Storytime: Gay Fetishization

When I was in college, my art school friend with benefits (hetero cis woman) knew, like many people did, that I wasn’t exactly the epitome of cishetero-ness. She knew I carried myself differently, had lots of LGBTQIA+ friends, and hung out at gay clubs sometimes.

She had Yaoi fantasies and occasionally pushed me to experiment with men when we went out. I didn’t enjoy any of these experiences, and for a while it was a sort-of “confirmation” that I wasn’t gay. I had this dumb idea that every gay man wants to make out with strangers in clubs (gee, I can’t imagine where I internalized that from), and since I didn’t enjoy that I was, by process of elimination, the other side of the binary orientation definition.

This set me back several years in being open to experimenting with people I would maybe like kissing if I got to know them first and wasn’t pressured into it. I missed many opportunities to learn about myself.

I get that I’m solely responsible for my own actions, but this fetishization stuff can really suck sometimes.

Reference Link: Fetishization of the Queer Community