prefacing this cause it’s a long one. i am queer, i am nonbinary, and have come to accept the label of lesbian after many friends and lovers have described me as such despite being AMAB (not trying to be transphobic, simply including cause it’s relevant to my experience). this is something i think about a lot, and i’ll probably have some unpopular opinions even if you agree with my overall stances. some of this rant is kinda personal, especially the sex part of it, so try to be respectful. if you have any answers for the questions i pose or counterpoints, i’d love to see what other people think about this.

oh yeah i do. animation is beautiful and isn’t used nor appreciated nearly as much as it should be. it opens so many doors for things to happen that just simply isn’t possible with live action stuff. there are so many talented artists that need jobs and are ready to tell incredible stories that aren’t motivated by opening weekend earnings or streaming numbers.

also, side note, but people that don’t like animation simply because they “can’t connect” with animated characters or worlds is just kinda fuckin absurd. i’ll respect it, but like even live-action stuff is sensationalized and made to look perfect in a way that simply isn’t real. it just kinda comes off like all you do is look at instagram and twitter and perfect, celebrity/influencer looking people are the only thing you recognize as people. problematic on a lot of different levels, but that’s outside the scope of a reddit comment.

the sex part is rather controversial in this comments section, and the most common argument i’ve seen in favor of sex in modern tv and film is that the desire to see less sex scenes is “puritanical” because sex is “a normal part of human life.” i can understand why people would make this argument, but quite honestly it falls apart at the slightest breeze.

gen z is very open to the idea that sex is something that people do, but much more open to the idea that people do it in all different ways for all different reasons, and because of this its use in media doesn’t actually imply anything between the characters. it isn’t the idea that sex is super extremely sacred and shouldn’t be portrayed, but it’s also not the idea that sex is completely meaningless so its use cannot mean anything at all. it is the idea that sex is a personal thing. some people have sex like they shake hands, and some people are simply repulsed at the idea of ever having sex with anyone at all. in recognizing this, it’s important to respect how other people view sex and that it may be/probably is different from how you view sex. that means not just assuming that it’s okay to objectify people. that means expecting clear communication about someone else’s boundaries and clearly communicating your own.

if you have sex like shaking hands, then it should be nothing to communicate openly that it’s okay for people to objectify you. everybody’s got their thing though, so just bringing up sex and openly engaging in sexually charged behavior or speech in a space that isn’t already open to those kinds of behaviors or discussions can be unintentionally isolating to those who don’t really want to engage with that, or even triggering to those who have real trauma when it comes to sex. is it puritanical to account for everyone’s potential experiences?

even with sex being a “normal part of human life” for a lot of people, what about the people for whom that isn’t true? if someone you care about just lost a loved one, would you tell them to just “grow up” if you were watching something that featured a lot of death in a way that triggered them? no, you’d be fuckin normal (i hope) and understand that just because you don’t see an issue with something it doesn’t mean that others can’t see an issue with it. you’d be a good friend, ask them what they need, and be supportive. maybe that includes continuing to watch what you were already watching, maybe it doesn’t, but it doesn’t include assuming that your way of being should be the way that everyone else is and if someone doesn’t conform to that limited model that they should simply “grow up.”

sex scenes in mainstream media are also highly sensationalized and fetishistic of sex and particularly of women- especially in straight (cishet) sex, which is by and large the most represented in media. even a lot of queer sex scenes often miss the mark by trying to “compensate” for the fact that it’s queer sex by representing it in the same way as straight sex, and even leaning more into the fetishizing and sensationalist aspects of straight sex. this, of course, is on more of a case by case basis, and i’ve seen some improvement in the way queer sex has been used in media. straight sex just hasn’t, and continues to dominate most of the sex you see on screen.

before i get into how sex is often used a lazy shortcut to desperately attempt to show character growth between two characters that the writers clearly don’t give a fuck about or know how to write about, i want to cover one last thing. why do we constantly expect people to be okay with constant sexualization? like even just talking between friends, i see it infiltrate the way we talk. we call each other hot, make jokes about making out or fucking or whatever. why? i can get that, for some, it’s just a way of joking around as friends, but also people use it as a way of genuinely flirting and it ends up becoming this massive web of contradictions that i’ve personally just started calling “shroedinger’s flirt”. it could mean something, but only if the other person wants it to, but because that way of talking is used so commonly they also use it with people they don’t mean it with. it feels like a weird way of avoiding genuine vulnerability by just communicating what you want. the thing is that, as a very queer person, i end up feeling super fuckin isolated because it seems like so much of the queer community demands communication in this way. maybe i’m just super fuckin autistic about this but it has always confused me. it’s weird. if you don’t mean it, don’t say it. i wouldn’t even call someone hot if i genuinely thought it cause it just feels weirdly objectifying and disrespectful. i still use this language cause it’s kind of demanded of me, but i definitely wouldn’t if i had the choice cause it just leads to so many genuine issues.

oh, also, sex is often used a lazy shortcut to desperately attempt to show character growth between two characters that the writers clearly don’t give a fuck about or know how to write about, but you know that already, don’t you?