I’m tired of it. I’m tired of seeing all the puriteens and such saying LGBTQ+ people need to look “respectable” or some shit and pure uwu to the cishets to be better accepted. Google “respectability politics lgbtq+” and you’ll see it doesn’t matter what you do, it doesn’t change the queerphobe’s opinion of LGBTQ+ people. You can try and be as “pure” and “uwu” as you want, it will not change their opinion. Also, all this purity culture crap, hurts people. Seriously, you could go down a rabbit hole of purity culture and it’s fucking terrifying.
Queer sex is often seen as shameful by the lgbtq+ purity police for some reason. We aren’t allowed to be sexual? You don’t need to be sexual to be lgbtq+ but a lot of us in the lgbtq+ community, are sexual people, like cishet people are. Most people don’t bat an eye at cishet sexuality. It’s “normal”. But queer sexuality? The purity respectability politics police start screaming. Queer sexuality is normal to it’s just not normalized. If cishet’s can do something and be seen as “normal” and ok, why can’t it be the same for lgbtq+ people? Cishets can be sexual, can be kinky, can be polyamorous. So can lgbtq+ people.
Cishets can have their “problematic” media and stories and art. Why can’t queer people? I honestly have come to hate the word problematic. Can things be problematic? Sure. But it’s so over-used. Also, sometimes people use “problematic” things to cope. Sometimes they don’t but people can separate fiction from reality. Just because you like reading/watching something fictional doesn’t mean you want it to happen in real life. Fiction is fiction. People need to learn how to separate fiction from reality! And i’d like to believe most people can.
I’m not saying this can’t be complicated and nuanced, i’m sure it can be. But not everyone wants to just read/watch wholesome uwu stuff, and that’s ok, we should have all different kinds of rep. Cishets are allowed, why aren’t we?
The purity police also yell at any lgbtq+ person doing something they don’t think is respectable enough. In a polyamorous or open relationship? Kinky? Transgender? Not being transgender correctly? Not in a heteronormative type of relationship? They will attack you. It doesn’t matter to them if everything is 100% consensual (as it should be of course).
Being queer has often been about pushing boundaries, not trying to shove ourselves into the cishet-normative box or the closest to it box we can find anyway. Fuck the damn boxes!
Read and watch and create the stories you want. Fiction is not reality. And be whoever you are. As long as you aren’t hurting anyone (unless you’re being kinky and all parties involved want it but you know what I meant) that’s all that matters. People can choose to stay away from the media they don’t want engage with. That’s what trigger and content warnings are supposed to be for.
I am not listening to respectability politics. It’s fucking toxic.
Literary Stoner 
When I was younger I didn’t have any LGBTQ+ folks in my social circle, and my first introduction to the queer world was the American version of the tv show Queer As Folk. One of the things I really liked about it was that it celebrated queer sexuality and diverse sexual experiences. The idea of trying to purify queer sexuality to try to appease cishet folks just seems wrong.
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I don’t look respectable and anyone who has a problem with it can bite me (I also have an attitude problem). Anything that promotes any kind of social hierarchy needs to go. I really feel like this respectability politics crap stems, in some way, from the idea of the “model minority” (people like Asians who are “white enough” and are stereotyped a certain way and are the kind of people “the U.S. wants”.) How one looks should not be the standard by which they are judged. Like I told you, I can go out in public looking like I escaped a Sex Pistols mosh pit and people don’t blink an eye. The second I wear anything supporting the LGBTQ+ community I’m treated like I am plagued. Society sucks.
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