just for clarity, Joe's character in The Warp Effect can be equally (or even more accurately) referred to as a Side, as well as being interpreted as asexual, and neither interpretation invalidates the other. If you felt seen as a Side, that's great! If you're an asexual person who felt equally validated, that's fab! It's not a competition and everything is a spectrum. I have a whole different argument in me with people who want to separate being a Side from being Asexual as if labelling themselves on the ace spectrum makes themselves somehow lesser (and I'm sure plenty of Sides aren't on the ace spectrum at all) but oftentimes I think this argument comes down to a fundamental misunderstanding of what asexuality is, as if all aces are entirely sex repulsed or being on the ace spectrum invalidates your identity as a gay man. We aren't, and it doesn't, and I mean this in the kindest way possible - if you are a Side there is a not-zero possibility that you are on the ace spectrum. I'm not saying you are, I'm just saying not to discount it out of hand because of an assumption of what the label means. You are welcome to disagree with me! But that doesn't invalidate either interpretation of Joe's character - whether Jojo meant it to be ace representation or not, a LOT of ace people felt incredibly seen by and connected to Joe while the series was airing. It's wonderful that different parts of the queer community can have their own interpretations of a character's arc! If anything, we need more characters like that! I hope you're all keeping well and watching gay shows ❤
@@paularoth4915somebody who doesn't like penetration or penetrating. Some people are sexual but don't like bottoming and can't top like Erectile dysfunction, dysphoria for some or don't like the feeling of topping another person. So they both get each off in different ways and get creative. Being a side doesn't mean your asexual but there are some asexuals who like to be sides, just like there's some who like to top or bottom.
@@paularoth4915 i looked it up and it means (someone else feel free to correct me if it's more nuanced than this) that you don't enjoy penetrative sex but may enjoy other sexual activities.
I feel this as a sex-repulsed ace. I don’t get why a sex scene gotta be inserted in an otherwise good movie, when it does nothing for the plot. But that’s just my opinion, and I wouldn’t say such media shouldn’t exist or that the scene gotta be removed just cause I don’t see the point. Others will, it’s for them 🤷🏻♀️
It depends on what it's in and what you mean by effect the plot. But the basic answer is because the "good fags" (an actual political term) are and have been attempting to straight wash queer culture. With all due respect your sex repulsion is your problem and you don't have a right to make it everyone else's problem.
@ville__ yes? Being gay is a choice depending on what you mean. Being culturally queer is a choice just like being culturally straight is a choice. Being attracted to someone of the same gender is as much of a choice as having your natural hair color.
Who would have guessed queer representation would be vast and varied?! Its almost like no queer person is the same, and we actively experience life, love, attraction, and sex differently!? Who knew! Every time I see this discourse I just sigh in resignation as I watch the infighting.
I personally really liked Heartstopper. I remember having moments "Will confessing my feelings ruin this friendship?" and "I really like you and I like kissing, but I'm not ready for more" as a teenager in my first relationship. I found it incredibly endearing and positive to see that feeling represented in a queer love story, ESPECIALLY because queer representation can often be so over sexualized. We need the full spectrum of representation.
Yes! I had such an under-sexualized high school experience, anything sexual just doesn't feel realistic to me. Obviously, I know that's just my experience but I still appreciate that something out there is right for me.
I recently looked up the web comic if there is something new and there is. They are taking little steps. I won't be spoiling it in case someone only watched the show but I would say they just haven't been able to express why they don't feel ready for more, reading comic it makes more sense.
@@Zapporah85Same. I’m pretty sure a lot of my HS friends had had sex, but we never talked about our sex lives and I just didn’t have one. I’m in college and still, many of my friends haven’t had sex. The human experience is so varied.
"We've taught a generation of children that if something makes you feel uncomfortable, it's the thing that is wrong and not your own feelings you need to examine." You've said it there. 👏
Yep art should make the uncomfortable comfortable, vice versa, because art is uniquly qualified to tach toexpand someones perspectives. Alsoyaoi in no worse than anything else i the romance genre, most romence cater to some kind of fetish. Even the sad doctor wholsome caters to that . And that is fine, horny fantasies are ok , even good. And they can be great as wll,such strugons law. not allromance, but most roance,and probably pulp fiction, very very horny. plus hontly yaoi can be pretty great and ust weird experimental. Also yeah people should know its a fantacy and p-rn proably, but if pople know that, yay, and its presentation, if witha caviat,itsstillexposure,if it starts getting people that well gay people eist, still exposue. And if you hate bloody romance tropes, say youhate romance tropes, not the gay erotia ones. yaoi ,sturgons law and that, has really gems that are actually great stories,or very interesting .
@ville__my theory is that anyone who thinks its a choice is secretly a bisexual who just sticks with one gender because they think thats the right thing to do. Do you find men attractive?
@@marocat4749i personally believe fetishisation is a steppingstone towards acceptance, an uncomfortable steppingstone. That being said i firmly believe in fantasy ≠ reality.
@@tikimilliei disagree, cuz for eg there are a lot of people who fetishise lesbians but are still homophobic to actual lesbians that arent like actors acting out lesbianism for the male gaze for eg i think it is for some people but for most who only like a certain people cuz they make them aroused will never really be helpful
I think the important thing about queer representation is specifically the variety. The important thing is that we DON'T just have one kind of representation. I personally will watch almost anything with queer people in it. But people who aren't like that really just have to recognise that they actually don't have to watch stuff that they dont like. And that just because they don't like something doesn't mean it's bad.
I never thought that someone would discuss Heartstopper and BL in the same video, but I’m so glad you did. I’m Thai and love both types of shows, and very disheartened when people criticize BL for being overly sexual when we’re fighting a completely different battle here in regards to LGBTQ rights.
i was just writing this exact comment. i'm not thai, but i really love how many different stories and discussions this genre has been promoting. i think people should go beyond prejudice and language barriers to discover other amazing and diverse stories
I sometimes wanna know who those things are linked so closely since it seems that smut is more often a minor thing to happen in a lot of bls whilst they seem to be more prominent in so much other media including action or horror movies in which relationships aren’t even seen as an important part and no one even thinks about it whilst in bls and other queer media it is apparently to common?
oh yes totally! im filipino and it really does make me sad to see people talk like this. being southeast asian and queer isnt easy and many westerners dont understand that we arent as lucky in some ways
being a sex-repulsed asexual, it has been clear to me for a long time that "something gives me the ick" and "something is morally wrong" are separate things. i didn't realize how many people were conflating those things... EDIT: tipping my hat back to you as one of them nonbinary aroaces
Yes oh my God! It's okay for me to think sex is weird and to not understand why on EARTH people would enjoy any step of it, but obviously billions of people DO, non of us would be here if they didn't! That doesn't invalidate my personal feelings about sex, but it also doesn't invalidate the feelings of people who do like sex. Like, it's PERSONAL FEELINGS, you can't project those onto others and expect them to be a general rule...
Ahh same! Like if a scene makes me uncomfortable, I skip it and enjoy the rest of the show. If there’s a heavy focus on sex, I know I probably won’t relate and I don’t engage. It’s just not for me but someone probably likes it if it’s otherwise good, but that’s not for me to judge.
As someone who is usually very uncomfortable with sex scenes, in any media (related to me being ace, although obviously this is not true for every ace person), you know what I do? I skip them. I don't care that they happened, sometimes I'm even happy because I understand this is good, I just don't want to read or watch them, especially if they are detailed. Why do people care so much?
i am also ace and feel the same way. i generally avoid shows with a lot of sex, but if other people have found that that show brings joy to them, then i think that's great
Yeah that's the very reason I didnt watch game of thrones when it got massive, I knew it would make me feel too uncomfortable, it did, and I stopped watching immediately. Not hard to avoid things you dont like in media.
I'm kinda of the opposite. I'm ace too but I love steamy romances of all orientations. Mostly because for some reason the women written in steamy stuff are usually badasses. Like even if they're the damsel in distress they're still somehow strong. I blame Shelly Laurenston for starting my spicy romance addiction. Her books used to be more simple and very steamy with time her writing has evolved. A lot of world building, found family, family and friends bonds. A lot less sex but much more engaging writing. Till now she's only done f/m stuff.
Oh but I don't like watching steamy stuff. I don't know why. That's just a preference. I rather read it than watch it. And it needs to drive the story, which it very much does in erotic romance. Kinda why I couldn't watch GOT beyond season 1. So much unnecessary nudity.
I hate when people say that heartstopper is “unrealistic” because they don’t have sex. There are as many teenagers, queer or not, who have sex as there are teenagers who don’t. A show doesn’t have to be sexual to be realistic. Did we forget that not everyone has the same experience in life? Just because your teenager experience was sexual, it doesn’t undermine the experience or story of those who wasn’t sexual. Especially because sex, is something that for many people has more to do than just physical. It’s very realistic, from a story prospective that Charlie and Nick aren’t sexual and in the comics they make sexual jokes, they tease each other and talk about it. The show simply covered the earlier part of the story. There are people who want to be sexual with their partners, that doesn’t mean that they would do it immediately. SPOILERS IF YOU HAVEN’T READ THE COMICS: Charlie is a fifteen years old boy who suffers from anorexia, depression, OCD and body dysmorphia with a story of self-harm and a sexual assault in a previous relationship. In the comics it’s even stated that he wants to be sexual with Nick,but he stops himself because: 1: he isn’t sure Nick wants to(and we should have more conversations about consent and pressure) and 2: he stops himself because ashamed of his body and is afraid that Nick would find his body disgusting due to his scars and his body recovering from anorexia. Nick is a seventeen years old boy who just came to the realization of being bisexual, is still slowly getting more comfortable in his sexuality, who is under stress due to the fact that he wants to help his boyfriend but he know that only professionals can do that, has to plan his future and has an homophobic brother. When you take into consideration the story, the characters not having sex makes perfectly sense. Not everyone reacts the same way. Some people may become hyper sexual, some may be sexual with their partners due to the fact they feel safe and want to be close, others may completely close themselves up to that idea. It’s not “purity”. I find it extremely ironic how we always fight people who calls us perverts and accuse us of only being sexual, deviants, beings who only think about that, to then attack pieces of media that rappresents us, for not being sexual. It doesn’t make sense. Straight media is full of different type of contents: sexual, not sexual, explicit, hidden, why do we want to have only one type of media to rappresents us? It’s counterproductive and only feeds that queerphobes that we are sexual beings.
Yes to all of this!! It is a struggle because whenever someone who has only seen the show tells me that heartstopper is “simple”, “wholesome” or “very happy” I want to contradict them and explain, but I would spoil them so I can’t. And it is very difficult, having read the comics and the novellas and solitaire, to have an actual conversation about Heartstopper with people who’ve only watched the show, cause their perspective is very narrow (and rightly so). Can’t wait to see how the conversation evolves once we get to the actually difficult part. If anything, to me Heartstopper is way more realistic than most other shows. The way it portrays mental health, family, different kinds of relationships, communication etc. is literally unprecedented in queer media.
wait not having sex in highschool is unrealistic...? I- I thought sleeping around in highschool was a pipe dream created by teen sitcoms. I'm in my final year of highschool, just about to graduate. All of my friends are either in relationships or have had them in the past yet, none of us have done the mating-like-rabbits shtick. Hell- I've had a boyfriend for seven months now and sex isn't on the brain 😭 (though we have both identified as asexual in the past so maybe we're a special breed). If people think it's abnormal to wait then they've either brainwashed themselves into thinking highschool is what was shown on Euphoria and Skins or they live surround themselves with different people than I do lmao
i thought it was unrealistic but not because of that. The relationship dynamic was nice but everything outside the main characters felt like a bit of a caricature
I think there is an additional nuance. I agree that two teenage guys filled with hormons and just finding out about their passion for each other should “realistically” do more than only walk hand in hand, or draw harts on their journals. In this sense the story is unrealistic, as are the (thousands) straight versions of it I had to grow with. However adding a degree of realism to the story does not necessarily mean that it needs to be sexually explicit. I don’t need to “see” them being horny in order to convey the message that such a relationship creates a need for intimacy or a physical response.
Red white and royal blue GENUINELY caught me off guard. At first, I thought it was gonna be a Hallmark-esque floofy romcom, but seeing the two himbos get their freak on in multiple scenes was a surprise to say the least. That and seeing Uma Thurman as the president of the United States.
I think one of the main issues for me, as a queer Asian person, is just this inherent comparison between Western versus Eastern queer representation. The immediate supposition of "BL is fetishistic and problematic" is a gross overstatement of the genre, and the things that Oseman said a few years back refusing to associate Heartstopper with "nasty" Japanese BL manga has stayed with me since I saw it. It establishes this inherent superiority complex in, from what I've seen, a lot of fans of Western queer media who ignore the complexities and histories and realities of the genre as well as the fans of Eastern queer media who often don't have the same privileges of safe spaces, especially when they then also turn a blind eye to issues that exist in their supposedly morally superior Western media and fandoms. The "discourse" I see that platforms Western queer media while bringing down Eastern queer media (such as the tweet that resurfaced about Heartstopper versus Danmei a month ago) is covertly racist and extremely reductive, lacking the nuance to examine what's actually "fetishistic" nor the complex dynamics that surround marginalities. It's so frustrating to see so many talking down from their falsely established moral high ground without actually engaging in constructive discourse on what is "good" representation. No queer person, no queer media, no queer community is a monolith; the complete absence of media literacy in online spaces these past few years has been extremely damaging to internalized attitudes about queerness.
I believe yaoi is written for and by _mostly_ women; hence it's called fetishistic, while it's counterpart, bara, is written for and by _mostly_ gay men and portrays gay men more realistically. How much either is or isn't fetish-y is something I can't comment on since I don't read BL, but I thought this was worth mentioning, as Oseman could've been referencing the former?-which definitely is a lot of times written with the bias of the female gaze. She could've been just trying to set her work apart from those which appeal sexually, and not calling all Eastern queer representation bad. Absolutely do correct me if I'm wrong, though.
@@lucticideMost of this comment is wrong, I have a myriad of gay men who are yaoi authors and ALSO what is the difference between Alice Oseman and other non-men creating queer media? Is it only okay that a non-man does ot when they're Alice? Are queer Asian women and non-men chopped liver? You need to unpack a lot of your views on non-western media, and what the word "fetishize" also means, cause just because you're not from the group you're talking about doesn't immediately mean it is fetishized, I have seen western media ACTUALLY fetishize gay men and lesbian women just as much cause it's not a women problem or an Asian problem, but an issue with your lack of respect for the queer community. Furthermore, the bara comment is wrong, all genders draw bara but I see even more women than men do it tbh. Your comment really does show that you do not read BL or yaoi and yet you have so many wrong notions and ideas of it and still repeat them as if they were fact.
totally agree!! also compared to western queer content, there's so MUCH asian bl that ranges from totally platonic romantic relationships representations to sexualized shows (there's something for everyone) so it's incredibly confusing to me when people like Oseman generalize all asian bl as this one thing
This video is marvelous, Thai bl is a great part of my life as a queer person in the western media you can’t find the diversity that Thai queer content gives you.
Especially with great queer directors and it’s one of the few places you can find non cis queer actors. Pretty much every BL has multiple actors who are trans, non binary….etc. (Kinn Porche has Sprite, Tin Tem Jai has Yoshi etc)
I’m a gay man who was once down the rabbit hole of “yaoi is bad because it fetishizes gay men blah blah blah” and was like “ew straight girls who like content of gay men are just fetishizing us” but eventually I had to take a step back that I was really just parroting shit I heard from people online that sounded smart and it really just came off as misogynistic. Turns out I actually really like a lot of that content that I once thought fetishized me, more than a lot of stuff supposedly “for gay men” lol It really does come down to the fact that there are so many different people in the world with different perspectives and the stuff you consume and enjoy can’t really condemn you morally (for the most part, there’s obviously exceptions but I don’t wanna get into all that right now). If you’re engaging with what you enjoy critically that’s all that really matters, who am I to judge straight girls who get off on gay male content? I literally do the same lol it’d be hypocritical.
I also think the guilt and shame associated with the "straight people fetishizing gay people" narrative delays a lot of people from realizing they're trans and not straight.
@@ListlessLion even supposedly cishet women/girls realising they're bi or lesbians. i know that i gravitated towards bl at a young age because i was queer and trying to accept myself, and watching queer media helped with that.
@@talistheintroverti see this form of discourse over people calling any attraction to trans people "chaser" even including t4t relationships. We should promote loving different body types, not try to make it seem like a kink, because it tells you that there are parts of you that should not be loved, and that only certsin types of bodies are normal to love. The way i see it, we should envourage people to enjoy gay relationships lesbian relationships, trans relationships with messy genders and stop trying to police who can be what and what they can do or enjoy.
I mean here’s the thing. I still think the same thing cause….I wouldn’t want to watch a GL made by a heterosexual man with an audience of heterosexual men saying “Lesbian couples are hot” cause that’s fetishizing
What I like about Only Friends is that it shows sex for what it is. And on multiple levels. And it's that aspect that I feel have been missing from BL scene for quite a bit. They won't be running out of good fluffy BL anytime soon. Like, sometimes the trend of BL recently almost feel like they are consciously either avoiding sex cuz it's bad or just lean into it and be bad, but rarely just sex as it is, which I felt have been lacking, so it is refreshing to see shows from Jojo just talking about it.
I'm really liking the fact that Only Friends is touching on such delicate subjects too! Such as alcohol and drug addiction. It makes me happy to see them express these concerns with a large audience and I think that they have done an excellent job thus far :D
I think a lot of the fluffy ones idealise relationships, where in reality you change a lot in your life, you may have to kiss a lot of frogs, and be a frog yourself. What you wanted at 20, you may outgrow, and that is just life.
Honestly, as a guy who's been part of the, for lack of a better term, gay hookup culture throughout my 20s, Only Friends in a lot of way is one of the most authentic "gay" BLs that I've seen. That is, written by a gay man with a bit of "insider" perspective. Not all gay guys are promiscuous, and not even all the main characters in Only Friends are promiscuous. The series provides a good variety of experiences.
As someone from a country where sexuality in general is never spoken of or taught about, all I have learnt about queerness is through media and books. As a straight woman, I have enjoyed both Heartstopper and Only Friends. Why? Because both address an experience, that I have never had. It makes queerness normal for me. Neither just sexualized, nor just fluffy, but rather human.
I feel like this video has so many quotes that should become common on the internet because the presentation of a lot of the points/things they wanted to say was so good and entertaining whilst still being informative and not that disrespectful towards anyone (if someone feels offended by this video I can pretty confidently say that they should try if they find the problem on their side)
as an elder millennial (late 30s) who had a massively sexually repressed upbringing (ex-evangelical, ex-ex-gay), it is absolutely WILD to see all the "horny/smutty content bad" discourse circulating these days re: queer media. I like a sweet hearts-and-flowers love story as much as the next person but for some of us it's also actively healing to be able to enjoy smut without hating ourselves for it. this is totally a both/and situation! all of these things are good things!
The part where you talk about the misinformation around trans people and how it affects the worldview of GenZ was very nice for me, as a non-binary member of GenZ. It’s difficult to have a “debate,” with someone about whether or not I get to exist when they don’t even know half the vocabulary I’m using because they’re regurgitating something they’ve heard somewhere else. I don’t even blame them. Or rather I try not to. Really thank you.
What sucks is i still, at 21 years old, feel that guilty discomfort i felt as a kid seeing things i shouldn't have whenever theres a same sex *kiss* in a show im watching with my parents..
Currently in the process of getting rid of some stuff and for whateve reason I was questioning whether I should make a separate account to sell some books including wlw relationships, mostly innocent ones, I didn’t question it for the books which include smut scenes, I didn’t question whether I should do it for that one Manga I realized included incest (I somehow just forgot that word and has to Google “intercourse with ones family member”) but for some reason it just got drilled into way too many peoples brain that it is “dirtier”/“more inappropriate” and I hate that I still catch myself thinking like that sometimes
Honestly I love both shows!! Also for Only Friends I’m so proud of JoJo and Gmmtv for giving us Queer As Folk realness. Both Heartstopper and Only Friends are quality queer representation that show the spectrum of queer representation. Sidenote: So glad you mentioned Not Me and The Eclipse because those two shows were chef’s kiss!
As a sex repulsed queer ace woman myself I love having stories with varying amounts of sex bc sometimes its cool to experience that kind of passion secondhand since i have no interest in doing it myself and sometimes its overwhelming and I'd like to see something wholesome and romantic. Sometimes i want the sexy build up of tension but will skip the actual sex scene at the culmination bc i got what i wanted already, doesn't mean sex scenes are bad. Sex scenes in fanfic especially are also sometimes a really good way to explore certain sides of characters and their relationships that would never happen in canon and I find that endlessly fascinating. As for verily bitchie's video, i think she had a lot of great points and generally love her videos but i also agree that she was being reductive about heartstopper. Like, yeah it may be boring if it was just about straight people but that's kind of the whole point? Bc all the kids are queer and trans we get to see how queer youth is forced to deal with hiding all these feelings and worrying about who they can be their real selves with platonic/romantically/sexually. Like, the emotional stakes just wouldn't exist in a straight version of that story.
Same here on the first bit! I'm both aro and ace and since I know I will never experience romance/sexual content in real life (I am sex-repulsed) I really enjoy experiencing the emotions secondhand and imagining what it would be like. It's similar to how people enjoy imagining themselves with superpowers- it's just fun. (Though, I only really enjoy it when it's strictly animated. Seeing anything intimate happen in live-action makes me uncomfortable (even if it's, say, a straight couple pecking each other on the lips) likely because it doesn't seem removed enough from reality for me).
As a certified gen z, it is so hard to get it into my head that uncomfortable is okay. That something isn't bad because it makes me feel uncomfortable. Especially when I have been genuinely abused and sometimes have a hard time telling the difference. And as a writer, I hate that I measure my stories by how 'controversial' people online would think they are because that's the response to everything nowadays and I don't want to be in danger because strangers decided what I wrote is 'wrong'.
I am learning so much about yaoi and BL! I only previously heard some vague "it's fetishising gay men for straight women and therefore bad..." and not thought any further about it because, well, I'm not a straight woman, and I never really thought more about it which is really very dumb tbh. Thank you for your BL recommendations 😊
I'm always a bit baffled by this horny versus sweet discourse. Maybe it's because of my own experiences as a very horny person who's also asexual at the same time, but I love both. I adore shows like Heartstopper and My School President just as much as Only Friends and KinnPorsche, as well as the shows that fall in between (and the same goes for graphic novels and mangas). Alice Oseman did kinda stoke the fire on that discussion with her comments about BL, which I thought was a little bit questionable
I'm also pretty baffled right now.. I didn't even know there was such a 'discussion' about it 😅. Shouldn't people be able to watch what they feel like watching? Just like you I also like all of these shows. I mean I watch a show, if I like the story, the plot and the acting. I don't care if it's a sweet, innocent or a messy and horny show. Why did that discussion even start? Why do people care about what other people watch. I mean as long as they don't support a wrong message or something, everyone should be free to watch whatever they feel like watching. I'm a bit confused.
Could you please explain how being horny and being asexual works at the same time. I have been trying to understand my own sexuality and honestly sometimes I am so confused
I feel something that also gets overlooked in bl discussions is how some gay media in that part of the world, will be called bl if it has gay characters regardless of anything else and so to discount bl is to discount a majority of east asian queer media which might be the only representation people in those countries have, especially in their own language or a language they can understand. Besides, Heartstopper might be amazing representation for a queer child in the UK but a gay teenager in Japan, for example, might struggle relating to the storyline and a bl like Takara kun and Amagi kun or Kieta Hatsukoi might be much more meaningful to them.
agree with this and you'll see people in sites like letterboxd for instance using the term BL for mlm media not from the anglosphere (some use it to refer to mlm media from the Asian continent). it's a pretty interesting usage of the term altough you could call mlm media from the west bl too technically!
This just made me think of conversations I've had with other queer and trans friends where instead of simply saying "it's not for me", there needs to be an entire dissertation on WHY they don't like X, Y, Z thing. It's okay for things to not be universally appealing. In fact, I prefer when they're not! Like Heartstopper might not be for me (I'm an Old and just find it hard to connect with teenagers these days), but I am so grateful it exists for those of whom it does resonate with. Also your bit about the queer women and enby people who create these queer works made me think of a thought I've been having recently, wherein I've had arguments with other queer trans men about the "validity" of certain works vs others. For some reason, Good Omens and OFMD (both shows I love) are given an intense amount of praise from those within my circle and outside of it--both of these being shows ostensibly headed by cishet men. Whereas Red, White & Royal Blue or Heartstopper or other works created by AFAB enby or cis women are seen as lesser, as if their perspectives aren't as valuable as the ostensibly cishet male perspective??? Sorry, big ramble but your video made my brain fire off too many synapses.
Oh. Your point about how we tend to see MLM works written by straight men more acceptable than MLM works by women and AFAB enbies really resonated with me. I’ll be thinking about this for a while.
The representation in Thai media even bl is so wide that even I feel seen in aspects of characters or plot lines as a queer black person and honestly what more could you want
I'm very much not asexual, but I've always found shows like Skins and Sex Education, where all the teen characters are obsessed with sex and talk about it constantly extremely unrelatable. In a lot of ways Heartstopper is a way better depiction of how I experienced desire as a teen, even though that desire included sexual desire and was also never actually reciprocated. Having said that there are moments when I find Heartstopper too twee and on the nose, but in those moments I have to remind myself that it's target audience is kids the same age and younger as the ones on the show - if I was watching something like Grange Hill or Byker Grove now (two dramas about teens I enjoyed as a kid) I wouldn't start complaining that they weren't targeting me.
26:58 - 27:12 this part nailed it on the head for me, as a genderqueer trans and aroace man the only comfort I could ever find was in fandom spaces, because the outside world couldn't handle the possability of me or anyone "other" existing and being happy in it. And now fandoms are doing the exact same thing, it's basically being put in back in the damn closet, but further. Very much appriciated the video 💙
The part about demonising yaoi really spoke to me. As an aroace trans masc, I always felt horrible for enjoying bl/yaoi content because everyone was telling me I must be a cishet woman sexualising a community I wasn't a part of, instead of a queer teen exploring what masculinity, femininity, romance and (yes, even) sex meant to me. When I got into bl, there wasn't a lot of queer media available. This was the only place I could see a variety of queer relationships that weren't the overly sanitised "they hold hands in the last episode", or just straight up queerbaiting. It meant a lot to see unashamed queer attraction and love for the first time through these stories.
or the tragic ‘bury your gays’ trope 🗿🗿 getting into bl for me has been so refreshing to just have a full spectrum of relationships and dynamics that most western lgbt media seems to lack.
I agree SO MUCH with what you said. People are like "this is not realistic", and queer people above all should have the empathy to understand that the teenagers in heartstopper have a different experience compared to their own. Like, different people have different realities and one does not invalidates the other. And like you said, there are just different kinds of show with different ideas. I'm happy we have something as sweet as heartstopper and something as sexy as other pieces of midia. There are so many movies and show with sex scenes and people are complaining because Nick and Charlie are taking things on their own time and terms?! For me this is a good example of how to have a healthy sexual relationship.
Exactly, I completely agree with you! Why would that not be realistic? Like you said, people are different, so obviously they're going to feel things differently and that's totally fine and good. And it's also great there are so many different shows, about various topics and I like watching all kinds of shows and movies. I really can't believe people sometimes.
God damnit. I was gonna make a whole video about Fujoshis and nuance and use the damn degree I worked so hard for finally... And you did it way better than I ever could! Love it. 💜
I saw a wild take that Alice Oseman is demonizing s*x in Heartstopper, with the reasoning that Ben hope is the character most interested in s*x and he is demonized for that. Which…first of all, we know for a fact that Charlie and Ben have never had s*x, and Ben never pushed Charlie to do it , either. The person who said this was just reading into the fact that Ben’s kiss was aggressive, decided that meant it was sexual, and decided that because they perceived Ben as sexual and all the other characters as not sexually active, that means Ben is being demonized for being interested in s*x??? It’s just a wild leap of logic which ignores the larger context of the show.
heartstopper means a lot to me as an aroace queer (and trans) person who didn't have the "typical" high school experience of my peers and most media) both identity wise and party wise (had no interest in alcohol, parties, dating, etc. and neither did my friends, but we were the outliers; totally get why other people would be/are interested, but that wasn't us and it was really alienating - esp looking back as someone with undiagnosed autism - to not see that represented literally anywhere. heartstopper is one of the few teen shows i can think of that doesn't have a heavy emphasis on love triangles, parties, popularity, social hierarchy, or trying to get into an ivy league school. the fact that it's queer and has a very aspec slant to its dynamics is a beautiful bonus that elevates it. i wish younger people would realize that sex isn't dirty/nasty/bad while also not enforcing amatanormativity that everyone has to be secretly having/repressing sexual desires all the time either
💯 I had a similar high school experience and didn’t figure out my own shit until I got to college, but I almost immediately gathered a very queer friend group and we’ve stuck together. Seeing Isaac this season made me cry so much even in rewatches. And the happy queer romances that are so sweet bring me so much joy. On the flip side RW&RB also grabbed my attention because man is it nice to see fully grown adult men being vulnerable and open with each other.
I dont get why people cant see that sometimes things just arent for you but that doesnt make them bad. For instance, I hate The Boys. Its just way too dark for my taste. My friend on the other hand, loves The Boys and has tried to get me to watch. You know what I said? "No thank you im good I dont really like The Boys." That was it. I didnt judge him for liking it, I didnt moralistically call out The Boys. I just dont want to watch it
Same with my friend who likes Euphoria: They love it and have watched it several times, but it’s not a show I would enjoy, and I don’t judge them in any way for liking it and I don’t see the show as “bad”, it’s just not for me
i literally SCREAMED when you brought up dangerous romance. perthchimon are doing a great work and the plot seems cliche, but has so many interesting elements, an instant hit
This might just be the one video that push me to do a video essay on Thai BL starting from OG BL of Thai television history รักแปดพันเก้า, the series with 40 minutes long episodes that went on for 2 seasons on nationwide free television from 2004-2005 with openly gay couple as one of the main couple on the show. And that one film "Love of Siam" (2007) that marketed as coming of age love triangle between 2 "straight" boys and straight 2 girls. So many straight people went to the cinema and found out that it was actually a love story between the boys. For me, "Love of Siam" is the "Call me by your name" of my generation.
The discourse about BL/slash/mlm romance is very…complicated to navigate. Because often, a lot of what it gets boiled down to is “gay men” vs “straight women.” And the intersectionality between these two groups’ privileged identities and historically/actively discriminated against identities means figuring out where the line falls is difficult. Both groups are the most aware of their marginalized identity over their privileged one. While this is ABSOLUTELY a false dichotomy that dismisses the identities of groups who land somewhere outside these groups, that’s what it gets reduced to. Valid points can be made for and against these genres and their depictions of queer people, but we can never truly know where unconscious bias comes into play during the debate. Is that straight woman making a point, or does she not realize she’s being homophobic? Is the gay man making a point, or is he being unconsciously misogynistic? And, as you mentioned, race always has a part to play in these decisions in ways we may not even initially recognize. There is a lot of nuance in the discussion that gets lost. I don’t know that there’s a perfect right answer here. I think, overall, my opinion is that no media genre in inherently more problematic than another. There are always problematic tropes popular to a genre that are worth criticizing. There are always problematic authors talking out of their asses and perpetuating problematic ideas and there are always fans who take things too far in the wrong direction and give everybody else a bad name. Reducing a genre just to its bad actors isn’t particularly fair to the other media in the genre. This is true for every genre. Literally all genres are impacted by and implicit in racism, sexism, and homophobia. So this a a discussion that shouldn’t focus on any one genre alone, but all media. (And for a lot of people, I think it does?) I’m also of the opinion that variety is the spice of life and everyone should be allowed to like what they like, as long as it’s done responsibly.
This video popped up on my recommended page, and I was intrigued since I love Heartstopper and am currently enjoying Only Friends (as well as Dangerous Romance). I agree with pretty much everything you have to say here, and I’m tired of hearing people totally dismiss some of these shows because they don’t check off everything on a long laundry list of requirements for “good representation.” Excellent analysis!
I'm an avid reader of lgbtq romance books, and this video warmed my heart. Especially since many people on the internet call us readers of gay romance all kinds of names. Thanks for all the recommendations! I had fallen out of the bl fandom a couple years ago because a lot of the stories felt repetitive, but looks like the genre has improved. I'll check them out.
Right, I always think that's a bit weird. 'Readers of gay romance', I mean I personally have never heard anyone call someone readers of straight romance or something 😅. I mean in the end romance is romance and love is love, regardless of who someone's in love with. Of course, love for people from the lgbtq community, comes with quite a few more challenges than others, but it's still love. That's why sometimes I'm a bit confused why shows about same sex love (in asia, usually) are labeld 'bl' or 'gl'. That's okay obviously, but then I'm also thinking, shows about love between a girl and a boy aren't labeled 'gbl' for example. Sometimes it feels to cut off from other shows of the same genre and it makes me think about the term 'bl' and 'gl'. I don't know if that was understandable 😂.
All the topics covered in the video aside, the fact that you mentioned Bad Buddy as one of your favorites was very exciting to me because it's literally my favorite series.
THANK YOU for saying so many of the things I've been thinking! I just recently had a convo with my friend about the prevalence of black-and-white thinking, in fandom and on the internet in general. Many people fail to engage with nuance or context when discourse-ing, and are very quick to condemn something whole-cloth rather than acknowledging contentious or problematic aspects alongside positive or enjoyable ones. It is possible to see imperfections in a thing you love while STILL LOVING IT. It is possible to see imperfections in a thing you don't like while understanding that OTHERS DO LIKE IT, and leaving them to it. I think essentialization is a prevalent issue in online discourse, that all too often "thing has (arguably) problematic aspect" becomes "thing bad" becomes "anyone who likes bad thing is bad". It is so frustrating to see this happen over and over and over, especially when there are interesting and nuanced discussions we could be having instead. It is particularly alarming to me that this process gets applied to ACTUAL HUMAN PEOPLE and causes real harm. Your Alice Osman example is a good one, and I think we've seen it happen with some of the Thai actor """controversies"""" as well. I'm one of your recent subs, found you through your Barbie is Asexual video, although when checking out your back catalog I realized I totally watched and resonated with your The 100 video a few years back, kind of a full circle moment lol. I am (gray)aroace myself, and it's always exciting to find more aspec voices! I'm curious if you've seen Sense8 and/or Queer as Folk (US late 90's/early 2000's one), they are two of my favorite pieces of queer media, and both have had some interesting discourse regarding their depictions of s*x. Also, I love how you continuously advocate for Bad Buddy being the best thing ever, hard agree, please never stopppppp.
I can’t even explain how much this video means to me. I’m the author of the Love, Simon book, which means I’ve had a front row seat to this discourse for years. I adore the film (though I didn’t write it), and I’ll always be grateful for it. I’ll also probably spend the rest of my life grappling with the personal fallout from the online discourse surrounding it. So much I could say, but I for now: thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for so beautifully unpacking the complexity of this discourse (and the harm it inflicts on fellow queer people).
omg I am such a fan!! I literally brought your situation up in one of my other videos talking about how unfairly you were treated. This is so surreal, thank you so much for watching my video, I'm so happy it resonated with you. That has absolutely made my day! 🩷💜💙
Becky I love you so much, love simon brought me back to the world of reading at a time of a really BAD depression in my life, the whole situation around you made me so angry and sad, seeing so many comments and absurd opinions while I was also a Bisexual girl in the closet I asked myself again and again why? why do they care so much? They have no right to do that. I wish you all the best in this life, you are a great person and I just wanted you to know that you impacted the lives of many people at the right time.
@@talistheintrovert Omg, I don't know how I missed it, but thank you so much!! And this video is really, truly extraordinary. Not even kidding--you had me texting author friends with bulleted lists of my favorite parts. Anyway, I'm now a proud subscriber-- legit can't wait to catch up on your earlier content.
Okay quick note about the lesbian thing- am i the only one that feels like straight guys fetishizing lesbians isn't discussed or condemned NEARLY as much as Fujoshis are? That could be my own bias, just a thought.
I haven't watched the video yet but reading through the comments made me really excited to do so, and I just wanted to comment that my jaw dropped when this showed up in my recommended, I would have NEVER thought someone would make a video comparing these two shows but I'm psyched for this dicussion!
My thoughts exactly! I haven’t seen the recent episodes of Heartstopper yet, so I’ll come back to this video later on- But regardless it’s lovely seeing that it’s sparked so much insightful and thoughtful conversation in the comments! I’m looking forward to watching it when I have the time & context to :> I’m very intrigued!
I feel seen. For 30years i never knew what was wrong with me, trying to overcompensate for what people told me i should be feeling and liking. 2 kids later. Getting into the thai bl community, doing a bl podcast talking about queerness got me to the realisation that I'm Ace and it was like a rock being lifted off my chest. Everything BL has given me, the experience with getting to talk to the people within the industry. Discuss things i never understood and growing as a person. I'm so grateful for finding TharnType back in the day and it taking me down the rabbit hole of BL.
One of my favourite queer books is called husband material, it’s the follow up to boyfriend material and follows the gay couple that got together in that book as they try to figure out what marriage means to them. One of them really like pride flags and rainbows and the other thinks that hetero normative weddings in a big church is kind of sweet and the argue about it but it’s all good by the end. And they have all there friends as side characters that have their own perspectives. It’s very sweet
I'm so happy you really specified that there is no "good" representations and just different representations. It's so frustrating as someone who has been keeping up with Heartstopper for years now to see people get so angry at this story about two queer boys falling in love in high school because it's "too sanitized" as if they aren't teenagers. The same goes for the opposite where people will treat horny shows as bad. We need both. It's important we have both and more. We don't get mad at cute romcom straight shows for being too sanitized or horny straight shows for being inappropriate. We need to offer ourselves the same grace.
‘Reading and writing smut is the closest I can get to actually doing it as an asexual’ I FEEL SEEN, THANK YOU. Us aces are quite horny, and kinky (many, not all of course). And I like ace content as much as the next person, but let’s be real, the fantasy version of sex is a lot better than the real thing anyway
I think, the thing about 'Heartstopper' and 'Red White and royal blue' vs Asian BL, is that Asia has been making BL way longer than the West, so of course they're more explicit and experimenting - they've gotten bolder, because they know theres a loyal audience. This especially Thai BL, which is slowly becoming like kpop. Thai BL actors are literally idols - ships got their own lightsticks even! The Y industry is becomming part of Thailand's 'soft power'. It has reached an acceptance and popularity that Western BL has yet to reach, and even more so actor status. In Thai BL's, especially GMMTV, has started using BL main actors, who are close friends irl, which does a lot, for the on screen chemistry and general story feel. Here, it doesnt have the same status or feel, which is evident in both Western storylines and acting. But who knows maybe one day 😉
I will say, in terms of diverse representation, that just about the only thing that bothers me than the fact that people try to make everything straight is the fact that straight media practically ONLY has male-dom/female-sub dynamics (I very well just might not know where to look) and it’s very frustrating because that does not encapsulate every opposite-sex experience. I mostly said that because it’s something that I don’t hear talked about when it comes to character dynamics. I see it winked and nudged at, but not really ever talked about. Likewise, the effeminate gay guy CAN ABSOLUTELY top the more masculine gay guy. Mostly, I wanted to talk about how, even with peoples’ expanding understanding of sex and relationships, we do this thing where we state or imply that “masculine = dominant” and “feminine = submissive”, and that simply isn’t true.
And usually, when you do see some female-dom/male-sub dynamic, it's portrayed as some very deeply disturbing kink from the guy, and the woman is probably evil. Like, no? This is really frustrating.
@@cinthiagoch It's really frustrating how male-dom/female-sub dynamics are seen as "normal" dynamics when female-dom/male-sub dynamics are seen as inherently kinky when it's not the case. BTW, if you want a version of a straight relationship where the female doms and is mostly portrayed as vanilla, watch Turning Red and pay attention to the parents.
i loved hearstopper when I first watched it. i was even obsessed with watching reaction vids of people watching it. taoelle was my fave ship. and I was even plannign to check out the other novel. but then I heard about what oseman said about BL and I just kinda feel betrayed as an asian queer. as you said Heartstopper has some similarities with BL stories and Oseman herself has recommended BL in the past, tho the nonsexual kind so I know she reads them and she knows there are BL that are not sexualized. it reminded me so much of a lot of discourses surrounding BL or yaoi. so yeah, I dont begrudge people from liking heartstopper since I once liked it but at this time I still feel bitter about it to watch it again for now or the second season... im glad for this video though. at least misinformation and prejudice against asian queer media is slowly being lifted one discussion at a time.
the moment you started to speak of a list of BL as to provide an example during the 18:10 mark, I was internally and silently screaming YES, but then once you got towards My School President as My School Engineer, I just became the embodiment of the surprised pikachu face meme, "wait..."
Hello Bosman. Seriously, every video you put up is such an education, except it's more fun than actual formal education..and more useful tbh. Your perspective soothes my curious cis het male soul and your takes are as hot as some of the content you recommend. Okay, praise bomb deployed - happy Sunday.
omg I'm now at the recommendtions bit of the video and am loving all your opinions and wholeheartedly agree with all of them! Dangerous Romance! I am living for it so much I literally wish I could timetravel just so I can skip to see all the rest of the episodes NOW I am obsessed with them
@@talistheintrovert by the way, what's your Semantic Error fanfic called? I want to read it! But if you keep your fanfic writer identity separate I respect that
This video is incredible. I feel like you've articulated so many thoughts I've had banging around my head in a very affective way and connected it to some things i hadn't even considered. Thanks for your work 💕
"sexuality isn’t black and white. The people who are a hundred percent straight or gay are the minority, and most people’s orientations are between the two-it’s just the ratios that are different.”-it is from a Chinese bl novel -"pastel colors" I just feel like this is so true even though I am a straight girl i can confirm it
and the main thing people say when complaining that queer rep is “too sexualized” or “not sexualized enough” is that it’s “unrealistic”. and this hinges on the idea that queer people are a monolith and if someone as a queer person hasn’t experienced something, then no queer person has. heartstopper is really realistic for me, especially as someone on the ace spectrum. but shows like sex education or heartbreak high or young royals might be closer to someone else’s experience, and they all deserve to exist. idk why people want LESS representation than we already have??
i can't explain how this video just felt like free therapy. this is my first video i've ever seen from you, but it was so well written and spoken to such a degree, that i can't fathom the sense of relief and acknowledgement i felt throughout it. especially with each tumblr post you read lmao.
I’m a disabled 14 year old queer person and I’ve been struggling with finding myself in media, this video really changed my perspective on sex, kinks and fetishes and i never realised my own biases and truthfully pretty racist Ideas about queer media and it really upset me that I had these bc I’m very Passionates about Equal rights and respect for all but it’s a good thing that ik about these bc then I can work on them Ty i found this very eye opening i love your videos❤
This was the most cathartic watch ever. I am a Demi Genderqueer Lesbian who grew up reading yaoi and now am a big fan of all BL, especially Thai BL. Everything I have ever thought and felt was so eloquently said in this video!! I miss the days of the internet of “BOY X BOY or GIRL X GIRL!! DONT LIKE DONT READ!!” 😂
Thank you SO MUCH for this! You hit the nail on the head, there’s so much discourse and no where near enough nuance. Really loved watching this and appreciate all the effort and time you put into it. Thank you 😊
Yay to being a lesbian who engages in BL !! My recs are 100%: 'I told sunset about you' (rural friends to enemies to friends to lovers) 'Not Me' (anarchist gays) 'My Love-mix up' (ace coded and sweet asf) 'Blueming' (Film gays) 'The Eighth Sense' (Boy joins a surf club cause he has a fat crush) 'A Boss And a Babe' (Silly romcom intern x CEO thats just fun to watch) AND obviously 'Only Friends' cause we love mess ❤
gap the series, show me love, love senior, lucky my love, girlfriend project, she makes my heart flutter, she loves to cook and she loves to eat, rookie film, I'm in love with the villainess@@yeaidk2276
Out of curiosity, have you ever run into the Webtoons Boyfriends discourse? I feel like everyone who wants to talk about it should watch this video first. As a side note, I did not expect Seventeen to show up in one of videos. It made my Carat self very excited lol
The energy people put into hating on or looking down on content they don't personally enjoy boggles my mind. Free yourself from the burden of being a full time watchdog, and Watch/read/listen to something else!
Watched GAP a few months ago, it is such a gorgeous GL, you can just see the chemistry and it is so sweet how they both protect each other🥺 I need more GL recs like that one in my life
I don’t remember when was the last time I have been so invested in a RUclips video Seriously, your take on the topic is brilliant and all the examples that you showed are on top Also Not Me is one of THE BEST bls ever made, everyone should watch it All in all, thank you for making this video!!
I found bad buddy last month and it helped me discover thai shows, I binge watched 9 shows already and I'm loving every second of it. I'm just glad to see more representation! Also this video made me add so many shows to my watch list I have no clue which ones I want to watch first now ☠
@@nthapa2640 I watched it already, it was good! The only part that annoyed me was how a few guys were able to get into the mansion so easily like either nuendiao’s mom didn’t learn anything from what happened to her husband and didn’t increase the number of bodyguards they have or the assassins were too op
I am so grateful this was in my recommendations, clicked by curiosity and stayed because so many things of what you said was so on point. Thank you for sharing this video!
ohh the second post written by the user satanstiddies brought some excellent points to light. Dare i say i teared up a little towards the end but yeah thank you for making this video !! Cleared up a lot of points for me and made me feel not ashamed of liking what I like and educating myself on some issues along the way
I think how explicit something should be depends on the story and character portrait that the director or author wants to tell. Heart stopper and Only Friends deliver completely different vibes and are having a different focus. Nothing wrong with sweet romcoms for teens. And nothing wrong with a bit more spice. Something in it for everyone.
I'm really glad that the only social media I regularly use are Facebook and RUclips. Because of that, I've managed to avoid most of this discourse. Regarding fujoshi, I'm a gay guy who read and watched a lot of BL and yaoi growing up and still do to this day, and through them I made a lot of online friends who were fujoshi. None of them seemed to fetishize gay men and were respectful toward me and critical of the problematic tropes that often pop up in BL and yaoi (because people can be critical of media while also enjoying that same media). I haven't met many gay or bi men who like BL and yaoi, so fujoshi were usually the only people I could geek out with over them. Some of these fujoshi I'm still friends with and they're some of my closest friends, even if we only know each other through online.
this reminds me, when I was lot more into shounen ai and yaoi, we had little AFAB group, so no gay man perspective, but we also were aware of the unrealistic and toxic things. making fun of all the basic human anatomy violations. one friend even made little presentation for anime convention how many actual crimes are there in various mangas and how long would the be in jail.
As someone who loves and consumes vast amounts of both BL (fluffy and smutty) and media video essays, I want to say thank you. I have been looking for this video forever.
17:58 - 18:10 FAAAAACTS, It's literally the most recognizably BL storyline ever. Second best being Enemies to loves (who btw almost always meet in school or uni 55555). 1000% accurate
This is a nice discussion on how we can love both soft stuff and messy stuff and not be mean about it. Also, thank you for the recommendations. I was looking for more stuff to watch recently.
why can’t two things be true at once?? Straight media has a heck ton of wide variety with their representation. there are both lovey-dovey high school shows depicting straight relationships, and there are also kind-of-over-the-top sexual shows that depict straight relationships. they both live in harmony, why can’t it be the same for queer media? also, i appreciate how you mentioned the lack of nuance in social media today. my mom mentioned this the other day and i was like “huh i never realized that” but it’s very true, nothing can really be grey on places like twitter or literally any social media space.
i swear, bad buddy is just a lovestory between my adhd brain and my autism/compulsive disorder brain and that is why that show was so hilarious to watch. though i will never forgive them for tears i had to cry in the last 2 episodes.
Wow! As a writer who's working on a novel aimed at older teens (as that age myself) I really needed this! I needed to know that it's ok to show older people engaging in sexually active relationships, and also have cute romantic ones for the main characters. I needed to know that I don't have to tick every representation box, even as diverse in orientation and cultures as the characters are. First five minutes was an insta subscribe for me haha.
@@talistheintrovert Your entire video perfectly articulated what I've been struggling to say to my other queer friends about this "issues". I appreciate you so much😭❤️
just for clarity, Joe's character in The Warp Effect can be equally (or even more accurately) referred to as a Side, as well as being interpreted as asexual, and neither interpretation invalidates the other. If you felt seen as a Side, that's great! If you're an asexual person who felt equally validated, that's fab! It's not a competition and everything is a spectrum.
I have a whole different argument in me with people who want to separate being a Side from being Asexual as if labelling themselves on the ace spectrum makes themselves somehow lesser (and I'm sure plenty of Sides aren't on the ace spectrum at all) but oftentimes I think this argument comes down to a fundamental misunderstanding of what asexuality is, as if all aces are entirely sex repulsed or being on the ace spectrum invalidates your identity as a gay man. We aren't, and it doesn't, and I mean this in the kindest way possible - if you are a Side there is a not-zero possibility that you are on the ace spectrum. I'm not saying you are, I'm just saying not to discount it out of hand because of an assumption of what the label means.
You are welcome to disagree with me! But that doesn't invalidate either interpretation of Joe's character - whether Jojo meant it to be ace representation or not, a LOT of ace people felt incredibly seen by and connected to Joe while the series was airing. It's wonderful that different parts of the queer community can have their own interpretations of a character's arc! If anything, we need more characters like that!
I hope you're all keeping well and watching gay shows ❤
What's a Side? Sorry lol but i'm confused
@@paularoth4915somebody who doesn't like penetration or penetrating. Some people are sexual but don't like bottoming and can't top like Erectile dysfunction, dysphoria for some or don't like the feeling of topping another person. So they both get each off in different ways and get creative. Being a side doesn't mean your asexual but there are some asexuals who like to be sides, just like there's some who like to top or bottom.
@@paularoth4915 i looked it up and it means (someone else feel free to correct me if it's more nuanced than this) that you don't enjoy penetrative sex but may enjoy other sexual activities.
@@Allison_Hart thanks
I suggest "55-15 never too late" Very fresh. Very weird. Very funny. I never watch any show like it before.
Say it with me, folks: Not everything has to be made for you personally. This ain’t it? Find something that is.
👏👏👏
I feel this as a sex-repulsed ace. I don’t get why a sex scene gotta be inserted in an otherwise good movie, when it does nothing for the plot. But that’s just my opinion, and I wouldn’t say such media shouldn’t exist or that the scene gotta be removed just cause I don’t see the point. Others will, it’s for them 🤷🏻♀️
It depends on what it's in and what you mean by effect the plot. But the basic answer is because the "good fags" (an actual political term) are and have been attempting to straight wash queer culture.
With all due respect your sex repulsion is your problem and you don't have a right to make it everyone else's problem.
@ville__ yes? Being gay is a choice depending on what you mean. Being culturally queer is a choice just like being culturally straight is a choice.
Being attracted to someone of the same gender is as much of a choice as having your natural hair color.
@ville__ok do you want a cookie for that comment like lol
Who would have guessed queer representation would be vast and varied?! Its almost like no queer person is the same, and we actively experience life, love, attraction, and sex differently!? Who knew!
Every time I see this discourse I just sigh in resignation as I watch the infighting.
👏👏👏
Its so important that we stick up for each other.
@@michaeladkins6 agreed!
You would think this would be common sense but unfortunately common sense isn't too common.
@@mykittystinksbad2The Only Thing meaner to minorities are other minorities in themselves and to any other minority.
I personally really liked Heartstopper. I remember having moments "Will confessing my feelings ruin this friendship?" and "I really like you and I like kissing, but I'm not ready for more" as a teenager in my first relationship. I found it incredibly endearing and positive to see that feeling represented in a queer love story, ESPECIALLY because queer representation can often be so over sexualized. We need the full spectrum of representation.
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Yes! I had such an under-sexualized high school experience, anything sexual just doesn't feel realistic to me. Obviously, I know that's just my experience but I still appreciate that something out there is right for me.
I recently looked up the web comic if there is something new and there is. They are taking little steps. I won't be spoiling it in case someone only watched the show but I would say they just haven't been able to express why they don't feel ready for more, reading comic it makes more sense.
@@Zapporah85Same. I’m pretty sure a lot of my HS friends had had sex, but we never talked about our sex lives and I just didn’t have one. I’m in college and still, many of my friends haven’t had sex. The human experience is so varied.
YES IT WAS SUCH A REAL RELATIONSHIP AND ONE I COULD RELATE TO! i 100% agree with you
"We've taught a generation of children that if something makes you feel uncomfortable, it's the thing that is wrong and not your own feelings you need to examine." You've said it there. 👏
Yep art should make the uncomfortable comfortable, vice versa, because art is uniquly qualified to tach toexpand someones perspectives.
Alsoyaoi in no worse than anything else i the romance genre, most romence cater to some kind of fetish. Even the sad doctor wholsome caters to that . And that is fine, horny fantasies are ok , even good.
And they can be great as wll,such strugons law.
not allromance, but most roance,and probably pulp fiction, very very horny.
plus hontly yaoi can be pretty great and ust weird experimental.
Also yeah people should know its a fantacy and p-rn proably, but if pople know that, yay, and its presentation, if witha caviat,itsstillexposure,if it starts getting people that well gay people eist, still exposue.
And if you hate bloody romance tropes, say youhate romance tropes, not the gay erotia ones.
yaoi ,sturgons law and that, has really gems that are actually great stories,or very interesting .
@ville__my theory is that anyone who thinks its a choice is secretly a bisexual who just sticks with one gender because they think thats the right thing to do.
Do you find men attractive?
@@marocat4749i personally believe fetishisation is a steppingstone towards acceptance, an uncomfortable steppingstone.
That being said i firmly believe in fantasy ≠ reality.
@@tikimilliei disagree, cuz for eg there are a lot of people who fetishise lesbians but are still homophobic to actual lesbians that arent like actors acting out lesbianism for the male gaze for eg i think it is for some people but for most who only like a certain people cuz they make them aroused will never really be helpful
@@espeon871 like i said, its a middle step.
Plus, not always.
I think the important thing about queer representation is specifically the variety. The important thing is that we DON'T just have one kind of representation.
I personally will watch almost anything with queer people in it. But people who aren't like that really just have to recognise that they actually don't have to watch stuff that they dont like. And that just because they don't like something doesn't mean it's bad.
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I never thought that someone would discuss Heartstopper and BL in the same video, but I’m so glad you did. I’m Thai and love both types of shows, and very disheartened when people criticize BL for being overly sexual when we’re fighting a completely different battle here in regards to LGBTQ rights.
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i was just writing this exact comment. i'm not thai, but i really love how many different stories and discussions this genre has been promoting. i think people should go beyond prejudice and language barriers to discover other amazing and diverse stories
I sometimes wanna know who those things are linked so closely since it seems that smut is more often a minor thing to happen in a lot of bls whilst they seem to be more prominent in so much other media including action or horror movies in which relationships aren’t even seen as an important part and no one even thinks about it whilst in bls and other queer media it is apparently to common?
oh yes totally! im filipino and it really does make me sad to see people talk like this. being southeast asian and queer isnt easy and many westerners dont understand that we arent as lucky in some ways
I guess those people never saw Queer As Folk
being a sex-repulsed asexual, it has been clear to me for a long time that "something gives me the ick" and "something is morally wrong" are separate things. i didn't realize how many people were conflating those things... EDIT: tipping my hat back to you as one of them nonbinary aroaces
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Yes oh my God! It's okay for me to think sex is weird and to not understand why on EARTH people would enjoy any step of it, but obviously billions of people DO, non of us would be here if they didn't! That doesn't invalidate my personal feelings about sex, but it also doesn't invalidate the feelings of people who do like sex. Like, it's PERSONAL FEELINGS, you can't project those onto others and expect them to be a general rule...
Ahh same! Like if a scene makes me uncomfortable, I skip it and enjoy the rest of the show. If there’s a heavy focus on sex, I know I probably won’t relate and I don’t engage. It’s just not for me but someone probably likes it if it’s otherwise good, but that’s not for me to judge.
@@paularoth4915Exactly, thank you for being respectful about it many people aren't.
As someone who is usually very uncomfortable with sex scenes, in any media (related to me being ace, although obviously this is not true for every ace person), you know what I do? I skip them. I don't care that they happened, sometimes I'm even happy because I understand this is good, I just don't want to read or watch them, especially if they are detailed. Why do people care so much?
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i am also ace and feel the same way. i generally avoid shows with a lot of sex, but if other people have found that that show brings joy to them, then i think that's great
Yeah that's the very reason I didnt watch game of thrones when it got massive, I knew it would make me feel too uncomfortable, it did, and I stopped watching immediately. Not hard to avoid things you dont like in media.
I'm kinda of the opposite. I'm ace too but I love steamy romances of all orientations.
Mostly because for some reason the women written in steamy stuff are usually badasses. Like even if they're the damsel in distress they're still somehow strong.
I blame Shelly Laurenston for starting my spicy romance addiction. Her books used to be more simple and very steamy with time her writing has evolved. A lot of world building, found family, family and friends bonds. A lot less sex but much more engaging writing. Till now she's only done f/m stuff.
Oh but I don't like watching steamy stuff. I don't know why. That's just a preference. I rather read it than watch it. And it needs to drive the story, which it very much does in erotic romance.
Kinda why I couldn't watch GOT beyond season 1. So much unnecessary nudity.
I hate when people say that heartstopper is “unrealistic” because they don’t have sex. There are as many teenagers, queer or not, who have sex as there are teenagers who don’t. A show doesn’t have to be sexual to be realistic. Did we forget that not everyone has the same experience in life? Just because your teenager experience was sexual, it doesn’t undermine the experience or story of those who wasn’t sexual. Especially because sex, is something that for many people has more to do than just physical. It’s very realistic, from a story prospective that Charlie and Nick aren’t sexual and in the comics they make sexual jokes, they tease each other and talk about it. The show simply covered the earlier part of the story. There are people who want to be sexual with their partners, that doesn’t mean that they would do it immediately. SPOILERS IF YOU HAVEN’T READ THE COMICS:
Charlie is a fifteen years old boy who suffers from anorexia, depression, OCD and body dysmorphia with a story of self-harm and a sexual assault in a previous relationship. In the comics it’s even stated that he wants to be sexual with Nick,but he stops himself because:
1: he isn’t sure Nick wants to(and we should have more conversations about consent and pressure) and
2: he stops himself because ashamed of his body and is afraid that Nick would find his body disgusting due to his scars and his body recovering from anorexia.
Nick is a seventeen years old boy who just came to the realization of being bisexual, is still slowly getting more comfortable in his sexuality, who is under stress due to the fact that he wants to help his boyfriend but he know that only professionals can do that, has to plan his future and has an homophobic brother.
When you take into consideration the story, the characters not having sex makes perfectly sense. Not everyone reacts the same way. Some people may become hyper sexual, some may be sexual with their partners due to the fact they feel safe and want to be close, others may completely close themselves up to that idea. It’s not “purity”. I find it extremely ironic how we always fight people who calls us perverts and accuse us of only being sexual, deviants, beings who only think about that, to then attack pieces of media that rappresents us, for not being sexual. It doesn’t make sense. Straight media is full of different type of contents: sexual, not sexual, explicit, hidden, why do we want to have only one type of media to rappresents us? It’s counterproductive and only feeds that queerphobes that we are sexual beings.
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Yes to all of this!! It is a struggle because whenever someone who has only seen the show tells me that heartstopper is “simple”, “wholesome” or “very happy” I want to contradict them and explain, but I would spoil them so I can’t. And it is very difficult, having read the comics and the novellas and solitaire, to have an actual conversation about Heartstopper with people who’ve only watched the show, cause their perspective is very narrow (and rightly so). Can’t wait to see how the conversation evolves once we get to the actually difficult part.
If anything, to me Heartstopper is way more realistic than most other shows. The way it portrays mental health, family, different kinds of relationships, communication etc. is literally unprecedented in queer media.
wait not having sex in highschool is unrealistic...? I- I thought sleeping around in highschool was a pipe dream created by teen sitcoms. I'm in my final year of highschool, just about to graduate. All of my friends are either in relationships or have had them in the past yet, none of us have done the mating-like-rabbits shtick. Hell- I've had a boyfriend for seven months now and sex isn't on the brain 😭 (though we have both identified as asexual in the past so maybe we're a special breed). If people think it's abnormal to wait then they've either brainwashed themselves into thinking highschool is what was shown on Euphoria and Skins or they live surround themselves with different people than I do lmao
i thought it was unrealistic but not because of that. The relationship dynamic was nice but everything outside the main characters felt like a bit of a caricature
I think there is an additional nuance. I agree that two teenage guys filled with hormons and just finding out about their passion for each other should “realistically” do more than only walk hand in hand, or draw harts on their journals. In this sense the story is unrealistic, as are the (thousands) straight versions of it I had to grow with. However adding a degree of realism to the story does not necessarily mean that it needs to be sexually explicit. I don’t need to “see” them being horny in order to convey the message that such a relationship creates a need for intimacy or a physical response.
Red white and royal blue GENUINELY caught me off guard. At first, I thought it was gonna be a Hallmark-esque floofy romcom, but seeing the two himbos get their freak on in multiple scenes was a surprise to say the least. That and seeing Uma Thurman as the president of the United States.
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President Uma is life
“Pointing out that something is bad doesn’t make you a good person just because you identified it.” 👏👏👏
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I think one of the main issues for me, as a queer Asian person, is just this inherent comparison between Western versus Eastern queer representation. The immediate supposition of "BL is fetishistic and problematic" is a gross overstatement of the genre, and the things that Oseman said a few years back refusing to associate Heartstopper with "nasty" Japanese BL manga has stayed with me since I saw it. It establishes this inherent superiority complex in, from what I've seen, a lot of fans of Western queer media who ignore the complexities and histories and realities of the genre as well as the fans of Eastern queer media who often don't have the same privileges of safe spaces, especially when they then also turn a blind eye to issues that exist in their supposedly morally superior Western media and fandoms. The "discourse" I see that platforms Western queer media while bringing down Eastern queer media (such as the tweet that resurfaced about Heartstopper versus Danmei a month ago) is covertly racist and extremely reductive, lacking the nuance to examine what's actually "fetishistic" nor the complex dynamics that surround marginalities. It's so frustrating to see so many talking down from their falsely established moral high ground without actually engaging in constructive discourse on what is "good" representation.
No queer person, no queer media, no queer community is a monolith; the complete absence of media literacy in online spaces these past few years has been extremely damaging to internalized attitudes about queerness.
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I believe yaoi is written for and by _mostly_ women; hence it's called fetishistic, while it's counterpart, bara, is written for and by _mostly_ gay men and portrays gay men more realistically. How much either is or isn't fetish-y is something I can't comment on since I don't read BL, but I thought this was worth mentioning, as Oseman could've been referencing the former?-which definitely is a lot of times written with the bias of the female gaze. She could've been just trying to set her work apart from those which appeal sexually, and not calling all Eastern queer representation bad. Absolutely do correct me if I'm wrong, though.
@@lucticideMost of this comment is wrong, I have a myriad of gay men who are yaoi authors and ALSO what is the difference between Alice Oseman and other non-men creating queer media?
Is it only okay that a non-man does ot when they're Alice? Are queer Asian women and non-men chopped liver?
You need to unpack a lot of your views on non-western media, and what the word "fetishize" also means, cause just because you're not from the group you're talking about doesn't immediately mean it is fetishized, I have seen western media ACTUALLY fetishize gay men and lesbian women just as much cause it's not a women problem or an Asian problem, but an issue with your lack of respect for the queer community.
Furthermore, the bara comment is wrong, all genders draw bara but I see even more women than men do it tbh. Your comment really does show that you do not read BL or yaoi and yet you have so many wrong notions and ideas of it and still repeat them as if they were fact.
totally agree!! also compared to western queer content, there's so MUCH asian bl that ranges from totally platonic romantic relationships representations to sexualized shows (there's something for everyone) so it's incredibly confusing to me when people like Oseman generalize all asian bl as this one thing
@@lucticide heartstopper was created by a woman as well
This video is marvelous, Thai bl is a great part of my life as a queer person in the western media you can’t find the diversity that Thai queer content gives you.
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Straight women calling herself queer is homophobic fetishes. #LGBWithoutTheT
Especially with great queer directors and it’s one of the few places you can find non cis queer actors. Pretty much every BL has multiple actors who are trans, non binary….etc. (Kinn Porche has Sprite, Tin Tem Jai has Yoshi etc)
@@lisatobleman7318 there's no such thing as non binary.
@@derekb4977what☠️
I’m a gay man who was once down the rabbit hole of “yaoi is bad because it fetishizes gay men blah blah blah” and was like “ew straight girls who like content of gay men are just fetishizing us” but eventually I had to take a step back that I was really just parroting shit I heard from people online that sounded smart and it really just came off as misogynistic. Turns out I actually really like a lot of that content that I once thought fetishized me, more than a lot of stuff supposedly “for gay men” lol
It really does come down to the fact that there are so many different people in the world with different perspectives and the stuff you consume and enjoy can’t really condemn you morally (for the most part, there’s obviously exceptions but I don’t wanna get into all that right now). If you’re engaging with what you enjoy critically that’s all that really matters, who am I to judge straight girls who get off on gay male content? I literally do the same lol it’d be hypocritical.
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I also think the guilt and shame associated with the "straight people fetishizing gay people" narrative delays a lot of people from realizing they're trans and not straight.
@@ListlessLion even supposedly cishet women/girls realising they're bi or lesbians. i know that i gravitated towards bl at a young age because i was queer and trying to accept myself, and watching queer media helped with that.
@@talistheintroverti see this form of discourse over people calling any attraction to trans people "chaser" even including t4t relationships. We should promote loving different body types, not try to make it seem like a kink, because it tells you that there are parts of you that should not be loved, and that only certsin types of bodies are normal to love. The way i see it, we should envourage people to enjoy gay relationships lesbian relationships, trans relationships with messy genders and stop trying to police who can be what and what they can do or enjoy.
I mean here’s the thing. I still think the same thing cause….I wouldn’t want to watch a GL made by a heterosexual man with an audience of heterosexual men saying “Lesbian couples are hot” cause that’s fetishizing
What I like about Only Friends is that it shows sex for what it is. And on multiple levels. And it's that aspect that I feel have been missing from BL scene for quite a bit. They won't be running out of good fluffy BL anytime soon. Like, sometimes the trend of BL recently almost feel like they are consciously either avoiding sex cuz it's bad or just lean into it and be bad, but rarely just sex as it is, which I felt have been lacking, so it is refreshing to see shows from Jojo just talking about it.
I'm really liking the fact that Only Friends is touching on such delicate subjects too! Such as alcohol and drug addiction. It makes me happy to see them express these concerns with a large audience and I think that they have done an excellent job thus far :D
I think a lot of the fluffy ones idealise relationships, where in reality you change a lot in your life, you may have to kiss a lot of frogs, and be a frog yourself. What you wanted at 20, you may outgrow, and that is just life.
Honestly, as a guy who's been part of the, for lack of a better term, gay hookup culture throughout my 20s, Only Friends in a lot of way is one of the most authentic "gay" BLs that I've seen. That is, written by a gay man with a bit of "insider" perspective. Not all gay guys are promiscuous, and not even all the main characters in Only Friends are promiscuous. The series provides a good variety of experiences.
The modern lack of media literacy hurts my soul.
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As someone from a country where sexuality in general is never spoken of or taught about, all I have learnt about queerness is through media and books. As a straight woman, I have enjoyed both Heartstopper and Only Friends. Why? Because both address an experience, that I have never had. It makes queerness normal for me. Neither just sexualized, nor just fluffy, but rather human.
You took the words right out of my mouth.
‘I am neither slutty nor straight’ YOU ATE THAT UP
I say it every night, every day, every afternoon, and it's so true 🙏
@@talistheintrovertMY NEW MANTRA
I feel like this video has so many quotes that should become common on the internet because the presentation of a lot of the points/things they wanted to say was so good and entertaining whilst still being informative and not that disrespectful towards anyone (if someone feels offended by this video I can pretty confidently say that they should try if they find the problem on their side)
Meanwhile, in the gay community, you're not considered a true gay man if you're not the biggest slut in your building
as an elder millennial (late 30s) who had a massively sexually repressed upbringing (ex-evangelical, ex-ex-gay), it is absolutely WILD to see all the "horny/smutty content bad" discourse circulating these days re: queer media. I like a sweet hearts-and-flowers love story as much as the next person but for some of us it's also actively healing to be able to enjoy smut without hating ourselves for it. this is totally a both/and situation! all of these things are good things!
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The part where you talk about the misinformation around trans people and how it affects the worldview of GenZ was very nice for me, as a non-binary member of GenZ. It’s difficult to have a “debate,” with someone about whether or not I get to exist when they don’t even know half the vocabulary I’m using because they’re regurgitating something they’ve heard somewhere else. I don’t even blame them. Or rather I try not to. Really thank you.
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“Angry autistic rizz” made me fucking cackle. This entire video slays, no other notes
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What sucks is i still, at 21 years old, feel that guilty discomfort i felt as a kid seeing things i shouldn't have whenever theres a same sex *kiss* in a show im watching with my parents..
Currently in the process of getting rid of some stuff and for whateve reason I was questioning whether I should make a separate account to sell some books including wlw relationships, mostly innocent ones, I didn’t question it for the books which include smut scenes, I didn’t question whether I should do it for that one Manga I realized included incest (I somehow just forgot that word and has to Google “intercourse with ones family member”) but for some reason it just got drilled into way too many peoples brain that it is “dirtier”/“more inappropriate” and I hate that I still catch myself thinking like that sometimes
Me at 30: Just like me frfr
Honestly I love both shows!! Also for Only Friends I’m so proud of JoJo and Gmmtv for giving us Queer As Folk realness. Both Heartstopper and Only Friends are quality queer representation that show the spectrum of queer representation.
Sidenote: So glad you mentioned Not Me and The Eclipse because those two shows were chef’s kiss!
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As a sex repulsed queer ace woman myself I love having stories with varying amounts of sex bc sometimes its cool to experience that kind of passion secondhand since i have no interest in doing it myself and sometimes its overwhelming and I'd like to see something wholesome and romantic. Sometimes i want the sexy build up of tension but will skip the actual sex scene at the culmination bc i got what i wanted already, doesn't mean sex scenes are bad. Sex scenes in fanfic especially are also sometimes a really good way to explore certain sides of characters and their relationships that would never happen in canon and I find that endlessly fascinating. As for verily bitchie's video, i think she had a lot of great points and generally love her videos but i also agree that she was being reductive about heartstopper. Like, yeah it may be boring if it was just about straight people but that's kind of the whole point? Bc all the kids are queer and trans we get to see how queer youth is forced to deal with hiding all these feelings and worrying about who they can be their real selves with platonic/romantically/sexually. Like, the emotional stakes just wouldn't exist in a straight version of that story.
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Same here on the first bit! I'm both aro and ace and since I know I will never experience romance/sexual content in real life (I am sex-repulsed) I really enjoy experiencing the emotions secondhand and imagining what it would be like. It's similar to how people enjoy imagining themselves with superpowers- it's just fun. (Though, I only really enjoy it when it's strictly animated. Seeing anything intimate happen in live-action makes me uncomfortable (even if it's, say, a straight couple pecking each other on the lips) likely because it doesn't seem removed enough from reality for me).
As a certified gen z, it is so hard to get it into my head that uncomfortable is okay. That something isn't bad because it makes me feel uncomfortable. Especially when I have been genuinely abused and sometimes have a hard time telling the difference.
And as a writer, I hate that I measure my stories by how 'controversial' people online would think they are because that's the response to everything nowadays and I don't want to be in danger because strangers decided what I wrote is 'wrong'.
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I am learning so much about yaoi and BL! I only previously heard some vague "it's fetishising gay men for straight women and therefore bad..." and not thought any further about it because, well, I'm not a straight woman, and I never really thought more about it which is really very dumb tbh. Thank you for your BL recommendations 😊
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I'm always a bit baffled by this horny versus sweet discourse. Maybe it's because of my own experiences as a very horny person who's also asexual at the same time, but I love both. I adore shows like Heartstopper and My School President just as much as Only Friends and KinnPorsche, as well as the shows that fall in between (and the same goes for graphic novels and mangas). Alice Oseman did kinda stoke the fire on that discussion with her comments about BL, which I thought was a little bit questionable
Even if you only like horny OR sweet, why deny someone else the enjoyment? The thinking behind that is so self-centered
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I'm also pretty baffled right now.. I didn't even know there was such a 'discussion' about it 😅. Shouldn't people be able to watch what they feel like watching? Just like you I also like all of these shows. I mean I watch a show, if I like the story, the plot and the acting. I don't care if it's a sweet, innocent or a messy and horny show. Why did that discussion even start? Why do people care about what other people watch. I mean as long as they don't support a wrong message or something, everyone should be free to watch whatever they feel like watching. I'm a bit confused.
Horny and ace 😐 how ?
Could you please explain how being horny and being asexual works at the same time. I have been trying to understand my own sexuality and honestly sometimes I am so confused
I feel something that also gets overlooked in bl discussions is how some gay media in that part of the world, will be called bl if it has gay characters regardless of anything else and so to discount bl is to discount a majority of east asian queer media which might be the only representation people in those countries have, especially in their own language or a language they can understand. Besides, Heartstopper might be amazing representation for a queer child in the UK but a gay teenager in Japan, for example, might struggle relating to the storyline and a bl like Takara kun and Amagi kun or Kieta Hatsukoi might be much more meaningful to them.
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agree with this and you'll see people in sites like letterboxd for instance using the term BL for mlm media not from the anglosphere (some use it to refer to mlm media from the Asian continent). it's a pretty interesting usage of the term altough you could call mlm media from the west bl too technically!
This just made me think of conversations I've had with other queer and trans friends where instead of simply saying "it's not for me", there needs to be an entire dissertation on WHY they don't like X, Y, Z thing. It's okay for things to not be universally appealing. In fact, I prefer when they're not! Like Heartstopper might not be for me (I'm an Old and just find it hard to connect with teenagers these days), but I am so grateful it exists for those of whom it does resonate with.
Also your bit about the queer women and enby people who create these queer works made me think of a thought I've been having recently, wherein I've had arguments with other queer trans men about the "validity" of certain works vs others. For some reason, Good Omens and OFMD (both shows I love) are given an intense amount of praise from those within my circle and outside of it--both of these being shows ostensibly headed by cishet men. Whereas Red, White & Royal Blue or Heartstopper or other works created by AFAB enby or cis women are seen as lesser, as if their perspectives aren't as valuable as the ostensibly cishet male perspective??? Sorry, big ramble but your video made my brain fire off too many synapses.
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Oh. Your point about how we tend to see MLM works written by straight men more acceptable than MLM works by women and AFAB enbies really resonated with me. I’ll be thinking about this for a while.
The representation in Thai media even bl is so wide that even I feel seen in aspects of characters or plot lines as a queer black person and honestly what more could you want
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I'm very much not asexual, but I've always found shows like Skins and Sex Education, where all the teen characters are obsessed with sex and talk about it constantly extremely unrelatable. In a lot of ways Heartstopper is a way better depiction of how I experienced desire as a teen, even though that desire included sexual desire and was also never actually reciprocated. Having said that there are moments when I find Heartstopper too twee and on the nose, but in those moments I have to remind myself that it's target audience is kids the same age and younger as the ones on the show - if I was watching something like Grange Hill or Byker Grove now (two dramas about teens I enjoyed as a kid) I wouldn't start complaining that they weren't targeting me.
OMG I WASN'T EXPECTING THIS TO TURN INTO A RANT PROMOTING GMMTV SHOWS BUT THE ALGO KNEW WHAT I NEEDED 🥺💞
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26:58 - 27:12 this part nailed it on the head for me, as a genderqueer trans and aroace man the only comfort I could ever find was in fandom spaces, because the outside world couldn't handle the possability of me or anyone "other" existing and being happy in it. And now fandoms are doing the exact same thing, it's basically being put in back in the damn closet, but further. Very much appriciated the video 💙
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The crap who are having to deal with is a variation of the anti-gay lies of the 80s. Im sorry you have to deal with it.
@@talistheintrovert OMG when did they add a light blue heart 🩵 I LOVE ITS COLOR
The part about demonising yaoi really spoke to me. As an aroace trans masc, I always felt horrible for enjoying bl/yaoi content because everyone was telling me I must be a cishet woman sexualising a community I wasn't a part of, instead of a queer teen exploring what masculinity, femininity, romance and (yes, even) sex meant to me. When I got into bl, there wasn't a lot of queer media available. This was the only place I could see a variety of queer relationships that weren't the overly sanitised "they hold hands in the last episode", or just straight up queerbaiting. It meant a lot to see unashamed queer attraction and love for the first time through these stories.
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or the tragic ‘bury your gays’ trope 🗿🗿 getting into bl for me has been so refreshing to just have a full spectrum of relationships and dynamics that most western lgbt media seems to lack.
I agree SO MUCH with what you said. People are like "this is not realistic", and queer people above all should have the empathy to understand that the teenagers in heartstopper have a different experience compared to their own. Like, different people have different realities and one does not invalidates the other. And like you said, there are just different kinds of show with different ideas. I'm happy we have something as sweet as heartstopper and something as sexy as other pieces of midia. There are so many movies and show with sex scenes and people are complaining because Nick and Charlie are taking things on their own time and terms?! For me this is a good example of how to have a healthy sexual relationship.
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Exactly, I completely agree with you! Why would that not be realistic? Like you said, people are different, so obviously they're going to feel things differently and that's totally fine and good. And it's also great there are so many different shows, about various topics and I like watching all kinds of shows and movies. I really can't believe people sometimes.
God damnit. I was gonna make a whole video about Fujoshis and nuance and use the damn degree I worked so hard for finally... And you did it way better than I ever could! Love it. 💜
still make the video!! the world should always have more perspectives in it!!
I saw a wild take that Alice Oseman is demonizing s*x in Heartstopper, with the reasoning that Ben hope is the character most interested in s*x and he is demonized for that. Which…first of all, we know for a fact that Charlie and Ben have never had s*x, and Ben never pushed Charlie to do it , either. The person who said this was just reading into the fact that Ben’s kiss was aggressive, decided that meant it was sexual, and decided that because they perceived Ben as sexual and all the other characters as not sexually active, that means Ben is being demonized for being interested in s*x??? It’s just a wild leap of logic which ignores the larger context of the show.
‘I am devouring it like a snake, just unhinging my entire jaw and eating it whole’WHEN I TELL YOU I CACKLED
me with my hyperfixations
@@talistheintrovert 😭😭😭😭😭
heartstopper means a lot to me as an aroace queer (and trans) person who didn't have the "typical" high school experience of my peers and most media) both identity wise and party wise (had no interest in alcohol, parties, dating, etc. and neither did my friends, but we were the outliers; totally get why other people would be/are interested, but that wasn't us and it was really alienating - esp looking back as someone with undiagnosed autism - to not see that represented literally anywhere. heartstopper is one of the few teen shows i can think of that doesn't have a heavy emphasis on love triangles, parties, popularity, social hierarchy, or trying to get into an ivy league school. the fact that it's queer and has a very aspec slant to its dynamics is a beautiful bonus that elevates it. i wish younger people would realize that sex isn't dirty/nasty/bad while also not enforcing amatanormativity that everyone has to be secretly having/repressing sexual desires all the time either
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💯 I had a similar high school experience and didn’t figure out my own shit until I got to college, but I almost immediately gathered a very queer friend group and we’ve stuck together. Seeing Isaac this season made me cry so much even in rewatches. And the happy queer romances that are so sweet bring me so much joy. On the flip side RW&RB also grabbed my attention because man is it nice to see fully grown adult men being vulnerable and open with each other.
I dont get why people cant see that sometimes things just arent for you but that doesnt make them bad. For instance, I hate The Boys. Its just way too dark for my taste. My friend on the other hand, loves The Boys and has tried to get me to watch. You know what I said? "No thank you im good I dont really like The Boys." That was it. I didnt judge him for liking it, I didnt moralistically call out The Boys. I just dont want to watch it
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I would judge that show is messed up./j
(I also watch the show.)
oh I tried to watch it and even tho there were two main characters that got me hooked I stoped watching cos the rest was just too much.... for me.
Same with my friend who likes Euphoria: They love it and have watched it several times, but it’s not a show I would enjoy, and I don’t judge them in any way for liking it and I don’t see the show as “bad”, it’s just not for me
i literally SCREAMED when you brought up dangerous romance. perthchimon are doing a great work and the plot seems cliche, but has so many interesting elements, an instant hit
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I'm surprised you didn't mention moonlight chicken and its representation of disability. It's also one of p'aof's best work imo
agreed!!
This might just be the one video that push me to do a video essay on Thai BL starting from OG BL of Thai television history รักแปดพันเก้า, the series with 40 minutes long episodes that went on for 2 seasons on nationwide free television from 2004-2005 with openly gay couple as one of the main couple on the show. And that one film "Love of Siam" (2007) that marketed as coming of age love triangle between 2 "straight" boys and straight 2 girls. So many straight people went to the cinema and found out that it was actually a love story between the boys. For me, "Love of Siam" is the "Call me by your name" of my generation.
The discourse about BL/slash/mlm romance is very…complicated to navigate. Because often, a lot of what it gets boiled down to is “gay men” vs “straight women.” And the intersectionality between these two groups’ privileged identities and historically/actively discriminated against identities means figuring out where the line falls is difficult. Both groups are the most aware of their marginalized identity over their privileged one. While this is ABSOLUTELY a false dichotomy that dismisses the identities of groups who land somewhere outside these groups, that’s what it gets reduced to. Valid points can be made for and against these genres and their depictions of queer people, but we can never truly know where unconscious bias comes into play during the debate. Is that straight woman making a point, or does she not realize she’s being homophobic? Is the gay man making a point, or is he being unconsciously misogynistic? And, as you mentioned, race always has a part to play in these decisions in ways we may not even initially recognize. There is a lot of nuance in the discussion that gets lost. I don’t know that there’s a perfect right answer here.
I think, overall, my opinion is that no media genre in inherently more problematic than another. There are always problematic tropes popular to a genre that are worth criticizing. There are always problematic authors talking out of their asses and perpetuating problematic ideas and there are always fans who take things too far in the wrong direction and give everybody else a bad name. Reducing a genre just to its bad actors isn’t particularly fair to the other media in the genre. This is true for every genre. Literally all genres are impacted by and implicit in racism, sexism, and homophobia. So this a a discussion that shouldn’t focus on any one genre alone, but all media. (And for a lot of people, I think it does?) I’m also of the opinion that variety is the spice of life and everyone should be allowed to like what they like, as long as it’s done responsibly.
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This video popped up on my recommended page, and I was intrigued since I love Heartstopper and am currently enjoying Only Friends (as well as Dangerous Romance). I agree with pretty much everything you have to say here, and I’m tired of hearing people totally dismiss some of these shows because they don’t check off everything on a long laundry list of requirements for “good representation.” Excellent analysis!
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I'm an avid reader of lgbtq romance books, and this video warmed my heart. Especially since many people on the internet call us readers of gay romance all kinds of names. Thanks for all the recommendations! I had fallen out of the bl fandom a couple years ago because a lot of the stories felt repetitive, but looks like the genre has improved. I'll check them out.
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Right, I always think that's a bit weird. 'Readers of gay romance', I mean I personally have never heard anyone call someone readers of straight romance or something 😅. I mean in the end romance is romance and love is love, regardless of who someone's in love with. Of course, love for people from the lgbtq community, comes with quite a few more challenges than others, but it's still love. That's why sometimes I'm a bit confused why shows about same sex love (in asia, usually) are labeld 'bl' or 'gl'. That's okay obviously, but then I'm also thinking, shows about love between a girl and a boy aren't labeled 'gbl' for example. Sometimes it feels to cut off from other shows of the same genre and it makes me think about the term 'bl' and 'gl'. I don't know if that was understandable 😂.
All the topics covered in the video aside, the fact that you mentioned Bad Buddy as one of your favorites was very exciting to me because it's literally my favorite series.
lmao yes at the lines abt pran being bitchy and The Favourite Guy Ever i could not agree more!!!
THANK YOU for saying so many of the things I've been thinking! I just recently had a convo with my friend about the prevalence of black-and-white thinking, in fandom and on the internet in general. Many people fail to engage with nuance or context when discourse-ing, and are very quick to condemn something whole-cloth rather than acknowledging contentious or problematic aspects alongside positive or enjoyable ones.
It is possible to see imperfections in a thing you love while STILL LOVING IT. It is possible to see imperfections in a thing you don't like while understanding that OTHERS DO LIKE IT, and leaving them to it. I think essentialization is a prevalent issue in online discourse, that all too often "thing has (arguably) problematic aspect" becomes "thing bad" becomes "anyone who likes bad thing is bad". It is so frustrating to see this happen over and over and over, especially when there are interesting and nuanced discussions we could be having instead. It is particularly alarming to me that this process gets applied to ACTUAL HUMAN PEOPLE and causes real harm. Your Alice Osman example is a good one, and I think we've seen it happen with some of the Thai actor """controversies"""" as well.
I'm one of your recent subs, found you through your Barbie is Asexual video, although when checking out your back catalog I realized I totally watched and resonated with your The 100 video a few years back, kind of a full circle moment lol. I am (gray)aroace myself, and it's always exciting to find more aspec voices! I'm curious if you've seen Sense8 and/or Queer as Folk (US late 90's/early 2000's one), they are two of my favorite pieces of queer media, and both have had some interesting discourse regarding their depictions of s*x.
Also, I love how you continuously advocate for Bad Buddy being the best thing ever, hard agree, please never stopppppp.
sense8 is one of my favourite shows of all time!! and queer as folk is great!! 🩷🩷
Sense88888! ❤❤❤ I adore that series with all my heart. I find myself rewatching it every few months.
I can’t even explain how much this video means to me. I’m the author of the Love, Simon book, which means I’ve had a front row seat to this discourse for years. I adore the film (though I didn’t write it), and I’ll always be grateful for it. I’ll also probably spend the rest of my life grappling with the personal fallout from the online discourse surrounding it.
So much I could say, but I for now: thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for so beautifully unpacking the complexity of this discourse (and the harm it inflicts on fellow queer people).
omg I am such a fan!! I literally brought your situation up in one of my other videos talking about how unfairly you were treated. This is so surreal, thank you so much for watching my video, I'm so happy it resonated with you. That has absolutely made my day! 🩷💜💙
Becky I love you so much, love simon brought me back to the world of reading at a time of a really BAD depression in my life, the whole situation around you made me so angry and sad, seeing so many comments and absurd opinions while I was also a Bisexual girl in the closet I asked myself again and again why? why do they care so much? They have no right to do that.
I wish you all the best in this life, you are a great person and I just wanted you to know that you impacted the lives of many people at the right time.
@@talistheintrovert Omg, I don't know how I missed it, but thank you so much!! And this video is really, truly extraordinary. Not even kidding--you had me texting author friends with bulleted lists of my favorite parts. Anyway, I'm now a proud subscriber-- legit can't wait to catch up on your earlier content.
@@mayatorres1652 This is such a truly kind note!! Thank you so, so much--sending all my love and best wishes back to you.
no idea why some words are crossed out?? I fear I have entered my boomer era
Okay quick note about the lesbian thing- am i the only one that feels like straight guys fetishizing lesbians isn't discussed or condemned NEARLY as much as Fujoshis are? That could be my own bias, just a thought.
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oh you are sooo right
As a gay man, I must say Bad Buddy is the ultimate form of a BL series should be
Anything with Ohm! He’s a big muscular baby.
I haven't watched the video yet but reading through the comments made me really excited to do so, and I just wanted to comment that my jaw dropped when this showed up in my recommended, I would have NEVER thought someone would make a video comparing these two shows but I'm psyched for this dicussion!
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My thoughts exactly!
I haven’t seen the recent episodes of Heartstopper yet, so I’ll come back to this video later on-
But regardless it’s lovely seeing that it’s sparked so much insightful and thoughtful conversation in the comments! I’m looking forward to watching it when I have the time & context to :> I’m very intrigued!
I feel seen.
For 30years i never knew what was wrong with me, trying to overcompensate for what people told me i should be feeling and liking. 2 kids later. Getting into the thai bl community, doing a bl podcast talking about queerness got me to the realisation that I'm Ace and it was like a rock being lifted off my chest.
Everything BL has given me, the experience with getting to talk to the people within the industry. Discuss things i never understood and growing as a person. I'm so grateful for finding TharnType back in the day and it taking me down the rabbit hole of BL.
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I came very close to un-liking this several times, purely so I could re-like it again
you had me in the first half, not gonna lie 👀🤣
I would like to unsubscribe. So that I can subscribe again.
One of my favourite queer books is called husband material, it’s the follow up to boyfriend material and follows the gay couple that got together in that book as they try to figure out what marriage means to them. One of them really like pride flags and rainbows and the other thinks that hetero normative weddings in a big church is kind of sweet and the argue about it but it’s all good by the end. And they have all there friends as side characters that have their own perspectives. It’s very sweet
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@@potatorobot yes very dyslexic person here. 🤭thanks for the pointer I’ve edited this know.
I'm so happy you really specified that there is no "good" representations and just different representations. It's so frustrating as someone who has been keeping up with Heartstopper for years now to see people get so angry at this story about two queer boys falling in love in high school because it's "too sanitized" as if they aren't teenagers. The same goes for the opposite where people will treat horny shows as bad. We need both. It's important we have both and more. We don't get mad at cute romcom straight shows for being too sanitized or horny straight shows for being inappropriate. We need to offer ourselves the same grace.
‘Reading and writing smut is the closest I can get to actually doing it as an asexual’ I FEEL SEEN, THANK YOU. Us aces are quite horny, and kinky (many, not all of course). And I like ace content as much as the next person, but let’s be real, the fantasy version of sex is a lot better than the real thing anyway
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I think, the thing about 'Heartstopper' and 'Red White and royal blue' vs Asian BL, is that Asia has been making BL way longer than the West, so of course they're more explicit and experimenting - they've gotten bolder, because they know theres a loyal audience. This especially Thai BL, which is slowly becoming like kpop. Thai BL actors are literally idols - ships got their own lightsticks even! The Y industry is becomming part of Thailand's 'soft power'. It has reached an acceptance and popularity that Western BL has yet to reach, and even more so actor status. In Thai BL's, especially GMMTV, has started using BL main actors, who are close friends irl, which does a lot, for the on screen chemistry and general story feel. Here, it doesnt have the same status or feel, which is evident in both Western storylines and acting. But who knows maybe one day 😉
I will say, in terms of diverse representation, that just about the only thing that bothers me than the fact that people try to make everything straight is the fact that straight media practically ONLY has male-dom/female-sub dynamics (I very well just might not know where to look) and it’s very frustrating because that does not encapsulate every opposite-sex experience. I mostly said that because it’s something that I don’t hear talked about when it comes to character dynamics. I see it winked and nudged at, but not really ever talked about. Likewise, the effeminate gay guy CAN ABSOLUTELY top the more masculine gay guy. Mostly, I wanted to talk about how, even with peoples’ expanding understanding of sex and relationships, we do this thing where we state or imply that “masculine = dominant” and “feminine = submissive”, and that simply isn’t true.
there's definitely stuff out there! but yeah it's often slightly less common
And usually, when you do see some female-dom/male-sub dynamic, it's portrayed as some very deeply disturbing kink from the guy, and the woman is probably evil. Like, no? This is really frustrating.
have you seen the korean film Love and Leashes on netflix? it's a really good female dom/male sub story!
@@cinthiagoch It's really frustrating how male-dom/female-sub dynamics are seen as "normal" dynamics when female-dom/male-sub dynamics are seen as inherently kinky when it's not the case. BTW, if you want a version of a straight relationship where the female doms and is mostly portrayed as vanilla, watch Turning Red and pay attention to the parents.
@@talistheintrovert I haven't, but now I'll have to add it to my list. Thanks for the recommendation
i loved hearstopper when I first watched it. i was even obsessed with watching reaction vids of people watching it. taoelle was my fave ship. and I was even plannign to check out the other novel. but then I heard about what oseman said about BL and I just kinda feel betrayed as an asian queer. as you said Heartstopper has some similarities with BL stories and Oseman herself has recommended BL in the past, tho the nonsexual kind so I know she reads them and she knows there are BL that are not sexualized. it reminded me so much of a lot of discourses surrounding BL or yaoi. so yeah, I dont begrudge people from liking heartstopper since I once liked it but at this time I still feel bitter about it to watch it again for now or the second season...
im glad for this video though. at least misinformation and prejudice against asian queer media is slowly being lifted one discussion at a time.
ive been waiting for someone to talk about onlyfriends and im so happy i found this video, literally saving it for later im so exicted
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the moment you started to speak of a list of BL as to provide an example during the 18:10 mark, I was internally and silently screaming YES, but then once you got towards My School President as My School Engineer, I just became the embodiment of the surprised pikachu face meme, "wait..."
i adore your high quality analysis of media and media consumption! idk what else to say but thank you❤
thank you!! 🥰🥰🥰
Don’t have anything clever to say but more comments help with algorithm boosts and this vid needs more views
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I was not expecting you'd talk about about "Be my favorite", that serie is sooooo good ❤
is so underrated that is criminaly sad T_T
@@mayatorres1652 😭
Hello Bosman.
Seriously, every video you put up is such an education, except it's more fun than actual formal education..and more useful tbh. Your perspective soothes my curious cis het male soul and your takes are as hot as some of the content you recommend.
Okay, praise bomb deployed - happy Sunday.
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omg I'm now at the recommendtions bit of the video and am loving all your opinions and wholeheartedly agree with all of them! Dangerous Romance! I am living for it so much I literally wish I could timetravel just so I can skip to see all the rest of the episodes NOW I am obsessed with them
SO TRUUUUUE 👏👏👏
@@talistheintrovert by the way, what's your Semantic Error fanfic called? I want to read it! But if you keep your fanfic writer identity separate I respect that
@@braincabbage it's the second most kudos'd fic in the semantic error tag on ao3, so it's not hard to find lol
This video is incredible. I feel like you've articulated so many thoughts I've had banging around my head in a very affective way and connected it to some things i hadn't even considered. Thanks for your work 💕
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"sexuality isn’t black and white. The people who are a hundred percent straight or gay are the minority, and most people’s orientations are between the two-it’s just the ratios that are different.”-it is from a Chinese bl novel -"pastel colors"
I just feel like this is so true even though I am a straight girl i can confirm it
The poetry reading at the end had me shaking and quaking
finally putting that degree to work lol
@@talistheintrovert I am here for it!
For years I've felt like there was some piece of information I was missing about the whole *gestures vaguely* controversy around yaoi.
and the main thing people say when complaining that queer rep is “too sexualized” or “not sexualized enough” is that it’s “unrealistic”. and this hinges on the idea that queer people are a monolith and if someone as a queer person hasn’t experienced something, then no queer person has. heartstopper is really realistic for me, especially as someone on the ace spectrum. but shows like sex education or heartbreak high or young royals might be closer to someone else’s experience, and they all deserve to exist. idk why people want LESS representation than we already have??
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i can't explain how this video just felt like free therapy. this is my first video i've ever seen from you, but it was so well written and spoken to such a degree, that i can't fathom the sense of relief and acknowledgement i felt throughout it. especially with each tumblr post you read lmao.
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I’m a disabled 14 year old queer person and I’ve been struggling with finding myself in media, this video really changed my perspective on sex, kinks and fetishes and i never realised my own biases and truthfully pretty racist Ideas about queer media and it really upset me that I had these bc I’m very Passionates about Equal rights and respect for all but it’s a good thing that ik about these bc then I can work on them
Ty i found this very eye opening i love your videos❤
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This was the most cathartic watch ever. I am a Demi Genderqueer Lesbian who grew up reading yaoi and now am a big fan of all BL, especially Thai BL. Everything I have ever thought and felt was so eloquently said in this video!! I miss the days of the internet of “BOY X BOY or GIRL X GIRL!! DONT LIKE DONT READ!!” 😂
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Thank you SO MUCH for this! You hit the nail on the head, there’s so much discourse and no where near enough nuance. Really loved watching this and appreciate all the effort and time you put into it. Thank you 😊
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Yay to being a lesbian who engages in BL !! My recs are 100%:
'I told sunset about you' (rural friends to enemies to friends to lovers)
'Not Me' (anarchist gays)
'My Love-mix up' (ace coded and sweet asf)
'Blueming' (Film gays)
'The Eighth Sense' (Boy joins a surf club cause he has a fat crush)
'A Boss And a Babe' (Silly romcom intern x CEO thats just fun to watch)
AND obviously 'Only Friends' cause we love mess ❤
Yay!! Thank you for pushing Jojo & Aof, and all the great Thais content!
You showcased some of my favorites ❤
Eight sente!
You got any WLW recs??
gap the series, show me love, love senior, lucky my love, girlfriend project, she makes my heart flutter, she loves to cook and she loves to eat, rookie film, I'm in love with the villainess@@yeaidk2276
Out of curiosity, have you ever run into the Webtoons Boyfriends discourse? I feel like everyone who wants to talk about it should watch this video first.
As a side note, I did not expect Seventeen to show up in one of videos. It made my Carat self very excited lol
oh god I forgot that discourse!! (and I love seventeen so much I have a reference to that song tattooed lol)
The energy people put into hating on or looking down on content they don't personally enjoy boggles my mind. Free yourself from the burden of being a full time watchdog, and Watch/read/listen to something else!
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Watched GAP a few months ago, it is such a gorgeous GL, you can just see the chemistry and it is so sweet how they both protect each other🥺 I need more GL recs like that one in my life
I don’t remember when was the last time I have been so invested in a RUclips video
Seriously, your take on the topic is brilliant and all the examples that you showed are on top
Also Not Me is one of THE BEST bls ever made, everyone should watch it
All in all, thank you for making this video!!
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I found bad buddy last month and it helped me discover thai shows, I binge watched 9 shows already and I'm loving every second of it. I'm just glad to see more representation! Also this video made me add so many shows to my watch list I have no clue which ones I want to watch first now ☠
Never let me go is good good
@@nthapa2640 I watched it already, it was good! The only part that annoyed me was how a few guys were able to get into the mansion so easily like either nuendiao’s mom didn’t learn anything from what happened to her husband and didn’t increase the number of bodyguards they have or the assassins were too op
you're making me want to rewatch every bl i've ever watched
always the goal lol
I am so grateful this was in my recommendations, clicked by curiosity and stayed because so many things of what you said was so on point. Thank you for sharing this video!
ohh the second post written by the user satanstiddies brought some excellent points to light. Dare i say i teared up a little towards the end but yeah thank you for making this video !! Cleared up a lot of points for me and made me feel not ashamed of liking what I like and educating myself on some issues along the way
I think how explicit something should be depends on the story and character portrait that the director or author wants to tell. Heart stopper and Only Friends deliver completely different vibes and are having a different focus. Nothing wrong with sweet romcoms for teens. And nothing wrong with a bit more spice. Something in it for everyone.
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I'm really glad that the only social media I regularly use are Facebook and RUclips. Because of that, I've managed to avoid most of this discourse.
Regarding fujoshi, I'm a gay guy who read and watched a lot of BL and yaoi growing up and still do to this day, and through them I made a lot of online friends who were fujoshi. None of them seemed to fetishize gay men and were respectful toward me and critical of the problematic tropes that often pop up in BL and yaoi (because people can be critical of media while also enjoying that same media). I haven't met many gay or bi men who like BL and yaoi, so fujoshi were usually the only people I could geek out with over them. Some of these fujoshi I'm still friends with and they're some of my closest friends, even if we only know each other through online.
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this reminds me, when I was lot more into shounen ai and yaoi, we had little AFAB group, so no gay man perspective, but we also were aware of the unrealistic and toxic things. making fun of all the basic human anatomy violations. one friend even made little presentation for anime convention how many actual crimes are there in various mangas and how long would the be in jail.
As someone who loves and consumes vast amounts of both BL (fluffy and smutty) and media video essays, I want to say thank you. I have been looking for this video forever.
My BL recommendation, the Norwegian show SKAM, 3rd season.
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"Rain isn't muscly enough to be a himbo, he is just a straight up bimbo" Oh my god😂😂😂
LISTEN-
Right? 😂 I loved that line.
17:58 - 18:10 FAAAAACTS, It's literally the most recognizably BL storyline ever. Second best being Enemies to loves (who btw almost always meet in school or uni 55555). 1000% accurate
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now I have to watch every BL and gl you have mentioned. Also, how you describe Rain I can`t, thats so funny and on point
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This is a nice discussion on how we can love both soft stuff and messy stuff and not be mean about it.
Also, thank you for the recommendations. I was looking for more stuff to watch recently.
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never, AND I MEAN NEVER, would I have thought I would see heartstopper and only friends in the same anything.
why can’t two things be true at once?? Straight media has a heck ton of wide variety with their representation. there are both lovey-dovey high school shows depicting straight relationships, and there are also kind-of-over-the-top sexual shows that depict straight relationships. they both live in harmony, why can’t it be the same for queer media?
also, i appreciate how you mentioned the lack of nuance in social media today. my mom mentioned this the other day and i was like “huh i never realized that” but it’s very true, nothing can really be grey on places like twitter or literally any social media space.
i swear, bad buddy is just a lovestory between my adhd brain and my autism/compulsive disorder brain and that is why that show was so hilarious to watch. though i will never forgive them for tears i had to cry in the last 2 episodes.
Wow! As a writer who's working on a novel aimed at older teens (as that age myself) I really needed this! I needed to know that it's ok to show older people engaging in sexually active relationships, and also have cute romantic ones for the main characters. I needed to know that I don't have to tick every representation box, even as diverse in orientation and cultures as the characters are.
First five minutes was an insta subscribe for me haha.
Just want to say well done, this is an well thought out and a great tool for discussion all done in very respectful manner.
agree with everything
your eyeshadow is gorgeous
thank you!! 🥰🥰
"it isn't always for me. Sometimes it is."
THIS👏🏻 FREAKING 👏🏻THIS.
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@@talistheintrovert Your entire video perfectly articulated what I've been struggling to say to my other queer friends about this "issues". I appreciate you so much😭❤️
you're so kind, thank you! 💜