#ahritext

Fetishizing isn’t about simply enjoying the chemistry between two guys, supporting mlm, or watching a show that happens to have mlm in it. Whenever mlm ask to not be fetishized, this is almost always how “fetishized” is redefined- something safe/harmless. Redefining fetishization like this makes mlm out to be ridiculous for pointing out our issues with the homophobic ways our relationships and identities are viewed. It makes fetishization out to not only be normal, but an ideal to reach to support mlm and impossible to criticize. 

But that’s not what fetishization is. Fetishization is dehumanizing. It’s breaking our existence down into something purely sexual, something for entertainment, and further dehumanizes us by representing us as harmful, predatory, abusive, homophobic stereotypes. It breaks us down as flat characters to play with, to paint us as abusive or abused for ~the drama~, and forgets or purposefully ignores how we’re real people with real lives and feelings who are hurt by these depictions and this treatment. 

Growing up seeing this fetishization is damaging to mlm. Most popularized mlm content isn’t written by us or for us and instead written by and for outsiders who forget that we’re real people instead of characters and try and mold mlm relationships into roles we don’t fit.

Straight people who do this treat us as a man and woman instead of as two men for example and it doesn’t make sense. It warps young mlm’s views of themselves and our relationships just as much as it warps others views of us. 

This isn’t to say other groups can’t be fetishized just that we can/are also fetishized

Yes, it’s entirely possible for cishet women to create good mlm content. But... so much of it isn’t bc the content isn’t being created with realism in mind. It isn’t being created after speaking to actual mlm or reading up on our thoughts and experiences, and it’s often depicting our relationships through a cishet lens. It’s created purely with the thought of what would be “cute/sexy/romantic” to the author and their peers and the perception on those ideas changes based on the author’s relationship to the topic. That’s why so much BL/Yaoi/etc created by cishet ppl in general comes off as stereotypes and treats our relationships as if one of us must be “the guy” while the other is “the girl” instead of the reality of us both being men.