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[On Screen:] "[Disclaimer]"

I want to be absolutely clear upfront, so that you can be very assured where my intentions are going forward: I do not dislike any of the media that we're talking about in this video. In fact, I loved most of it, on the page and the screen. I'm not coming for any of the creators this time. But we do need to talk about this because there is clearly an issue here, and it's becoming a problem. But the issue doesn't really have a clear target to blame.

So let's hit the ground running and talk about Red, White, and Royal Blue, the recently released movie, based on the book by Casey McQuiston.

In the heart of the city of London, The Majestic Wedding Bells echo, announcing the matrimony of Prince Phillip, the eldest grandson of England's Monarch. The historic streets lined with iconic landmarks buzz with anticipation and excitement.

Among the swirl of dignitaries and celebrities is an individual who attracts attention like a moth to a flame: Alex Claremont-Diaz. He isn't just any attendee; he's the dynamic son of Ellen Claremont, a trailblazer who shattered glass ceilings by becoming the first woman to become the president of the United States.

However this evening amidst the sparkling chandeliers of the Grand Ballroom, something is amiss. The air thickens with tension and hush whispers traverse the room. At the heart of these murmur are Alex and Prince Henry, the younger sibling of the groom. Their contentious relationship is the stuff of social media legend. The simmering animosity between them reaches its crescendo when a relatively minor misunderstanding leads to them swimming in wedding cake, providing juicy content for the eager tabloids on both sides of the pond.

The repercussions are immediate, with the impending reelection campaign of President Claremont, the scandal is ill timed, threatening to put a dent in her electoral armor. Damage control is of the essence.

To smooth out ruffled feathers and placate the media's appetite for scandal, Alex and Henry are thrust into a meticulously orchestrated PR campaign. This facade aimed at showcasing their renewed friendship has them attending events, posing for pictures, and offering sound bites about their brotherly bond.

During one such contrived rendezvous, after a security breach lands them both locked in a cramped broom closet, Alex's guard crumbles. He divulges the root of his resentment stemming from a slight he felt from Henry during one of his initial forays into the international stage. This heartfelt confession, laced with vulnerability, moves Henry.

Recognizing the weight of the misunderstanding, he extends a genuine gesture of reconciliation. Late night texts replace terse exchanges, humor replaces hostility, and slowly they start to build a bond, peppered with light-hearted jabs and shared inside jokes. However relationships are rarely linear.

At the extravagant New Year celebration hosted by Alex, emotions bubble to the surface. When the clock strikes midnight, a buoyant Alex loses loses himself in the festivities. This... does not sit well with the Prince. Henry's sudden and unexplained departure hints at unspoken sentiments.

Driven by an overwhelming fear of maybe losing Henry, Alex seeks him out in the serene White House Gardens. Confusion leads to a kiss from the prince, who like any man, then spends the next several weeks ignoring Alex's texts and phone calls.

A normal gay experience, yes.

Weeks later at a presidential dinner, Alex reunites with Henry and the pair end up hooking up. The pair enter into a "Friends with Benefits" relationship, although they keep their involvement secret. Duty and responsibilities, however, have their own demands. The electoral battlefield beckons and Alex finds himself in Texas, championing his mother's campaign.

Because this is a romantic fantasy, the idea of Texas voting for a Democratic president is actually possible. He later travels to Brooklyn to speak at the Democratic National Convention, where Henry unexpectedly visits him. This leads to these "friends with benefits" becoming something closer than just friends.

Alex even comes out to his mother as bisexual. She's very supportive maybe (even... too supportive when she starts recommending that he go on prep) but advises him to think about his relationship carefully. A public relationship between the first son and the Prince of England could change their lives forever.

Their story however is far from a fairy tale ending. Henry visits Alex at the scenic Claremont Vacation House near Austin Texas. Out on the lake, just when Alex is on the cusp of sharing his deepest feelings with with Henry, the panicked Prince throws himself into the lake and soon leaves, escaping to England.

But love, with its tenacity, spurs Alex on. He pursues Henry across the ocean seeking answers. Drenched from the English rain, Alex demands to know why Henry has basically abandoned him. Henry admits that he loves Alex, just as Alex loves him, but explains that his Royal position makes a gay relationship impossible for him. But Alex, with those eyelashes of his, manages to convince Henry that their relationship is worth fighting for, and the the two reconcile and commit to being together.

Yet destiny has more challenges waiting in the wings. Their intimate emails and texts, a window to their evolving love story, are maliciously exposed by a spurned ex of Alex's, creating a media maelstrom. Alex uses this as an opportunity to come out publicly and own his sexuality and his love for Henry, giving a moving speech that makes him the figurehead for queer America.

But things don't go so well for Henry whose family has all but sequestered him away from the public at large. But thanks to some deft maneuvering on the part of allies on both sides, Alex and Henry reunite in London, and prepare to confront the king of England about Henry being allowed to be his own man. A terse confrontation follows, but is interrupted by the sounds in the streets. The public have come to support Henry, despite what his family may want. And going against the wishes of the crown, Henry chooses Alex.

The climax of the story coincides with the US elections. Polls are tight and Alex's family is preparing for bad news. The only thing keeping Alex together is Henry by his side.

As his mother prepares a concession speech, news comes from Texas. In the most fairy tale moment since Cinderella's fairy godmother turned a pumpkin into a carriage, Texas goes blue, securing a second term for president Claremont. Alex's tireless efforts, combined with Henry's unwavering support, mark a dual victory, one political and one personal. The movie ends as they celebrate away from the media glare in the tranquil surroundings of Alex's childhood home in Austin.

[Sponsor Read]

So Red, White, and Royal Blue might read like the ultimate what if scenario. But strip away the international diplomacy and royal trappings and you got yourself a pretty straightforward romance: two guys falling for each other when they least expect it.

[Cutaway gag]: Groundbreaking

Now if you're familiar with the romance genre, you'll know that it's not exactly bursting at the seams with gay love stories that don't take a tragic turn. And mainstream romcoms... well, they've historically stuck to the script of snowflakes and sanitized kisses, with the steamier stuff being left implied (if it's acknowledged at all). Explicitly sexual gay romcoms are like unicorns: mythically rare and to some potentially unsettling.

In this narrative Alex and Henry's all consuming infatuation anchors the plot. They're the kind of "in too deep" that has them gambling everything on a chance at happiness. And sure with Alex's mom in full campaign mode and Henry sporting a crown (usually metaphorically), their romance isn't exactly publicity friendly. But the fireworks happen offstage.

Their text messages a master class in building sexual tension. And their together moments? Well, let's just say they're explosive in the "clutch your pearls" kind of way (especially in the book). They make up for lost time, as it were.

The story kind of saunters into this liminal space. It's not pure handholding puppy love like in Heartstopper, but it's also not quite at the level of pay-per-view eroticism that you'd find in Elite. It's sweet, sure, endearing even, to the most cynical of us. But it also packs enough heat to make you want to crack open a window.

And yeah it got heat, of the... not-so-great kind. Uh, we're talking about think pieces from places like The Huffington Post and the BBC getting their knickers in a Twist over the movie's "excessive sexiness".

The twist? Some of these naysayers were gay men. It's a bit of a "the call is coming from inside of the house" moment when queer people themselves openly admit to being comfortable watching straight sex in movies, but are turned away by the sight of boys kissing. Especially due to how relatively tame Red, White, and Royal Blue's sex was, compared to other gay media released in recent memory.

The bulk of criticism however was found on social media, where straight people seemed to be confused and shocked that gay men had sex at all. The blowjob references and the one particular sex scene (which seemed like a Rubik's Cube to some straight viewers) were too much for an audience that had been raised on the sexless gay best friend sidekick character. It's almost as if someone asked "Do gay characters have sexual encounters? How do they do this when they're both facing each other? What kind of witchcraft is this?!"

As a result they rushed to the internet, first to investigate how the missionary position could possibly work with gays, and then to express their dissatisfaction with the situation.

There's a strong undercurrent of hypocrisy here, particularly as queer folk of... literally every shade of the rainbow are accused of corrupting the youth. Never mind that it was perfectly acceptable for virtually every American Teen Movie to focus with laser precision on rooting for teenagers to bone each other. The American Pie franchise owes its whole success to this. For which audiences agree that the heterosexual events in American Pie are... normal.

But when it's gay, it's sexualization, echoing a sentiment quietly expressed in culture: straight is normal, and everything else that is outside of normal must be scrutinized for how it may corrupt 'the normal'. Which is the most irrational thought process presented in this essay.

And I will note just in case YouTube makes me cut the footage of said scene, the main sex scene in Red, White, and Royal Blue entirely focuses on faces. It's all about the emotional intimacy between two people and less about the raw sex, which isn't even raw, by the way, because they make a point of using a condom. Which a lot of gay viewers laughed at because we're in the age of prep. But two things: one) Prince Henry probably couldn't go on prep without it causing a scandal, and two) there are STDs other than HIV, guys. This is why syphilis is resurging and why we're getting antibiotic resistant strains of Gonorrhea now. Wrap 👏 it 👏 up! 👏 In any case...

According to what I've gathered, the majority of viewers who were... offended were hetrosexual women who were apparently exposed to gay content for the first time in their lives via Heartstopper. Which huge props to Heartstopper, by the way, for opening people's minds to the concept that boy kissing is all right. But when that's their only exposure, I can understand how "legs-up anal penetration" may leave them surprised.

However, they were so taken aback, that they criticized the film for having an excessive amount of sexual content which once more is one scene and, in both a physical and figurative sense, it's not quite as steamy as the sex scene that took place between Rose and Jack and the car in Titanic. They were shut down online pretty quickly by a huge swath of fans (made up mostly of women, but to my delightful surprise a lot of gay men as well), who told them to pipe down and accept that sex exists, thank you. But for a few days this very very vocal minority were making it seem like Alex and Henry having sex in the most basic position known to humankind, while using a condom (and even to my recollection being under the bed sheets) was compared on a one-to-one basis as the third day of a meth orgy.

So why is it that they were perfectly fine with Nick and Charlie kissing up a storm on Heartstopper, writing fanfiction about it and creating countless fan edits on Tik Tok, but basically formed a covenant^{[sic: joined a convent]} the minute Alex pushed Henry's knees up to his chest? I'd like to see the reaction to... well, any episode of Queer as Folk.

Now was this just because they've never been exposed to the idea of gay sex before? Were they homophobic? Were they secret PragerU plants, out to kill the movie? Were they sex negative in general? Or...? Have we as a society simply conditioned a large swath of the populace to think of gays as completely nonsexual objects? Something that plenty of people like having around but keep at a distance just far enough away to not have to know too much about it.

They know that men have sex with men, and women have sex with women, but they're really icked out by the idea of knowing the ins and outs and tops and bottoms of it all. (Good thing Henry didn't eat any beans before the scene or that could have brought up even more uncomfortable questions.)

The controversy about the sex in Red, White, and Royal Blue, while quickly suppressed, seems to paint an ill-fated omen^{[sic: ill omen]} about the condition of gay men, and possibly by extension, all of queerness and the ability to be open about sex lives. Especially in the same comfort that straight creators depict straight sex.

Through a latent process of judging gayness in media the straight audience can pass a stamp of approval or condemn certain media. And in the process we can perhaps perceive the hetero hegemony as dictating how, or how not, to be gay. And simply by how overwhelmingly large the straight audience is, their dictation of what good gay representation is drowns out what gay men describe as good gay representation.

This is the fear anyway.

And though I believe it is irrational, the fear comes from a very real very valid place. Especially as a conservative wave once again washes across America and sections of Europe, which tries to insist that queer sex should be pushed back into the closet, or should simply cease to exist altogether. Which is how they also feel about various queer people.

Political gay fears seem to be realized through the mass audience's reaction to gay characters in media. In conjunction with criticisms against relatively tame gay sex in one movie, the celebration of sexless queer characters in another piece of queer media seems to echo a 1950s abstinence mandate that says to modern young queer people, "you'll be accepted if you're less like the characters in Red, White, and Royal Blue, and more like the characters in Heartstopper."

Let's take a closer look at Heartstopper for a moment. This series skips the usual over-the-top drama and instead captures the sweet sometimes clumsy moments of teen love. It centers around two characters: Charlie Spring (played by Joe Locke) and Nick Nelson (played by Kit Connor). Their story takes place in a typical English high school and unfolds slowly and gently with each episode moving the story forward toward a satisfying emotional climax. The story carefully takes us through their personal journeys, the difficulties they face with bullying, and the joy of finding someone who truly understands them. All without becoming overly sad or dramatic. The show has a light touch that perfectly captures how straights have been telling us first love feels for centuries.

The show gives us a real look at Charlie as he deals with his sexuality and the need to be accepted. He's not just a stereotype he's a fully developed character going through the ups and downs of first love in a very real way. As for Nick the show does a good job of showing his journey of understanding that he's bisexual. It talks about the confusion and moments of clarity that come with figuring out who you are. The series handles these complex topics with a gentle touch that's both admirable and sweet.

Heartstopper also shows the diverse experience of different people in the queer community. Each character has a different story, reminding us that everyone's journey is unique. But there's still a common hope and strength that they all share. The show is also notable (or maybe notorious) for not focusing too much on the sexual aspects of Nick and Charlie's relationship. This makes Heartstopper a strong argument against the idea that gay stories are inherently too focused on sex and therefore unsafe for kids or young people to watch.

But while creating a story focused on the sweet and cute over the hot and bothered has attracted an audience that might not usually watch a show about queer characters, it's also seemed to alienate a large swath of the queer community. There's been a rather... weird reaction to the second season of the show in particular.

For instance drag queens Trixie and Katya have a YouTube series where they review Netflix shows and movies called "Queens who Like to Watch". When they reviewed the first season, among high fan demand and even higher personal hesitation, it seemed the only point of contention was that Trixie seem to be irritated by the cute depiction of gay people that can often have us feeling exploited and patronized while Katya liked how cute it was.

Fast forward to season 2 and even Katya was over the cuteness and wanted to see something a bit more grown up. Or at least see the character's relationships advance beyond hugging, even if it was offscreen. The first season was cute, but ask anyone who's been married for more than 10 years knows cute things about your significant others start to get annoying real quick.

"Cute" wasn't cutting it anymore. Gay people were "cute" when I was growing up, in the same way way that a gerbil or a guinea pig would be cute: caged, fawned over, taken out to play with, but ignored when no longer novel, and at the time probably dead within 2 years. It felt patronizing to be reduced to this. We were either neutered and cute, such as in teen focused TV shows, or sexually active and eventually dead, such as in movies like Brokeback Mountain. (Tell me the puritanical moralization of sexual values doesn't exist anymore.)

Many creators lean toward this over the years as a way to show gay representation without pissing off the straights too much. So I can understand why some people in the gay community (especially men my age who grew up with the trope of the 'sexless gay best friend' like Trixie) would be irritated by it even now when there is pretty mainstream gay movies and shows that do show the sex stuff, like Young Royals and Elite. But like I said Katya's opinions seem to shift between the two seasons. Our Queens who Watch looked at this story about a collection of various queer 15- and 16-year-olds, and they spent the duration of their video railing it because... well, nobody was getting railed.

Out of context, I found this reaction a little bit cringy and, truthfully, the only time I really saw Trixie and Katya miss a mark. Heartstopper isn't a show about sex, so why should it be all about sex? They didn't want to see the characters having sex, they just wanted to know that it was happening or building up to happening, because that seemed more realistic to them and their experiences.

[Visual on screen:] "[Disclaimer]"

To be clear, gay people do not want to see these characters having sex. But gay people do want to know that gay sexuality is allowed to exist. Media that divorces sexuality from identity is to some annoying at best and triggering at worst.

Not to paint Trixie and Katya in a bad light; they're hardly alone. In fact they're not even the first to have this reaction. There was a slew of gay men and queer people in general who held nothing but contempt for Heartstopper from the word go, and not even necessarily for the aforementioned reasons.

There were many who felt that Heartstopper was simply too edgeless and seemed to be presenting a purity mandate projected at the entire queer community, not unlike the messaging projected at women in general.

There is a trend among discourse among women about the allotted role of a woman in the patriarchal power structure. Men typically want women to be sexually experienced, but they also seem to allocate a role for women that holds them to a particular sexual purity. It's a double standard for sure.

The Madonna whore complex exists for a reason. You marry the nice girl, not the one who'll give you a blowjob in a movie theater. This bothered Alanis Morissette so severely that she made one of the greatest songs of all time because of it!

Suffice to say, women have made it clear that they don't like having the parameters of their sexual qualifications gauged by a group outside of women. And I get it. That's kinda annoying. Because on top of doing what you want to do, there is a looming social decorum of what society not only expects you to do, but will penalize you for not doing. All the while (on the example of sexuality) there are other groups of people who can do all the kinds of sexuality things that they want without any kind of repercussion.

Heartstopper seems to trigger these fears for some gay men. There is a perception that the show is presenting an argument that the typical normal healthy gay teenage relationship should only be as physical as hugging and a couple of kisses. For which, this is compounded through several other high-profile instances of gay media, specifically one which made waves in 2018, but that I will not explicitly mention for reasons: if you know, you know.

Even though I highly doubt that developing a normative argument that gay men need to hold themselves to a willful self-directed abstinence program to be considered valid by society at large was Alice Oseman's objective. To be clear, I do not under any circumstances believe that Alice Oseman is trying to re-closet queer sexuality. Sex is omitted from their work as per their license as a creator, but they do not shame sex in their work.

Outside of Oseman, there is a fear of an external party dictating what is and is not acceptable sexual behavior among queer people. This fear wouldn't be valid were it not for a small army of people who are currently trying to insist that any queer visibility exists to indoctrinate and corrupt the youth of today. Media that so much as slightly leans towards that sentiment (even if only perceived) triggers this whole cascade of hasty generalizations.

In our post-Disney-acquisition-of-Star-Wars-World, we've started to conflate the creation, creator, and attitudes of a fandom. We crossed those three wires a lot. And we perceive that the way a fandom is interacting with a particular example of media as being the intended meaning of said media. Or even the values of the creator themselves.

Take for instance the recent event of Zach Snyder hiring a transgender writer to write the prequel comic book for his upcoming movie, Rebel Moon. A portion of his fan base (made up of red pill basement dwellers) were horrified to learn that he in fact isn't a horrible person like them. (These are also the people who think Homelander is the good guy.)

So just because there are some people holding up Nick and Charlie as the archetype of how gay boys ought to express their affection does not mean that this is what the media is intending. My willingness to afford the benefit of the doubt to a large swath of gays, including Trixie and Katya, is that they don't want to directly observe the sex lives of these characters. But rather comes from an annoyance for a condition of gay acceptance being to follow not only the purity standards of straight people, but specifically the purity standards that are imposed on straight women. This may even betray a thought pattern in society (even from our allies) that indicates that society at large still does not view gay men as actual men.

External factions that dictate what our sex lives ought to be are based on the model of what straight people deem to be acceptable. When in reality, queer psychosexual development happens quite differently. Especially in adolescence, during a formative age of communication skills, gender is a cultural barrier between girls and boys. This fluid line of same gender communication facilitates a greater opening for interpersonal exploration. At an earlier age this changes the way queer people approach sex.

This leads to a general comfort towards sexuality in queer circles, and also why it's troubling to see sex-negative sentiments arising from inside the community. Even if a queer person is a late bloomer, so to speak, they are conditioned by a communal culture that was shaped by early bloomers, and thus tend to slip into the way of thinking regardless. And it's also why the same jokes about the sex lives of gay men do not apply to gay women, and vice versa.

The result is a set of sexual expectations that are almost completely inverted from heteronormative expectations. For instance, second base for straight people is apparently coping a feel over clothing; second base for gay men (according to patterns) is anal penetration.

Weirdly gay bases are reversed from the straight ones: the Home Run System is a gauge used to measure physical intimacy and commitment. Where straight people tend to view sex as a reward for enduring a slow escalation of physicality, gay people start with oral on base one, and eventually come around to "home base", which is holding hands in public. And it's highly coveted.

'Gay men only want one thing, and it's disgusting.' While second base for lesbians is reportedly a U-Haul.

Now there's nothing wrong with depicting gay people not having sex. If we want our queerness defined based on internal merits, rather than owing public validation to having someone's hand to hold, then this is paramount. Subsequently, aro/ace isn't the only expression of asexuality. You can be gay and ace at the same time. Developing sexuality doesn't mean that we need to see the characters doing it. But people in the heat of budding sexuality are bound to experiment a bit. It would be something that they would talk about; confirmation through dialogue. It doesn't have to follow Elite's footsteps. But, just like being gay or trans, not everyone who self-identifies as asexual now always knew that about themselves.

Sex is like broccoli: to know you don't like broccoli, you first kind of have to eat broccoli. There's even a chemical in broccoli that you can only taste if you have a very specific active gene. Those who have it find broccoli to be rancid.¹ They physiologically cannot enjoy this vegetable. For everyone else it's great! It's good. It's fine.

Given society's push to present sex as pleasurable, many start by trying it out and then spend... maybe even years trying to figure out why it's not working for them. Keep in mind that "asexual" doesn't always mean "no sex drive". Ace, like everything else in sexuality, is not only a spectrum but a matrix. This is pertinent as Heartstopper's author, Alice Oseman, self-identifies as asexual themself. Which likely means that as per the Stan Lee rule of "write the stuff you wish you could read", they want romantic drama that isn't just focused around sex. And that should be that. It should be abundantly okay for this kind of media to exist, just as it should be abundantly okay for Young Royals and Elite to exist!

There is a compelling case for queer media to portray the more innocent aspects of life. Stories of friendship, adventure, coming of age, familial bonds, and the quotidian joys and struggles that make up the human experience. These stories matter because they reinforce the idea that we queers are not defined solely by our sexuality. By diversifying the types of stories told within LGBT media, we affirm that queer people lead rich complex lives that are worth depicting in all their facets, not just in relationship to their sexual identity.

Portraying a range of stories from the queer perspective also dismantles the misconception that our narratives are inherently adult or explicit. It challenges the strawman fallacy that the presence of queer characters in themes just makes something inappropriate for young audiences, hopefully creating a space for even more conservative parents to let their kids watch this media, and feel a little bit less alone in the world. Heartstopper fills this role perfectly.

But we also have to accept that not every queer story should be so innocent. When it comes to drag queens and gay performers, especially those who tour, they encounter an astronomical number of gay and queer people, especially among other performers. They get to know each other quite well, including stories of their teenage years.

And this includes my own discussions with queer people. Seriously it's one of those like "wait everyone else was having sex"? It seems that in high school for a lot of gays, they took the opportunity to dive deep into experimentation. Heartstopper is a direct contradiction of what many had either experienced directly or by proxy. And so it feels like it's trying to develop a puritanical objective for young gay men.

Alternately (and this is touching on the hand-holding part of Heartstopper) is that for gays of a certain generation (and by that I mean neither too old nor too young) being confronted by Heartstopper under the assumption that it is meant to mimic reality... is triggering. Believe me, a lot of gays would have loved to instantly find a high school boyfriend with whom they felt comfortable enough to explore emotional intimacy and hold hands. The gay home run, as it were.

However, this generation, who are in their late 20s and early 40s now... (my generation), may have very well wanted this experience. But we came of age when being out and gay as a teenager wasn't trendy (if you don't mind my flippancy). For myself and others we were the only out gay in school, and so seeing something like Heartstopper may feel like a culture is telling us that 'we were doing it wrong'.

Alternately, for those who didn't even know that they were gay as a teenager, let alone come out, Heartstopper is a reminder of what could have been. Again, again, again-- This is a community. Yes, even the cis gay men who have undergone complex trauma that we, as a society, still do not recognize as trauma.

For all that even the staunchest allies do to make coming out easier today, we still have to come out in a society which is grandfathered in a myriad of cultural attitudes that are incompatible with queerness. Which create natural obstacles for us. We exist in an operating system that is not designed for us. The trauma comes with society placing the burden of integration on us. Society does not truly acknowledge this as trauma, because social understanding of queer trauma is related to bigotry, and not the complex constructed from watching your straight cis friends be able to live out a number of life experiences as they see fit. Whereas the queer individual having, been raised under the assumption that they are straight and/or cis, must make concessions and compromises based on how soon or late they shift into their queerness. Combined with media that dictates queer experiences, they are going to be across the board feelings of "I lived my life the wrong way".

You are dealing with this group of people when you develop queer media. We're a tough crowd. And, rest assured, it's not all our fault. With the amount of complex trauma residing in this group, it makes perfect sense that a piece of media meant to uplift and inspire the lgbtqia will have the inverse unintended effect of telling many of these people that they messed up. And that missing out on all those experiences is their fault.

And, no, you can't go back and fix it. Like I came out when I was 12 and I haven't had an actual boyfriend my whole life.

Many gay people cope with this by telling themselves that their teenage fantasies were simply impossible. Media instances that refute this without explanation may very well feel like direct personal criticism... for having trauma.

[Meme montage]: Jamie Lee Curtis saying "Trauma" repeatedly.

These are the feelings that Heartstopper digs up in some people. So it makes perfect sense why the criticism would be so focused on presenting sexuality in a show that is neither focused on it nor is it required. It makes sense perhaps. But it is irrational. Even though trauma itself is valid, there is an onus on the individual to respect their own trauma without pushing it out into the world.

But that's just Heartstopper. What of the opposite? An inability to consume media that is sexual because it presents those same sensations of queer FOMO. Perhaps this is why some gay people are uncomfortable with seeing gay sex in their streaming movies. Not because they're squeamish about dicks and butts, but because it's hearkening to a painful reminder of what they feel like this movie is telling them they missed out on.

And I'm sorry for how polarizing this video is. I know it must seem like I'm jumping around a lot. If I'm not settling on a clear critical target it's because I'm not trying to target anyone. When in fact I'm trying to defend media's ability to exist as a creator's vision. But also defend why queer people have such a dodgy relationship with media featuring queer people. Nobody's really in the wrong here.

...Except of course Millennia of puritanical imperialism and postcolonial patriarchal values that have resulted in us feeling like we're overdue for a little dignity and autonomy!

In regards to queer resistance around media, I see two issues. The first being that queer people, including gay men, have been so underrepresented for so long (and, to boot, predominantly represented by depictions that moralize us based on hegemonistic etiquette), we feel an obligation to watch queer media where we are featured in the hopes that it will break the representation glass ceiling.

This is particularly more true for wide release, high-profile examples of queer media. This is why Bros got rave reviews from mainstream critics while Fire Island was mostly ignored. It's also a very erratic circumstance of media criticism where Red, White, and Royal Blue was targeted for its sexiness, but Bros upon release was hailed as the advent of queer acceptance among mainstream critics! Even though it had a lot more sex among a lot more people! And was not nearly as good.

We're shooting ourselves in the foot by following trends. Highly promoted queerness is queerness that has been bespoke to have as much appeal to straight audiences as possible.

Think Brokeback Mountain: would that have been as successful had it not starred two heart throbs that women wet their panties over and who simultaneously came across as butch enough for straight guys to feel comfortable with?

The problem in practice is that this obligation implores us to watch media we simply may not be interested in. Either outside of our preferred genres or featuring casting that we don't like. Or something which may contain triggering elements that we don't even know are triggers simply because we don't consider existing in a society that does not accommodate our identities as CPTSD!

[Meme]: Another clip of Jamie Lee Curtis saying "Trauma".

The second issue is, as per an unawareness of said complex trauma, we are unable to compartmentalize a negative reaction to media as a trauma response. In which case we try to intellectualize by interpreting this media as making a normative argument about all of gay people.

So like to quote an incredibly problematic white man: "dude sometimes a cigar is just a cigar".

Heartstopper is just trying to be Heartstopper. Not every artist or author is out there trying to make a fictional manifesto out to reflect and shape the world. I don't think this is limited exclusively to queer people, but we seem to take every instance of queer representation as a manifesto. We treat these media as if each one is actively trying to set a universal precedent for the state of modern queerness.

Sometimes this is true, like with Barbie, which was a movie about Womanhood, the interaction between woman and the idea of woman, and where men may fit into this idea. At which point you are allowed to disagree with the premises and conclusions of the movie. You're also allowed to disagree with some finer points and some nitpicky elements of the conclusion, but overall enjoy the movie or appreciate that it exists. "Slightly disagree" does not need to mean "burn it in a fire".

This is probably the clearest problem that exists within leftist spaces today. That is a fallacy of composition. It's not intellectual. And it's certainly not sexy.

You know who does that? The alt-right! "Disney made this movie about a strong female character so the entire company now has a woke agenda" apparently, and so on and so forth.

The difference being that those on the right at the very least generally agree on who to hate. We're letting them divide us.

We have a reluctance to let queer media be fantasies. Instead, as we're starved for visibility, we look at each one as the media that might make or break our personal autonomy.

Heartstopper is a fantasy. Red, White, and Royal Blue is a fantasy. Young Royals is a fantasy.

Because for all that Heartstopper may be seen as an early indicator of a total failure of queer rights...

[On screen]: "IT ISN'T"

...it's certainly an outlier next to a larger body of work that includes the aforementioned media and many others. Heartstopper might be popular but Red, White, and Royal Blue is the most watched Amazon Prime movie in the history of the service.

The issue is not with Heartstopper, but a fear of living in a population that leans toward that as the only acceptable manifestation of queer expressions of affection. Which is not an issue with the media but rather the way we seem to expect these instances of representation to apply to the whole of queerness. And that rather than finding Red, White, and Royal Blue wanting for not being able to present the multitudinous range of queerness, we can observe these pieces of media as being pieces of a growing whole, which seems to be leaning to greater inclusivity as it grows.

This feels like a popularity contest where the largest fandom gets to decide what is and is not an acceptable expression of queer, specifically gay love. And the people who have the smaller voice (next to a large fandom of teenage girls) are gay people.

The fear is rooted in a sensation of not having control over our own depictions that are projected to queer people. Because it's these fictional examples that are held up as archetypes... for real people to be compared to.

One must acknowledge the historic invisibility of gay narratives within the mainstream media landscape. The journey from non-existence to the peripheries and at long last to have media with as diverse portrayals as Heartstopper, Young Royals, Red, White, and Royal Blue, not to mention more adult focused media... has been a sisyphean task for the gay community.

This traversal has been marred by periods of grotesque caricature and an almost voyeuristic safarism that othered and fetishized gay relationships, casting them in a light that shimmered with scandal rather than substance. And these types of portrayals are far from gone, especially in other parts of the world.

But... that's a different video; sign up for the patreon to get us there!

Yet as the pendulum swung towards inclusivity, a new critique arose from the old prejudices: the claim that gay media is too sexualized, concealing the age-old detraction of the "gays themselves are too sexual". In some sense this reflects a societal discomfort with the candid portrayal of homosexual love and desire. It is as if the very act of two men or two women expressing their sexuality must be shrouded in a chaste veil, lest the onlooker be confronted with the unvarnished truth of affection. And maybe even have to rethink their own inner feelings.

Moreover, this assessment often stems from a myopic view of gay media, taking as its evidence a narrow selection of works that are intentionally provocative, or which challenge societal norms around sex and sexuality. To paint the entirety of gay media with such a broad brush is to ignore the rich tapestry of stories that span the spectrum of experience, from the platonic and the familial, to the romantic and, yes, even the sexual. To deny the sexual component of gay relationships in media is to deny a fundamental aspect of human connection, regardless of orientation. Sexuality, after all, is a potent element of The Human Condition, and its representation in art and storytelling has long been a conduit for deeper understanding; a mirror reflecting the complexities of love, lust, and longing.

Heteronormative narratives have long enjoyed the privilege of unabashed sexual expression without inviting the same level of scrutiny. In contrast gay media often faces a double-edged sword: a clamoring for representation on one hand and a prudish recoil at the manifestation of that representation on the other. There exists an unspoken rule, it seems, that gay characters must not only be present but must also comport themselves in a manner palatable to the heterosexual majority. Their sexuality expressed with a modesty that is seldom demanded of The Straights.

Is it not, then, a form of cultural suppression to dictate the terms of representation to confine the narratives of a community to the narrow confines of what is deemed acceptable by those who wield the loudest voices? Gay media in its essence is a rebellion against such constraints. A declaration that love in its myriad forms will no longer be relegated to the shadows.

Perhaps there are naturally going to be various push back consequences when dealing with a large group of people who have been jerked around, lead on, and outright lied to for decades. Knowing our history can establish a context for why we face the struggles we do. But also offer us insight into what methods work to create change and what methods don't.

Spoiler alert: for gay rights, being loud obnoxious and altogether ungrateful and shoving our sexuality in people's faces has tended to be a more successful route than "working within the system" and making friends.

For marriage equality we stopped asking politicians to help us and started demanding equality by hiring high priced lawyers and taking people, states, and whole countries to court. For being gay in the military, we tried it the nice way and we got "Don't Ask, Don't Tell". So then we started marching and had our gay millionaires threatened to stop donating to Democratic politicians if they didn't repeal the thing!

And when it came to AIDS, we did absolutely everything that every privileged person says you're not supposed to do if you want people to like you. Because asking politely got us ignored even those of us who knew Ronald F---ing Reagan! But I digress.

The hallmark of an oppressor is to divorce a community from its own history. It makes it easier for controlling powers to dictate what that history was. Or simply lie about a political body's involvement in systemic institutional and social discrimination. The diversity of relationships and experiences within the LGBTQ community should be shown. Not all gay men have the same experiences nor do all lesbians, bisexual people, trans people, or queer people in general.And let's not forget the representation of asexuals and aromantics, who are often completely overlooked in media! The inclusion of diverse relationships and sexual dynamics is important, whether it be runchy sex in a bath house or holding your high school boyfriend's hand.

Visibility in all forms of media, including media directed at younger people like Heartstopper, is incredibly important. There's a growing resistance to including queer characters in movies, shows, and books directed at a YA or younger audience... based on the misconception that their presence (inherently) involves adult themes.

However children's media is an ideal space to introduce the concept of diverse families and friendships, teaching acceptance and understanding at a young age.

Finally, we must recognize that queer representation is not the end goal but part of a broader movement towards inclusion and equality. It's a means for storytelling that reflects the world as it is, in all its diversity. And at its best, it can influence perceptions and foster empathy. It's not just about seeing oneself on screen. It's about everyone seeing the multifaceted world we share. Learning from it and finding the universal human experiences that connect us all.

Your experiences are not erased because Charlie and Nick can hold hands. Your trauma is not invalid because society doesn't recognize it. You don't have to live up to the fairy tale that Alex and Henry's story is told in. No matter what you feel there is no wrong way to be queer. There are no rules saying "if you didn't meet your boyfriend in high school then you did things wrong". You didn't miss out on your story. Maybe you're just starting it.

And no matter what anyone says... your story has a place in this world. So don't let anyone stop you from telling it.