celeb news Harry defends queerbaiting

[BlueTimberwolf]

He's the one who keeps making it public, and using it for publicity and an avant-garde image. His SNL appearance was full of gay innuendo. In post a Lil Nas X world, I can see why it's offensive to people. Nas is out there being harassed by ant-gay rappers, while Harry is getting all of this positive press and no negatives from barriers other people are breaking.  If he really wanted to be discreet he could go the Frank Ocean route, but he wants to pander to Larries and have a taboo persona to make money, 

Edited April 26, 2022 by BlueTimberwolf

[BlackStar_93]

He's kinda got a point: people choose to believe his queerness is disingenuous because many believe he's heterosexual... that's just a fact. People don't believe that an apparent straight guy can be queer or experiment with gender.  I think it's silly that people assume his sexuality, and as he says, his clothing/appearance shouldn't be used as something to label him or box tick. He can dress how he likes and I for one think it's great to see such a public figure break stereotypes. 

 

I don't get why people gatekeep these kinds of things, isn't the whole ideal to completely normalize them in society? Who are we to challenge him and ask him what box he fits in? It's not about what he is or isn't, it's about so much more than that. 

Edited April 26, 2022 by BlackStar_93

[Alyssa Edwards]

17 minutes ago, Saintlor said:

Isn't the problem is that the most famous person who acts queer is someone who's only ever publicly been in straight relationships

So pop girls ?

 

[Headlock]

Cishet white man using queerness for the ~*aesthetic*~, groundbreaking 

[DiamondHoe]

3 minutes ago, Miichael said:

But what makes you think he owes you any kind of explanation of his sexuality?

he doesn't owe us anything. the problem is that he chooses to only show hetero relationships while profiting off a queer zeitgeist, reducing actual queer visibility (if he's even queer at all)

 

Lil Nas on the other hand is unapologetically GAY. He is actually pushing boundaries and improving queer visibility. Harry as far as he shows is a straight man profiting off the progressive trend. He's not even doing anything new. Male pop stars have been wearing dresses and dancing effeminately since David Bowie 50 years ago. 

 

Harry's act is honestly reductive 

[JCsNumba1Fan]

I really, really don’t give a **** about this. He can publicly date who he wants and it still doesn’t negate that he has personally denounced being labeled straight. Y’all crack so many gay jokes, but suddenly it’s impossible for Harry Styles to have had any experiences with the same sex? So does this mean you have to be more feminine like Shawn Mendes to warrant question of your sexuality, since he exclusively dates women as well? Okay. 
 

Truthfully, the best part of Harry’s career, to me, has always been about the inclusion and representation around him, and how he promotes that. His shows are a safe place for community. He walks the walk if you look at his band (not many male artists are lacking enough ego to have women backing them). It’s not token diversity in terms of sex and race, they’re all talented and he’s lucky to have them.

[Rev8]

Mind ya business, as others already said

 

 

funny how it's so different for him and Shawn tho

if Shawn said this, yall would be "Okurrrrtt sis, sure!"

[DiamondHoe]

4 minutes ago, BlueTimberwolf said:

He's the one who keeps making it public, and using it for publicity and an avant-garde image. His SNL appearance was full of gay innuendo. In post a Lil Nas X world, I can see why it's offensive to people. Nas is out there being harassed by ant-gay rappers, while Harry is getting all of this positive press and no negatives from barriers other people are breaking.  If he really wanted to be discreet he could go the Frank Ocean route, but he wants to pander to Larries and have a taboo persona to make money, 

this. literally all of this.

 

he acts like he's the one breaking barriers David Bowie did 50 years ago, or that Lil Nas is doing today. 

 

the sad thing is, Harry will have the much longer career since he's able to dodge the controversy unlike Lil Nas, due to him being straight/straight passing, and white. 

 

I'll say it again - he's reductive.

[Headlock]

4 minutes ago, BlackStar_93 said:

He's kinda got a point: people choose to believe his queerness is disingenuous because many believe he's heterosexual... that's just a fact. People don't believe that an apparent straight guy can be queer or experiment with gender.  I think it's silly that people assume his sexuality, and as he says, his clothing/appearance shouldn't be used as something to label him or box tick. He can dress how he likes and I for one think it's great to see such a public figure break stereotypes. 

 

I don't get why people gatekeep these kinds of things, isn't the whole ideal to completely normalize them in society? Who are we to challenge him and ask him what box he fits in? It's not about what he is or isn't, it's about so much more than that. 

Because he's commercializing it. That's the entire concept of rainbow-washing that gets brought up every Pride Month, just transferred onto a pop star.

He's obviously not being malicious, but he fully is aware of the reaction he is getting. His "transformation" is not an accident 

[Miichael]

1 minute ago, DiamondHoe said:

he doesn't owe us anything. the problem is that he chooses to only show hetero relationships while profiting off a queer zeitgeist, reducing actual queer visibility (if he's even queer at all)

 

Lil Nas on the other hand is unapologetically GAY. He is actually pushing boundaries and improving queer visibility. Harry as far as he shows is a straight man profiting off the progressive trend. He's not even doing anything new. Male pop stars have been wearing dresses and dancing effeminately since David Bowie 50 years ago. 

 

Harry's act is honestly reductive 

So because you’ve made up some rules on how queer people can express themselves and who they need to be in a relationship with to be validated as queer, Harry must stick to those rules?

 

The gatekeeing of sexuality is a really wild phenomenon

[Cleanromantic]

"it doesn't matter" is something a privileged, straight, white man would say. It does matter for people living in the real world .

[BOOMBAYAH]

I don’t think the issue is Harry Styles, I think the issue is with how society interacts with sexuality along the lines of masculinity. Harry is right. We should be at a place where we can express ourselves however we want and not be pushed to label ourselves, or prove to anyone that we are who we say we are. At the same time, Harry being able to do just that and be the biggest superstar in the world, and still be seen desirable and talented and deserving by straight women, straight men, gay men, gay women and so on, is because he is not labelled. Performers who are “out” do not get that privilege of ambiguity and mystique. They do not get to cater to one demographic and then the other. They are boxed in and not given a chance because they fit a category. The nihilist in a lot of people tell them that Harry Styles knows if he came out as “gay”, he would lose a lot of supporters. But Harry Styles being “free” “open-minded” “fluid” allows him tap into that gay audience without ostracising the female fanbase who thirst for him. There’s also the idea that a lot of gay men seemingly stop supporting, or deem someone less attractive, when they are out. “Straight men”, or “straight men that I could have a chance with” is more palatable than a gay pop-star. With stars like Lil Nas X though, this is hopefully changing, but yeah whenever I look at this issue I see it more of a societal problem and not a Harry Styles problem. Because it’s like, even if he was a completely straight man, does painting nails, supporting the LGBTQ+, wearing dresses and so on become a “queer only privilege”? Because a decade ago, it was encouraged straight men do this so that we could remove the stigma that embracing your femininity as a man makes you weak. I rambled quite a bit in this but I hope you see my point. 

[conquxror]

That’s NOT it, guys. Sorry. Nobody has to come out or be forced to expose their sexuality, but Harry made his sexuality his ENTIRE brand. Admitting that he’s straight would make him loose this entire image that his team built for him . I hate to be the sexuality police but we can’t keep accepting this behavior from straight men, profiting off being sexually ambiguous while only dating white Victoria’s Secret models. 

[harwee]

He has a point.  He seems harmless to me.

 

Leave him alone.

 

 

[UnusualBoy]

Harold getting y'all riled up over his sexuality like how about minding your business and leave others live their lives whatever they want.

[storminthedark]

Quite literally the point of that interview was talking about how anxious he felt throughout the entirety of 1d to not **** up and how his sex life was analysed from the age of 16?? Kristen Stewart said practically exactly the same thing and nobody got mad at her because they're RIGHT. It's not anyone's business. If Shawn had said this y'all would be swearing up and down that he's gay, but when harry says his sexuality is for him and him only, it's a problem? 

 

"Cleanliness clauses" and "unsavoury behaviour" well, members of that band were filmed smoking weed, were drunk in public, and had unprotected sex with a random woman resulting in a baby and got off scot free, so you tell me what "cleanliness clauses" covers in Harry's case.

 

He thought about the journalists asking questions, when he was still a teenager, about how many people he'd slept with and how, rather than telling them to go away, he would worry about how he could be coy without them leaving the room annoyed. "Why do I feel like I'm the one who has done something wrong?"

 

And he thought about the cleanliness clauses in the contracts he used to sign, which would dictate that they would be null and void if he did anything supposedly unsavory, and about how terrified that used to make him

 

"I've been really open with it with my friends, but that's my personal experience; it's mine,"

Edited April 26, 2022 by storminthedark

[EndOfJune]

16 minutes ago, BlackStar_93 said:

He's kinda got a point: people choose to believe his queerness is disingenuous because many believe he's heterosexual... that's just a fact. People don't believe that an apparent straight guy can be queer or experiment with gender.  I think it's silly that people assume his sexuality, and as he says, his clothing/appearance shouldn't be used as something to label him or box tick. He can dress how he likes and I for one think it's great to see such a public figure break stereotypes. 

 

I don't get why people gatekeep these kinds of things, isn't the whole ideal to completely normalize them in society? Who are we to challenge him and ask him what box he fits in? It's not about what he is or isn't, it's about so much more than that. 

this. like just leave him alone

Edited April 26, 2022 by EndOfJune

[BlueTimberwolf]

3 hours ago, Reflektor said:

He's right?

 

I think the larger issue is that the media is treating him like the first coming of non-binary representation, which is absolutely not the truth, but it's also unfair to tell him to label his sexuality and present as hyper-masculine when he seems to be authentically representing himself.

 

The larger change should be with society's marginalization of non-white people and the media's reflection on that , and maybe he can be doing more to promote those voices? Like, get Omar Apollo or another dope queer artist to open for him (though it isn't like Mitski and Jenny Lewis aren't loved by the alt gays, so...).

You can have an androgynous image w/o queerbating. Prince is a good example.  Harry chooses to do things like this: 

 

 

Not saying he wrote the script, but even the SNL writers knew the whole "is he or isn't he bisexual" is part of his schtick.  The positive interpretation is that he is bi, but knows hiding it or coming out has negative consequences so this is the middle ground. The negative interpretation is that he is pandering to Larries.  

[Katamari]

He’s right 

 

stop forcing ppl into a box

 

 

[James_Dean]

6 minutes ago, JCsNumba1Fan said:

I really, really don’t give a **** about this. He can publicly date who he wants and it still doesn’t negate that he has personally denounced being labeled straight. Y’all crack so many gay jokes, but suddenly it’s impossible for Harry Styles to have had any experiences with the same sex? So does this mean you have to be more feminine like Shawn Mendes to warrant question of your sexuality, since he exclusively dates women as well? Okay. 
 

Truthfully, the best part of Harry’s career, to me, has always been about the inclusion and representation around him, and how he promotes that. His shows are a safe place for community. He walks the walk if you look at his band (not many male artists are lacking enough ego to have women backing them). It’s not token diversity in terms of sex and race, they’re all talented and he’s lucky to have them.

THAT PART   your whole post said it best.

___

 

Good for Harry  he owes no explanations to anyone. 

[Communion]

You don't have to "label" your sexuality to express if you've ever or have experienced sexual attraction to a man. 

[yassskween]

the second being seen as quirky non binary goes out of fashion he'll start looking like a uk lad in Jack Wills ddd

give it up clown

[SimpleKindofLife]

I don’t really understand why people care so much when men in pop and rock music have been quite feminine and flamboyant since the beginning of modern music. It’s almost like this discourse only occurs through people who know no music history. If you’re a fan of the music, and Harry is as inoffensive as it gets, it really doesn’t matter.

[Khal]

Labels are useful and that's a hill I'll die on

[Communion]

11 minutes ago, JCsNumba1Fan said:

he has personally denounced being labeled straight

Where has he articulated that he has experienced sexual attraction to men?