I fail to see any issue with the post (like fucking everyone associates topping with dom that doesn’t mean it has to be, and the image works), but it’s decidedly a complaint about social norms rather than a group. Even if I think it’s not a valid complaint because wtf does it have to do with heteronormativity.
I understand heteronormative to be about social norms centered around heterosexuality, and how that is the dominant cultural factor.
With that understanding, viewing things through a heteronormative lens is to exclude or diminish the views of non-heterosexual folks.
Then “heteronormative bullshit” is comparable to “heterosexual bullshit”.
I might’ve missed some nuance - this is not my forte. However my naive understanding is that saying this was commentary on “cultural norms” is similar to saying to civil war was about “states rights”. States rights to do what? (Slavery) Cultural norms centered around what? (Heterosexuality)
I definitely agree with you re: comment being confusing - it seems to largely be a complaint about folks being vanilla and not knowing the nuances of vocabulary describing relationships, which affects folks regardless of sexual orientation.
Hmm, as someone relatively deep into lgbtq issues (though particularly trans issues), I’d say the term itself is perhaps a bit misleading. The way I understand it and see it used is that it’s about heterosexuality and also gender norms within that traditional heterosexual relationship (so some people think that even in a homosexual relationship there’s always “a man” (dominant) and “a woman” (submissive)).
In that sense (to directly relate to the post) a dominant woman in a relationship with a submissive man would actually go against heteronormativity a bit.
On second thought I guess I can see the relation though, in the sense that the traditional “man is dominant in a hetero relationship” combined with the fact that by default most men probably mostly top could make someone see “topping is considered dominant” as reinforcing those traditional relationship norms. Still feels very overreactive by the original commenter but eh.
Thanks for taking the time to walk through your thoughts - I appreciate the conversation.
I think the particularly egregious problem with interpreting the comment as referring to the association of man=top=dom is that the meme has a gal as the dom, as you’ve pointed out, which does go against heteronormativity.
Heteronormative != heterosexual
I fail to see any issue with the post (like fucking everyone associates topping with dom that doesn’t mean it has to be, and the image works), but it’s decidedly a complaint about social norms rather than a group. Even if I think it’s not a valid complaint because wtf does it have to do with heteronormativity.
I understand heteronormative to be about social norms centered around heterosexuality, and how that is the dominant cultural factor.
With that understanding, viewing things through a heteronormative lens is to exclude or diminish the views of non-heterosexual folks.
Then “heteronormative bullshit” is comparable to “heterosexual bullshit”.
I might’ve missed some nuance - this is not my forte. However my naive understanding is that saying this was commentary on “cultural norms” is similar to saying to civil war was about “states rights”. States rights to do what? (Slavery) Cultural norms centered around what? (Heterosexuality)
I definitely agree with you re: comment being confusing - it seems to largely be a complaint about folks being vanilla and not knowing the nuances of vocabulary describing relationships, which affects folks regardless of sexual orientation.
Hmm, as someone relatively deep into lgbtq issues (though particularly trans issues), I’d say the term itself is perhaps a bit misleading. The way I understand it and see it used is that it’s about heterosexuality and also gender norms within that traditional heterosexual relationship (so some people think that even in a homosexual relationship there’s always “a man” (dominant) and “a woman” (submissive)).
In that sense (to directly relate to the post) a dominant woman in a relationship with a submissive man would actually go against heteronormativity a bit.
On second thought I guess I can see the relation though, in the sense that the traditional “man is dominant in a hetero relationship” combined with the fact that by default most men probably mostly top could make someone see “topping is considered dominant” as reinforcing those traditional relationship norms. Still feels very overreactive by the original commenter but eh.
Thanks for taking the time to walk through your thoughts - I appreciate the conversation.
I think the particularly egregious problem with interpreting the comment as referring to the association of man=top=dom is that the meme has a gal as the dom, as you’ve pointed out, which does go against heteronormativity.
Your second thought was my first thought tbh