little rant from me because…yeah i’m just so done.
people love to posture about how “problematic” unconventional kinks or transgressive films are, as if their moral backbone hardens the second something stops flattering them. they clutch their pearls, roll out the same recycled language about taste and decency and representation, and pretend they’re doing activism when really they’re just reacting to discomfort. because the line is never about harm. it’s about aesthetics. it’s about whether the bodies on screen are legible, pretty, consumable enough to reassure them that desire is still safe, still marketable, still aligned with whatever instagram-friendly version of queerness they’ve decided counts.
meanwhile, those same people are perfectly happy going feral over two conventionally attractive men hooking up in a glossy, palatable narrative. suddenly it’s “groundbreaking,” suddenly it’s “visibility,” suddenly it’s okay to be loud and horny and obsessive—because the desire being depicted flatters them. because it’s clean. because it doesn’t ask them to sit with ugliness, power imbalance, obsession, or the fact that desire is often asymmetrical, humiliating, or just plain weird. heated rivalry gets a free pass because it reassures the audience that queerness can still be aspirational, still fit neatly into fantasy without threatening anyone’s sense of taste.
but oohhh the second something like pillion shows up—something messier, stranger, less cosmetically “pleasing”—people start acting like they’ve been personally attacked. not because it’s unethical, but because one of the actors doesn’t align with their internal casting couch of who is “allowed” to be desired. that’s the real offense. an unconventionally attractive body daring to be central, erotic, wanted. a narrative that doesn’t apologize for its power dynamics or sand down its edges so it can be sold as wholesome. and suddenly all that allyship evaporates. suddenly it’s “exploitative,” “disturbing,” “why would anyone want to see this?”
if your support for queer stories collapses the moment desire stops being flattering—or stops centering bodies you personally want to look at—you’re not an ally. you’re a consumer with conditions. you don’t support queerness; you support a very specific, sanitized version of it that never asks you to confront how desire actually works. because real desire isn’t always pretty.
