Mercury Thing 05/09/16

[Prestwick]

I'd say he is red faced because he's annoyed that she's not doing her f*cking job. I'd be a shade of red (perhaps purple) if I was managing a University faculty with a member of staff as shambolic as her...

[LadyObvious23]

Calm down, no one said Fitz is definitely gay because he turned her down. It was offered as an additional possibility to the ongoing speculation.

Hey. I was calm. Just miffed because it's a crappy speculation with bad evidence.

[Warrl]

I'd say he is red faced because he's annoyed that she's not doing her f*cking job. I'd be a shade of red (perhaps purple) if I was managing a University faculty with a member of staff as shambolic as her...

And perhaps he's even more angry that she thinks this apparent come-on is an appropriate response to his reprimand.

If the sexes were reversed many people would say it's grounds for disciplinary action, perhaps even dismissal. On top of whatever consequences for her neglect of her job.

(And I think it should be grounds for some action - with or without the sexes reversed.)

[cursormortis]

I'm fairly sure people have been calling for her dismissal, and that her gender has nothing to do with it.

Calm down, no one said Fitz is definitely gay because he turned her down. It was offered as an additional possibility to the ongoing speculation.

Hey. I was calm. Just miffed because it's a crappy speculation with bad evidence.

...hi, welcome to the Candi Comics forums. We occasionally* make speculations with little to no evidence.

*Read: often

[LadyObvious23]

Dude. Everyone in every fandom does this. "Why doesn't he want the pretty lady? Oh he's gay!" Like no. She's obviously too obnoxious or worse. And that speculation is just so. Meh.

[cursormortis]

Oh trust me, I get that. I've been in and on the periphery of enough fandoms that I've seen it all over the place, and it is ugly. Assuming that someone is gay/trans/ace/whatever because of some minor thing that's only vaguely related is one of my least favorite things, along with "Those two are fighting so they're totally gonna hook up!" (Mainly because people that headcanon one of those things tend to also be the ones that try pushing their headcanons on everyone else) But I don't think that's the case here. My read on BenjaminT's post is not "He turned her down and is therefore gay" but "If he's gay and she knows it but continues to hit on him, that would be why he's flushing." Which I consider fairly unlikely in any case; the simplest answer (i.e., that he's mad about her being a waste of office space) is likely the correct one. That said, this is the Candi Comics forum. Rampant speculation tends to be a thing that happens here, and not all of it is going to be fully logical.

On a related note, I don't get the homophobia in headcanoning a man as gay because they turned a pretty girl down. Sexism, yes, since it plays off the stereotype that guys always want sex. But homophobia? As long as it's not portrayed as a bad thing, I just don't see it.

[LadyObvious23]

Giant stereotype that because a man is uninterested in a woman he is therefore gay. And somehow that's gotta be it because she is so pretty despite no chemistry between them,her being obnoxious or her not respecting his boundaries.

Can be very homophobic because saying a dude has to be gay to reject a woman who "flirts" with him. Like. No. He isn't interested.

Fritz being gay would be cool. I honestly like the headcannon. But because he's rejecting an obnoxious jerkface isn't a good reason.

[clif]

I'm having difficulty caring if Fritz is gay, but I seem to recall a performance art project where Candi's classmate thought that Fritz was favorable towards their performance because of Candi in a school-girl outfit. Which if accurate, would argue non-gay.

Though that obviously is founded on the stereotype that if a man is gay then he is uninterested in a woman. Wait. Is that a stereotype or a definition?

Also not sure how I feel about a professor who fantasizes about an attractive female student as an underaged child, but doesn't act on it. I'm not sure there's a way Fritz can win here.

[LadyObvious23]

Dude. It's been used a ton in television in the past. Sometimes now but not as much. Where people,poorly written women,think a dude is gay because they're uninterested in their body or flirting.

[cursormortis]

No one is disagreeing with the fact that it's a trope that people and characters believe that a person or character is gay because they don't have sex with a woman. What I do disagree with are the assumptions that it's what BenjaminT was doing and that it's homophobic.

First, the original post you took issue with did not say that Fitz was gay because he rejected Ellen. It did not imply it. What it said was, essentially, "What if Fitz is gay? Then he could be turning red because he's getting mad that Ellen refuses to recognize that he is gay and continues to hit on him." It's a multi-level speculation designed to answer the question of "Why is Fitz turning red?" Not the question of "Why is Fitz not sexing with Ellen?" No one has asked the latter. I doubt anyone here would argue the premise that Ellen is a disagreeable person and that Fitz is not sexing with her due to that. No one except you, apparently, as you're arguing against a point that no one is making.

As for the second disagreement I have with you, sofar you have not explained how it's homophobic. You've pointed out it's a stereotype, but not how it's a stereotype of gay people. This is a stereotype of men in general, that they cannot refuse sex without it being significant in some way. Which, incidentally, I should point out includes that the woman is morally flawed in some way. There's plenty of examples of a man turning down a woman because he finds her morally repulsive. But that's a side note and doesn't address the main question. Why is this assumption homophobic? How is it harmful to gay people? If the assumption is that a man will not turn down a woman unless something is wrong with him, and that something wrong is that he is gay, then yes, it is homophobic. You could argue that the stereotype that men always want sex with women leads to the caveat "unless something is wrong with him," leading back to him turning her down, but that is not automatically the case. As far as I've seen, the trope is that a man will not turn a woman down without significant reason. This could mean he's gay or finds her morally repulsive or needs to go save the world or thinks she's related to him, or whatever. It's never that he's tired or has a headache or one of the dozens of trope "insignificant" reasons that women use to turn down sex. This therefore implies that homosexuality has no part of the trope except when the trope is used as there being something "wrong" with the man, which shows it is not a homophobic trope but rather a sexist one.

[BenjaminT]

I almost wonder if she's using this as an excuse to flirt with Fitz... that's what it looks like to me, at least.

Glad I'm not the only one.

I'm in camp Hatefuck. Not that I WANT it to happen, but either it will or it has.

My comment was directly after and intended as a response to this^^^

When I said this, "We just haven't seen much evidence of his sexuality one way or another." I was trying to reduce assumptions, not have one myself. My posting history should show I often throw out wild speculations to highlight a range of possibilities. I wasn't speculating that he might be gay because of turning her down. Heck, I wasn't even assuming that he's going to turn her down. It could still happen. We just don't know. Clif pointed out one tiny bit of evidence that he might be heterosexual. I'd forgotten about that. Although, to be honest, I don't see it as significant evidence. He's given her good grades and bad grades before and nothing suggested any trend about it based on what she was wearing. It just seemed to point out that when you dress attractively you can't rule out the possibility that it may have had an impact on the grade. I remember people speculating in middle school that certain teachers were perverts and gave more lenient grades to boys or girls but I always felt it was a bit unfair to the teachers. Not that it never happened but the evidence seemed pretty flimsy to me most of the time.

[Warrl]

Not that it never happened but the evidence seemed pretty flimsy to me most of the time.

There is a very large difference between "X is not true" and "that argument for X is invalid/weak/etc".

It's pretty easy to make a true statement and then come up with a really stupid and wrong explanation of why it's true. (Cars on the highway generally move forward because the mass of the engine is in front and its gravity drags the rest of the car toward it.) It's similarly easy to make a false statement and a stupid explanation of why it's true. (The sky is purple because a bunch of Martian goldfish painted it.) Thus the stupidity and wrongness of the explanation has no bearing on the truth of the statement.

[LadyObvious23]

No one is disagreeing with the fact that it's a trope that people and characters believe that a person or character is gay because they don't have sex with a woman. What I do disagree with are the assumptions that it's what BenjaminT was doing and that it's homophobic.

First, the original post you took issue with did not say that Fitz was gay because he rejected Ellen. It did not imply it. What it said was, essentially, "What if Fitz is gay? Then he could be turning red because he's getting mad that Ellen refuses to recognize that he is gay and continues to hit on him." It's a multi-level speculation designed to answer the question of "Why is Fitz turning red?" Not the question of "Why is Fitz not sexing with Ellen?" No one has asked the latter. I doubt anyone here would argue the premise that Ellen is a disagreeable person and that Fitz is not sexing with her due to that. No one except you, apparently, as you're arguing against a point that no one is making.

As for the second disagreement I have with you, sofar you have not explained how it's homophobic. You've pointed out it's a stereotype, but not how it's a stereotype of gay people. This is a stereotype of men in general, that they cannot refuse sex without it being significant in some way. Which, incidentally, I should point out includes that the woman is morally flawed in some way. There's plenty of examples of a man turning down a woman because he finds her morally repulsive. But that's a side note and doesn't address the main question. Why is this assumption homophobic? How is it harmful to gay people? If the assumption is that a man will not turn down a woman unless something is wrong with him, and that something wrong is that he is gay, then yes, it is homophobic. You could argue that the stereotype that men always want sex with women leads to the caveat "unless something is wrong with him," leading back to him turning her down, but that is not automatically the case. As far as I've seen, the trope is that a man will not turn a woman down without significant reason. This could mean he's gay or finds her morally repulsive or needs to go save the world or thinks she's related to him, or whatever. It's never that he's tired or has a headache or one of the dozens of trope "insignificant" reasons that women use to turn down sex. This therefore implies that homosexuality has no part of the trope except when the trope is used as there being something "wrong" with the man, which shows it is not a homophobic trope but rather a sexist one.

It isn't sexist because sexism against men doesn't exist.

I did explain how it's homophobic. Because it means it literally means they must be gay to not want a woman. Because somehow not desiring a woman who is personally gross or worse is somehow gay. Like. Dude. It's using gay as a horrible excuse/insult as for why they don't want the woman.

[cursormortis]

Well, I think we're done here. Good night everybody!

[Warrl]

It isn't sexist because sexism against men doesn't exist.

Please tell me you didn't seriously mean that extremely misogynistic statement.

I did explain how it's homophobic. Because it means it literally means they must be gay to not want a woman. Because somehow not desiring a woman who is personally gross or worse is somehow gay. Like. Dude. It's using gay as a horrible excuse/insult as for why they don't want the woman.

Suggesting that the only males who have enough class to not be eager to have sex with such a woman are homosexuals, is homophobic? I'd say it's heterophobic. Or maybe androphobic.