Gay MenQuestion to gay men: het/comp het in your media?

submitted by NerveActive from self.LGBDropTheT

From my experience, most lesbian movies, books and stuff have the lesbian characters experimenting with men, or even marrying them at some point of the story (sometimes forced marriage, sometimes not). Is this common in stories about gay men (of course I mean men dating/having sex with women)?

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[–]RedEyedWarriorGay | Male | 🇮🇪 Irish 🇮🇪 | Antineoliberal | Cocks are Compulsory 18 insightful - 1 fun18 insightful - 0 fun19 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

There’s a miniseries called Bob and Rose, where a gay man falls in love with and marries a woman. I didn’t watch it, because I’m not interested in works that depict gay men unironically falling in love with women. This promotes a heterosexist lifestyle to gay men, and promotes the idea that gay men can only be happy if they’re in relationships with women. I don’t mind works where bisexual men marry women, but it’s natural for a bisexual man to marry a woman, because bisexuals like both sexes. But in Bob and Rose, the supposedly gay main character insists that he’s still gay, rather than admit that he’s bisexual. So I’m not watching it.

[–]CaptainMooseEx-Bathhouse Employee 14 insightful - 1 fun14 insightful - 0 fun15 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I don't see it as prominently in media created by and for us, but in media where the gay characters are marketed toward straight women (and girls) it's fairly prevalent. Degrassi, Glee, and Shameless all have notable examples of established gay characters hooking up with women (or transmen) well after coming out, or of women/girls forcing themselves on these characters and it not being treated like a problem by the (straight, female) fandom. But if a gay character steps a toe out of line with a man, all hell breaks loose in the discourse.

Recently I read a YA novel called "How to Survive a Summer" (2017) which I would describe as pure comp het. The novel is about a man who was sent to a conversion therapy camp as a teenager, presents the actual same-sex relationships in it as dysfunctional or abusive, and ends with the main character in a relationship with a "transman" who used to be a lesbian and presents this as a happy ending. Guess the conversion therapy worked.

[–]markiemarcus 10 insightful - 1 fun10 insightful - 0 fun11 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I don't watch "gay themed" often enough these days to comment on this because they're so often shit that I end up turning them off. There are a few reasons for this, but principally what ends up happening is that a certain degree of pressure to "represent" undermines the creative process. Far more often than not, nothing about the end result rings true to me.

I'm also not convinced that they're for "us" at all.

[–]Destresse🇨🇵 8 insightful - 1 fun8 insightful - 0 fun9 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

That's something I wondered too. Some years ago my mom explained the premise of this movie she was excited to see, where "a gay man married to another man falls for a woman" No idea which movie that is

[–]Rage-Xion 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

There's this great french film "I kissed a girl" (Toute première fois) about a gay man who's about to marry his longtime boyfriend but then sleep and falls in love with a woman. Instead of being a movie about bisexuality or experimentation, it ends with the guy dumping his fiancé and coming out as straight.

To add insult to injury, it was the first movie about same-sex marriage after it was legalized in France.

[–]Destresse🇨🇵 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Aah, so that was the name of the movie

[–]OPPRESSED_REPTILIANIntersex male | GNC | Don't call me "a gay", "twink" or "queen" 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Nope, it's not a thing. "Comp het" is a dumb radfem concept that isn't even real, anyway.

Most gay media from porn to "clean" romance is very full on gay affirming. It's honestly a big part of why I don't enjoy it.