Illustrations of Fragile Boys
January 3, 2017 3:45 PM   Subscribe

Beautiful and with a transient faintness that makes it seem as they will vanish at any moment; a fragile man. They are full of charm and make it so you never want to leave their side, and you want to protect them. But on the contrary, their fragility tell you that they “can’t be touched.” [...] Please take a look at these men who look like they’ve stepped out of a dream.
posted by Sokka shot first (41 comments total)

This post was deleted for the following reason: Poster's Request -- Brandon Blatcher



 
Ukes all of them.
posted by MartinWisse at 4:11 PM on January 3, 2017 [2 favorites]


When I read that description, I immediately thought of the painter Kris Knight.
posted by sevenyearlurk at 4:17 PM on January 3, 2017 [2 favorites]


The dream! The dream where he presses the lush bunch of grapes against his face! Yes that dream!

That dream!
posted by GenjiandProust at 4:18 PM on January 3, 2017 [4 favorites]


That dream where I'm all licking flowers so tentatively hoo boy
posted by sandettie light vessel automatic at 4:20 PM on January 3, 2017 [9 favorites]


MM TASTY FLARS
posted by Sing Or Swim at 4:21 PM on January 3, 2017 [8 favorites]


Actually, I was a little charmed to be offered, as further reading "Knees, a Symbol of Liveliness! Boys in Shorts." Indeed, they are a symbol of liveliness.

I am not as sure about the "men in gas masks" feature, but, hey, every kink it's reader, as S.R. used to say when I was a lad.
posted by GenjiandProust at 4:33 PM on January 3, 2017 [1 favorite]


I was going to say that the Men in gas masks feature was wonderfully weird and disturbing. And also that the one with the foreground obligatory beautiful boy in a gasmask, disturbing fully-masked figure and background adorable humanized bear in a gas mask totally makes me yearn to read the matching story.

These are pretty neat. I like the idea of having sort of all the fandom/anime/yaoi/etc grouped by theme.

I don't know what cultural role the whole "beautiful femme-y boy pictures" thing plays for straight women in Japan, but I always feel like in the US it represents a rather sadly unattainable dream of a straight man who won't be all toxic-ly masculine.
posted by Frowner at 4:42 PM on January 3, 2017 [7 favorites]


So many beautiful soft boys.
posted by kmz at 4:42 PM on January 3, 2017 [1 favorite]




Beautiful shoujo bishonen may indeed be Japan's greatest gift to us all. 😻 Who are some of your favorite boys and artists?
posted by nicebookrack at 5:06 PM on January 3, 2017 [1 favorite]


Frowner: I'm like 80% sure that the gas mask crew with bear is the Heart Pirates from the anime/manga One Piece, which is exactly that kind of weird as a series.
posted by nicebookrack at 5:13 PM on January 3, 2017


I don't know what cultural role the whole "beautiful femme-y boy pictures" thing plays for straight women in Japan, but I always feel like in the US it represents a rather sadly unattainable dream of a straight man who won't be all toxic-ly masculine.

There's two other literary theories, as far as I've read. One is that - because boys are a mystery to girls - a boy that you can possess, and own, is a way to penetrate that mystery and render them legible.

Another is that girls, raised in misogyny, use these characters to navigate their relationship to their own bodies

basically because these characters have the bodies of boys, they're allowed to do things that these girls - in their own minds - are not allowed to do. Things like, have agency. Be the best at something. Express anger. Have a sexuality. Achieve their goals. Desire someone. Because misogyny is so bad that these girls might themselves think that girls are lesser beings, and not worthy of anything, and refuse to identify with a girl character; so this allows them to project onto a character that has the same girlish attributes they're supposed to have without the mortal failing of actually being a girl. It might even rewrite those attributes as being heroic and good traits.

It's like the old catchphrase, "Women want to be with him, men want to be him" Except that the girls I'm talking about might want either, or even both at the same time.

This comes up sometimes in discussions about slash fanfic; women (particularly including queer women) often write essays about how it changed their relationship with their own body. Because penetration is happening between (gendered) equals, it renegotiates the entire meaning of being penetrated.

Anyway i was honestly hoping these were photographs. There are so so so so so many illustrations of pretty manga boys and so few photographs of boys being soft.
posted by Rainbo Vagrant at 6:37 PM on January 3, 2017 [27 favorites]


I hate to be the one saying this, but maybe it would be good to remember that femme and GNC boys tend to be on the receiving end of a fair amount of transmisogyny. I know that femme guys mostly feel like "safe" options for afab folks to talk about, and I know that it feels like fair game to talk about our bodies and how they relate to your sexuality, but please take care? We just had this thread, remember? As someone whose gender presentation codes as "femme guy" I'm really tired of people framing my body (or even depictions of boys like me) as if I represent "a boy that you can possess, and own". It sounds a lot more gross than you think it does - as someone who has actually been the femme boy being "possessed and owned" by a woman exploring her sexuality, it just sounds creepy.
posted by ceci n'est pas une sockpuppet at 7:39 PM on January 3, 2017 [24 favorites]


First time I saw some Yaoi I laughed so much. The positions were impossible, and then I looked, and saw the author coded femme. Probably female sex too. It was a good lesson in objectification, and what that feels like being the recipient of.

I read femme too. Yes, it sucks a lot. Not all of us are cut out for entertainment. But this space, this discussion, it's not actually for femme guys I think. Folks need a place where they can work through this stuff.
posted by Strange_Robinson at 8:00 PM on January 3, 2017


But this space, this discussion, it's not actually for femme guys I think.

The (marginalised!) subgroup that is being portrayed is not allowed to comment on their own objectification, then? That's ... not a very good philosophy.
posted by naturesgreatestmiracle at 8:05 PM on January 3, 2017 [7 favorites]


I would entirely agree that these dynamics are super gross and cause harm to boys. I'm sorry that I put things the way I did. I also think it's a real effect of misogyny, that sets girls up for this creepery - that girls who are disempowered their whole life might get their first taste of power over a boy like this, who's "safe". I mean, I got this from reading about One Direction fandom. A lot of gender theory is really creepy because a lot of the power dynamics in our society are super fucked up.

It's possible that perspective just doesn't need to be in this thread. I thought about skipping it entirely, it just felt too closely connected to the other dynamic I talked about.

At the least, it's worth observing that femme and GNC boys are likely getting something very different out of this type of character than cis girls are.
posted by Rainbo Vagrant at 8:16 PM on January 3, 2017 [6 favorites]


and I definitely did not mean to claim this space for cis women and exclude femme guys. wow.
posted by Rainbo Vagrant at 8:18 PM on January 3, 2017 [1 favorite]


I think it's easy to misread this imagery as simply "look it's a man looking non-manly and feminine because they look pretty standing among flowers!"

By way of explanation: I think the word 'tomboy' is also problematic ("look it's a woman doing non-woman things, like wearing pants and playing sports!").

For this same reason I'd argue that the words "feminine" or "masculine" are weird also. e.g.: "Look at these non-feminine tomboys" is already a loaded statement because of the implied notion that we already agree on 'what being womanly is'. Same with "Look at these feminine boys!"

The linked images are also modes of representing people, coming from a different set of gender norms, also carrying its own set of unique and flawed tropes. Yes, we may see bishoenen men that look like this in yaoi; yes, there but there are also modes of representing men who are strong because they are sensitive / in touch with emotions / intelligent / etc.
posted by suedehead at 8:53 PM on January 3, 2017 [2 favorites]


It just makes me think of this, which shouldn't make me giggle as much as it does.
posted by weewooweewoo at 10:26 PM on January 3, 2017


it's worth observing that femme and GNC boys are likely getting something very different out of this type of character than cis girls are

Very much so. I tend to avoid bishoenen imagery precisely because it tends to bring out the predatory side to cis women, and having been sexually assaulted by a remarkably large number of cis women - all of whom have defended their rapey behaviour using precisely the same "safe boy" language that you used above - I've mostly come to the view that cis women aren't to be trusted when matters of sexuality are being discussed. Gay men are a bit hit and miss too, admittedly, but for the most part my experience has been that gay guys know that they might be perceived as predatory so they know how to behave in the presence of a femme boy. Cis women are staggeringly bad at this. Like you say, this is a consequence of misogyny. Women are so utterly trapped by the structure of our culture that they have almost no opportunities to feel safe about expressing their sexual desire, and they tend to latch onto the very first safe outlet they can find. I get that. But imagine being the femme boy who is always that guy, that first outlet for cis straight women's anger and sexual exploration. What view of women would you expect to form, when you are the only boy who all the girls feel safe in being sexually aggressive towards? Maybe you might learn to treat all women as potential rapists? Maybe you might find yourself getting very very angry?

I would have thought that most cis women would be able to empathise with how that feels, but sadly my experience has been that the only women who really get it are trans women. Makes me wish I were really one of them, sometimes.
posted by ceci n'est pas une sockpuppet at 11:05 PM on January 3, 2017 [17 favorites]


I think whoever assembled the PixiVision article just grabbed random beautiful artwork without bothering to look for context, because a lot (most?) of them are fanart. This makes for an interesting page; just from the fandoms I can recognize or translate, you've got: a canonically queer romance hero skating champion (Yuri!!! On Ice fandom); a polite but deadly demon hunter badass shonen hero (D.Gray-man); a dangerous and deceptively beautiful shonen apocalypse angel (Evangelion); the anthropomorphic personification of Axis Japan (Hetalia); a shonen sports manga star (Kuroko's Basketball); a raucous badass shonen pirate crew (One Piece); and my badass dragon boyfriend Haku from Spirited Away.

The overall effect is a collection of canonically delicate-looking boys who are canonically badass AND/OR boys from manly!shonen!series! who are given a softer, vulnerable edge.

"Fragile Boys!" So dreamy, so ethereal! They can probably all curb-stomp you with ease.
posted by nicebookrack at 11:49 PM on January 3, 2017 [5 favorites]


Am I a bad person for being skeeved out by this?
posted by Guy Dudeman at 6:56 AM on January 4, 2017


First off- I wanted this to be pictures, too! So here's one of my favorite photography series that feature feminine men - Black Men with Flowers by Lynette Luna .

I absolutely agree that a lot of the time the feminization of men in this manner is exploitation. It's transmisogyny, and the general objectification that comes with any sort of femininity. This is what has always turned me off to this sort of softboy/slash/yaoi/anime genre. Being an afab nb person with my own questions about gender, it was uncomfortable for me to see femininity being exploited no matter what iteration it popped up in.

After reading the thread, I think there are two sides to this, and *gasp* possibly even a spectrum.

As Rainbo Vagrant pointed out, this kind of media is used as a way for girls to be able to explore their own relationship with femininity, without the unbelievable burden of being judged in a misogynistic society. I think this is a sound theory, and it definitely holds up to my interactions with my young niece and her relationship with the soft-boy trope. I actually want more of young girls questioning and renegotiating what they think about the relationship between power and femininity. I don't think this is inherently wrong. I think, for all genders, being able to relate to other genders and being able to see parts of yourself in them is great for empathy. And seeing your own gender reflected in opposition to yourself is necessary for the post-gender world I hope for the future.

Of course there's always a bad side to things. People are people. Each of us, in any capacity, have the power and faculty to do harm. We need to listen to ceci n'est pas une sockpuppet. Probably the most predominant form of power we have in society is the power of men over women. So instead of the (great) outcome of women realizing that they have power and strength with and through femininity, they turn out just internalizing the misogyny and "join the ranks", exploiting (boy's) femininity.


TL;DR : boys should be able to be feminine without their identities being exploited. Girls being empathetic towards feminine men and relating to them is a Good Thing. Femme boys (like any feminine thing) are targets of abuse and exploitation, by both amab and afab people alike.
posted by FirstMateKate at 8:01 AM on January 4, 2017 [5 favorites]


IIRC there's an interview with Keiko Takemiya (author of Kaze to Ki no Uta, the first "pretty boy" BL manga) where she's asked, why boys? And she explains that if she wrote about female characters doing the same things, her (female) readers would complain about what horrible girls they were.
posted by airmail at 10:35 AM on January 4, 2017 [2 favorites]


I'm of two minds about this. Obviously, it's causing members pain (and, reasonable to imagine, people outside of MetaFilter), and that's a huge problem. However, it's also (as pointed out above) a specifically young (cis) woman oriented sort of erotic imagination, and women, especially young women, tend to have their erotic imaginations policed much more strictly than men, so I am a little uneasy saying "this is bad by nature." There are a lot of different axes of privilege, and young cis women are certainly capable of leveraging the privileges they have in negative and even cruel ways (again, as seen above). So what can be done?

I had this to say about the not-unrelated subject of gay men's feelings toward slash fiction, and the points are relevant here:

1) If you are a fan, acknowledge that bishoenen etc images have some really problematic aspects. That does not mean that you are a bad person for enjoying/having enjoyed it.

2) If you draw bishoenen etc fan art, try to do better. If you consume the genre or comment on it, try to address some of these issues when it's safe for you to do so.

3) Watch out for trying to export your fantasy into the real world. You can enjoy your fragile boys, but expecting a real person to be your fragile boy is crossing a significant line. All art may involve a layer of objectification, but it's your job as viewer to leave that at the edge of the canvas and not project it onto people you interact with

4) Avoid shaming people for their fantasies, assuming that they maintain those basic human borders.

As I said above, I find some of the images charming and others unnerving, but I think they are fundamentally not for me, so I'm not sure how much my feelings about the genre matter. I do think how people treat each other outside the walls of their fantasies matters a lot, though.
posted by GenjiandProust at 10:45 AM on January 4, 2017 [4 favorites]


Am I a bad person for being skeeved out by this?

I guess it depends on why you're being skeeved out. I find it really creepy, but I think that's because I'm a little sensitive being a gay man who was sexually assaulted by women a couple times, and having the assaults framed as a feminist acts of freeing female sexuality (only thing missing was my interest and consent), so there couldn't have been anything damaging done to me, because women's suppressed sexuality, and, you know, patriarchy.

I don't feel like a bad person for being skeeved out by the art, but I do feel like a bad person for mentioning that I do. Because I'm not a fan, and that seems to be a negative judgement on those that are fans, but one big reason I'm not a fan is because the artwork skeeves me out.
posted by conic at 12:10 PM on January 4, 2017 [1 favorite]


However, it's also (as pointed out above) a specifically young (cis) woman oriented sort of erotic imagination, and women, especially young women, tend to have their erotic imaginations policed much more strictly than men, so I am a little uneasy saying "this is bad by nature."

As a cis woman, I am sympathetic to this. But I think too often it's used as a reason to excuse the widespread fetishization and objectification of femme and/or gay men within artistic and fan communities, specifically by women. At this point I basically try to avoid anything involving "femme boys", bishounen, or gay men unless it's been produced by a guy because I often feel like I'm consuming the equivalent of the "lesbian" sex in mainstream porn.

Feminism has taught us to demand that female characters not simply be treated as props or sex dolls in stories. But so many women don't treat femme and gay men with the same consideration. I think a lot of gay and femme men would attest they find the representations of them and their lives within these works to be completely unrecognizable. From the strict slotting of gay couples into super heterosexist "top" and "bottom" body-types and personalities, to the way virtually any physical contact between two men is spun into slash fiction, a lot of women do not allow men who express platonic or romantic affection to one another the same complexity of character and motivations they demand of female characters. It has the effect of perpetuating sexism and homophobia: all gay guys are soft, any guy who expresses any softness is gay, and if two men hug it means they must be boning.

We shouldn't excuse the marginalization and fetishization of a whole group for the sake of sexual liberation. If we want men to be more OK with physical and emotional vulnerability then we can't respond to their vulnerability by objectifying them.
posted by Anonymous at 2:13 PM on January 4, 2017


I know first hand the horrible dynamics being talked about here. Early sexual activity of mine would definitely qualify as abusive, and as time went on, I learned to exploit the fetishization. Meaning over time I gave as good as I got. And contributed to the bad image of bisexuals in my own way.

I'm lucky in that at least one relationship I had didn't devolve to mutual using of one another, and so I know another way is possible, even if there are no good examples of it out in the world.
posted by Strange_Robinson at 2:17 PM on January 4, 2017


Like, if you want an example of exactly how non-representative woman-drawn comics about gay men are, then look at the massive stylistic and thematic differences between yaoi and bara manga. Bara is a genre of manga that's written primarily by gay men and is actually read by gay men. There is precious little resemblance to yaoi titles. Or consider how wholly different Ed Luce's Wuvable Oaf is from something like Check, Please!
posted by Anonymous at 2:29 PM on January 4, 2017


BTW, on the term bara.
posted by airmail at 4:32 PM on January 4, 2017




GenjiandProust: However, it's also (as pointed out above) a specifically young (cis) woman oriented sort of erotic imagination, and women, especially young women, tend to have their erotic imaginations policed much more strictly than men, so I am a little uneasy saying "this is bad by nature."

schroedinger: As a cis woman, I am sympathetic to this. But I think too often it's used as a reason to excuse the widespread fetishization and objectification of femme and/or gay men within artistic and fan communities, specifically by women. At this point I basically try to avoid anything involving "femme boys", bishounen, or gay men unless it's been produced by a guy because I often feel like I'm consuming the equivalent of the "lesbian" sex in mainstream porn.

I guess as a (cis female) comic artist I feel rather conflicted about this subject. Because it all just points to the question, well, what is the "correct" way for women to draw men and their relationships? What's the "correct" way for women to express an attraction to GNC men in media? More frankly, what are we allowed to jerk off to? Back when I subscribed to the adage "write what you know," it meant restricting myself to straight and lesbian relations, and also drawing cis people 99% of the time, because I felt like my grand total of 2 relationships with trans people probably didn't warrant enough experience to think from their POV or draw their bodies the way they want to be drawn. And then I'd get comments from followers like "why don't you ever draw gay/bi men?" But if I attempted that, it would mean going into the territory of Things I Don't Know.
But over the years a few things have started to change my mind. One was, when I looked into the demographics of people who bought my stuff (in this case "stuff" refers to smutty hetero comics with feminine men and masculine women), I assumed it was going to be mostly women, but almost half my customers were men. And around the same time I caught wind of some forum thread full of gay guys linking to my R-18 art blog--at first they were just sharing the pictures I drew of solo men, but then there were comments like "I'm not sure why but I'm not turned off by this artist's hetero stuff." When I finally gave in and drew some trans people, I got this burst of new trans customers. I also saw a tweet (or maybe it was an internet comment?) along the lines of, "writing what you know is the reason why there are so many books about depressed male authors cheating on their wives." Lately I've also thought about how there were definitely depictions of women and lesbian relationships that I liked in the past that were written by men, and we would be going in the wrong direction if we restricted all our subjects to people who match our own identity, both in creation and consumption.

Tangentially it reminds me of a recent string of conversations between my friends on twitter. A lot of my friends are gamers, and there was some debacle last week about the depiction of a female character's butt in some game (I think it was Nier Automata). And the discourse among my lesbian friends seemed to be evenly split between "this is bad because men made a sexy woman's ass and it's objectifying" and "wow this is a really amazing and hot ass and I want more of this." To the latter group it didn't matter who was making the hot girls, and when the former group tried to persuade them as to why it was wrong, the response was "why are you trying to deprive women of erotic content?"

airmail: BTW, on the term bara.

I find it interesting that bara is going through that transformation. I was (kind of, shoddily) practicing Japanese and translating some blog posts where people were talking about the category "BL." While Americans still use the loan word "yaoi," yaoi is no longer used in Japan and was replaced with BL, because BL seemed like a more respectable term. Then when Yuri!!! on ICE aired, a lot of fujoshi were like "no no, Yuri on Ice is not BL, it's LGBT," implying that "BL" has now gained the same negative connotations "yaoi" had in the past, and that because Yuri on Ice is considered a more respectable portrayal of male romance that it shouldn't be considered BL. But in doing so, it's just kind of a repeat of history--eventually many fujoshi might make gay manga and say "this is LGBT" until the term "LGBT" becomes the new "BL" because ultimately whatever fujoshi write or draw will gain negative connotations.
posted by picklenickle at 6:27 PM on January 4, 2017 [1 favorite]


Ugh, I just realized I forgot a paragraph in my comment, getting sidetracked by my tangent. What I mean to say is, the confliction I feel comes from walking the line between objectification and representation, which is particularly thin in genres relating to romance or sex. So, I'll think about the experiences I've had that push me towards writing what I don't know or being frank about what turns me on, but then I'll also look at threads like these where the subject matter is met with derision and pain, and it just kind of makes my heart sink, and makes me retreat back into thinking "well, maybe I won't write that gay story after all" or "maybe I'll change the character design or change their gender to a girl" because then I'll still be in this safe zone where my own demographic identity is somehow overlapping with the characters, but at the expense of diversity or exploration.
posted by picklenickle at 7:17 PM on January 4, 2017


Yuri on Ice is not BL, it's LGBT

Is Japanese fandom doing this too? I do know it was the creators' choice to not label it BL.
posted by airmail at 9:07 PM on January 4, 2017


picklenickle, I hear your frustration. But your argument reads as analogous to the men who complain they're being told they're not allowed to write any female characters or white people who claim they're being told they're not allowed to write any POC characters when objections are made to characters who are thin stereotypes. Nobody is saying women are not allowed to portray complex, full gay male characters and relationships and honest depictions of gay sex. The objection is to the fetishization of those relationships and sexual activity.

You are allowed to find sexy what you find sexy. But please respect the experiences of the men in this discussion who are telling us about the abuse and pain they've suffered as a direct result of this form of objectification and stereotyping. Gender politics and the policing of women's sexual desire is a fraught topic, yes, but the real-life damage that occurs to actual humans who already suffer discrimination should not be dismissed as an acceptable casualty of encouraging women's sexual freedom.

addendum to my last comment: I should amend that I avoid work produced by women unless I see it recommended by men, so it's not a blanket ban. It's just the fetishized portrayal of gay men is so damn widespread, accepted, and even celebrated 95% of the time I consume something that I've discovered on my own or has been recommended by a woman it goes off into Stereotype Land and it's upsetting.
posted by Anonymous at 9:29 PM on January 4, 2017


Jemisin had a great series of tweets last week that "write what you know" shouldn't be about staying in your comfort zone, it should be about doing the research you need to make your story work. I'd also say that it means writing with empathy for other people.

Generally I think that chasing after fanartists or fans for doing it wrong is a waste of time and energy. So I'm not going to say "don't create it" or "don't love it." But I think that awareness that commodification of nonbinary and GNC people supports attitudes that are dangerous for some of us is important.

I have a fairly simple test for figuring out the difference between having an ally and being someone's fetish. The fetishists are supportive to the degree their personal itches are scratched. The allies will support you when you really need it, in times that are not remotely sexy.
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 10:37 PM on January 4, 2017 [2 favorites]


picklenickle: " I'll think about the experiences I've had that push me towards writing what I don't know or being frank about what turns me on, but then I'll also look at threads like these where the subject matter is met with derision and pain, and it just kind of makes my heart sink, and makes me retreat back into thinking "well, maybe I won't write that gay story after all" "

CBrachyrhynchos: "I have a fairly simple test for figuring out the difference between having an ally and being someone's fetish. The fetishists are supportive to the degree their personal itches are scratched. The allies will support you when you really need it, in times that are not remotely sexy."

I really want to second CBrachyrhynchos' reply here. Outside of your artwork, do you stand up for femme boys, GNC men and AMAB genderqueer folks? Do you take the time to remind other cis women that misogyny affects all femmes, not just cis women and trans women? When a usually thoughtful man asks cis women to stop directing their anger at him - on a site like, say, MetaFilter - do you immediately try to shut him down with a #maletears or #notallmen zinger, or do you consider the possibility that the speaker might be a member of a marginalised subgroup of femmes asking politely to be allowed to have a voice in the conversation? To me, that's the kind of thing that would make a great cis woman ally, but to be perfectly honest I've almost never seen it happen in the wild.
posted by ceci n'est pas une sockpuppet at 4:55 PM on January 5, 2017


I'm a bit on the fence regarding how much women should stick their neck out regarding misogyny as experienced by amab nonbinary people. I suspect it's probably because I'm a mostly comfortable ugly 45 so I'll be more likely clocked as gay and swishy than pretty and bishy. We have our own flavor of misogyny to wrestle with.

On the other hand, I can't see myself dating a straight woman again, having run the gamut from anti-bi relationship violence to the pushy partner who wanted to get off on my queerness. My queerness has been both existential threat and something taken for granted as a kink. The latter is something that can be taken from the shelf like a favorite toy, enjoyed, cleaned off, and put back in away. And the breaking point in that relationship was the lack of recognition that I'd need the same level of safety and intimacy fucking a man as I did with her.

Of course, I don't know if I'll date anyone again.
posted by CBrachyrhynchos at 6:19 PM on January 5, 2017


I get that - my situation is probably a bit different. I'm only "somewhat" bi, being more attracted to women, but I'm still very femme. And since I'm married with kids I code as feminine without really carrying a strong gay vibe. I'm a lot more openly genderqueer and nonconforming these days, but when I was younger I learned to hide it - that dynamic of being seen as someone's toy, a plaything whose queerness exists solely to be the focus of a woman's sexual exploration was really gross, and got me in trouble a bit. I guess the reason why I kind of expect more explicit allyship from cis women is that my life revolves around them still - my friends, colleagues, partner, etc, are almost all women. I very much need women to be my allies, and not to be seen as the token boy in the femme club.
posted by ceci n'est pas une sockpuppet at 6:35 PM on January 5, 2017 [2 favorites]


I go through really long bouts of celibacy, three, four years at a stretch historically, due to the issues Brachy mentions. I can feel that sentiment of no more dating so hard it hurts.
posted by Strange_Robinson at 4:52 AM on January 6, 2017 [1 favorite]


My water heater busted is why the ridiculous time. Probably need to go check the buckets. The water drips don't sound right
posted by Strange_Robinson at 4:53 AM on January 6, 2017


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