Almost Exclusively Dimension 20 Content It Seems

"The sex tells the story, so it never felt gratuitous to me. The sex is character development. The sex is what is moving this relationship forward, and watching it change over time."

Hudson Williams, #1 Shane Understander

I think Shane was a character who, soon as I read him, made all the sense to me. I felt immediately a kinship and an ownership over Shane. I was like, “I need to be the only person to tell this story. I get it. I want to be the person to be Shane and I want to spend time with him.” [x]

(sources below)

I'm a lesbian and in late adolescence when I identified as bisexual I had sex with my boyfriend regularly during our three year relationship. It was dissociated, its was repression, and I had no idea even though I thought I had accepted my queerness. Yes it was technically consensual, which makes it even more confusing to parse out later down the line why it affected me so much. Why years later I had dreams where I would still be dating this ex-boyfriend and he would try to initiate sex and I would feel so uncomfortable and trapped (something I did not consciously feel when we did have sex in the relationship). Why I felt so separated from my ability to feel sexual attraction for so long. There is no one to blame, at which point it becomes difficult not to blame yourself.

I assumed I was straight in high school, was enthusiastically and obliviously performative about liking boys, and it wasn’t until my gap year that I got an actual crush on a woman. I had no issue accepting I was queer! But it didn’t occur to me for a single second that I might prefer women, or indeed not actually be into men at all. I identified as pan and then bi for almost a decade and for a long time I did not in any way pursue women because I was firmly convinced none of my ‘firsts’ counted unless they were with a man. I was forcing myself to go on dates with guys, nauseous with anxiety, and then I was always so awkward it never went anywhere. I didn’t have sex until my mid 20s. It was… fine. He was gorgeous and lovely and respectful. I didn’t want to do it again.

I didn’t start dating/sleeping with women until my late 20s and then I had my lightbulb moment. Ever since, I’ve identified as gay. Looking back it’s so obvious I was always lying to myself about being romantically or sexually interested in men, but at the time I was so lost in the comphet sauce that I wasn’t even in denial. It truly just didn’t enter my mind that I might not be into guys. Not because I thought there was anything wrong with being gay, but because it was so ingrained in my mind that I had to be attracted to men.

Obviously compounded when you have intersecting identities that bear the weight of oppression, which additionally informs your sexual identity and expression or how much ‘out of the norm’ behavior will be tolerated compared to others.

Just like we see with Shane struggling being the model minority Asian man in the league, and the praise the series gets going against stereotypes having a masculine gay Asian man at the center of the story.

Just like we see with Ilya being an immigrant where its illegal to be gay and his family is full of cops. I wouldn’t be surprised if Ilya believed the people who are meant to love him most would have killed him had they known what he was doing. Sure he can accept having sex with men in secret but he can’t let himself be emotionally vulnerable and believe he could have a life with Shane because that road is extremely fucking dangerous.

Game Changer participants proceed to walk straight into a wall with a black circle painted on.

hey zac, hey ally, wya i just wanna talk