anoon · 7mo
hii !! just a comment i thought of sharing abt this situation (https://twitter.com/shroomdelights/status/1781417755054428654?s=46) bc i’ve seen a lot and maybe you wouldn’t mind my opinion 😞 i think that mostly ppl who deny anything (esp masculinity in order to give preference to feminist) are the majority.. i know it depends on the encounters one person can witness, and i’m judging just from my personal experience of ~3+ years in rps and it’s been quite an issue for last 2+ years i think? especially with how determined ppl with perceiving only one feminine side. so i felt like it’s a little unfair to shift the attention from it bc it open up another opportunity for people to fixate on his feminine side under the guise of “stop denying his femininity”, which is not that often a case. yet!! very important!! i think that regarding these exact pictures it’s very very disturbing that two of them are edits on the purpose to highlight his “masculine” features in order to make him “fitting” to some standard of the masculinity ppl have. i’m not yet sure about the edits but i’ve never found it anywhere except bearbun’s page and love insurance haven’t posted not-whitewashed-og-pictures either so i assume this is an edit. which is…. just disturbing and weird. and i agree totally that it would be better to just leave it be because he can be both and he is perfect balance of both which opens up so many opportunities abt how one person can characterise / view him, so many depths and dimensions. it’s more like when we talk about the denial of one side it would be better (probably) to always remind that it’s not one-sided and there was a major issue with the other side bc the reaction to “denying masculinity in order to highlight his feminity” talk recently has been taken pretty negatively aside from several ppl as if it’s non-existent issue and there is nothing wrong abt it, then “denying his feminity to highlight his masculinity” is always as something “wrong” or “weird” or idk. like.. nothing should be denied but while we are in such paradigm it’s not that possible anymore ;-; idk how to wrap this think piece and if you read it but thank you a lot if you do !!
there are several things i want to touch on this so please bear with me. first of all i have seen the discourse surrounding this is issue and i very much agree with the points that where made, especially by transmasc and trans men in the community. that being said i also think the rpf fandom is probably not ready to have that conversation in any meaningful and nuanced way. what i mean by this is that a lot of people have a very narrow and oftentimes just downright erroneous understanding of gender identity, gender expression, queer sexual preferences, queer identity, etc etc. and that also crosses on the fact that how you understand gender is a very personal and subjective thing that may also carry its own stereotypes, biases, etcetc.
so that's how you get people clamoring for more "masculine" bg and equating that with being a "dom top daddy" which reinforces the gender binary in a personally uncomfortable way, much in the same way people equating "sub bottom bbygirl" with "feminine" does. i think both are part of the problem and that's why i highlighted it, because regardless of if it happens more or less often it's still part of the issue. the solution isn't to go one way or the other but to better educate ourselves on terms like top/bttm, dom/sub as well as deepen our understanding of gender beyond stereotypes and societal norms. i'm personally on that journey as i admit i am still learning and i don't think there's any shame on that !
i hope this is understandable, and thank you for sharing your opinion and allowing me to share mine as well !
(p.s: i believe my tweets yesterday might've been a bit too combative/snarky, i was in a bad mood and i think i could've handled it better)
