Aella posted this twitter thread:
imo we'd be more accurate in conceiving of fetishes as more similar to sexual orientations - it's just instead of your nonstandard sexuality deviating along lines of gender, it can be lines of sensation, species, size, clothing, body parts, etc.They have similar origin; probably partially innate/hormonal, partially early environment. In milder cases, can be conditioned. Fetishes, much like homosexuality, presents differently in males and females. They can be narrow (being gay) or broad (bisexual)for many, fetishes are a required part of sexuality. Much as being gay means you date gays and join gay subculture, many fetish subtypes only allow people sexual satisfaction when they date compatibly among those who share their proclivities. It's an entire sexual way of being.I think a cultural mistake we're making is not allocating certain fetish presentations the same level of seriousness as we do sexual orientation. These people are going through what gays did pre acceptance; "something is wrong with me" "why don't i wanna [BEEP] my wife"People used to view homosexuality as a deviant paraphilia for exactly the same reasons - but turns out if you just put gays together, suddenly they have pretty fulfilling sex lives. They wanna [BEEP] if it's a husband! The same damn thing happens for obligate fetishists.We don't have "straights", "gays", and "weird fetishists" - we basically have a big continuum from common to uncommon sexual interests. It's just that out of the fetish landscape, 'gender' is an uncommon interest that's easy to humanize, and so it's the first to gain acceptance.This is very controversial to a lot of people but I've thought this for a long time because I believe this has negatively affected my life on a personal level and many others I've heard talk about their sexuality. Plus there are sexual interests that are associated with some transgender expressions that are demonised as being 'fetishes' anyway. Then you're still seen as creepy and bad and expected to downplay certain things. There's also this idea that fetishes are purely sexual but they're not and they often have romantic elements for a lot of people.Two women holding hands, dressed in bridal gowns is an expression of an uncommon sexual interest that tugs way more effectively on heartstrings than a woman vacuuming a man immobile inside two big sheets of latex. Hard to make that one relatable.
Take the subreddit r/rolereversal for instance that's a romanticised version of a fetish. People who aren't super conservative would probably balk at the idea of that being considered a fetish because it's not super rare and it's not really harming anyone but it still falls into the ballpark. So I stumbled on this subreddit again recently and actually wrote this out earlier coincidentally:
I wish there was some kind of relationship focussed subreddit a bit like r/rolereversal but for non-binary people. Like more relationship dynamic subreddits. The non-binary subreddits that do exist haven't generally been relateable or useful to me when I've stumbled on them over the years (not that I've really browsed them excessively ever.) Probably stumbled on more relatable stuff looking up bigender on tumblr. But I want to find stuff more focussed on relationship dynamics anyway.
I know there are some non-binary people on the rolereversal subreddit but that's not really the point of it/main focus. Non-binary dating posts on other subreddits tend to consist of something like 'my straight boyfriend doesn't accept me and is transphobic' or 'I'm scared I'll never find someone because I'm attracted to men.' Or 'Is my boyfriend gay if they're in a relationship with me?' Then people will tell them to date trans/non-binary people if they're having issues, and that's about it.
I want to date someone who is more feminine though dynamic wise. Which rules out most trans guys even if I find them attractive (which I can do but usually don't. But even if I'm physically attracted there's still the dynamic issue.) I think probably in the past I wouldn't have cared as much or could have enjoyed the idea of two somewhat masculine people, but I have had relationships with guys in the past, and it didn't really work. Maybe because they're straight and there were sexual issues as well I dunno. But at the same time I don't really want things to be black/white but I think it's an important component. Anyway it feels mostly hopeless because it's too late to be experimenting. I never really wanted to experiment irl. I mean I technically already did and that didn't work and it's like how many relationships do I have to have where it just feels wrong? I wanted to magically figure out what I wanted and how to find that before trying again which is probably unrealistic.
Then it seems like pursuing a relationship with someone transfemme just gets you called a chaser 9/10. I saw some tiktok with this trans woman recently who went on a date with a cis lesbian woman and at one point she mentioned that she'd dated a bunch of trans women in the past which I assume she stupidly brought up because she thought it would be reassuring or something? Like 'I don't mind' (but no trans women hate that lol.) And then she was like in the video 'I'm never dating a cis woman again.' :/
It's not much better if you're afab and non-binary from what I've seen. Maybe that's just because people bring up examples where people use really clunky language like that twitter thread I brought up before where they worded things awkwardly and people were threatening them with violence and saying that 'theyfab chasers are the most evil demographic in the world' lol. There were loads of responses and all but one I think incredibly negative.
And this kind of thing is all I see. People yelling at people for how their sexuality works, or talking about how transphobic their cis partners are. There's actually no advice or useful discussion anywhere. That I've ever stumbled on lol. It almost seems impossible I think though for some people.