The homoeroticfication of same-sex platonic relationships in media
Two dudes just can’t be bros anymore
Before I begin today’s topic, I need to welcome my new subscribers to my Substack! Thank you for being interested in my work & I hope you enjoy what I have to say here. A big shoutout to someone (you know who you are) for giving me a bump on a certain subreddit about internet bullshit hosted by a horse enthusiast & a goat wrangler. Thanks for helping me pull in a new audience!
Now onto the actual piece.
When I was in middle school, I had a few classmates who were…what I can only describe as “hardcore fujoshis.” They embodied every negative stereotype of these group of people: incessantly talking about yaoi to each other all the time, hyperventilating at the thought of a homoerotic encounter with any of the characters they liked and in general, just being annoying and cringey. While they had many cringe moments, there is one particular interaction they had which really stuck in my mind because of how…weird it was.
It was a hot afternoon and my batch was seated inside a lecture hall for a briefing. I was minding my own business, half-paying attention to the talk and half being in daydream world. That is, until I heard muffled squealing from the back.
As it turned out, my two classmates were discussing yaoi (again!).
I was annoyed, as usual, but I found myself overhearing the conversation they were having. Rather than talking about their usual uwu anime soft boi couples, they were instead discussing a real-life “homoerotic interaction”…between our homeroom teacher and another male teacher in the lecture hall. The two were seated next to each other in the hall and throughout the entire briefing, were talking to each other in hushed voices, seemingly being very close in terms of physical interaction and emotional bond. Somehow, these two girls had interpreted their interaction as homoerotic and were now frothing at the mouth at their interaction.
For the record, my homeroom teacher appears to be a bachelor with no confirmation on his sexual orientation; while the other teacher is married to a woman & eventually had a child with her.
Although many years have passed, that interaction still sticks with me to this day because of how disturbed I felt overhearing their conversation. Aside from the fact that any real-life shipping is fucking creepy, the fact that they came to the conclusion based on an innocuous interaction between two colleagues is plain unsettling. What’s worse is that this attitude is now the norm among many shippers in fandoms.
It seems to be a common pattern these days for a certain contingent of fans online to interpret every platonic relationship in fiction (and even IRL sometimes!) between two people of the same sex as somehow being homoerotic by default. Not even the two characters being confirmed as heterosexual will kill the romance- the only thing that would is the revelation that the two are blood-related somehow (and even that wouldn’t stop the niche few who are into incest).
So….what’s up with that?
As a big disclaimer, I am not against people interpreting an intimate bond between two people of the same sex as being romantic, even if it isn’t the case in canon. What I’m analysing here is why there is a seeming big push for people to interpret EVERY friendly relationship between two people of the same-sex as homoerotic in fandoms, as well as a sense of moral superiority that accompanies that belief.
Like most things, there is a pre-history to it. Naturally, there have been a lot of stories, mythological & literary, where two characters of the same sex have a bond which is either implied or confirmed to be homoerotic in some form. Achilles & Patroclus, Carmilla and Laura, Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson…you get the picture.
However, this concept blew up with the rise of slash, particularly in early sci-fi fandoms like Star Trek with pairings such as SpockKirk. Fans, particularly female ones, interpreted the relationship between the science officer and the starship captain of the USS Enterprise as being more than just teammates and friends. As a result, a lot of fan-made zines became dedicated to this pairing. Unfortunately I’m not as knowledgeable of the history of femslash, but I do know that pairing two female characters together in a romantic relationship became popular within the fanbases of Xena: Warrior Princess during the 90s and later on, Buffy the Vampire Slayer in the 2000s.
While ship wars have always existed, they never got out of hand beyond people bitching with one another on online forums. Even then, it didn’t have that moralistic element which implied that someone was a bigot for disagreeing with someone’s interpretation that a character was romantically involved with another of the same sex. There were certainly homophobic people who hated certain ships because it featured two characters of the same sex in a relationship, but they were the vast minority and most people just didn’t care if others didn’t support their ship.
In today’s age, this fun activity is being replaced by a strange new zealotry where fans are eager to declare that pretty much every given character in a piece of media as gay and in a relationship with another character of the same sex.
Within these spaces, it’s common for people to declare so-and-so character to be gay in some form, with a varying range of evidence to “prove” their point, often through the two characters in question interacting. Depending on the “type” of ship dynamic, evidence within these “interactions” varies.
Within “best friend” ships, moments of care, tenderness or simple acts of showing care for each other are taken to be homoerotic in nature, even if there is a larger context that explains their interaction or dynamic. Particularly within anime or Japanese media, the bond between the two individuals is significant & often manifests to become a greater power, or is the power in & of itself.
The 2004 magical girl anime Futari Wa Pretty Cure is an exemplar of this trope. The two main characters, Nagisa and Honoka, draw power from their synergy with each other and are literally unable to transform into their magical girl forms if one of them is physically separated from the other. Even when they argue with each other, the two had to work together in order to defeat the villain of the day. Hell they even hold hands to perform their finishing move!
The second variety is the “rival” ship. “Rival” ships are incredibly common within shounen anime, or at least shows with a primarily male market demographic but a substantial female fanbase online. The often “hot-and-cold” nature of the rivalry is interpreted as a manifestation of deeper homoerotic desires which are masked through a deep obsession with beating each other, only for these “true feelings” to be revealed when one party shows that he’s willing to help the other succeed against a greater evil.
Perhaps the best example is RivalShipping, or the pairing between Yami Yugi & Kaiba from Yu-Gi-Oh. The two share an immense rivalry, particularly Kaiba, who is obsessed with beating Yami since the latter was the only person who could best him. However, when faced with greater villains, Kaiba is willing to put aside his rivalry to give Yami a hand & to let him save the day.
In fact, this was the whole plot of a movie released ten years after the original series!
The third variety is between villain and hero. This is an upgraded version of the rival ship, but one party is actively an antagonist to our heroes, rather than a rival who is a nominal ally or teammate. The sexual tension has been amped up to eleven, since somehow it’s sexy when the two of you don’t want to just defeat the other, but also kill each other.
This dynamic is embodied by….many different ships across media, but a very notable example would be Draco Malfoy & Harry Potter. In addition to being a school bully to Harry & co, Draco ends up becoming a Death Eater & opposing Harry’s quest to defeat Voldemort. Over the years, female fans have interpreted Draco’s obsession with bullying Harry to be…well, a product of him harbouring feelings for “The Boy who Lived.” This is not helped by Draco’s actions in the final book, where he is responsible for saving the main trio by essentially lying to Voldemort on not recognising them when they get captured. Drarry thus remains a crazy popular ship within the HP fandom, despite Harry & Draco ultimately turning out to be straight & happily married to their respective women. One could even argue that the dynamic between their sons, Albus and Scorpius, present in the critical flop of a sequel, The Cursed Child, is basically a Drarry ship by proxy.
There are many other different of “ship dynamics”, but these are the three main ones that I see the most frequently.
It seems to be common in various these ships that, even if there’s no visible evidence or no explicit confirmation on the character’s sexuality, the fans do treat the character being in a popular gay fan ship as “canon”. As a result, when another fan chooses to ship one of the characters in a heterosexual relationship, they get angry and start accusing people of homophobia of refusing to share said interpretation, exemplified by the constant drama in the Genshin Impact fandom.
This indignation and self-righteousness likely stems from an underlying assumption that interpreting a character as being in a gay relationship with another is somehow a sign of “moral superiority”, because it seemingly indicates that you’re not a close-minded homophobe and are totally okay with supporting gay ships. Monia from exiled_fan has an early example of this trope manifesting in the world of emo bandom, where a lot of bands in the emo scene would deliberately play up homoerotic behaviour among its members to piss off the chauvinist crowds that would turn up at their shows. With social justice basically becoming synonymous with fandom, this sort of attitude is now ingrained in many fans who engage in homoerotic shipping, who now have a moral justification for their shipping choices.
Their logic, in essence, is that “the more you see the gay in everything, the more ‘inclusive’ & virtuous you are.” Therefore, disagreeing with their interpretation— whether that be by shipping a straight pairing or simply saying “there is no hard evidence”— makes you a bigot because you’re seemingly not as inclusive as your opponent. I also wouldn’t be surprised if some people see it as a personal attack on some level, considering that many of these people claim to some “queer” identity (whether they are “genuinely” LGBT is another question entirely & is a topic for another day).
As a result of this practice becoming so widespread, many “entertainment outlets” written by these same types of people have pumped out articles vehemently criticising media studios for refusing to make popular ships in fandoms “canon” to the original property, regardless of the wishes of the original maker or the people involved. The controversy surrounding the 2021 film Luca is a recent example, as many outlets published articles accusing the director of homophobia for refusing to make the two main characters a gay couple, despite the director’s insistence that the movie was based on his experiences with his childhood friend.
And of course, some take it one step further. Real-life shipping happens as seen with my poor teachers and the many musical acts who have encountered and will harass the creators directly. The creators of Voltron: Legendary Defender had to contend with this legion of crazy shippers in a variety of situations, notably when a batshit insane fan who attempted to blackmail the creators of the show if they refused to make the pairing “Klance” (Keith & Lance, two of the main characters) canon to the show. The harassment faced on all occasions were so serious that the showrunners and voice actors had temporarily cancelled their appearances at conventions due to safety concerns. What’s even more ironic was that one of the main cast members identified as a lesbian (this person has since transitioned), but was nonetheless brutally harassed by the fans by participating in the “queer-baiting”. So yes, these people will stoop to that level.
Leaving aside that harassment is bad (no shit Sherlock), I cannot help but wonder if the effects of this culture of over-hyping gay ships go beyond the obvious.
The fact that people seemingly adulate fictional same-sex pairings while degrading heterosexual ones comes off as…well, fetishisation. And this is not a surprise, because slash fiction was historically written by straight females for other straight females to enjoy. The couple dynamics present in slash/femslash are thus more reminiscent of heterosexual couples, rather than your average normie gay or lesbian couple. However, many will either deny that fact, or use that information when it’s convenient, like browbeating others (typically “cis” heterosexual women) as to why it’s not okay for them to like yaoi, but perfectly fine for themselves, some kind of “queer” person (again, whether they’re actually queer is another question altogether).
Moreover, the fact that these people will seemingly interpret every close same-sex relationship as being homoerotic in nature in fiction (and sometimes real-life) makes it seem like they cannot conceive that people can have intimate ties with other members of the same sex without it being sexual. This is basically the reverse of how some people cannot conceive the idea of an entirely platonic relationship between a boy and girl (or more specifically, one in which both parties are heterosexual but are not attracted to each other, or at least able to put those feelings aside).
CS Lewis once said: “Those who cannot conceive Friendship as a substantive love but only as a disguise or elaboration of Eros betray the fact that they have never had a Friend.” And while I wouldn’t say that all of these people are entirely friendless, I wouldn’t be surprised if many of them have trouble finding strong, long-lasting friendships built on genuine trust & respect. I also wouldn’t be shocked if this explosion of slash in the culture has resulted in some people, especially men, from holding back affection for their friends because they’re afraid of being jumped on by the fujoshis.
These people don’t realise that relationships between humans can be deep & hold a lot of affection—and it doesn’t always have to be romantic in nature. Deep platonic bonds exist & can have the same impact on people as a good romantic partner. Ancient people certainly understood that, as evidenced by friendship and camaraderie being more common themes than romance in various mythological/literary stories. Not everyone is lucky to find that special someone, but almost everyone has friends and they can be a good influence on our lives. It’s what keeps humans together and surviving after all these years.
In short, the homoerotification of platonic relationships in media is a product of slash being seen as a political crusade, rather than acknowledging it as a place for people to explore their sexual fantasies. As a result, a strange culture has taken root where intimate same-sex friendships are now seen as exclusively homoerotic and any disagreements are treated it as bigotry, without any acknowledgement that human relationships can be intimate without any romantic undertones.
My hope is that these fujoshis will eventually plug off, grow out of their obsessions and adjust themselves to normal society, but I am unsure considering that their views continue to be reinforced by their fandom bubbles and the wider culture. It seems that it will continue for a while at least, but until then, I will continue to enjoy whatever favourite ships I personally support in my various media without the fandom discourse.