Can We Talk About the Rainbow-washing of Opposite-sex Ships? (A Confused Question From the Fandom Trenches)
Disclaimer: Toxic āfansā DNI (do not interact). Queerphobes included.
Note: I am still very much figuring out my own identity and where I sit under the queer umbrella. Itās been a process, which is confusing. Though fandom and media have been somewhat safe havens for me while I navigate it, I have a love-hate relationship with them. Iām writing this because I genuinely want to learn and understand. However, thereās a specific trend Iāve been seeing lately thatās making my brain short circuit.
We need to talk about the habit of rainbow-washing opposite-sex dynamics. Specifically, in the context of taking male-female pairs (ones that are clearly written as platonic/familial) and treating them as āromantic queer coding.ā
I want to be cautious here; this is absolutely not about bi/pan/m-spec erasure. A relationship between a man and a woman can be inherently queer if 1 or both parties are bi, pan, a-spec, trans, or anywhere else on the spectrum. Bi/Pan/M-spec people in opposite-sex relationships are valid, queer, and deserve to see their romances treated with respect rather than dismissed as āstraight.ā What I am talking about is the tendency to take a brilliant, deeply bonded, completely non-romantic male-female duo, shoehorning them into a āromanticā relationship, and somehow claiming a victory for ārepresentation.ā From where Iām standing, it feels less like progress and more so a cop-out.
However, I really want to hear from actual LGBTQ+ folks on this. Am I reading this wrong or is this trend doing a disservice to both platonic/familial love and actual queer identity?
As someone trying to figure things out, here is why this specific trend feels fundamentally misguided:
*The Erasure of Found/Chosen Family and Platonic Intimacy; We live in a culture that already struggles to understand that guys and gals can just be friends and that found/chosen family can be as sacred as romance. Slapping a romantic/sexual label on a healthy, affectionate, platonic opposite-sex bond-even when at least 1 character is canonically queer-can reinforce the toxic idea that deep emotional intimacy must always equal romance.
*Aesthetics Over Activism; Forcing a strictly non-romantic opposite-sex pairing into a romantic box regardless of whether they conform to traditional gender roles feels rather lazy (even the āstraight-passingā schtick is counterproductive). It seems like people want to pat themselves on the back for being āprogressiveā without doing the actual work of supporting, creating, and/or championing actual queer romantic arcs or canonically LGBTQ+ characters.
*Platonic Queer/LGBTQ+ Representation Matters; Why can't we celebrate an opposite-sex friendship where a queer character and a straight character (or at least 2 queer characters) have an entirely platonic, ride-or-die bond? Showing an LGBTQ+ person having a deeply supportive, non-romantic relationship with someone of a different gender is incredibly powerful and realistic. Why must we feel the need to romanticize/sexualize it to make it valid?
How does it look from my corner? A man and a woman having a healthy, emotionally vulnerable, non-romantic relationship is subversive. Rebranding such heavily platonic bonds as āromantic queer codingā so that people can ship them without feeling vanilla is akin to using an identity as an aesthetic (erasing the beauty of platonic solidarity in the process).
We Need to Do Better (and I Want to Hear From You)
Maybe Iām overthinking it, but if we want better representation, we have to stop settling for the illusion of it.
If a male-female pair has an incredible, ride-or-die platonic/familial bond, shouldn't we keep it that way? Doesn't that show the world that love exists in massive, beautiful ways outside of sex and romance (even within the queer community)? If we want queer representation (romantic or otherwise), shouldn't we demand and hype up the real thing; actual LGBTQ+ creators and canonically queer romantic arcs? Instead of retroactively romanticizing a solid, platonic/familial opposite-sex dynamic?
For the LGBTQ+ community who has been navigating these spaces longer than me, what are your thoughts? Am I missing any nuances? How do we balance fighting for bi/pan/m-spec visibility in opposite-sex relationships while also protecting and celebrating the importance of strictly platonic/familial bonds? Let's talk about it; we can all do much better.
P.S. While I donāt discount the opposite-sex ships with genuine romantic/sexual chemistry, I canāt stress this enough. We ought to normalize more strictly platonic/familial opposite-sex relationships (real or fictional). Not every relationship of such stripe needs to be romanticized/sexualized (a concept that fandom culture generally struggles with). Donāt give me ābi4biā, āpan4panā, etc. excuses; thereās a time and place for everything.
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