so i know this one girl who’s pretty freaky, if you know what i mean, and got mad at me because i didn’t share her interest in gay porn manga, but i just could never get into it. i prefer romantic rather than sexual content, and as a lesbian, i prefer romance between two women.
some people say, especially men, say it’s not okay due to fetishization of gay men and straight women not knowing the queer or the male experience, but someone else said they should be able to enjoy what they want and to say that it’s not ok was “gatekeeping” interests.
my friend is also pretty immature, but it’s ok. like, she thinks women kissing is gross and it “doesn’t sit right with her” but is fine with men kissing, and says women don’t attract her and only has interests and crushes on men but then says she’s bi? maybe she prefers men, idk???
anyway, what’s wrong with it so i can learn better??
POV: I am a bi guy.
I don't give a shit that romantic or sexual... essentially hentai / eroge exists, of gay men.
Yeah, it probably often veers into being cringey, or astoundingly strange, and perhaps even veers into outright manipulative or toxic or even pretty fucked up...
But... thats kinda just how smut works.
And it obviously exists for other sexes and genders, and where you have roughly comparable amounts of cringe to genuienly fucked up.
Is erotica, in general, often fetishing its subjects?
Yep! A whole lot of it is basically fantasy/wish fulfilment, its rather rare to find erotic content that actually has... complex and compelling characters, a well orchestrated plot, is truly respectful of the subject matter, and doesn't lean heavily into tropes.
But its smut. The genre generally exists to get hot and bothered to, to be aroused by. It exists to make you horny, that's usually the point.
Maybe just make sure that you're actually aware that fiction != reality.
Don't take what the story presents as resonable things as automatically actually being reasonable things. Tons of erotic content exagerates things to ridiculous extremes. If you get a particular, specific notion about something from reading or watching some erotica... try to ground it in actual reality, study up on it (there's actually quite a lot of academic/professional discourse on these sorts of things), or, as you are doing here... ask others for their thoughts.
So, on that level, who cares?
But on another level... it is weird and controlling and immature to be angry at someone for not sharing the same preference that you do.
Its probably fine for this friend to like 'weird' stuff.
Its not fine for them to be angry with you for not liking it yourself.
Your friend is just confused about her own sexuality and is saying things that do not make sense.
If she is a woman... and only likes the idea of guys kissing other guys, but not women kissing other women... well she isn't bisexual then, because she doesn't like women kissing other women.
Or, maybe she is bisexual, and she is ashamed of this for some reason, and is just very loudly projecting this insecurity onto others.
It would be completely fine, either way, if she is attracted to only men, only women, or both, etc.
But ... she is saying and doing contradictory things that indicate basicslly she is unsure and insecure about her sexuality.
If she is like a teenager, that's honestly pretty normal.
But it also... is something that a person hopefully grows out of. She needs to figure her shit out, basically, and if she is going around being rude and demanding or aggressive to others... that's just not ok because it is her being rude snd aggressive snd demanding to others.
tldr: there's nothing really wrong that you are doing here, at least given the context you've given so far.
there is something wrong with friend being contradictory and aggressive about her preferences.
it is possible that she is in a kind of 'dual life' situation, where her living situation at home is generally more repressive and demands more conformity than she is comfortable with, so, when she isn't at home, she basically poorly counterbalances that with being overly assertive in other social contexts.
but that is just one possibility... there could be a whole range of other possible scenarios going on, but I would think that some kind of situation is occuring that is causing her to have trouble with or doubts about her own identity/sexuality.
thanks so much! this girl also used to bully me for being autistic and she still talks about hating “weird” people who are autistic but IDK if she still bullies them and she doesn’t bully me
Oof, that's not fun.
I'm autistic too, though... I didn't even figure that out until around the time I got to be about 30 years old... because basically nobody knew what the hell autism even was/is, back in the 90s/00s.
Yeah I mean my general advice would be that she, your friend, probably is going through some of her own struggles, of at least some type, at the moment, so... have sympathy and empathy for that.
But at the same time, don't just be totally ok with her being rude or obnoxious, don't be a doormat.
Don't go out of your way to provoke or antagonize her either.
I dunno, its kind of a tough call, how to approach a person like that, who is... kind of unstable.
Hopefully I'm not reading into this situation more than what is actually happening, I don't actually know you or this other person, I'm sure there is a novel worth of context I am missing... but yeah, she seems to be going through some inner turmoil of some kind.
she refuses to change, says it’s the “way she is” and nothing was ever her fault when she bullied me because i sucked at everything and deserved bullying. anyway, she probably does have some sort of struggle, idk.
Yeah... that does sound more like she has some kind of a difficult/hostile home situation.
Bullies tend to learn to be bullies from somewhere, and sadly, that is often their parents.
Being a bully is basically ... a reflexive response to yourself being bullied, abused, neglected, something like that.
People don't tend to learn how to put on a mask of being forceful and overconfident, just by default, basically all the time... that usually happens because of external things forcing that onto them, as a survival mechanism.
But also... I hope you don't just put up with her bullshit all the time.
Like I'm not saying to pick a fight with her, but to... have and establish boundaries, tell her when she is crossing them.
If you can give her a bit of pushback when she is being shitty, and she actually values you as friend, she may actually learn to control herself a bit better, if she wants to keep you as a friend.
yeah, i understand. i’ve tried tho and she tends to scream in my face and starts fights but now she doesn't
Well, you've got more patience than I do, or at least than I do now, now that I've hit my 'unc' years.