My Sketch And Ink Drawing Of A Baby. This Is The First Time I Drew A Baby....ever. I Think It Looks Pretty

My sketch and ink drawing of a baby. This is the first time I drew a baby....ever. I think it looks pretty cool. I was gonna use it for a fan fiction I was thinking of.

‪From @commondog___: “바보 루피 ㅋㅋㅋ🐶‬ ‪문턱도 못 넘니….?😂” #cutepetclub ‬ [source: http://ift.tt/2jeVqil ]

True

Reading a really bad fanfiction: 

fandom homophobia, the m/m POV

Even in fandom and even from LGBT fans who write and draw m/m ships you can always tell that gayness between men is a joke or something that’s just okay for everyone to grab and play with and consider their own emotional and sexual growth… it’s so rare for me to meet a fan of any m/m ship who isn’t a man and who does treat those relationships and characters with respect.

I think people forget how hard it is to live as a man attracted to men, and how much of that struggle can be identity in its own way. I genuinely can’t believe people don’t realize how disrespectful it is to just shove your kinks at those m/m relationships if you’re not a man, or to completely erase that part of struggle and pain, or to treat those ships as if it’s just okay and right for you to write/draw porn of gay men because you think it’s hot.

The only reason m/m ships are considered so hot and attractive is because everyone still considers them taboo and dirty and deviant. That was the basis for homophobia against gay/bi men in the first place and as far as I’m concerned considering m/m porn part of your “sexual expression” if you’re not a man is just as homophobic. You’re not a friend or ally to gay/bi men, you’re just attracted to how secret and sexy and provocative you think sex and relationships between men are. 

Gay porn isn’t for you. Gay male relationships aren’t for you. You don’t get to just appropriate them without thinking for two seconds about how you can portray them with respect and accuracy (to the characters, to where they live, to the time period, to the various ways men who love men experience homophobia and try to confront it or protect themselves from it). Black and white gay men are second only to black trans women in the reported amount of LGBT murders between 2012 and 2015 in the US. In France where I live, homophobia targeted at men makes up 66% of all the anti-LGBT violence and discrimination reported to SOS Homophobie in 2015, with more than 700 cases for it alone. These are just two examples that I’m personally familiar with. Keep in mind that hate crimes and abuse are always severely underreported.

I know people like to believe being A Man Who Happens To Be Gay isn’t an issue anymore in today’s world, but that’s only true for wealthy men (who are white, who are not GNC, who are not disabled, etc) and in very few countries. You’d be a fool to believe that no boy faces violence anymore for questioning his sexuality. The vast majority of them do. And it’s a sign of homophobia and privilege in itself that so many non-men get to just write/draw about men being gay, in the most explicit ways, without ever facing consequences for it, whereas men and young boys feel too threatened to say anything in fandom just like in real life.

Way too often these boys and men are exposed to the worst predatoriness in fandom, because by now entitlement to gay/bi men’s bodies, relationships, and experiences isn’t just about fictional characters, but about real people as well. RPS is a blight that has banalized not only the invasion of celebrities’ private lives and bodies but also that of men who aren’t as distant from and protected against their fans and followers. And it needs to stop.

Gay/bi men didn’t sprout into existence for fandom’s enjoyment. They are real people with a real history of persecution, abuse, and murder, one that continues today everywhere in the world. 

Having respect for this history while still drawing or writing m/m relationships includes but is not limited to: 

- Not treating gayness as a joke

- Not erasing a character’s gayness despite their being in a gay relationship (i.e. “he had only ever dated women and didn’t consider himself gay or bisexual”, “he was only gay for [insert name]”, etc). This is an absolute red flag that you don’t like the concept of men being gay or bi as an important part of their identity, just of men fucking each other.

- Getting rid of entitled and fetishistic language (”my gays”, calling yourself a yaoi or BL or slash fan, “uke/seme”, etc)

- Respecting the boundaries and privacy of real men, and that includes popular youtubers and internet famous men as well as athletes and actors who are more protected against this. Just because he will probably never read your fanfiction of him fucking his best friend doesn’t give you the right to write it.

- Not calling m/m relationships and gay/bi men “sin”, “filth”, “sinners”. This is homophobia.

- Not furthering the portrayal of gay/bi men as predatory in general and particularly not toward minors and particularly not if they are men of color

- Not treating gay/bi male characters as inherently sexual or inherently non-sexual, especially if being non-sexual means being “pure” to you. Both are bad. Both are homophobic.

- Not perpetuating stereotypes about sex between men (the infamous top vs bottom dichotomy) and especially not if you base those stereotypes in misogyny—and in general realizing that whatever cultural words and stereotypes regarding sex, appearance, and demeanor may be real for some gay/bi men, those are probably not yours to claim to understand and depict realistically. Any understanding you have of them will be rooted in homophobia, so fight to unlearn that first of all.

No one’s saying you can’t write or draw m/m relationships. Just do it with some respect is all. The rhetoric that fanfiction and art of m/m ships is female sexual empowerment and liberation, because of how women-dominated transformative works are, is outdated and homophobic. It’s disrespectful to every man and boy out there who has to live through homophobia—their struggles, their lives, their experiences are not for anyone but them to claim as empowering or liberating. 

Spend less time thinking of fictional gay/bi men and more time supporting actual gay/bi men in your life. This starts by hearing them out when they say that the way you ship men makes you entitled and fetishistic and, yes, homophobic.

Oh my God! A live action show based on Archie Comics!!! YES!!!!

Watch the series premiere of Riverdale, tonight at 9/8c on The CW!

steveaoki: U were the rock my brother. U are my inspiration. U have the biggest fucking heart and I’m so proud of u. Blew us all away for her. 🙏🏻 Make sure to keep: Streaming / Buying or Gifting / Requesting / Shazaming Just Hold On!