When Joyce and Ethan break up, Danny will rush forward and confess his love, and what we desire shall become reality.
emeraldbeacon
Joyce x Amazi-Girl?
JetstreamGW
Hell with that. I’m hoping for the most awkward, confused Polyamorous Triad in history.
Golbez
why stop there? Just make full-on orgy of awkward and Danning. It’ll be fun. There will be Dr. Pepper and tissues.
Golbez
also a crying room.
Chaucer59
In “Brokeback Mointain” this is pretty much the way Ennis del Mar and Jack Twist reacted to their first “moment” (except they denied being “queer”). Then they fucked.
Bi guys are still gay.
Bi girls are still straight.
The nomenclature is phallocentric.
Tev
Bi guys are neither gay nor straight. This is a different thing.
DapperAnarchist
I hope this is a joke, perhaps some commenter injoke I don’t get because I don’t read them enough, because no, bi men and women are not straight or gay. They are bi. (there is some space to debate the meaning between bi and pan, but honestly, especially with the way many bi people and bi activists now define bi, as meaning ‘same and different’, that debate is boring)
WeirderThanWeird
They’re not saying what they think but how society views it, I believe.
F
is it wrong that I just don’t care about people’s sexuality beyond their sexual desire for me? People can be attracted to people, animals, or inanimate objects. They shouldn’t have to excuse or explain themselves and I shouldn’t have to listen to how they are special.
The making and rejecting of advances is fine and normal and we should be focusing on how to not take that personally rather than how to classify people so that we know when it means we’re inferior amongst a population rather than a not in the desired population.
Danny might be into Ethan but hes not sure and has discomfort concerning his identity and reputation were he to explore them. Making an exception to natural proclivities for a single person doesn’t ‘change everything’ even if it is the first step.
MindLink
There is honestly no way you can argue against that bi means you are both gay and straight at the same time. Seriously. At least if we are talking about bi-sexual. Bi-philia is a different thing, most people are bi-philiacs unless they are total misanthropes. Hmm.. on further review, it seems -philia is not often used in English ? I checked in google translate, and they translate BOTH “homoseksuell” and “homofil” with “homosexual”, even though they have different meanings in Norwegian. “philia” refers to the non-physical love part and “seksuell” refers to the sexual attraction only. So, you can be both a biphile and heterosexual and the same time, or a heterophile and homosexual, etc. How do you distinguish between the two forms of attraction in English ?
gansmaltz
It means that bi men are often assumed to be covering up the fact that they are gay, and that bi women are assumed to be doing it for male attention (not to mention non-binary people and pansexuals), where the assumption is that their sexuality is still focused on men. For the love vs sexual attraction in English, most people use hetero/homo/a/pan/etc. -romantic if that isn’t the same as their sexual orientation
Jon P
To the extent that such distinctions are made, it’s a relatively modern phenomenon, using the suffix -romantic. So that one of my friends is a homoromantic asexual woman; as a woman, she loves other women, but has no desire to get into bed with anyone.
torstu
like jon p said, you can distinguish between sexual attraction and romantic attraction. sexual attraction is (basically) who you want to have sex with, while romantic attraction is (basically) who you want a romantic relationship with. for many people, sexual and romantic attraction line up- homoromantic homosexuals, for instance, want sex and relationships with other members of their gender- but this is not always the case- for example, panromantic asexuals want romance but not sex with members of any gender. although i don’t agree that not being biromantic makes you a misanthrope. i’m aromantic, but that just means i don’t feel romantically inclined towards anyone. i still have many fulfilling platonic relationships with friends and family. it’s not that i’m unable to love, i just don’t love in all the ways you do. 🙂
Kiapdx
We generally divide into sexual & romantic. (Example: someone could be Heterosexual (“straight” – only wants to have sexual relations with opposite sex) AND biromantic (desires romantic interactions with 2 or more genders – cuddling, dates, hand-holding, and other non-sexual romantic relationship things). HOWEVER it sounds like you’re talking about just general desire for friendship & companionship?
I definitely think that’s a third category. I’m heteroromantic, asexual, and desire friendship/general companionship from men AND women. So I think the three things are totally separate categories.
Aint seen nothin yet
way to take things waaaaaay too seriously
Nobody
Bi is attracted to both men and women. Pan is attracted to satyrs, cooking utensils, and residents of Neverland.
Freemage
Ew on that last one. You couldn’t have just said, “Pirates with dashing prosthetics”?
Pink Freud
Yes, before people get mad and I get yelled at, it was a joke. At least on my end, I was making what I thought was a fairly obvious joke. I have now learned my lesson though about humor and its evils, and shall live a chaste life in the future.
Vree
Please stop that, we already get enough sexual categorization apologist speeches via Willis and the comic itself.
We do not need to become Tumblr here.
Jacquie H
Indeed. Quite the sad state of affairs, isn’t it?
Julez
Because society believes that no one can truly love women if they also love dudes. *nods* That’s why bi girls are never truly lesbians, and bi guys are just doing it so they can “play straight and hold hands with girls in the hallways.”
I may have wanted to slap the Glee writers for making Kurt attack Blaine with that sentence. Rrrgh.
Fots
I really, REALLY wish you would see this and come back to this page and define your terms. It’s pretty obvious that you’re using nonstandard definitions, and I don’t think I know what definitions you are using. I’m really curious.
I don’t understand where phallocentrism comes into anything, and I desperately want to know.
Taigan
There’s no evidence I’ve seen that Ethan is bi. If he were, he’d probably have become involved with Amber.
DapperAnarchist
Unless he really is just her friend? Heaven knows, teenagers confuse friendship for romance all the time without any question of sexuality.
Cody B
Except they dated, so clearly their relationship extended past friends. Ethan is gay, not bi. He has zero sexual interest in Joyce for instance.
Nobody
Tell that to Ethan.
No, seriously, somebody explain to Ethan that he can’t make himself attracted to women by sheer force of will, because this thing with him and Joyce is going to end very badly for both of them otherwise.
Kiapdx
He MIGHT be biromantic and by that strain could develop romantic attachment to Joyce. But really, I think he’s just a very devoted friend to Amber and blahblahblah.
Anyway, Ethan is gay and maybe he could be genuinely interested in cuddling/dating girls but he only wants to get smoochy and sexy with boys from everything we’ve seen of him. So I think we should stick with his self-definition of gay and leave it at that unless he as a character (or Willis behind the scenes) says otherwise.
To be fair to Danny, all he said was that he’s not gay. He never denied Bisexuality. And that last panel has him looking like he’s wondering wether he is or not. Either way, comparitively speaking, Ethan is the one Danning this up.
gwalla
Right, but he’s only saying it because he’s reflexively denying same-sex attraction, which isn’t true. Basically, what he’s saying is technically true, but he’s still not being honest.
Twirls
He’s also like 18. Some kids no early some can’t break through the bullshit of society and stigma to realize the truths about themselves and acknowledge it a lot later. I know college was a big time for me in pushing through this stuff and he’s only been IN college for a month.
Kiapdx
Very true! Self-realization and definition can take YEARS. I have a friend who is 26 who always defined herself as bi, and a few months ago she figured out that her appreciation of men was purely aesthetic and that she’s a lesbian (which led to an awkward divorce). It takes TIME and a lot of different situations to really be 100% sure of who you are.
Yeah, Danny is partially at fault here, but he’s not LYING.
Really, I blame the patriarchy. This is actually one of the only comment sections where I think there’s a tiny chance I can write that and people will actually stay with me and read the rest of what I’m writing.
Societal stigmatization of femininity and bi erasure causes a lot of guys to be incredibly insecure about their sexuality. Since mainstream society tells them that if they kiss one guy they’re “gay forever,” bisexual guys often feel like if they admit their attraction to men, they’re basically forced to give up another part of their sexuality that’s important to them.
As cute as yesterday was, it actually makes things more challenging, now that the moment has passed. Spur of the moment chemistry might have carried through uncertainty, but now Danny has had time to focus back on all the internalized patriarchal bullshit he carries around with him, and if Ethan came out right now he’d be doing so after being in an incredibly sexual/romantic situation.
Like, imagine you’re at a crowded party, and some acquaintance accidentally brushes their hand against your butt. This is a thing that happens on crowded dance floors, whatever. But if that person immediately took that opportunity to confess their affection, it’d make a harmless accident feel like a come-on, even if it weren’t meant that way.
If Danny has internalized the whole “liking guys if you’re a guy invalidates your interest in women” stigma that is really common in society, he might think that admitting he likes Ethan makes him “gay,” and he promised Amber he wouldn’t leave her because he was gay. So that’s another layer of pressure.
Basically, Danny’s suffering from the patriarchy in the same way Joyce is suffering from religious stigmatization of sex.
So I am sad but this is also entirely in-character and realistic for both of them.
CulturalGeekGirl
Bah, that’ll teach me to try to do a quick rewrite before posting… that gorram weren’t/wasn’t error slipped in when I rephrased that sentence. Curse my emotional investment.
RAZ
As a member of a patriarchal society, a man is expected to behave and conduct himself as a man (as defined by said society). This include his sexual preferences.
RAZ
This reply missed the post it supposed to respond to.
tinfoil theory
A man is defined by what he does.
A woman is defined by what she is.
A man constantly has to prove that he is a man.
A woman has to have ovaries.
It’s a conspiracy!
(And Danny is totes lying. Because he can’t bear to disappoint a woman. Goddess damned patriarchy! It’s a conspiracy I tell you! A conspiracy!)
Nobody
I think it’s generally accepted around here that Danny’s problem is Danny.
Led
One thing that I have always found rather interesting about this topic is how a lot of people claims that only females can be bisexual, while guys are either straight or completely gay.
Was even someone who said that she had learned it from her biology teacher, who said it was biologically impossible for a guy (but not a girl) to be bisexual, which is obviously ridiculus.
RAZ
Men of old have long since establish the ‘men’s code’, which is considered compulsory for men of that society. Women’s sexual preferences is considered not a threat to the code since they are women, gay men were considered to have revoked their man card and seperated into a seperate group. But bisexual men, who follows and at the same time violates the code, confused the mens black and white definition of the code
Mercury
And it’s all rooted in the same place. Society defines men as being better than women, so women who “do man things” aren’t viewed as a threat to the status quo. There’s nothing wrong with wanting more power, even if you aren’t going to get it because you were born into servitude!
Gay men and (especially) trans women really screw up that system. Those who legitimately believe that men are better than women by birthright have no course of action beyond hatred – or reconsidering their value system, which is of course unlikely.
And on the other end of the coin, gay women and trans men are commonly dismissed as unimportant – they’re obviously just silly women who haven’t gotten the hang of serving men yet! That goes on to just invalidate and ignore their existences.
Attitudes on bisexuality are just a manifestation of this problem.
Chibi Squirt
They did a study wherein they measured the anatomical arousal response to m/m, m/f, and f/f porn in gay, straight, and bi men and women (six groups x three types of porn = eighteen metrics).
What they found was that bi women generally responded to all of the porn, while bi men generally only responded to the ones with men in them, just like the gay men. There were some men who responded to all of the porn, but mostly they didn’t; I think the number was only 3% did. (Source: The Compass of Pleasure, a book by a leading editor of a neuroscience journal.)
So there is some biological basis for this rumor, but there certainly are genuinely bi men, and at any rate there’s a lot of societal influence, as well.
Li
Correct me if I’m wrong, or if this was a different study, but actually all of the women “responded” to all of the porn, whether or not they reported feeling aroused.
(I remember reading one sociologist suggesting (depressingly) that physiological response to sex might be an evolutionary advatange for women because it makes it easier to survive rough sex (and rape) where a lack of lubrication could lead to bleeding and bleeding to death. It was… memorable, if not necessarily better than interpretations like “WOMEN ARE JUST FLUID” or “WOMEN DON’T KNOW WHAT THEY WANT LOL”)
I would suggest anyway that there could be a simpler socialization explanation for the difference between male and female arousal: namely, women are pretty much FORCED to learn how to empathize and identify with male characters, to see “themselves” in TV shows and movies and books with entirely male characters. Men are, as a gender, not, and are muuuuuuch quicker and louder to complain when some tiny sliver of media asks them to identify with a woman. The number of male players who will willingly choose female video game avatars is small, and when questioned male gamers have proven that they still don’t identify with the characters even when they play as them. An example I remember is that men report that they think of themselves as “helping” or “protecting” Lara on her adventures, not as BEING her.
So… yeah. It just doesn’t surprise me that bi and lesbian (and straight) women can still enjoy sex that doesn’t feature any women. Why not? We are pretty used to finding the enjoyment in stories without us in them.
Mercury
I tend to take any study about sexuality on the basis of gender with a grain of salt. Men and women do experience sexuality differently, and it probably -is- partially for evolutionary reasons, mostly related to the significantly higher theoretical reproduction rate in men.
But to take something as nuanced as sexuality, which exists so multidimensionally, and try to boil it down to a single axis seems particularly problematic. And when that axis is gender of all things (you know, the amorphous blob that no one really fully understands because everyone experiences it differently, and likely has very little basis in reality), well, it’s really sketchy.
Not to discredit such studies, but they don’t really tell the whole story and are frequently taken as though they do.
I’m pretty familiar with a lot of the relevant research, and I’ll try to sum up some of the general consensus.
First, I believe the study that Chibi is citing was later considered to be flawed, in part because it was a small sample size, and in part because subjects were put into gay/straight/bi categories based on a box they checked. In general, many people admit to mis-reporting in surveys of this type. When someone redesigned the study later with a larger group and a more thorough questionnaire, they got a lot more evidence of male bisexuals who responded physically to both sets of stimuli.
When just measuring biological response to visual stimuli, the majority of women will respond to a wider variety of gender-related stimuli than the majority of men – and while the genders men responded to were often strongly correlated with their described preference, that was less likely to be true for women. This suggests that female sexuality may be less strongly tied to this specific variety of stimulus and response.
So yes, it’s more likely that women will find pictures of people of both genders hot – but that’s not the sole determinant of sexuality. The idea of empathy and identification Li mentioned above has actually been floated in the research as one of many factors that might be in play, but we just don’t know enough.
I don’t think there’s any call to blame the patriarchy.
(Yeah, my reply is very timely)
There’s no need for Danny to be making a value judgement here. He knows that he’s straight. It turns out that knowledge isn’t accurate, but that will take time to process. For the moment, regardless of whether he would mind being gay or bi, he knows he is straight, knows he just experienced attraction to a man, and knows these two facts to be in contradiction. That’s reason enough for an instinctive denial.
I mean, I make the same sort of denial myself at times, albeit only silently in my head. I have . . . well, okay, I do instinctively consider allosexuality slightly inferior, but I make a point to suppress that whenever I catch it. And it’s not a factor when I think “I’m not straight.” I know I’m asexual, and every now and then there’s something that could be taken as evidence otherwise and I have to deny that interpretation because I know it’s wrong. There’s no need for a value judgement.
Anonymous
I almost completely agree with your analysis, but I just have one question:
What does any of that have to do with the patriarchy?
Because the Patriarchy says being gay is bad. It makes you womanlike .. and we know their opinion of women!
Ben
I’ve never understood how being gay made you “womanlike”. Sex is something men are “supposed” to be into, so what could be more manly than two dudes going at it?
Gadgeteer Smashwidget
Ask the patriarchy.
No
No, according to patriarchal views, sex is an interaction between two roles. One is dominant and the other subordinate. Men are supposed to be dominant. Gay sex requires a man to take a subordinate role willingly. This is unacceptable.
caramelundqueer
The condemnation of femininity and things that can be perceived as feminine (things like men being attracted to men) tends to be apart of the mo of the patriarchy as well as things like compulsory heterosexuality.
David M Willis
Second paragraph: “Societal stigmatization of femininity”
ninja_jesus
Because the whole idea is that the Patriarchy enforces gender identity and gender roles by oppressing individuals from expressing themselves in ways other than the socially accepted norm. Everything about that post talked about it. O_o Was it not immediately understood?
Mercury
Yeah, I read the post and was like “Well, obviously. Patriarchy is pervasive and evil, and manifests all sorts of problems.”
But not everyone has internalized how much of a social problem it really is and how interconnected things are, and it just goes to show how far we still have to go. But if people are willing to learn, that’s an important step.
Crimson Magick
Yeah, I’ve got the same question.
CulturalGeekGirl
Yeah. To distill it down, the patriarchy is the social structure that says “Gender roles are static, and male qualities are better than female qualities. While it may be marginally acceptable for a girl to do tomboyish things in order to ‘better’ herself, if a guy becomes slightly feminine he’s degrading himself completely.”
The stigma against guys who deviate from gender norms is an inherent part of the patriarchy. When feminists say that feminism helps men too, reducing the stigma against guys being feminine is one of the many things they’re talking about.
ninja_jesus
You are a good person and people say nice things about you.
Crimson Magick
I see where you’re coming from with the static gender roles, but I’m curious: in this case (with Ethan and Danny), what female quality do you feel is being suppressed?
caramelundqueer
There are a lot of people who see the act of men being attracted to men as something “weak” and/or “feminine”.
Crimson Magick
@caramelundqueer
Yeah, I read your comment above after posting, and realized that it answers my question. I’m not sure why I didn’t think of “being attracted to a man” as a potential feminine quality earlier – I guess it didn’t cross my mind.
Morty
Basically the thinking seems to be “You like guys? Well you know who also likes guys: Women! (Who definitely don’t like other women ever because then where would guys put there dicks?)”
If it seems like a stupid idea to you, that’s because it is
570 thoughts on “Flustered”
An Average Loser
Disappointing.
JessWitt
Willis giveth and Willis taketh away.
JetstreamGW
This is only the BEGINNING.
Sambo
When Joyce and Ethan break up, Danny will rush forward and confess his love, and what we desire shall become reality.
emeraldbeacon
Joyce x Amazi-Girl?
JetstreamGW
Hell with that. I’m hoping for the most awkward, confused Polyamorous Triad in history.
Golbez
why stop there? Just make full-on orgy of awkward and Danning. It’ll be fun. There will be Dr. Pepper and tissues.
Golbez
also a crying room.
Chaucer59
In “Brokeback Mointain” this is pretty much the way Ennis del Mar and Jack Twist reacted to their first “moment” (except they denied being “queer”). Then they fucked.
Oresthin
From dust your ship was made and unto dust it shall return.
CiaranLovejoy
Blessed be the name of the Prime Minister, uh, I mean, Willis…
LittleMountain
“I am definitely not gay, and am definitely not crossing my legs because of a boner or anything.”
Hinoron
Oh good, someone else caught that too. ^_-
Pink Freud
Whew! Well now that’s settled, and we know that niether of them is gay. Close one there.
Rachel Roth
Except. . . they’re both BI!
tinfoil theory
Bi guys are still gay.
Bi girls are still straight.
The nomenclature is phallocentric.
Tev
Bi guys are neither gay nor straight. This is a different thing.
DapperAnarchist
I hope this is a joke, perhaps some commenter injoke I don’t get because I don’t read them enough, because no, bi men and women are not straight or gay. They are bi. (there is some space to debate the meaning between bi and pan, but honestly, especially with the way many bi people and bi activists now define bi, as meaning ‘same and different’, that debate is boring)
WeirderThanWeird
They’re not saying what they think but how society views it, I believe.
F
is it wrong that I just don’t care about people’s sexuality beyond their sexual desire for me? People can be attracted to people, animals, or inanimate objects. They shouldn’t have to excuse or explain themselves and I shouldn’t have to listen to how they are special.
The making and rejecting of advances is fine and normal and we should be focusing on how to not take that personally rather than how to classify people so that we know when it means we’re inferior amongst a population rather than a not in the desired population.
Danny might be into Ethan but hes not sure and has discomfort concerning his identity and reputation were he to explore them. Making an exception to natural proclivities for a single person doesn’t ‘change everything’ even if it is the first step.
MindLink
There is honestly no way you can argue against that bi means you are both gay and straight at the same time. Seriously. At least if we are talking about bi-sexual. Bi-philia is a different thing, most people are bi-philiacs unless they are total misanthropes. Hmm.. on further review, it seems -philia is not often used in English ? I checked in google translate, and they translate BOTH “homoseksuell” and “homofil” with “homosexual”, even though they have different meanings in Norwegian. “philia” refers to the non-physical love part and “seksuell” refers to the sexual attraction only. So, you can be both a biphile and heterosexual and the same time, or a heterophile and homosexual, etc. How do you distinguish between the two forms of attraction in English ?
gansmaltz
It means that bi men are often assumed to be covering up the fact that they are gay, and that bi women are assumed to be doing it for male attention (not to mention non-binary people and pansexuals), where the assumption is that their sexuality is still focused on men. For the love vs sexual attraction in English, most people use hetero/homo/a/pan/etc. -romantic if that isn’t the same as their sexual orientation
Jon P
To the extent that such distinctions are made, it’s a relatively modern phenomenon, using the suffix -romantic. So that one of my friends is a homoromantic asexual woman; as a woman, she loves other women, but has no desire to get into bed with anyone.
torstu
like jon p said, you can distinguish between sexual attraction and romantic attraction. sexual attraction is (basically) who you want to have sex with, while romantic attraction is (basically) who you want a romantic relationship with. for many people, sexual and romantic attraction line up- homoromantic homosexuals, for instance, want sex and relationships with other members of their gender- but this is not always the case- for example, panromantic asexuals want romance but not sex with members of any gender. although i don’t agree that not being biromantic makes you a misanthrope. i’m aromantic, but that just means i don’t feel romantically inclined towards anyone. i still have many fulfilling platonic relationships with friends and family. it’s not that i’m unable to love, i just don’t love in all the ways you do. 🙂
Kiapdx
We generally divide into sexual & romantic. (Example: someone could be Heterosexual (“straight” – only wants to have sexual relations with opposite sex) AND biromantic (desires romantic interactions with 2 or more genders – cuddling, dates, hand-holding, and other non-sexual romantic relationship things). HOWEVER it sounds like you’re talking about just general desire for friendship & companionship?
I definitely think that’s a third category. I’m heteroromantic, asexual, and desire friendship/general companionship from men AND women. So I think the three things are totally separate categories.
Aint seen nothin yet
way to take things waaaaaay too seriously
Nobody
Bi is attracted to both men and women. Pan is attracted to satyrs, cooking utensils, and residents of Neverland.
Freemage
Ew on that last one. You couldn’t have just said, “Pirates with dashing prosthetics”?
Pink Freud
Yes, before people get mad and I get yelled at, it was a joke. At least on my end, I was making what I thought was a fairly obvious joke. I have now learned my lesson though about humor and its evils, and shall live a chaste life in the future.
Vree
Please stop that, we already get enough sexual categorization apologist speeches via Willis and the comic itself.
We do not need to become Tumblr here.
Jacquie H
Indeed. Quite the sad state of affairs, isn’t it?
Julez
Because society believes that no one can truly love women if they also love dudes. *nods* That’s why bi girls are never truly lesbians, and bi guys are just doing it so they can “play straight and hold hands with girls in the hallways.”
I may have wanted to slap the Glee writers for making Kurt attack Blaine with that sentence. Rrrgh.
Fots
I really, REALLY wish you would see this and come back to this page and define your terms. It’s pretty obvious that you’re using nonstandard definitions, and I don’t think I know what definitions you are using. I’m really curious.
I don’t understand where phallocentrism comes into anything, and I desperately want to know.
Taigan
There’s no evidence I’ve seen that Ethan is bi. If he were, he’d probably have become involved with Amber.
DapperAnarchist
Unless he really is just her friend? Heaven knows, teenagers confuse friendship for romance all the time without any question of sexuality.
Cody B
Except they dated, so clearly their relationship extended past friends. Ethan is gay, not bi. He has zero sexual interest in Joyce for instance.
Nobody
Tell that to Ethan.
No, seriously, somebody explain to Ethan that he can’t make himself attracted to women by sheer force of will, because this thing with him and Joyce is going to end very badly for both of them otherwise.
Kiapdx
He MIGHT be biromantic and by that strain could develop romantic attachment to Joyce. But really, I think he’s just a very devoted friend to Amber and blahblahblah.
Anyway, Ethan is gay and maybe he could be genuinely interested in cuddling/dating girls but he only wants to get smoochy and sexy with boys from everything we’ve seen of him. So I think we should stick with his self-definition of gay and leave it at that unless he as a character (or Willis behind the scenes) says otherwise.
Yotomoe
Danny in a nutshell.
Farmer_10
To be fair to Danny, all he said was that he’s not gay. He never denied Bisexuality. And that last panel has him looking like he’s wondering wether he is or not. Either way, comparitively speaking, Ethan is the one Danning this up.
gwalla
Right, but he’s only saying it because he’s reflexively denying same-sex attraction, which isn’t true. Basically, what he’s saying is technically true, but he’s still not being honest.
Twirls
He’s also like 18. Some kids no early some can’t break through the bullshit of society and stigma to realize the truths about themselves and acknowledge it a lot later. I know college was a big time for me in pushing through this stuff and he’s only been IN college for a month.
Kiapdx
Very true! Self-realization and definition can take YEARS. I have a friend who is 26 who always defined herself as bi, and a few months ago she figured out that her appreciation of men was purely aesthetic and that she’s a lesbian (which led to an awkward divorce). It takes TIME and a lot of different situations to really be 100% sure of who you are.
Kerry
DAMN YOU WILLIS
CulturalGeekGirl
GODDAMIT ETHAN.
Tunaro
GODDAN IT DANNY.
CulturalGeekGirl
Yeah, Danny is partially at fault here, but he’s not LYING.
Really, I blame the patriarchy. This is actually one of the only comment sections where I think there’s a tiny chance I can write that and people will actually stay with me and read the rest of what I’m writing.
Societal stigmatization of femininity and bi erasure causes a lot of guys to be incredibly insecure about their sexuality. Since mainstream society tells them that if they kiss one guy they’re “gay forever,” bisexual guys often feel like if they admit their attraction to men, they’re basically forced to give up another part of their sexuality that’s important to them.
As cute as yesterday was, it actually makes things more challenging, now that the moment has passed. Spur of the moment chemistry might have carried through uncertainty, but now Danny has had time to focus back on all the internalized patriarchal bullshit he carries around with him, and if Ethan came out right now he’d be doing so after being in an incredibly sexual/romantic situation.
Like, imagine you’re at a crowded party, and some acquaintance accidentally brushes their hand against your butt. This is a thing that happens on crowded dance floors, whatever. But if that person immediately took that opportunity to confess their affection, it’d make a harmless accident feel like a come-on, even if it weren’t meant that way.
If Danny has internalized the whole “liking guys if you’re a guy invalidates your interest in women” stigma that is really common in society, he might think that admitting he likes Ethan makes him “gay,” and he promised Amber he wouldn’t leave her because he was gay. So that’s another layer of pressure.
Basically, Danny’s suffering from the patriarchy in the same way Joyce is suffering from religious stigmatization of sex.
So I am sad but this is also entirely in-character and realistic for both of them.
CulturalGeekGirl
Bah, that’ll teach me to try to do a quick rewrite before posting… that gorram weren’t/wasn’t error slipped in when I rephrased that sentence. Curse my emotional investment.
RAZ
As a member of a patriarchal society, a man is expected to behave and conduct himself as a man (as defined by said society). This include his sexual preferences.
RAZ
This reply missed the post it supposed to respond to.
tinfoil theory
A man is defined by what he does.
A woman is defined by what she is.
A man constantly has to prove that he is a man.
A woman has to have ovaries.
It’s a conspiracy!
(And Danny is totes lying. Because he can’t bear to disappoint a woman. Goddess damned patriarchy! It’s a conspiracy I tell you! A conspiracy!)
Nobody
I think it’s generally accepted around here that Danny’s problem is Danny.
Led
One thing that I have always found rather interesting about this topic is how a lot of people claims that only females can be bisexual, while guys are either straight or completely gay.
Was even someone who said that she had learned it from her biology teacher, who said it was biologically impossible for a guy (but not a girl) to be bisexual, which is obviously ridiculus.
RAZ
Men of old have long since establish the ‘men’s code’, which is considered compulsory for men of that society. Women’s sexual preferences is considered not a threat to the code since they are women, gay men were considered to have revoked their man card and seperated into a seperate group. But bisexual men, who follows and at the same time violates the code, confused the mens black and white definition of the code
Mercury
And it’s all rooted in the same place. Society defines men as being better than women, so women who “do man things” aren’t viewed as a threat to the status quo. There’s nothing wrong with wanting more power, even if you aren’t going to get it because you were born into servitude!
Gay men and (especially) trans women really screw up that system. Those who legitimately believe that men are better than women by birthright have no course of action beyond hatred – or reconsidering their value system, which is of course unlikely.
And on the other end of the coin, gay women and trans men are commonly dismissed as unimportant – they’re obviously just silly women who haven’t gotten the hang of serving men yet! That goes on to just invalidate and ignore their existences.
Attitudes on bisexuality are just a manifestation of this problem.
Chibi Squirt
They did a study wherein they measured the anatomical arousal response to m/m, m/f, and f/f porn in gay, straight, and bi men and women (six groups x three types of porn = eighteen metrics).
What they found was that bi women generally responded to all of the porn, while bi men generally only responded to the ones with men in them, just like the gay men. There were some men who responded to all of the porn, but mostly they didn’t; I think the number was only 3% did. (Source: The Compass of Pleasure, a book by a leading editor of a neuroscience journal.)
So there is some biological basis for this rumor, but there certainly are genuinely bi men, and at any rate there’s a lot of societal influence, as well.
Li
Correct me if I’m wrong, or if this was a different study, but actually all of the women “responded” to all of the porn, whether or not they reported feeling aroused.
(I remember reading one sociologist suggesting (depressingly) that physiological response to sex might be an evolutionary advatange for women because it makes it easier to survive rough sex (and rape) where a lack of lubrication could lead to bleeding and bleeding to death. It was… memorable, if not necessarily better than interpretations like “WOMEN ARE JUST FLUID” or “WOMEN DON’T KNOW WHAT THEY WANT LOL”)
I would suggest anyway that there could be a simpler socialization explanation for the difference between male and female arousal: namely, women are pretty much FORCED to learn how to empathize and identify with male characters, to see “themselves” in TV shows and movies and books with entirely male characters. Men are, as a gender, not, and are muuuuuuch quicker and louder to complain when some tiny sliver of media asks them to identify with a woman. The number of male players who will willingly choose female video game avatars is small, and when questioned male gamers have proven that they still don’t identify with the characters even when they play as them. An example I remember is that men report that they think of themselves as “helping” or “protecting” Lara on her adventures, not as BEING her.
So… yeah. It just doesn’t surprise me that bi and lesbian (and straight) women can still enjoy sex that doesn’t feature any women. Why not? We are pretty used to finding the enjoyment in stories without us in them.
Mercury
I tend to take any study about sexuality on the basis of gender with a grain of salt. Men and women do experience sexuality differently, and it probably -is- partially for evolutionary reasons, mostly related to the significantly higher theoretical reproduction rate in men.
But to take something as nuanced as sexuality, which exists so multidimensionally, and try to boil it down to a single axis seems particularly problematic. And when that axis is gender of all things (you know, the amorphous blob that no one really fully understands because everyone experiences it differently, and likely has very little basis in reality), well, it’s really sketchy.
Not to discredit such studies, but they don’t really tell the whole story and are frequently taken as though they do.
CulturalGeekGirl
I’m pretty familiar with a lot of the relevant research, and I’ll try to sum up some of the general consensus.
First, I believe the study that Chibi is citing was later considered to be flawed, in part because it was a small sample size, and in part because subjects were put into gay/straight/bi categories based on a box they checked. In general, many people admit to mis-reporting in surveys of this type. When someone redesigned the study later with a larger group and a more thorough questionnaire, they got a lot more evidence of male bisexuals who responded physically to both sets of stimuli.
When just measuring biological response to visual stimuli, the majority of women will respond to a wider variety of gender-related stimuli than the majority of men – and while the genders men responded to were often strongly correlated with their described preference, that was less likely to be true for women. This suggests that female sexuality may be less strongly tied to this specific variety of stimulus and response.
So yes, it’s more likely that women will find pictures of people of both genders hot – but that’s not the sole determinant of sexuality. The idea of empathy and identification Li mentioned above has actually been floated in the research as one of many factors that might be in play, but we just don’t know enough.
Leorale
That study was in 2009 and was since completely disproven! (basically, sampling skewed the results.) Further studies found men with bisexual arousal patterns as well. Here’s an NYTimes article about it. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/23/magazine/the-scientific-quest-to-prove-bisexuality-exists.html
Fots
I don’t think there’s any call to blame the patriarchy.
(Yeah, my reply is very timely)
There’s no need for Danny to be making a value judgement here. He knows that he’s straight. It turns out that knowledge isn’t accurate, but that will take time to process. For the moment, regardless of whether he would mind being gay or bi, he knows he is straight, knows he just experienced attraction to a man, and knows these two facts to be in contradiction. That’s reason enough for an instinctive denial.
I mean, I make the same sort of denial myself at times, albeit only silently in my head. I have . . . well, okay, I do instinctively consider allosexuality slightly inferior, but I make a point to suppress that whenever I catch it. And it’s not a factor when I think “I’m not straight.” I know I’m asexual, and every now and then there’s something that could be taken as evidence otherwise and I have to deny that interpretation because I know it’s wrong. There’s no need for a value judgement.
Anonymous
I almost completely agree with your analysis, but I just have one question:
What does any of that have to do with the patriarchy?
Shadowydreamer
Because the Patriarchy says being gay is bad. It makes you womanlike .. and we know their opinion of women!
Ben
I’ve never understood how being gay made you “womanlike”. Sex is something men are “supposed” to be into, so what could be more manly than two dudes going at it?
Gadgeteer Smashwidget
Ask the patriarchy.
No
No, according to patriarchal views, sex is an interaction between two roles. One is dominant and the other subordinate. Men are supposed to be dominant. Gay sex requires a man to take a subordinate role willingly. This is unacceptable.
caramelundqueer
The condemnation of femininity and things that can be perceived as feminine (things like men being attracted to men) tends to be apart of the mo of the patriarchy as well as things like compulsory heterosexuality.
David M Willis
Second paragraph: “Societal stigmatization of femininity”
ninja_jesus
Because the whole idea is that the Patriarchy enforces gender identity and gender roles by oppressing individuals from expressing themselves in ways other than the socially accepted norm. Everything about that post talked about it. O_o Was it not immediately understood?
Mercury
Yeah, I read the post and was like “Well, obviously. Patriarchy is pervasive and evil, and manifests all sorts of problems.”
But not everyone has internalized how much of a social problem it really is and how interconnected things are, and it just goes to show how far we still have to go. But if people are willing to learn, that’s an important step.
Crimson Magick
Yeah, I’ve got the same question.
CulturalGeekGirl
Yeah. To distill it down, the patriarchy is the social structure that says “Gender roles are static, and male qualities are better than female qualities. While it may be marginally acceptable for a girl to do tomboyish things in order to ‘better’ herself, if a guy becomes slightly feminine he’s degrading himself completely.”
The stigma against guys who deviate from gender norms is an inherent part of the patriarchy. When feminists say that feminism helps men too, reducing the stigma against guys being feminine is one of the many things they’re talking about.
ninja_jesus
You are a good person and people say nice things about you.
Crimson Magick
I see where you’re coming from with the static gender roles, but I’m curious: in this case (with Ethan and Danny), what female quality do you feel is being suppressed?
caramelundqueer
There are a lot of people who see the act of men being attracted to men as something “weak” and/or “feminine”.
Crimson Magick
@caramelundqueer
Yeah, I read your comment above after posting, and realized that it answers my question. I’m not sure why I didn’t think of “being attracted to a man” as a potential feminine quality earlier – I guess it didn’t cross my mind.
Morty
Basically the thinking seems to be “You like guys? Well you know who also likes guys: Women! (Who definitely don’t like other women ever because then where would guys put there dicks?)”
If it seems like a stupid idea to you, that’s because it is