I think about your “ravishment fantasy”/“default heterosexual bdsm” (or whatever it was called, sorry, I don’t remember the exact phrase) alllll the time. I would love to see you talk more about that because I think it’s such an apt point to make with the discourse that percolates in this fandom. (And on a personal level, seeing people resort to (heteronormative) stereotypes as reasons why a character would or wouldn’t act/be a certain way is super frustrating (as opposed to “I just like this idea more” or “This aspect of X’s personality is the most interesting for me to explore in Y context”), especially when people make absolutely zero effort to interrogate those inclinations within themselves and instead accuse other people of being bigots or homophobic or whatever. And, yeah, obviously nobody on Tumblr is obligated to do exactly what I wish they would do, but I’m mentioning it because it makes the Tumblr experience so much less pleasant…anyway, I digress hahaha.)
So sorry for responding to this so late - i've genuinely been so swamped recently so its been rougghhhh (and I've tried to answer this ask + a second ask i got in my inbox a few times and theyve both had technical issues that caused my answers to be deleted which was discouraging).
Anyway - I gotta admit that most of my "ravishment fantasy" stuff is built on the giant of contrapoints' shoulders bc I use it as a framework when talking about the "ravishment fantasy" (and I adopt the language she uses for both that and the Default Heterosexual Sado-Masochism (DHSM) - so really I have to give credit there). I think it extends also to thinking like "Will is feminine therefor he must be be a bottom" or "Will cant be buff, he is a bottom", when realistically, none of these traits are mutually exclusive, he could be feminine and buff and a bottom all at the same time (it just doesn't fit neatly into DHSM, which presupposes that masculine = top = dom = lover (as opposed to beloved) = possessing = sadist = voyeur (among other things), and conversely, that feminine = bottom = sub = beloved = possessed = masochist = exhibitionist (etc.)).
Like I saw someone say that Will doesn't need to be buff to top, which is true, but its also true that he can bottom even if he's built like the hulk.
To be clear I don't think there's a problem with having preferences for byler's dynamic, or any ship for that matter (god knows I do), it's just when people start saying things like "this is the normal/natural/traditional dynamic for their relationship - everything else is people trying to be subversive" is... kind of reactionary
Further, this is what the whole tradjoshi vs wokejoshi discourse sounds like to me tbh - like, it isn't lost on me that "wokejoshi" is a portmanteau of a word that was hijacked by reactionaries as a thought-terminating cliche (woke) and fujoshi. I think its strange behaviour to think that other people don't actually enjoy the things they say they enjoy and are instead virtue signalling. (It's also crazy bc both sides will claim that someone else having a dynamic preference is homophobic and sexist rather than admitting that they just enjoy it - nothing can be "not my cup of tea" anymore - it all has to be "problematic" or "harmful" - like yes there are problematic patterns in fandom but most of the time the things theyre targeting arent "trends withing people who prefer a dynamic" so that people who do those things reconsider, and are instead trying to position their preferences as more morally good than the things they dislike and it all feels disingenuous.
The trad vs woke joshi thing has been on my mind recently bc I think it plays into the worst instincts of human tribalism & superiority (as well as doing so in a reactionary manner) and its strange to identify as either bc of the origins of "trad" and the modern usages of "woke". Ik people are probably gonna say im looking too deep into it/that its just light-hearted or smth but I really think that it both belies and reinforces bad reasoning idk
Anyway ty for the ask! Sorry it took so long to respond I wanted to give a proper answer but like school has been killing me & ive been having issues with asks - lmk what you think & im glad you found it - also i swear if this is interesting to you that contrapoints vid probably will be too.
