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I'm about to start this thread here! It's 52 tweets, just about, so brace yourselves! https://twitter.com/transdudealec/status/985150215387779072
Alright, I’ve been asked to do a thread about the fetishization of mlm in fandom. This is something that makes me very uncomfortable as I navigate most fandoms, but it’s on a whole other scale in the shadowhunters fandom.
I’m going to try and make this thread as inclusive of non binary people as I can, but of course, there’s nuance here. I want to emphasise that. This issue isn’t simply mlm vs women. I guess as beautiful enbies, I’ll leave it to you to decide where you fall in this issue.
While it is certainly possible for mlm themselves to engage in fetishizing behaviour, this often comes from internalised homophobia and it is NOT the place of non mlm to call them out on it. I want to make that clear.
Of course, if an mlm is racially fetishizing other men, and you're a poc who feels uncomfortable with it, then that's a whole other issue and of course I'm not going to say you can't call them out. But what we're talking about right now is the fetishization of mlm in fandom.
Following on from this, if an mlm makes you (a non mlm) uncomfortable with the way he talks about his own sexuality (provided it isn't racist, incestual or pedophilic etc), then… Do I need to finish that sentence?
So, to make it clear: if cishet women (or men, though that’s less likely) engage in ANY of the behaviour I’m going to describe, then they are a mlm fetishist and should not be considered a good ally or be supported in fanart, fanfic, or discourse about mlm relationships.
If a queer woman/enby engages in this behaviour, it can be hard to figure out what the deal is. Lots of queer women/enbies in this fandom engage with Malec as representation for them as well, since they are the only canon MAIN queer couple in the show. And that is TOTALLY valid.
But sometimes, queer women/enbies can overstep too. My rule is if an mlm feels uncomfortable about the way you as a queer woman/enby talk about or interact with Malec, then you need to evaluate what you’re doing.
The main issue with the fetishization of mlm in fandom is that actual mlm involved in these fandoms are ignored, their voices aren’t boosted, and their fanworks are paid dust while cishet women are glorified for their ‘ally’ voices and fanworks.
To illustrate just how much mlm get spoken over in fandoms, get this: I literally googled ‘fetishization of mlm’ to research stuff for this thread and the first thing that came up was a thinkpiece by a cishet woman. https://www.themarysue.com/fetishizing-slash/
Now, the article is pretty inoffensive as far as articles on mlm fetishization go, but why on EARTH is the most viewed article on fetishization of mlm written by a cishet woman? Don’t you find that interesting?
Why is it that even when talking about an issue where we as mlm are objectified and cishet women are the objectifiers, cishet women’s voices are the ones overwhelmingly boosted?
The truth is that REAL mlm aren’t wanted or desired in fandom, because the only thing mlm are needed for in fandom is to provide a cute otp that non mlm can project their sexual and romantic fantasies onto. Real mlm are more complex than a cute otp, so we are eschewed.
So other instances/examples of fetishization? One of the classics that makes my blood boil, personally, is the way that non mlm write PWP about mlm couples. I thought about looking for an example, but I couldn’t bring myself to look through AO3 tags.
But we’ve all come across those fics where two men in an established relationship flirt for 200 words and start stripping (in the sh fandom, helpfully hastened by Magnus’ magic). In these fics, the ‘top’ (more on that later) will either not prepare the ‘bottom’, +
or they’ll stick two fingers up there with one coat of lube, magically find the prostate and reduce the ‘bottom’ to a whining mess. Always a whining mess. After a couple of lines of prep (max), the ‘top’ will stick his dick in the ‘bottom’ +
and wait for a moment, then start fucking the absolute shit out of his ‘bottom’. Now, anyone who’s EVER had anal sex, no matter the gender, will tell you that this is not generally how anal sex goes. So why is this the way cishet women write about m/m sex?
The simple reason is because these cishet women are projecting themselves into the position of the ‘bottom’. Vaginal sex, as I hope we know, is practically a lot easier than anal sex. By oversimplifying and straightwashing (for lack of a better term) anal sex, +
they’re assisting their female readers in their fantasies of being under this queer male top. This particular quote from this article - https://www.lambdaliterary.org/features/oped/08/19/the-fetishizing-of-queer-sexuality-a-response/ - struck me: +
“The edict for writing has always been: Write what you know. Alas, that is what the M/M writers are doing–they are writing straight male/female relationships but putting them in gay male bodies.” These fanfictions are not meant to celebrate queer men, +
they are not aimed at queer men, and they aren’t concerned with the reality of queer men. Instead they’re projecting themselves into the more desirable (internalised misogyny, much?) queer men’s bodies.
This is similar to the way most mainstream ‘lesbian porn’ is aimed at cishet men. These videos show a version of sex between women that is palatable and ‘sexy’ for the male gaze, and these PWPs written by cishet women work the same way.
I wish I didn’t have to point out why that’s harmful, but honestly, the shit I’ve seen in these fandoms I feel like I need to spell it out. Treating mlm as props for you, a non mlm, to get off to, is dehumanising and disrespectful. It's not allyship. It's not flattering. Stop it.
Now I know that the sexuality of women, and teenage girls specifically, is judged and policed. I understand that. However, the oppression you face is not an excuse to throw another oppressed group under the bus for your amusement and titillation. That’s it. I said what I said.
This article - https://versusthefans.com/2014/07/08/fetishizing-homosexuality/ - goes a little deeper into this issue, but here’s a quote that I thought summed it up: “While I certainly understand being thought of as weird, being scared or worried as [...] she feels +
about shipping Johnlock, for LGBT people they aren’t just scared because of who they ship, but who they love in real life. At the end of the day, [...] straight women [...] will legally marry a man anywhere in the world she wants and get off while dreaming of gay men together. +
Must be nice to have your cake and eat it too. It’s not fiction for LGBT people.”
The second classic part of mlm fetishization in fandom is top and bottom discourse. There are a few issues conflated in this facet of fetishization. Firstly, being a ‘top’ or a ‘bottom’ is not generally a thing.
The overwhelming majority of queer men do not strictly adhere to either the ‘top’ or ‘bottom’ position in the bedroom. Some of us joke about being one or the other, but it is not a law that we ALWAYS must bottom or ALWAYS must top. Sometimes you fancy something different. +
It’s human nature. We’re not one stereotype or the other. Ever. To assume as such is to reduce an entire human being to a sex position, just because they’re queer. Does that sound like good allyship to you?
Next, the very fact that people are so invested in whether a fictional character (or, god forbid, a real person, but again, more on that later) is a ‘top’ or ‘bottom’ is creepy and bizarre. Do you also debate on whether the female lead in your show prefers doggy +
or the reverse cowgirl? No? Then why do you, a non mlm, spend so much time and energy ‘headcanoning’ the ways m/m couples in fiction have sex? Is it because it’s somehow ‘hotter’ than m/f sex because it’s two men? Why is that? Take a look at your feelings here.
Ask yourself why you find the idea of two men having sex so interesting. Is it because you’re only attracted to men, so it’s double the fun? Is it because two men banging is ‘taboo’ or ‘sinful’ or ‘naughty’? Is it because taking it up the ass is not a ‘manly’ thing to do, +
and is therefore inherently kinky? Unpack these things. Think critically. If it is any of the above things, then address it, because it’s wrong. Once again, queer men are not props for you to manipulate for your enjoyment.
One mlm I found on tumblr here - http://bluethisisforyou.tumblr.com/post/162753965120 - had this to say on the issue: “[it] is NOT healthy at all bc, in my case, it makes us feel as if we only exist for entertainment and that our relationships are seen as wrong and/or dirty”.
Do you intend to make mlm feel that way? If yes, then… Bruh, what the fuck are you do pretending to give a shit about mlm in the first place? If no… Maybe adjust your behaviours accordingly.
Because apparently it’s necessary, I’m going to lay out some facts for you, here. Taller man =/= top. Stronger man =/= top. Leader =/= top. Masculine man =/= top. Shorter man =/= bottom. Weaker man =/= bottom. Follower =/= bottom. Effeminate man =/= bottom.
Everyone needs to stop using physical and personality traits to ‘argue their case’ as to whether a queer man is a top or a bottom. These things do NOT impact what kind of sex you like. To imply as such is homophobic and, frankly, misogynistic as well.
By painting a more effeminate, smaller, weaker man as the bottom in these scenarios, you are implying that bottoming, and therefore submitting/yielding to masculine penetration, is feminine and a sign of weakness.
Having said that, you are not more progressive if you make the effeminate man the top for brownie points or because it’s ‘hot’ that the smaller one can weaken the larger one. It’s still creepy and rooted in harmful stereotypes.
In the context of the shadowhunters fandom (that this thread is mostly aimed at), both Magnus and Alec are tall, strapping, formidable men who are powerful and badass, and yet in almost every fanwork by a cishet woman, one of them will be shrunk or feminised.
And on the rare occasions where they aren’t, the emphasis will be on the fact that the power struggle between them is hot. And you all wonder why I have the vast majority of straight fanartists blocked.
The last thing I want to talk about as a symptom of mlm fetishization is RPF, or ‘real person fiction’. There are ALWAYS, ALWAYS people in a tv show or movie fandom who will ship the actors who play queer (or perceived queer) characters.
It happened with Darren Cr*ss and Chris C*lfer after they played Kla*ne in Glee, it happened with Bened*ct Cumberb*tch and Mart*n Freeman after they played J*hnlock in Sherlock, it happened with J*nsen Ackl*s and M*sha Collins after they played Dest*el in Supernatural.
In every single instance except Chris C*lfer, these actors have had female partners. I’m not going to say all of them are straight, because I don’t know their lives, and I don’t care about most of them enough to research, but all of them (except C*lfer) is attracted to women.
Most of them have expressed discomfort at the fact that they are ‘shipped’ with their co-star and friend. And yet so many people continue to write fanfiction about them and even harass their ACTUAL partners about a ship that only came about because of their acting jobs.
The most confusing thing about this is that there are quite a few m/m couples in the spotlight these days that don’t get nearly as much attention from the RPF shippers. Neil Patrick Harris and David Burtka, Tom Daley and Dustin Lance Black, Colton Haynes and Jeff Leatham +
all are openly in love, posting adorable snapshots of their lives together, and yet… Somehow, for these RPF shippers, that’s not good enough. It’s only good enough if these real man have been seen in fictional embraces together, +
if they’ve kissed in giffable high quality, it they’re (in their fucked up fantasies) cheating on a poor unsuspecting female partner in order to be together. M/m couples are only valuable to these people if their most intimate moments are visible, or somehow tragic.
It doesn’t matter if real love exists between them, all that matters is that they’re hot together, that their relationship is oh so wrong it’s right.
We as queer men deserve to be celebrated, and we deserve to be celebrated for the diversity and vibrance that we bring to the world. We deserve better than to be reduced to a sexual fantasy, to a cute little otp to squeal over, to something that is inherently taboo or naughty.
We deserve to be respected. We deserve to be loved. We deserve a platform in a fandom that exists because of characters that reflect us. We deserve to be heard.
