspective!
Very good video! Im currently obsessing over this topic and have a few ideas, some of which you mentioned
My personal take on this (As a Lesbian ((questioning pans))) Is that straight girls.... like men. Because they like men, Seeing two pretty men make out or have cute romance instead of just one pretty man, makes it more appealing.
As a straight man, for me, it’s true with me liking lesbian relationships because two pretty women is better than one pretty woman. But I keep it to fiction
This was an interesting video. I wanted to know why women ship gay men and now I do. I personally don't ship anyone. I'm not an anti-shipper, I'm not even against frtishization sense that's simply an extension of our human sexuality. As long as you show real people respect I don't care what fanfics you're writing or what pictures you draw.
I know this is a few years old, but I have a wonderful list of queer men writing queer fiction. If anyone sees this, check them out. They are amazing.
FIrst, self promo, I do have one book out, Larger Than Love. Here are my friends
J.P. Jackson
Blake Allwood
CD Rachels
Andrew Grey
Shane Morton
Kelvin Young
Brent Archer
Kristian Parker
Marvin Neu Jr.
R. Frank Davis
David Gray
M.A. Wardell
Micah Carver
I looked into this more because of a reddit post and dammmmm this is deep
One of the reasons people don't account for is because of women's body standards. When Im reading about a female protagonist I'm more likely to project my insecurities onto her the way I wouldn't with a man.
Good point!
thank you for this video!❤
I don't begrudge anyone their personal right to write what they want, especially if it's of generally legal content. My beef is with those that'd stymie them.
I was born in 2007, and i only learnt about gay people in 2019, i live in england
Sasaki and miyano is a cute BL and it’s not one that has harmful tropes it’s just a fluff romance 😁
Listen- I am a fan girl of gay men- I support them fully, and I’m glad there is some diversity in this world! :)
Now me myself am not a straight white girl,
I actually happen to be lesbian myself, and I’m part Native American. (Tan squad fr fr.)
I don’t know why but I’ve always imagined myself as a boy dating another boy- Just saying tho once I find a guy couple I will fr support them like they are making the world a better place- Cause it’s just a natural thing I do so idk how to explain it 😂
Yes!! I'm a lesbian as well and most of the content on ao3 is mlm and its always great to see some rare wlw fics. But I've always found the mlm trope so interesting to me and I've wondered how I would act in a situation similar to that which these characters face.
One of the two most famous BL novels (The Untamed and Husky And His White Cat) in the world was written by women and was loved by people all over the world. But somehow when it comes to writing two gay men have sex with each other, they suck at it. It clearly shows that they don't know what is sex like between two men (I read some of the sex scenes in the book and it makes me cringe so hard). But the love story is on point and the plot is chef kiss.
I wrote a pretty angry comment, but I deleted it cause it was fueled by too much negative emotions, here's a more constructive comment on my part:
I feel as though its hard to find gay content made by gay men due to the extent at which straight women produce MLM content. I have really mixed feelings, on one hand, this creates more MLM content to consume, but on the other hand, it makes searching for the genuine for gay men by gay men content WAY harder. I can't help but get a little upset finding a MLM novel to read only to see a straight women wrote it, and all the innacuracies that come with that. I think there's a point to be made for staight women finding comfort in gay relationships, but I also don't like the idea that our relationships are used as a coping mechanism for straight people instead of as representation for gay men. I think using us and our sexualities in this way is objectifying and unethical unless executed properly, but I also don't necessarily think anyone writing gay relationships is "wrong". My reccommendation is that you PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE, do research into gay relationships and talk to gay men before writing a gay character, I don't wanna see anymore straight coated dynamics between two gay men.
That's a really good point. I can see why your original comment was fueled by anger. I think the anonymity in some fanfiction circles especially is a double edged sword. Bad or uneducated content becomes normalized and alienates the group who the content is actually about. On the other hand, someone can write very openly about content that they do have experience with and still fit into the circles where the content is popular but maybe overrun by outsiders. In published fiction I think you're right that especially in romance and YA it tends to be dominated, at least marketing wise, by straight women. It's harder to find the genuine MLM written by a gay man. I know it's out there, but it isn't being broadcast as loudly. I still think a good story is a good story, but you're right that there is a certain amount of assumption and heteronormativity that gets overlooked in the name of "story" and probably just seems straight up gross or infantilizing to actual gay men. I'm sure it's refreshing when you're able to read something by someone who actually seems to have a clue what they're talking about!
@@KayeSpivey Thank you for replying with such care, it means a lot, looking back I have no idea why I was angry, I've never been a keyboard warrior, but something about the topic struck a nerve I guess. As long as you're willing to acknowledge gay men's opinions in the subject of writing MLM, I have no problem with anyone, no matter who they are, writing MLM. And even if you didn't see it, sorry for writing a pretty angry comment, it wasn't meant to insult you, more so to scream about the subject in general. It was a very well made video and changed my outlook on women writing gay men a lot, keep up the great work!
I'm a bisexual guy, and it makes me deeply uncomfortable with this, and I don't think there are very many arguments which justify gay media being consumed by women. First of all, inherently, there isn't a massive problem with straight women consuming this content. However, there is a deep-run fetishisation of gay relationships which straight women enjoy. Generally speaking, I think it's the same concept as straight men consuming lesbian porn- inherently that might be ok, but the reason it is rightfully deemed wrong is because invariably it ends up just fetishising the relationship for the straight man's pleasure.
I want to say that I am not equivocating the two; fetishisation of lesbian relationships is more harmful than the other way around, but I am trying to demonstrate that principle to use this point. There is less societal awareness about women fetishising gay men, which I think can be explained for the following reasons: Homophobia has generally been viewed as virulent and overt, whilst lesbophobia has always explicitly been associated with fetishisation. If we are primed to recognise homophobia as acts of violence or cruel words, when it manifests itself in other ways which still plays into a system that disadvantages queer people, we won't realise that's also homophobia. The second thing is that it is also done by women. In the patriarchal society women are often characterised as weak, docile, and submissive, so I don't think people realise they can do as much harm. There is the other thing being that women are oppressed whilst men aren't (loosely speaking, of course there are various advantages and disadvantages to living in the patriarchy) so I think people again don't expect an oppressed group to be discriminatory.
For the argument that it pushes straight women to escape a space, I don't buy this as sufficient justification. Women (straight people in general, but in this case, women), define their pornography and media more loosely by heteronormative standards. The issue with this is they read gay relationships and don't realise they are as fetishised, because gay porn, and gay erotic media in general, is fetishised, simply in different ways. Fetishisation is not exclusive not sex and portrayals of hyper-dominant and hyper feminine couples in gay relationships is a prevalent fetishisation. In 3:53, you talked about sexual violence against women. Except, gay portrayals by women are incredibly rapey, and one of the gay community's main objections to the genre. Meanwhile, rape is massively downplayed by women, who view it as a crime of passion. The other thing is, when the internet exists, there is an infinitesimal litany of media of any type to consume. Out there, there will be plenty of porn which isn't violent against women, tv shows which aren't misogynistic, etc, etc. Jumping to gay erotica is not a sufficient excuse when there is simply a ton of media out there which will have healthy relationships between women and men.
The other fetishisation thing I wanted to touch on is sex and portrayal. Gay relationships are presented as sanitised and fluffy, which again is a fetishisation. There is a distinct lack of sex in a lot of gay relationships, and even when there are it involves very easy, clean sex, which is not an accurate portrayal of gay sex, which involves loads of preparation in comparison to straight sex. Again, transposing heteronormative ideas onto queer relationships is wrong.
I want to re-iterate that the consumption isn't inherently bad, but, inevitably it does permeate how you view gay relationships.
There are other reasons adduced by straight women, but every time I see it they seem to miss the point. Everything that they think escapes traditional gender norms, ironically, tends to conform to heteronormativity. A common point is escaping traditional gender roles, only to consume a BL manga with a hyper feminine guy and hyper masculine guy. In my opinion, the correct response to accusations of heteronormativity is just to listen and say "yes, thank you for informing me." A lot of straight people don't recognise they conform to heteronormativity, after all it is a system, and people who benefit from said system tend do be worse at recognising it than those who don't. And, as I tried to articulate earlier, I think that ways we recognise homophobia as solely being violent or don't view women really that capable of discriminating blinds us to recognising how far this goes.
I do finally want to address claims of "stop policing our sexual preferences" argument. I am a guy, so I understand I will never appreciate the depth of policing women's sexuality has gone. But. The reason I am against it is not as a controlling measure, but a defensive one. It is not about women. It is about gay men, and they decide whether what is being done is problematic or not. In conjunction with the rest of the internet's media argument out there, I hope I have articulated why I think this is problematic.
In summary, there is excuse. I understand why women might be driven to do this, but this is not an debate where both sides are equal. Consuming gay media (specifically erotic media) as a women more often than not will fetishise gay men.
I can't force people to not do something, so I will just ask- to any women (especially women) who consume gay media, please ask yourself- is it fetishising and are there parts of this which are more made for me than the gay community. If you think yes, and you decide to stop reading, great. But if you continue to keep reading, please be aware of how these biases affect gay men, which is really a problem. If you detach yourself from the media, great. Please also be aware this goes beyond pornography- shows like heartstopper are victimes of such fetishisation- Verilybitchie has a good video which touches on this- th-cam.com/video/dQY6iVJlAH0/w-d-xo.html
Sorry about the long comment.
I bought the Carry On Triology by Rainbow Rowell and I didn‘t know it is problematic. Now they are laying in my shelf and I don‘t want to read them.
It's entirely up to you whether or not you want to read them, but I genuinely thought the first book was fantastic regardless of your feelings on straight white women writing queer characters. As a breakdown and reimagining of the kind of fantasy worlds that became popular after a Harry Potter it is absolute genius. I'd advise giving the second book a pass entirely and skipping to the third if you enjoyed it though 😅
@@KayeSpivey okay, thank you!
I also wanted to say, that I really liked your video, bc I sometimes worry if I‘m reading to much mlm and if it‘s fetishisation.
I don’t know why, but I started to read fanfics (and now also books) with mlm ships at an early age and I kind of stuck with it, because it gives me comfort and it doesn‘t have the stereotypical straight story lines.
But I also recently started to look more into wlw books (if you have recs please let me know)
maby its because english isn't my firts language but what is fetishazation? How do mlm and wlw get fetishized?
Fetishization means idealizing some aspect of a person or thing in order to get sexual gratification from it. For example you may have heard of a foot fetish? It's the same sort of thing. Basically someone seeing relationships between two other people as consumable for their own gratification and getting off on it even when the relationship is not sexual in nature or not presented as porn.
@@KayeSpivey thanks appreciate it a lot
I think we can all agree, that straight women writing gay stories is wayy better than straight men writing lesbian stories.
That we can definitely agree on. :)
Straight women in fandom are at least nominally supportive of gay rights. Straight men I've encountered who watch lesbian corn usually don't give a sh!t about gay rights, or women's rights for that matter. And also most media is already catered to straight men so they're taking over a space they really don't need
I mean who is going to read their lesbian story?
I can’t get over the fact that most of these characters in mm books are so straight passing like oh you they are always so masculine. They only ever drink beer cuz that’s the only acceptable drink for sexy masculine guys. I love reading them tho but every character just seems like the copy of other
I'm not sure which books you're referring to, but I'm sure some of that has to do with the fast fashion of the book world and whatever's popular at the moment being published to death before the new trend takes hold. 😅
CAT! I love cats!!