#mlm fetishization

The Venn diagram of the people that hate that Bridgerton will have a sapphic season and the people that calls fictional gay men couples their "boyfriends" and wish they could be in the room where it happens.... is a circle.

Sometimes I forget like… queer media is so different for me as a trans bi guy vs for example: cis women. Like why do so many of them reduce mlm to “oh it’s hot” yeah sorry that’s actually just fetishization. For me, mlm ships and fanfics were the first places I really explored my gender because I even realized I was trans. These fics and pairings meant a lot to me because I wished in my romantic relationships, I could be seen like the guys in those stories. I wanted my attraction to men to read as gay, not straight, bc even though I’m not perceived as a man, I am one. So fic was a way to experience that when I wasn’t irl. It helped me live something I still fear I’ll never get to experience due to transphobia. Idk the way cis women are about mlm ships is reallllyyyyy eating at me it’s really annoying see comments about how they want two bfs and then the bfs can be with each other or that it’s hot men when kiss. This stuff has always been so much deeper than that for me. Any of the parings I’ve liked it’s because I relate and really like the dynamic. It’s not even a sex thing. I guess it just feels disheartening to hear cis women talk about a really impactful queer ship and reduce it to how hot they find it.

When people criticize the fetishization of MLM, a frequent defense is saying that it's not like other fetishization of minorities because "It has no real world effect, it'd just women enjoying fiction, why are you policing what women can enjoy?" And what I have to say to that is that is factually incorrect. A quick google search reveals stories of women harrassing gay men because they feel a sense of entitlement and believe they cannot cause real harm, (an interlinked phenomena with gay men harrassing women for similar reasons). When looking at these stories, it becomes clear that the fetishization of gay men isn't just online or fictional behaviour that doesn't affect people, it unsurprisingly has the same objectifying and dehumanizing effects as fetishization against any other group and must therefore be treated with the same level of seriousness.

Literal women in fandoms would rather ship two brothers before they shipped two women that's how deep mlm fetishization and indifference towards women and lesbians is in fandom culture