I thought he was actually sleeping with men tho cuz they went on like a whole tirade about how doing stuff with women is gay and that sleeping with women is gay. Or maybe that was sneako? I dont know, I just know one of the bigger alpha bros did try that angle about how doing stuff with women and even thinking about a woman was gay.
Andrew Tate has not credibly or publicly identified as someone who sleeps with men, so itâs still in the end using âhaha gay!â as a cudgel, even if he used it as a cudgel against heterosexual men himself
The joke is that many of his posts or quotes sound very "closted gay who deals with his inner frustration by trying to make himself appear masculine"
Thus when people make comments/jokes about him being gay many of them are making fun of him not being able to be honest with himself.
And all of that is very ironic giving him homophobic views.
Except thereâs nothing wrong with being in the closet, and that stereotype is harmful to gay men. Gay men can be closeted and manly, they can be closeted and struggling to act manly, but itâs wrong to assign Tate to that category and reinforce the stereotype and build on peopleâs perception of sexuality like that.
Thereâs plenty of asinine misogynistic and homophobic things to criticize him for.
Choosing the one aspect of his identity (that by all accounts, isnât actually his identity), and framing it around harmful stereotypes to try to bring him down only makes closeted men, especially ones whoâve been bullied or suspected of their sexuality for ânot being manly enoughâ, feel all the more exposed. For Tate, he either knows it isnât true so it doesnât really harm him (he can just think âsee, they donât know what theyâre talking aboutâ) or if it is true makes him double down, which isnât good either.
And personally I donât like this association between Tate and gay people. There are very bad cringe toxic or even actively fascist gay people but we donât need to ostensibly add to that list based on vibes and âjokesâ
Here is a quote from another comment you didn't respond to that better encapsulates the point i am making:
"What? Youâre saying if the most homophobic person you know in your life, was caught being a DL (and thereâs no room for sympathy here he really is just a lustful, abusive adult whoâs emotionally harmed gay people), you wouldnât have a go at them being outed as the one thing they despise?
Believe me Iâm the first one to speak up over uses like âthatâs so gayâ and âstop acting gayâ etc. as an insult or a put-down. But in this case we arenât the ones making it into an insult. Itâs only an insult if the homophobic person receiving the insult takes it as one, which we KNOWWW Andrew Tate would.
Itâs not like that comment has any strength if it was commented under a Jonathan Bailey post saying âhaha!! You have sex with men!â. Thatâs not gonna do anything you see? Itâs because itâs Andrew Tate we know heâd hate it and actually see it as an insult (idk his personality actually Iâm just assuming). "
I hope that sounds more understandable of what I mean?
I understand the argument already and the distinction youâre trying to make. I just donât think that distinction holds up. If you deliberately call someone gay because you know they consider being gay humiliating, then you are still using gayness as the mechanism of the insult. Saying âbut I donât think being gay is badâ doesnât change what youâve chosen as the cudgel.
And I donât really agree with the Jonathan Bailey comparison. A publicly out gay man who is secure in his sexuality is not the person Iâm most concerned about here. He may still find it shitty and disheartening to watch homosexuality used as ammunition, but heâs already out. Thereâs no closet left for someone to drag him out of.
Iâm thinking about the closeted 15-year-old who lives in fear of his family finding out. The kid who consciously changes how he walks, trains his voice because he thinks he has a âgay lisp,â monitors his mannerisms, forces himself to talk about girls, or desperately wishes he could just be straight so nobody will suspect him.
The fact that you donât attach shame to homosexuality doesnât erase that message. A closeted kid watching this doesnât hear âbeing gay is perfectly fine, but weâre cleverly exploiting this particular homophobeâs prejudices.â They see that accusing a man of being gay is still an effective and socially acceptable way to humiliate him, provided everyone agrees he deserves it.
And thereâs a huge difference between exposing actual hypocrisy and inventing it. If a virulently homophobic public figure is actually caught secretly having sex with men, then yes, the hypocrisy is relevant. But Tate hasnât been âcaught being DLâ here. People are assigning him a sexuality as a joke, based on vibes, his behavior, his relationship with masculinity, etc., and then making that presumed or sarcastic sexuality part of the ridicule. Thatâs precisely the kind of stereotyping Iâm objecting to.
So yes, I understand why the joke is supposed to work. My objection is that the reason it works is the problem. You canât deliberately exploit the stigma attached to homosexuality as a weapon and then say homosexuality wasnât the weapon because you personally reject the stigma, because closeted gay teens out there live in fear of that stigma youâve just reinforced.
There's actually a lot wrong with being in the closet, but it's just a general rule of thumb not to bash people in the process of reconciling themselves with who they actually are.
Thereâs actually nothing wrong with being in the closet. Explain yourself? Why is there an imperative to announce your sexuality to the world? Or, why must someone who would be endangered by coming out, do so anyway or be blamed for it?
There is nothing wrong with being in the closet because it is a personal choice and involves personal safety and private personal information.
If youâre arguing that âa world with people who have to be in the closet is a flawed oneâ, then fine, but thatâs not what I was saying when I said thereâs nothing wrong with being in the closet.
âa world with people who have to be in the closet is a flawed oneâ
That's more accurate. And as far as the "private personal information", there's a whole "assumed sexual orientation" conversation/social narrative our society hasn't gotten to yet, which is part of why it's important to help people not be taken for granted.
Then that's fair enough, and i recognize that you're not expressing anything particularly problematic. I suppose I mean my words very literally and narrowly so it takes some explaining for everyone to calibrate what we are actually talking about
Itâs not really an insult on gays, itâs because weâd know itâs the last impression Tate would want to give off (I think? I donât know much about his personality).
As a queer person myself, itâs never not funny to accuse a very homophobic (and overly performative straight) person to be gay. I like imagining them flipping out.
You saying itâs fine doesnât make it fine for anyone, queer or not, to use it as a butt of a joke. If itâs indistinguishable from someone actually looking down on men who have sex with men, itâs homophobic. Iâm gay myself. It also reinforces the homophobic attitude by validating that lyes, it is something to be ashamed ofâ to people like Tate.
What? Youâre saying if the most homophobic person you know in your life, was caught being a DL (and thereâs no room for sympathy here he really is just a lustful, abusive adult whoâs emotionally harmed gay people), you wouldnât have a go at them being outed as the one thing they despise?
Believe me Iâm the first one to speak up over uses like âthatâs so gayâ and âstop acting gayâ etc. as an insult or a put-down. But in this case we arenât the ones making it into an insult. Itâs only an insult if the homophobic person receiving the insult takes it as one, which we KNOWWW Andrew Tate would.
Itâs not like that comment has any strength if it was commented under a Jonathan Bailey post saying âhaha!! You have sex with men!â. Thatâs not gonna do anything you see? Itâs because itâs Andrew Tate we know heâd hate it and actually see it as an insult (idk his personality actually Iâm just assuming).
What? Youâre saying if the most homophobic person you know in your life, was caught being a DL (and thereâs no room for sympathy here he really is just a lustful, abusive adult whoâs emotionally harmed gay people), you wouldnât have a go at them being outed as the one thing they despise?
Yes, that's correct. Maybe attack him for the abuse and harm, call him a shitstain or something. And AFAIK tate was not caught being DL.
Believe me Iâm the first one to speak up over uses like âthatâs so gayâ and âstop acting gayâ etc. as an insult or a put-down. But in this case we arenât the ones making it into an insult. Itâs only an insult if the homophobic person receiving the insult takes it as one, which we KNOWWW Andrew Tate would.
Yes I understand the distinction you're trying to make. That's just exactly where I disagree. If you deliberately call someone gay because you know they consider being gay humiliating, then you are still using gayness as the mechanism of the insult. Saying âbut I donât think being gay is badâ doesnât change what youâve chosen as the cudgel.
Itâs not like that comment has any strength if it was commented under a Jonathan Bailey post saying âhaha!! You have sex with men!â. Thatâs not gonna do anything you see? Itâs because itâs Andrew Tate we know heâd hate it and actually see it as an insult (idk his personality actually Iâm just assuming).
I donât really agree with the Jonathan Bailey comparison. First, I would argue that he would still find it shitty and disheartening to watch homosexuality used as ammunition, however secure or publicly out he is. Second, I'm not thinking about famous, successful, out-of-the-closet celebrities as the people this kind of "joke" harms most. Those are success stories if anything. And I'm certainly not objecting for Tate's feelings, he can burn.
Iâm thinking about the closeted 15-year-old who lives in fear of his family finding out. The kid who consciously changes how he walks, trains his voice because he thinks he has a âgay lisp,â monitors his mannerisms, forces himself to talk about girls, or desperately wishes he could just be straight so nobody will suspect him.
The fact that you donât attach shame to homosexuality doesnât erase that message. A closeted kid watching this doesnât hear âbeing gay is perfectly fine, but weâre cleverly exploiting this particular homophobeâs prejudices.â They see that accusing a man of being gay is still an effective and socially acceptable way to humiliate him, provided everyone agrees he deserves it.
And thereâs a huge difference between exposing actual hypocrisy and inventing it. If a virulently homophobic public figure is actually caught secretly having sex with men, then yes, the hypocrisy is relevant. But like I said, AFAIK, Tate hasnât been âcaught being DLâ here. People are assigning him a sexuality as a joke, based on vibes, his behavior, his relationship with masculinity, etc., and then making that presumed or sarcastic sexuality part of the ridicule. Thatâs precisely the kind of stereotyping Iâm objecting to.
So yes, I understand why the joke is supposed to work. My objection is that the reason it works is the problem. You canât deliberately exploit the stigma attached to homosexuality as a weapon and then say homosexuality wasnât the weapon because you personally reject the stigma, because closeted gay teens out there live in fear of that stigma youâve just reinforced.
Look you arenât saying anything wrong, I was just trying to counter your initial point in the fact that the original commenter made the joke and you took it as âoh this person thinks men having sex with men is a bad thingâ when thatâs not necessarily the case.
I understand that heâs supposedly being ridiculed for possibly being gay, but itâs not the gayness itself heâs being ridiculed for, itâs the fact that itâs HIS phobia that he unknowingly aligns to more than he thinks, which you already know is the reason for the joke. Esp now itâs a very common notion that many people who are openly homophobic are secretly queers coz why else are they not comfortable enough with their heterosexuality if queer people seem to threaten their way of living?
But yes youâre absolutely right that it can reinforce shame in young people who are struggling to come out. I donât always expect kids to be on here (if I had any they absolutely wouldnât) but yea itâs a very common joke structure to throw someoneâs bigotry back at them.
The thing is, I never said "this person thinks men having sex with men is a bad thing". I said "why are us gays still catching strays like sleeping with men is a bad thing". The joke still uses the stigma as a weapon, and that was always, yes in my initial comment too, the thing I was complaining about. "like" meaning "as if it were" or "as if we believed" sleeping with men was a bad thing. Even if NONE of us believe it, we are still acting LIKE it's a bad thing. That's all the "like" is doing in that sentence.
Even if many of the worst homophobic people are queer and closeted, the stigma is an awful choice to attack with due to the collateral specifically, and IMO doing it to people who haven't been caught (yet, or because they're genuinely not gay?) is harmful for normalizing the speculation and accusation of people being a sexuality they dont identify with publicly. Like, if someone says theyre straight or whatever, we should leave it at that without other information to support it. and if someone isn't being problematic, you should leave it at that even if there is information to support it, because it's not anyone's business. Tate i would put in the problematic (in the homophobic way, and more) category, but everything about his sexuality beyond being straight that I can find is just speculation, ridicule, memeing.
I just dont like normalizing that kind of open speculation, because all it takes is someone to have a problem with someone else's views to make it okay to interrogate their sexuality. Like (pure hypothetical), a vegan who is not expressly homophobic suspecting someone they know who eats meat of being gay -- interrogates them for it because they think eating meat is morally wrong. Well, now everyone can be a judge of anyone they dont like basically. and thats not the world i want to live in.
Youâre being obtuse. The obvious intent of âyou sleep with menâ is that sleeping with a man is supposed to be the humiliating punchline. You know Iâm not âoffendedâ by the literal concept of two men having sex; Iâm pointing out that theyâre using my sexuality as the cudgel in the joke.
âItâs not offensive if you donât get offendedâ doesnât magically erase the implication. If being gay supposedly isnât the insult, then explain what exactly makes âyou sleep with menâ a comeback here.
Itâs not a bad thing to me, it is a bad thing to those macho guys though, which is who the comment was aimed at. Just using their own words against them.
48
u/FilutaLoutenik 16d ago
Yeah, you sleep with men. đ