I say I love being a girl all the time because I do. It doesn’t mean I’m unaware of the inequality and struggles that come with being a woman. When I need to speak about that, I can and do. But my statement about womanhood is always, “It’s the best and I wouldn’t want it any other way.” My male friend is like “how do you say you love being a girl but you constantly point out how unfair it is for girls?” I can do both. So can LGBTQ people. Joy is important.
I fully agree with you. Finding joy wherever we can is important in all aspects of life. But in regards to sexuality we all know that there are many people who are driven to suicide or self harm because of their identity. They’re ostracized and bullied. Joy in their sexuality is hard to find for them and often comes with a dose of guilt mixed in during the happy moments. And for Harry to sum up sexuality as “it’s fun” is ? I don’t even know... insensitive at the very least. Sure I’m not expecting him to rifle off some thesis on the queer experience in an interview, but surely a man who has been presenting a queer image complete with rainbow merch and even a song about gay sex, and is famous and has a huge platform, and has invited all sorts of discussion about his image... should be prepared to give a more thoughtful answer than he did. He’s not a random person on the street being asked about this. He and Sony cultivated this image for him but seem to have forgotten he should actually display some knowledge of the community he appears to be part of. How hard is it to get a few of his PR people together and work out some thoughtful sound bites? He wants the pink dollars but can’t be bothered to put together a coherent, insightful message for an interview he had time to prepare for? It’s so lazy. Clearly the priority is getting rainbow merch out the door and not actually being a supportive member of the community (or ally, whatever you believe). It’s not the first time he’s asked about things like this is it? It’s not like it can catch him off guard anymore. He knows his image, he knows what people talk about and the questions they have about him and yet.... not a thoughtful insight to be found. Zero effort on display. He has never said anything substantial that I can recall. (Maybe I’m wrong and someone can point me to where he has). All I remember him saying is basically “me and my friends feel free,” “my children will come at a time when they can be free,” and the latest “sexuality is fun.” Has he ever acknowledged the overwhelming majority of people in the community who don’t have his freedoms? He is in an extremely unique situation. Being a rich white male protects him from so much, and his friends are all in the same boat with him. They live in a safe, privileged bubble and it would be nice, given the social climate, for him to at the very least acknowledge his privilege. He seems unaware. Maybe in private he can speak eloquently about this topic for hours, maybe every day he wakes up and the first thought on his mind is how he can use his huge platform to help the community, maybe he has a nuanced understanding of queer politics, but publicly he says nothing of substance and yet is hailed as a woke icon. He says 3 words that people then extrapolate to infer much deeper meaning, when he said nothing of the sort. It’s reaching and projecting of epic proportions. If fans want to put words in his mouth to justify their idolizing of him then sure, they can do that, but people are gonna recognize the absurdity and continue to say “what the fuck?” If people didn’t live so far up his ass it would be a lot easier to ignore his nonsense but fuck is it ever frustrating to watch a man do almost nothing and be credited with everything. Not to mention witnessing the double standards for other members of the band. Imagine the hate spam Liam would have got if he casually said “idkdkskd sexuality is fun!” there would be a mile long list of tweets at him about harsh closets and lgbt issues. The reaction would have been the polar opposite. But alas, it’s Harry who said it, so we’re bending over backwards to make it into something positive. He’s a regular dumb man like all the other men on earth but it’s his fans who make him an unbearable presence. My beef is just as much with them as it is with Harry himself.
