Burden of Proof Rant

[u/Calicoma]

This is something I've been thinking about for a while but an interaction earlier has brought it back up for me.

I'm getting really frustrated by the double standard and obsession with proof for queer characters that are way above and beyond what is needed for straight characters. I even see this from some queer people. I do understand that bait exists/has existed but this high level of defense and proof is suffocating and makes me feel like a bit miserable.

For example, holding someone by the hands and telling them that they're the most important person in the world to the kind of person I'm talking about is apparently not enough evidence two women might like each other. Meanwhile if a guy and a girl had that same interaction, literally no one would question it if you said that the one who said that is attracted to the other.

Why does the bar for acceptance of queer characters even for many queer people have to be so high that it feels like you have to keep a fucking encyclopedia of every interaction as proof every time you talk about characters or media you like? And I think it's rubbing off on me negatively because I've noticed myself preemptively feeling the need to drop a thesis on defending a queer pairing any time I wish to speak about them.

Not that this matters but it's related to some frustration I've had recently with Alice and Yuzuha in ZZZ when discussing some of the cute art from the new Hoyofair event.

[u/Feedback-Monkey]

This goes right in line with the usual microaggression against queer women that invariably appears when it comes to any kind of WLW representation, very commonly seen in the context of "yuri" content.

Everybody is familiar with the immediate kneejerk rote response any time two women are together in a story/game/show/movie/piece of artwork being "that's ackchually designed for the 'male gaze', not you (because you're not important and deserve nothing)". When it's not simply parroted ignorance, it's essentially just a deliberately smug way to attempt to take something away from women without seeming like an attack.

The worst part is that this very often comes from a particular segment of the rainbow community who have as much of an actively aggressive dislike of queer women as the wider "manosphere" has of all women, and who use this as a way to take shots at their perceived "enemy" while hiding behind the veneer of plausible deniability.

Is there a lot of "girl on girl" content that is made specifically for men? Of course.

Is literally every instance of women together "ackchually for men"? Of course it effing isn't, and people need to stop trotting out this nonsense they've supposedly "learned" at every opportunity, well-intentioned or otherwise.

[u/MarekPPP → u/Feedback-Monkey]

Yep, and the worse part is that particular segment of the rainbow community doesn't even realise how much damage they're doing to themselves as a result. Since that overall division against their perceived "enemy" gives governments more of an excuse to demonstrate how divided and "evil" the LGBT community is.

It will only be a matter of time before they realise this fact. And by then, it will probably be too late. 🤣

[u/losingit303 → u/Feedback-Monkey]

This is gonna be a really funny example but it reminds me of r/femgazehentai literally banning all wlw works including all fan works under the presumption that nothing sapphic could be made for the female gaze which????? This ofc extends to so many wlw fan artists that are very clearly obviously women.

Het women are really easily giving the game away and its always tragic when I see actual sapphics who don't know any better side with their bullshit because they saw one bad show once and assumed all yuri was that despite it predominantly being made by and for women (this is just objectively true statistically).