reputation was 7 albums ago? i need to go lie down

me too reading that made me dizzy 😵‍💫

Why is “gay sex in movies isn’t tender” homophobic though? 🤔 I’d genuinely read it as more of a criticism of existing movies and depictions of gay sex that’s just often painted as quite rough and sexual without much tenderness. So I was reading the statement as “we are showing the soft and vulnerable sides of gay sex that don’t get much attention in other movies”. I’m genuinely confused as to how this is homophobic cause it’s not saying that gay sex itself is not tender but the portrayals of it in movies. But I’d love your explanation on this since I love Harry styles but I’m also on the fence about the queer baiting issue so I don’t wanna blindly follow him and develop my ability to critically examine stuff like this 🤓

this is an interesting debate and I’m not saying mine is the only right opinion, i know a lot of queer people love harry styles and I’m happy for them, this is just how I feel and my view on his public persona

for me it’s a couple of things

1. is the statement even true? are gay sex scenes in movies really just “two guys going at it” with no tenderness or does harry styles perceive gay sex scenes like that because our society tends to view anything related to queer sexualities as overtly sexual while heterosexual sex/relationships are pure and “tender”. Consider how parents don’t want their children exposed to queer content because “they’re too young” and how movies with queer characters are given a higher age restriction but yet children are exposed to heteronormative ideas every day. homosexuality is still viewed through a purely sexual and “devious” lens. and yes, in recent years there seems to have been a small shift and now we do occasionally see very casual queer representation in childrens movies/books but generally we still seem to view queerness as inherently sexual while heterosexuality is about love. So to me his statement is rather uneducated and misguided by his own bias, there are of course gay sex scenes that aren’t “tender” just like there are heterosexual sex scenes that aren’t “tender” (he himself just shot a rather crass sex scene with florence pugh, didn’t he), but I can name a lot of queer sex scenes that are done quite well and that while sexual also capture a more romantic and intimate feeling as well. the issue isn’t the lack of tenderness but the lack of queer sex scenes in general, in my opinion, because way too often the same movies/shows that depict (explicit) heterosexual sex scenes will just *fade to black* right before “two guys are going at it” (or two women). so his statement that movies have not been able to depict gay sex beyond the sex part feels like he either hasn’t watched enough queer content to make such a judgment or he has in which case his own bias made him view every gay sex scene he has encountered as “two guys going at is” that “removes that tenderness”

2. my other issue is the unwarranted opinion on the depiction of queer identities from a guy that refuses to be part of our community. I have no issue debating representation of queer characters and homosexuality in media with any of my fellow queer people, we can all have varying degrees of feelings and opinions on this because we are all different and we will all view media differently. there are still a lot of issues in queer media and discussing the good and the bad can be interesting and helpful to improve queer media in the future. but the critique coming from a man who seems to view his own sexuality in a vacuum that needs no addressing but just constant teasing and speculation seems so disingenuous. I refuse to label him as straight because I tend to get annoyed when people revert to straight as the default sexuality when someone doesn’t speak on their sexuality but at the same time I refuse to label him as queer because dressing a certain way and using a queer aesthetic doenst make you part of our community either, no label means no label. Like I said, he intentionally keeps his sexuality in a undefinable vacuum and that’s totally fine but I think the fact he doesn’t identify as queer and doenst seem to publicly connect to queerness on any level deeper than the *aesthetic* makes him seem quite uneducated about actual queer identities and queer representation, and statement like that just further prove to me a certain disconnect between his stage persona/aesthetic and his willingness to actually be a part of or at least understand and listen to our community

I’ve never been a huge fan of harry styles yet still when you go back not too far on my blog I’ve actually defended him a couple of times and while I have slightly changed my opinion I still believe he doesn’t have to label himself. my issue is less with him wanting to stay unlabeled but more with the fact he (or his PR team or whoever) pushes the queer icon agenda and tries to make him into something he simply isn’t, imo he shouldn’t be representative of our community. we have actual queer/gay singers/artists that deserve the title so much more yet some people give it to him and try to make him the voice of a community that he doesn’t seem to publicly claim beyond dresses and nail polish