idk how to tell some of y’all this but those posts like  “male friendships are more important representation than m/m relationships, let men be friends without making it gay!!”  are garbage.  they’re absolute dogshit.

we already have a massive amount of male friendships represented in media where infact not only the fandom denies people their inclination to ship them romantically, but the creator themselves often gets mad if people do.

you know what we actually don’t have a lot of?  m/f friendships presented Without Any Implication of attraction between them.  just.  men and women being friends.  we don’t have much of that.  if you want to push the importance of romanceless friendships but you’re somehow perfectly okay with the gross idea that men and women who are friends are always .02 seconds away from fucking, and it’s only  “friendships being read as gay”  that you criticize  …  eugh.

we don’t have a lot of m/m relationships presented in a healthy, loving context either.  not well written and dynamic ones, at least.

prioritizing the narrative of male friendship, as well, as being  “stop saying they’re gay, they can be straight and still be affectionate!”  is garbage.  prioritizing straight men over gay and bi men in any context is garbage but especially this one.  

( straight men hate being perceived as gay in friendships because of homophobia.  straight men do not need their homophobia validated in order for you to spread positivity about m/m friendships and mlm do not need their attraction to men invalidated when you do so either.  i feel like that should be obvious.  apparently it isn’t.  or it’s almost like the message was homophobic the entire time and never actually had much to do with male friendships at all.  pick a card. )

but okay, so.  let’s assume the best case scenario;  let’s say you just don’t ship them and you only want them to be friends  —  cool!  fine!  but why does that mean they can’t like men, as individuals?  you know us gay and bi men can  …  be friends with each other, right?  you know the character can still like men and you don’t have to take that away from us or erase a male friendship just because you don’t ship it?  like you know they can be gay and also friends, right.  do you know that?

tacking  “not everything has to be gay”  onto  “we need more male friendships represented in media”  is the biggest red fucking flag in the world for these reasons because like  …  one, we really don’t.  and two, the fact that your actual goal is to adamantly deny gay and bi men their right to see themselves represented through their favorite characters  —  and, yes, through the relationships those characters have to other characters  —  is perfectly standalone.  your support of straight men whilst robbing gay men of the confidence to represent themselves is standalone.  your hatred of m/m relationships being romantic and sexual in nature is standalone.

you’re hiding blatant, ugly homophobia under the most thinly veiled Progressive Statement™️ ever and as a gay dude I’m Not Having It.