Growing up gay, I would have done anything if it meant the maximum consequence for confessing my feelings to someone who wasn’t interested was a “no”. Usually the best I could expect was a reaction so out the fucking wazoo, it’s as if I had shot their grandma to death in front of them. Worst case would be my brain becoming a plaything for a med student by next morning.

I’ve got a feeling that if I’d reacted the same way to a straight lady asking me out, society would suddenly become enlightened as to the proper way to behave.

It fucking sucks that so few cishet men are willing to try an actual nonromantic friendship with a cishet woman and I think normalizing the idea of “if no sex, then disappear” just makes that worse.

I didn’t consider this angle until now, but I don’t think forcing people’s emotions to conform to what you want is an effective or stable way to fight misogyny.