6041 I've Actually Been Writing Up My Own Submission On This Exact Topic, But This Is Such Fortuitous

6041 I've actually been writing up my own submission on this exact topic, but this is such fortuitous timing that I might as well go ahead and submit it as a response.

Yeah, M/M shippers can be really obnoxious, but I am so fucking sick of seeing them being blamed for "See! This is why men are afraid to show affection to other men!" No, men are afraid to show affection to other men because of HOMOPHOBIA. You really think that a handful of fangirls who want Kirk and Spock to kiss have had more of an impact on how men fear their relationships with other men are going to be perceived than the uncountable instances IRL of people being beaten, punished, brutalized, murdered etc. over the mere suspicion of being gay?

Here's a fun fact: it's ALSO damn near impossible for men and women to be platonic friends with each other IRL without everyone and their mother assuming that they're dating, and most people who are in this position find it really exasperating to have to explain for the umpteenth time that "No, he really is like a brother to me, no we don't secretly have a crush on each other, no we are never going to date", but they don't fear for their lives about it. And guess what? Some of the most popular het ships I can think of are ALSO between characters who are canonically platonic friends, where it's stated multiple times by both the characters and the creators that they're not interested in each other that way, and whose shippers are ALSO really obnoxious about insisting that their interpretation is right and everybody else (including the actual writers) is wrong, and who constantly read romance into every single interaction no matter how mundane or negative… but I have yet to see anyone pointing fingers and blaming Zutarans for amatonormativity or for the fact that no one seems to believe men and women can be friends without secretly wanting to bang.

So is it just me, or does pointing the finger at M/M shippers and screaming that "YOU are the reason that men are afraid to show affection to other men!" feel like nothing more than yet another poorly disguised attempt to punish women and girls for daring to like something?

Posting as a response to a previous problem.