Some GO fans: Neil Gaiman not writing Aziraphale and Crowley as explicitly male and sexual is queer baiting and homophobic 😡😡😡

Fans who are asexual, nonbinary, agender, etc: well I guess we should just jump in a fucking volcano then

It's great that people would be okay with whatever their bond is but i honestly don't think i would :/ i've thought about it a few times and as lgbt i know i would be very disappointed of them doing things that very ""gay"" just for giggles and shit. and yes, they do know what they're doing. whether is real or not, they know exactly what it looks like. all of bts do. and this is something that's just in my head. jin said once somewhere "not like lovers" or something like when one of the others +

hugged him from the back in a photoshoot; so they know what their actions may come across. im sorry and maybe im way too strict with stuff like that, it's just that as a lesbian i cant come out to my family and lgbt people die and get beaten everyday around the world for the same things they could be laughing/playing around with. i dont think i would HATE them but i for sure wouldnt take them seriously anymore, not as a couple and i would probably lose a bit of respect for them individually. that aside, i think the whole "support" them thing it's actually meant romantically. like, if they're not a couple then there's nothing to support. you just bias them individually. i wanted to say also that i had wandered a little into the kpop world and the fetishization made me go back the way i came in the blink of an eye. i hate when girl members do this, too. i know there's a fair amount of kpop boys and girls who are lgbt, but there's also a lot of str8s who act like being gay is for show.

Okay this is going to be a bit of a long one because it’s a complicated subject and I don’t want to word something incorrectly. 

I understand your gut reaction completely, but I think there’s a layer to my statement you might not have understood, because it’s something I’m always a bit vague about/hesitant to speak on for fear of backlash, so I’m probably at fault for this misunderstanding. I’m just going to say how I feel about Jikook, no euphemisms or beating around the bush. 

A) Yes, fanservice culture is fetishization and I agree with your reservations about it completely. I spoke on my feelings about it here.

B) I think it’s pretty undeniable that Jimin and Jungkook have an extremely intimate relationship. It’s not really up for debate. 

A moment like this doesn’t happen without an immense amount of established physical and emotional intimacy. This isn’t phony. Jungkook wouldn’t have done this in front of thousands of people (knowing it was being recorded by hundreds for millions to see) if he wasn’t already in a space with Jimin where this was an acceptable form of comfort and affection. With a few exceptions, I think most of us can agree that this isn’t regular behavior between friends, or even family. It’s something (typically) reserved for lovers. It’s not my place to say what they are to each other, but this does not fall under normal standards for Korean skinship. 

So with all this being said, I think that it’s pretty clear that what we’re supporting is ‘real’, though I hate to use the term because it implies that other relationships between members aren’t real or genuine, which is not what I mean.  What I mean is that we chose to support Jikook because we saw REAL interactions there that don’t fall in line with typical ‘friend’ behavior, and we want to support this. 

When I say that if Jikook end up dating other people, we should support them anyway, it’s not because I don’t think what they have is special or tangible or ‘real’ in my eyes. But rather because they’re in a really complicated situation with a 1000 more variables in their relationship than even normal, non celebrity people have to deal with. Whether they’re just extremely intimate friends or more, they aren’t faking this for fanservice. It’s genuine interaction. As you said yourself, it’s one of the things that makes BTS stand out from your regular Kpop group. They don’t fake shit for fanservice, they embellish what’s already there. 

And I’m sorry, but the example I showed above may have started as fanservice, but it evolved into something beyond fanservice halfway through. 

My point about them having variables is that though clearly their relationship is extremely special and unique and full of love, they themselves are in a tough situation. You mention being a lesbian and not being able to come out, and how people around the world are attacked and murdered for being gay, and fanservice feels like a mockery to you. But remember- they live in this same harsh world we do. They live in South Korea, where being gay is still very much a taboo topic and by no means accepted by the general public. Gay marriage is not legal for them, there’s been almost no REAL representation in the media until extremely recently, and this is the culture they grew up in. Knowing what we know about their relationship, they’re in the same boat as you. They, if they are gay, can’t come out- they’re South Korea’s pride- they represent the entire country internationally. The amount of pressure on their shoulders is unimaginable. They are expected to be perfect, by Korea’s standards. Being gay does not fall within those standards. Remember a few months ago when Jungkook got into a minor fender bender? Somehow it became a national scandal. A minor mishap that a majority of the human population will go through at some point in their lives was blown up into a huge event and the public ripped him to shreds for it, trying to unearth every little detail and form it into a scandal. Now imagine if it was about their sexualities. 

I think you know just as well as I do that Jungkook and Jimin’s interactions aren’t laughing and playing around with LGBT culture. There’s certainly problematic aspects to idol culture and it’s fetishization of LGBT people, but what they show us, I perceive as genuine. Whether or not they other come out as anything, or let us in on their private lives during this time period in retrospect, I think we can trust them to not have disrespected us in such a thoughtless way. Jungkook especially has proven to be a huge supporter of LGBT culture and artists. I don’t think he takes our lives as a joke.

If they end up dating other people, it could be for a multitude of reasons. Maybe they were always just extremely intimate friends, and had an agreement they could date whoever they wanted. Maybe they were friends with benefits, and again, agreed to date freely outside of this. Maybe they are in a defined relationship, and won’t date other people unless they break up. Maybe they fulfill all the actions of a defined relationship without the label, and things are uncertain between the pair even now. There’s sooo many variables and soo many ways the future could turn out. It’s impossible to know from the outside looking in.

Either way, my extremely long-winded point is that regardless of the future, Jungkook and Jimin’s actions aren’t here to make a mockery of LGBT people and queerbait. They don’t do that, and I’d like to believe they respect us as fans more than that. The way they act is genuine; there’s no faking the amount of intimacy and love they’ve shown towards each other for the camera to the extent that they have, for the amount of time that they have. 

If they date other people in the future, it doesn’t detract from the depth and meaning behind their relationship now, no matter the label. 

If you’ve made it this far, thanks for reading.