writer: this is one of my male characters! he cares about his guy friends and loves them deeply.
tumblr: oh! so he’s gay!
writer: uh…no, he’s attracted to women.
tumblr: ….so he’s bi!
writer: uhh…no…….he loves his guy friends but he’s not romantically/sexually attracted to them.
tumblr: ….so you’re homophobic.
writer:
Healthy male friendships are almost as rare in mainstream fiction as gay male relationships, and maybe more rare in fanfiction. Let men be wonderful friends without pushing a romantic relationship, just like men and women should be able to be wonderful friends without the pressure of a romantic relationship.
*AGGRESSIVELY SLAMS REBLOG UNTIL I DIE*
This is literally the reason men are so terrified of being open about loving each other platonically, because they don’t want people to assume they’re gay just because they can be supportive of their fucking friends
Saw this and right away wanted to give my two cents. (Disclaimer: I’m Pan/Cis)
Friendship, regardless of gender and sexual orientation, is a powerful thing. A very, very powerful thing.
I have been extremely fortunate to have the best damn friends a guy could ask for. I’ve full faith in saying were it not for my friends, I literally wouldn’t be sitting here typing this right now.
In the case of male-male friendship, I have three close personal friends I have literally grown up with my entire life. They are the closest thing I have to brothers, and each of them take a very large space in my heart.
These friends helped me crawl out of a bottle. They helped me put away drugs for good. They did all of this not out of sexual attraction or romance, but out of a genuine need to help someone they loved as family.
I’ve no qualms about saying I’d lay my life down to protect theirs. Though they’d certainly give me hell if they read that, and say something to the effect of “c’mon man, we’d all go out together”.
“As family.”
“As brothers”.
I find it ironic that Tumblr talks so much about toxic masculinity (which is very fucking real), and then turns around and tells creators “This ship, which is just a head canon of mine, is REAL”. Because despite what you think you’re doing, you’re using the exact same tactics as the very people you despise.
When it comes to cis-masculinity especially, there’s two sides to the experience. There’s the surface layer, and the one below that. A lot of men are told they shouldn’t show emotion, that they shouldn’t do certain things “because that’s gay” or “that’s girly”. So it gets pushed down while we build this facade on the top layer just to survive society.
You’ve heard all this before, I know.
But now is when I feel a need to quote something Hunter S. Thompson said. This came from an interview where he was asked about his time on the road with the hell’s angels-He said something to the effect of the Hell’s Angel’s being a group of men who society had boxed, forced into a corner. It made them have “a building anger inside” that needed to be addressed.
I feel that quote, because those close male friends saved me from it.
We all had our surface layers-but there was the part beneath it, where we were still just boys and afraid. We were all suffering in our own way, with no way to let it out, and no one to turn to except each other. We were very fucking fortunate to have each other to confide in.
Because if we hadn’t, I can only imagine how much that anger would have built now that we’re all approaching 30. An anger and inner despair that, without each other, would have only had mainstream society to feed off of.
You want strong, dynamic characters? You want stories that are true to life? You want mature plot lines that involve real social dynamics?
Let people have their friends.
Because sometimes, that’s all the hell that’s keeping us alive and sane.
fadeslikewhispers 