oh.

why the Corinthian is like that.

and it’s brilliant! it’s really cool. so in a series absolutely crammed full of very realistic queer representation– lesbians and bisexuals and trans people of all kinds!– you have morpheus stating outright that nightmares are meant to teach and challenge dreamers, by bringing subconscious fears to light, where they can be faced and overcome.

and the Corinthian has mouths for eyes. he devours eyes. he eats what people use to look at him like that, and what he used to look at people consumes them.

and he’s gay, he is a creature made by and for gay men, by personal preference all his victims are gay men, and being gay can be fucking terrifying. his eyes are mouths that eat those eyes that don’t look away from him in time, because he is the absolute mortal terror of knowing that the gender you’re attracted to–your own gender!–is extremely likely to kill you for looking at them. decades, centuries, of men looking at men and knowing this could kill them. eyes meeting eyes and wondering if this ends with the man you can’t stop looking at coming and kissing you or coming and killing you. in the eighties there was AIDS and there were more queers than ever coming out and saying ‘no, we’re here, look at us, we’re dying, look at us, we’re alive anyway, look at us.’

you’re gay in a world where that’s not okay. do you close your eyes? do you pull them out? you like to look at men. you can’t stop looking at men. you love them and they scare the hell out of you. some of them might love you. some of them will kill you. you keep looking. who’s looking back at you? can you survive it?

like I've been seeing the word “sexualization” tossed around to mean sexual attraction and framed as a bad and disrespectful, bordering on nonconsensual, thing.

recently in a sapphic group I’m in, a teenage lesbian mentioned that she’s attracted to her friend and and keeps getting distracted by her boobs. she was immediately dragged by dozens of grown ass adults telling her this was gross and inappropriate

it would have been one thing to tell her not to stare (she already wasn’t tho tbh), but the general gist of the comments was that seeing someone’s body and feeling attraction is *inherently* inappropriate and unethical

it’s totally fine to be attracted to someone. and you know what, a lot of people like boobs and that’s also fine

basically i just keep seeing stuff cropping up in the queer community with the message that sexual (and i guess now romantic?) desire is bad

and that’s uhhh what’s the word, fucked

on the other hand people are chill with tinder and hooking up and there are a ton of “normalize having sex with your friends!!” posts

people are cool with sex but they are not ok with desire

tinder, i think, feels fine because it’s really not about attraction. it’s about fulfilling a general need for sex and isn’t about the person at all.

being attracted to someone, though — looking at or thinking about a specific person who’s already in your life and wanting to have sex with them — that’s what it seems a lot of people aren’t ok with

there’s a level on which i get it. the person is just existing, they didn’t specifically and intentionally put themselves in a space for sexuality like tinder

but, y’all.

this is how attraction works. you spend time with people, you do things alongside them, you get to know them… and maybe you start thinking they’re hot. maybe you want to fuck them or kiss them. this is literally so totally fucking fine.

the thing that’s disrespectful is when you actually do shitty stuff! don’t say vulgar things to them. respect their boundaries. don’t make them uncomfortable. if you approach them for sex or dating and they say no, accept that. etc