#not that vagina = woman. to be clear! but dan obviously at the time meant it that way. | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

templeofshame · 3 years

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I hope you don’t mind me discussing this here hidden behind a anon. I don’t want to add to the fire on there. I don’t like the “dan forced a gay label on himself” when Dan said he doesn’t care what’s between someone’s legs to me I see that as the “sex” as vagina/ penis is not going to stop him falling for a person. I.e a trans man could have a vagina and it wouldn’t change anything. I never saw that as dan saying one day he could fall for a bio female?? Maybe he could I don’t know I don’t think he forced himself to be anything. Dan said he’s a gay man so I will call him a gay man.

The poly topic. I’m someone who is like yeah they could be in a poly relationship who cares. It still is kinda annoying ngl. I don’t know if Dans comments are him actively trying to sleep with other people. Dan said he wants to keep his personal life/sex life private. In big and in the attitude mag. Why would he go against that to try and.. get people to want to fuck him by putting comments into one video that’s his and one has Phil’s? That’s why I see those comments as a joke. Yes I do think they could be poly but that goes literally for everyone. Anyone could be. Even if it wasn’t for Dans sexual jokes people try and say they aren’t together because Dan called Phil mate/bro so? No one can win

I agree that I a) don’t like the tone of saying Dan forced a label on himself. It’s his choice. He chose a label. He spent a lot of time and thought and effort on that choice. He embraced a label that was difficult and important for him and his growth; he didn’t force it.

b) I do think that BIG, in its title and contents, is complicated about what the boundaries of “gay” are for Dan, and it’s valid for people not to be totally clear on his definition for himself. He says fuck the literal definition, he describes some form of attraction to his ex, he uses the word “basically.” He’s not, in BIG, asserting a certainty that there is no way he could possibly be attracted to anyone who is not a man. And I think that is not uncommon and also it is completely possible to respect that and also respect his choice of “gay” AND respect that gender is not determined by anatomy. (I think that it is easy to read the posting of a stranger, for whom I have no sense of their awareness of trans issues or their intent, as basically saying that Dan may call himself gay but he’s not really gay because he says he doesn’t care what’s between someone’s legs... which is basically insinuating either that homosexuality is inherently transphobic and defines attractions purely based on anatomy, or that the poster thinks gender is defined by anatomy and thus attraction without regard for anatomy is attraction to multiple genders. I think it is likely that this poster didn’t think it through and did not intend these insinuations, but like... we have seen evidence of internalized shit of multiple kinds.)

c) I believe that your intentions are very much good, but we all have slips and oversights and in this post, the use of “bio female” undermines your point (I am no expert in this type of terminology but I am a Contrapoints viewer.) I’m thinking that what you meant is that we don’t see evidence that Dan is open to attraction to a cis woman. I don’t disagree. I think it may be off topic but I do think there’s an element of underlying “settledness” about Dan’s perspective in BIG, that he’s acknowledging a lack of absolutes or certainty about what the boundaries of any potential attraction are, but also feeling like it doesn’t actually matter because... the fact is that he is committed to spending his life in a commited monogamous relationship with a cis man. Obviously that’s unspoken, but I think I’ve talked about the similarity in vibes between Dan’s “basically I’m gay” approach and how Hank Green’s addressed being straight, kind of, functionally, based on his experience and commitment to his wife. Personally, as someone with a hazy understanding of my attractions but with biromanticness in there, it makes a lot of sense to me to that one might choose a label that is a bit of an oversimplification because it might not feel super necessary to express and identify with the capacity for attractions one is never going to explore actively. It also totally makes sense to me that for some people, it is super important to identify and explore a queer identity even if all of their romantic/sexual experiences are with another gender (and hey, also those of us without romantic/sexual experiences!). But ultimately... Dan has told us that he identifies with queer and gay as terms for his sexuality and I think it is disrespectful to him to reject those terms or to judge his choice of them after all he went through (and shared with us) around them.

d) I agree that even if D&P were in a polyamorous relationship, which seems unlikely to me given their insensitivity toward nonmonogamy at times, Dan’s definitely not actually trying to get randos on the internet to DM him for hookups. He’s a celebrity, that would be massively unsafe and also like... he would not have to try that hard if the actual goal was random casual sex. I do not personally understand how people take these jokes seriously. He presents them the way he presents jokes, they feel like jokes even if I don’t personally find them to be the funniest, and like... he can want to be suggestive and flirty and post photos he feels attractive in online without actually wanting sexual encounters out of it.

e) Yes, the phantis such that they are do just keep moving the bar so that it’s an unwinnable argument. It’s just so baffling to me, after having finally gotten rid of so much of that, after having the direct address of it in BIG, with every big and small piece of the puzzle, that there are still queer people who are going to somehow deny the beautiful and profound relationship set before them. I just think Dan addressed it so bravely and deeply in BIG and it does hurt me to see people look away from that like it doesn’t mean anything.

#phanti ite domum #sorry this is way too long

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