her,,, expolde
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sex, discussion of brainworms
Reading the same romance novels that cishet women read has completely eliminated any lingering concerns I had about autogynephilia. I don’t even mean cis lesbians, I’m talking about books written by and for cishet women.
Here’s a list of some of the things I’ve seen. Keep in mind that this isn’t some niche thing, this all from mainstream, lowest common denominator trash
(because I’m a basic bitch with no taste)As it turns out, wanting to feel sexy and desirable and having that as a turn-on is incredibly normal and common among cis women. Finding yourself attractive is seen as a sign of confidence and self-love, as it should be. “Autogynephilia” is really just another attempt by patriarchal society to pathologize and stigmatize female sexuality. It’s the same phenomenon of men objectifying women, and then, fearing the power their desire gives women over them and seeking to maintain their dominance over women in a kind of Hegelian master-slave dialect, respond by demonizing women who take agency in their sexuality: women are to be pure and passive recipients of the sexual desires of men, and women who don’t play along, and especially wlw who find sexual fulfillment without men, are demonized as unnatural, “crazy”, predatory, and fallen. Blanchard basically just projected his madonna-whore complex onto a group of women marginalized enough for him to get away with it despite his pathetic transparency.
Yes, this has always been the way. It's a condemnation of the brainworms that the guy didn't understand or deliberately ignored this. It's very fucking silly. Bro trying to invent new forms of shame. Serano speaks of this. Good post.
Yeah when you start thinking about it it’s incredible how blatant he is about this and how little he seems to understand women. Like, he and Bailey just showed their whole entire asses and became respected academics because of it
I mean they're basically discredited now fwiw? But yeah super pathetic. Actually reading Bailey's book will put pay to ideas of academic credibility though lol
sex
Somewhat relatedly, another thing romance novels have helped me is the concern that I’ve gaslit myself into thinking I liked men because they make me feel more feminine in contrast. As it turns out, cishet women also find that appealing
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Okay wait this one is new to me, real?
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Yep, it’s pretty common actually. It turns out that gender validation is just all-round an important part of sex and intimacy for cis people as well as trans people
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Hmmmm... I suppose as long as it's not the only thing attracting someone to men it's cool and good? I usually see it as 'weh I don't like men BUT' so I'm biased. Makes sense tho.
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Yeah I think it usually just plays a role in preferring masc men or is kind of a nice bonus to already being into men, but it’s always been an anxiety of mine that the only reason I like men is gender validation (and it kind of still is tbh) so seeing that cishet women can also get gender validation from being with men and still genuinely like men was reassuring
That said I’m still not convinced heterosexuality isn’t just a massive oppositional-sexism-based scheme for gender validation
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Yeah that is really cool, I like that. Big fan of this discovery tbh!!
I thought this post was going to go somewhere very different. You right, tho.
I've never liked romance in movies at all. I find every romance in whatever media to be a huge drag. I never wanted to "get the girl" in video games. I always found it to be a huge waste of time.
I've only now recognized I just don't have any interest in cis het romance. If it's two women, I want them to be together so bad. I was so happy when the romance unfolded in She Loves to Cook and She Loves to Eat.
Edit: arguing online makes me anxious. The following thread has been redacted. Thank you for your continued queerness.
A lot of lesbian stuff in the mainstream is male gazey and off putting. I avoid most romance in films because it's not for me. Books however it can vary a lot, I only read queer stuff, I have no interest in cis.
Games are mainly made for allosexuals and the writing tends to not be great in a lot of them so I avoid those too.
Yeah, the queer stuff is where it's at
No film afaik has ever had a good romance, especially in mainstream film it's all trash
Viddyjaems are even worse for this
AS WE CAN SEE FROM THE HEALTHY MIND,
Anyway are we talking like Danielle Steele, Nora Roberts type stuff? Or more like Tessa Bailey, Sarah J Maas, Penelope Douglas stuff? Many shades of "cishet woman targeted" romance.
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Nah, it's just "sickening" lol
Oh okay, it's the "weh dark romance is PROBLEMATIC!" bit, I see. Otome games I haven't engaged with (becaus they are all straight) but it doesn't sound like it's much different from the novels I'm aware of honestly.
This bit should have died on reddit.
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Yes, because in the context of romance, fiction broadly, people often use it as a sort of safe environment to engage with kink, be it stuff they would wanna do irl or stuff they would never consider doing, because it isn't safe for them or the social dynamics involved would be scuffed, whatever. I hope rtstragedy doesn't mind me pointing to our chat here about this very subject. There's nothing wrong with engaging "problematic" topics in a healthy way in fiction. Some people have consent-nonconsent kinks, is that "problematic"?
It's a reddit meme because the "hurr romance novel [or equivalent] is bad" is a misogynist meme, one that goes back way further than Twilight hate even. It's part of a common societal trend of just hating everything young women (or just women honestly) like without even thinking about it, and as a previous member of romance communities and something of an enthusiast, I know this sort of "well-meaning concern" about women choosing to engage with dark romances that feature "problematic" elements.
This meme should have died on reddit. Obviously care should be taken when putting this kinda stuff in a story, but I would notjust blanketly calling it all out as "problematic".
E: sorry kind of rude of me
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Okay...
Uh, Idk if there is one. From what I observed in those circles, it seems like this stuff makes it into novels, VNs, stuff because the readerbase wants it there. Most often the books are written by women for women, and in these the perspective I would figure is usually following the female protagonist, the focus is on her, whereas if shit's genuinely misogynistically like "heheheh kidnapping women is cool" the woman will also often be reduced to an object by like, narration, perspective. There is quite probably a line where "safe fantasy" ends and it becomes troublesome, fwiw. Yoi'd have to dig in to examine that more thoroughly, and uh cishets lmao.
Sounds like typical anime problems to me
which sucks but "anime" as a category is so hopelessly caught up on its tropes, make a drinking game out of every time a "slice of life" anime has a 16 year old highschool girl as a protagonist, it's lame. It would probably pay to look at VNs outside of the Otome Game category for that, although it also could be female players flock to these things simply because all other VNs are malecentric dating sims lol.
Also I do think all male power fantasies are bad
show me a transmasc t4t power fantasy and maybe I'll reconsider!!
Why don't you like those tropes? Do you know if she likes them?
I guess I prefer main characters to have active roles. The role of these MCs are generally passive and they have people act around them or in their name.
Sure she likes them, that's why she plays them! I mean, the love interests constantly fight over the MC, and I can imagine that makes you feel good. Of course, any kidnapping or threat of SA is followed by being rescued by a love interest. Again, not my thing, but I can easily see why someone would be into that.
Like you can see in my response to Ash, I'm really more hung up on the lack of diversity in the storytelling because it seems like in these games with like 12 love interests, they each treat the MC the same way.
Yeah some of this stuff is quite, uh, something
the cisses are in fact, not okay.
Yeah, over something so stupid -_- sometimes for hours or even days.
So weird because it doesn't happen irl. I just don't have poster's blood
Well I'm genuinely glad we both have it at least, we can suffer together ✨
GOOD post thank you. this feels like one worth saving to read a few times. thank you for your research.
It was hard, selfless work reading through all those smutty romance novels, but somehow I managed