@kilisloe
Listen, I live in the Bible Belt, just because you personally haven't experienced homophobia doesn't mean its not a prevalent issue. I see this excuse used a lot in arguments, but just because people are held accountable for homophobic attitudes by some people doesn't mean homophobia doesn't exist. I do agree that if you were genuinely friends with someone you wouldn't just dump them for their sexuality and those people would likely be toxic for other reasons even if you didn't come out. However, you're not understanding my point. Unwanted advances are a problem regardless of sexuality or gender, but believing that your friend is going to start doing this to you because of their sexuality isn't "having no idea how to respond" and is a form of internalized homophobia. I literally linked a page of examples for you to see, and TV Tropes doesn't even include everything.
My point about straight people is that the majority of people won't assume they're going to be harassed because their friend is straight. Obviously people do go after straight f*ckboys, but I was saying that discrimination against an already discriminated against minority is being
justified by this belief. Being a harasser isn't inherently tied to the straight man's sexuality by the
majority of people, and no Twitter is not a representative of the majority, but unwanted advances are tied to being lesbian. There's a reason the term is f*ckboy is used instead of men: they're judging these straight men by traits OUTSIDE of their sexuality, while with many LGBT people their sexuality is used to project a trait onto them.
Naturally people are going to stereotype based on what they see in media, that's the EXACT issue with this trope. Men aren't harassed, isolated, or bullied when they're young because they're straight men. That's something that's considered normal. It's flawed to say that "some people are uncomfortable with the loud majority in most societies because of media" is the same as "discrimination against the LGBT community being justified ." It's a problem for many people, yes, but it's especially an issue for a community that is already
vulnerable. Just because there will always be bigots doesn't mean we shouldn't encourage people to do otherwise.
I'm not sure how to argue with you about this last statement because if you don't know what a trope in media is, then arguing with you is very pointless. A trope is a universally identified image imbued with several layers of contextual meaning creating a new visual metaphor. If you still have a hard time understanding what I mean, then take a look at the "evil villain who will kill everybody but their lover" or the yandere. That is a trope - it's a certain type of character or situation seen across media that is shorthand for a certain type of personality or meaning. Yes, anyone can be a r*pist, that's the point. Anyone can be one, but r*pe is often pinned on LGBT characters for no reason other than their sexuality. Yes, it's something that could happen, my point wasn't that it couldn't happen (which you would know if you actually tried to comprehend what I was saying). My point is that this archetype is very common in media, becoming a trope, which is then used by those who are already homophobic in real life to justify and perpetuate homophobia.
I'm not saying that they are trying to spread homophobic rhetoric, just that they're "playing into" this trope by taking advantage of its connotations. When a straight character is ass*ulted by a gay character, this is often meant to say "oh no that poor straight person being attacked by that awful GAY man." Even though the author didn't mean to say, "Hey gays are gonna attack you," the effect that this has on readers is used to make us feel more pity for the prince. I'm not sure if you're too young to understand social issues or just never learned about literary analysis, but I'm not interested in educating someone on LGBT issues who is loosely basing their argument about the fact that "homophobia isn't a common issue" and "this isn't a trope because it could happen with straight characters too." Sure the author may not be homophobic and the usage of this trope may not be intended to be homophobic, but my entire point was explaining why it CAN be read as homophobic, because it leans into a homophobic trope for emotional storytelling.
Becoming a scummy person isn't limited by sexuality or gender, but it's easy as h*ll for people to think it is and subconsciously act on this in their treatment of the sexuality often targeted by this belief.
Not to be rude, but make sure you read what people say again before saying your done, and maybe think about whether or not you're buying into the belief that "the damned gays are the majority and are gonna attack us all" without really accounting for how widespread homophobia is. Even in first world countries, love. Cheers.
