Czar's Arcane Page

"No, I mean-"

Oh, maybe the woman who had to pee in a public park that only had pay toilets, so she tried to hide behind the bushes but got caught? Public urination is a sex crime.

"What? No, I mean-"

Oh, maybe you mean the homeless guy who had to strip down to get his clothes in the laundromat to clean them for the first time in weeks? He tried being subtle, but someone called the cops on him, and now he's on the sex offender registry for public nudity.

"Rapists and pedophiles! Kill rapists and pedophiles!"

Oh, like the trans woman who got called a pedophile groomer for helping a trans kid escape her abusive parents?

Or maybe the black man who got labeled a rapist because he came on to another man's wife, and he decided to get back at him by charging him with rape?

How about the 17 year olds who were fooling around, fully consensually, in one of their bedrooms? That's still technically underage sex and thus rape of a minor.

Oh, or maybe you're talking about the doctor who performed genital reconstructive surgery in a state that just voted to get that classified as rape?

People will do everything they can to get you convinced rape and pedophilia are the worst crimes possible, then accuse whoever they like the least of being either a rapist, a pedophile, or both, counting on you turning on them just for being accused of the crime.

"Oh, so you're saying you don't want to kill a serial rapist?"

That's exactly what I'm goddamn saying.

Once we decide a group is okay to kill, the government will do everything they can to convince you that their political enemies are either part of that group, or just as bad as that group, to get you to kill their enemies for them.

"What if they were in a p*ly relationship."

"What if they were in a p*ly relationship."

I think the over sanitation of the internet is doing similar things to people's psyche.

Queerbaiting is a marketing technique for fiction and entertainment in which creators hint at, but do not depict, same-sex romance or other LGBTQ+ representation. The purpose of this method is to attract ("bait") a queer or straight ally audience with the suggestion or possibility of relationships or characters that appeal to them, while not alienating homophobic members of the audience or censors by actually portraying queer relationships.

it is a marketing technique where queer people/romances are not depicted, in order to keep queer folks watching, but also not scare away homophobes.

I am posting this now, because I am seeing people state that stranger things engaged in queerbaiting due to mike being ostensibly straight, and thus byler not being canon. and I feel compelled to state: will is given a boyfriend in the finale. he comes out twice. robin exists, came out in season 3, and has a girlfriend; we get scenes of them kissing and being very sweet together.

not to mention, will being gay has been implied since season 1, and it's also been implied that his mom knows and doesn't care since the first episode of the show. and the people using homophobic slurs are consistently framed as in the wrong. this is just not the work of people who are concerned with losing homophobic audiences. just because a popular fan ship was not canon, and and a crush was not reciprocated, does not make it queerbaiting.

I've seen this same mentality in fandom dozens of times. I remember it most vividly from my days in the supergirl fandom, where people claimed it was queerbaiting the kara was not shown to be queer. it's important to note that in season 2, kara's sister, another main character, came out and started dating women!

and I would be remiss not to mention that I am damn sure part of the reason for the outcry was because the main ship with kara was another white woman, wheras everyone alex has dated has been a woman of color. and I would be remiss not to mention how much of a focus is being put on mike not being queer when robin (a woman) is a main character who is canonically a lesbian.

there are threads of racism and misogyny at play here, in addition to the misrepresentation of the term queerbaiting.

Trans people are no longer allowed to leave the country.

Being queer in public is being labeled as a sexual offense against children + the right is pushing for the death penalty regarding child sex offenders.

The whole "Oh look at Africa" is very often entirely made of racism, like, the homophobic laws are imported from Britain, it's remnants of colonisation from the very people who use it to justify an entire continent being more bigoted than they are. But guess who's to blame for a good chunk of it.?!