So often, twink death is framed as a bad thing. However, the "twink death" for trans men* is frankly one of the most healing things you will bear witness to (pun intended).

hi im the not understanding straight passing anon. i looked it up and could only find stuff for multi-sexual people but not gay. ive also heard from people that saying 'straight-passing' for blaine because hes more masculine (?) is participating in invisible homophobia and mlm men (even one getting a queer studies degree) agreed with that. i mean saying blaine as a gay man in an openly mlm relationship thats never been with a girl is 'straight-passing' seems a bit fucked up to me. no hate to anyone whos said it though, im just here to try and understand

I wish I answered this at the time because I no longer remember the context in which this conversation was being had.

There's just... a lot to unpack, and I'm not even sure where to begin.

I think the whole 'passing'/'not passing' stuff that's brought up on the show is antiquated. Even for the time. Again - I'm guessing we're playing in Ryan Murphy's head again - where back when he was younger, he was effeminate (I mean he still is) and couldn't 'pass' as straight. And yes - I agree it's a homophobic notion wrapped up in misogyny, because being less than masculine has been, historically, frowned upon.

On a personal note - I don't assume anyone is anything unless they tell me, and even then, who cares? Whatever you are shouldn't be judged in any capacity, and it's a shame that society has always needed to label and 'other' so to make arbitrary hierarchies.

Thankfully, in a society that's increasingly embracing diversity, (believe it or not, we are eons away from where we were even ten-fifteen years ago) the idea that this is even a conversation to be had is kind of ridiculous.

I think one of the major issues now with trying to label something as passing or not is that you're trying to force some heteronormative bullshit onto queer characters. It's like saying Kurt is the 'girl' and Blaine is the 'boy', and in that capacity - yes it is fucked up, and there's no reason to labeling them that way.

And, I suppose as an aside, while Kurt started the show as more effeminate and Blaine started the show more masculine, by the time they settled into who the characters were they were pretty even. I do think that -- without having any context or knowledge of him - at the beginning Blaine could 'pass' but what is even the point of acknowledging that? And while I do think there's an interesting story from Blaine's POV about a kid who really wants to express his queerness in a world that may not take that queerness seriously, I don't think Glee was all that nuanced at handling that kind of story.

The conversation Glee was trying to have about Kurt and Blaine and the whole passing/not passing thing is honestly stupid on a lot of levels. It was a way to place conflict between them by having a competition. And while I'm sure Ryan Murphy's generation did have to handle some of those society issues, and yes I think passing/not passing is a part of queer history, I don't think the story line worked in the show.

Even beyond the ridiculousness of trying to measure identifiable queerness as a way to say that one type of gay was better than the other (blech on so many levels) the show was trying to use it as a way to say that one's acting ability was better than the other. Which... just gives me a headache. The whole point of acting is to be someone you're not. And a good actor isn't going to play themselves on stage.

The whole story line is just a mess -- just another reason why early Season 3 kinda sucked.

Hey, no disrespect intended and I'm honestly curious. You said something in your post about CC's latest smut fic about the way straight women write gay sex. What specifically do you have against the whole "slash" culture? Is it just the fetishization or is there something more? Thanks.

(in reference to this post)

I don’t have anything against slash culture as a whole; I just have issues with some of the tropes that it has popularized. I’m not going to talk here about tropes that are part of fanfic culture as a whole (like the OTP’s first time having sex being perfect and amazing and flawless) because it’s not relevant.

But as for the tropes specific to slash culture, my issue with most of them is that we’re dealing with pairings of two men (usually cis men) written predominantly by cis straight women. And…well, I guess bullet points will keep things semi-organized, so let’s do that.

The writers are informed almost entirely by porn (either other fanfics or just regular old video porn). As a result, there are things that ring false about the sex aspect of these fics. I would assume some of this isn’t 100% specific to slash culture and more to do with writing from the perspective of someone else’s body. For instance with CC, I had the same issue with descriptions of sex from Jem’s PoV in After the Bridge.

Some other tropes are completely inherent to slash culture because of the specificities of gay sex. Things like focusing almost entirely on anal sex and ignoring every…difficulty that that implies. Which pulls me out of the story if it gets too unrealistic, but also, when it gets so overwhelming across many fics…we get to the next point.

There’s a huge slice of slash fiction that feels like it’s actively trying to erase the gay from it. The PoV ends up reading a lot more like an author self-insert and a female character with he/him pronouns than a man. Which I realize becomes close to a can of worms with effeminophobia in the queer male community, but…let’s just say there’s a difference between an effeminate gay character written by someone who isn’t a straight woman (or a straight man), and a gay character who reads like a straight woman in male clothing. It’s hard for me to articulate what it is, especially since it’s been a few years since I consumed fanfiction on a large enough scale to deal with those fics (nowadays I read way less fic and so when I see signs of that I just…move on to something else). But it exists.

This ties us back on the focus on penetrative (anal) sex in slash, as the closest thing to…well, straight sex (specifically penetrative vaginal sex, i.e. what most straight people think of as the only sexual act or the only “real” sexual act).

On a non-sexual end of things, this also translates into issues with portraying people’s relationship with queer sexuality, whether it’s the main characters’ dealing with their own sexuality, or other people’s reaction to it. Homophobia is either erased or portrayed in ways that, once again, ring false, and make it feel like it was included for the sake of “accuracy” without any research.

Note that this self-insert aspect is part of the appeal for straight women. The biggest defense of slash is that it’s a safe space for women to explore their sexuality, and while I think that’s a flawed argument (erasing oneself entirely from that exploration will only take you so far), I do think it’s still valid and that women do need this safe space. I am talking about my issues, as a queer man, that the such a big place (arguably the biggest) for fiction focused on queer men erasing its own queerness.

I would also conclude by mentioning that I am very specifically talking about straight women writing slash. In my experience, queer women write slash in a way that is very different and much more empathetic. Plus, there are exceptions, I’m talking trends here.

Hopefully that makes sense and I didn’t forget an important point here.