@ les mis fandom why are you all so insistent on erasing what is arguably Grantaire’s canonical bisexuality? The dude likes girls. He’s also got the mega angsty hots for Enjolras. Everytime I see a headcanon or post where he’s described as gay I’m like??? But??? He talked very clearly about liking ladies??? Why do you have to erase his bisexuality? Him having had a Thing with Floreal for example doesn’t somehow undermine his love for Enjolras? Generally I say headcanon however you like but given it’s practically canon it seems less like ‘this is my interpretation of him!’ And more just. Shady bi erasure. >
Chill, fandom. Let R be bi.
Yes, but I think that the same point could be made for “erasing” Grantaire’s arguably canonical heterosexuality.
(I, personally, don’t think either can be erased, because nothing ficwriters do could ever change canon, so even in cases a character is stated to be something or other in canon, they can be written literally opposite in a fanwork, and it still won’t be erasure, because it doesn’t affect canon in any way.)As for Grantaire, I think the case slightly more complicated – he is described as having no understanding of what his feelings for Enjolras are. Like, he can’t even wrap his head around the concept of him being attracted to a man, in any way.
But he is also a libertine, which might indicated that he’s been around to some lovely parties where everyone sleep with eachother, and he arguably knows that same-sex attraction and action exist.
It’s just that he couldn’t even imagine it applying to him.But then, Grantaire is no master in self-awareness and reflection – he doesn’t think he can be attracted to men, but he’s drawn to Enjolras, for his character, and perhaps for his beauty also.
It’s been 3 years, and I’m still on the fence about Grantaire – either he is straight, but confused, or he is gay, but repressed and confused.
Either way, Grantaire being confused is my only fixed opinion about him.‘Either straight but confused or gay and confused’ ??? Or just. Bi? No offence but the ‘either straight or gay’ mentality doesn’t sit well with me and is exactly what I’m talking about here. Bisexuality is an option here you know? He could like women and men (and I never see him imply otherwise in canon – I don’t see where your ‘cannot possibly wrap his head around being attracted to a man in any way!’ Thing comes from. He seems pretty accepting of his feelings towards Enjolras; it shows in how he’s always described as talking to him ‘tenderly’ and ‘sweetly’. He’s regularly compared to figures with questionable sexualities. He’s literally introduced as in love with Enjolras and all that he is. That doesn’t strike me as a man repressed. Also the idea that a 19th century Parisian artist is unaware of same gender attraction even existing is pretty amusing to me)
Grantaire is arguably one of the only characters in the brick who can almost canonically be discerned as LGBTQ. And one of the only characters who has canonical evidence hinting towards bisexuality. To reduce him to straight or gay without ever exploring this is insulting.
Regardless of your in depth analysis though you’ve sort of missed my point entirely. This post is aimed at a very specific part of fandom who like to erase all the evidence that Grantaire has ever had any interest in women and make him gay due to biphobia and some weird fandom notion that bisexuality will get in the way of their ships. This wasn’t a discussion about Grantaire’s sexuality; it is about erasure of bisexuality in fandom, as an act of biphobia (whether conscious or not) – not about erasing this particular character’s sexuality. Grantaire is my example here because there is very obvious evidence for him being attracted to both women and men.
I’d like to add that the idea that Grantaire is either “straight, but confused, or he is gay, but repressed and confused” (as you say) is also a form of bi-erasure.
Especially since, following
’s theory that he doesn’t understand his feelings for Enjolras, it’s only more likely he’s bi. What makes gay people question whether they are gay? Attraction to the opposite gender. A man in the 19th century won’t have access to labels like bisexual, gay and straight, not to mention all the other labels, so he’ll be more likely to think it’s hella weird that he likes men and women. If Enjolras is the first man he’s ever been in love with, he would be slightly confused.
Our poor, confused, possibly bi little bab.
(that is to say, the OP should also keep in mind that just because R likes two genders doesn’t mean he’s bi. Pan-erasure is also a thing. There are so many labels modern!Grantaire could pick. Gay or straight just aren’t the most recommended when you look at canon)
Tag: bisexual
Thor Ragnarok is prime asexual-bisexual solidarity; good-looking men and good-looking women, with zero in-your-face romance or sex.
TRUE
thoughts while driving home from work
If you think of asexual as “not having a sex drive,” then you’d probably be surprised to learn that aces used to be a part of the bi community.
But if you think of it as “not having a sexual orientation,” then it might suddenly become clear.
Because in a world where so many people only ever think of, or mention, “gay or straight” as possible orientations, there’s not that much difference between “not having a sexual orientation” and “not being either gay or straight.”
When the question is only framed as “which of these opposite points does your arrow point to,” I don’t feel like there’s a huge difference between your answer being “point???????” or “arrow???????”
Ohhh, everything makes sense now (says the bi ace)
SWEEET
Which is I think why a lot of aces identify as bi or pan at some point in their lives before landing on “asexual.” If you know you’re not gay or straight, there’s much more awareness of bisexuality than of asexuality, so it makes sense that people would end up there by default.
Yes! And if you were coming out 20 oror more years ago, there was basically zero awareness of any other things.
this perfectly describes my late teens, most of which I spent convinced I was bisexual because I was equally attracted to men and women. Thing is, I actually wasn’t attracted to either, and I thought that that weird uncomfortable feeling I got each time something was overly sexualized was because I wasn’t used to feeling lust and/or arousal, and those new urges were making me uncomfortable, instead of just being plain uncomfortable with sexualization. I didn’t even know that asexuality was a thing until I read about it in a fanfic a year ago.
Chiming in as another aro/ace person who identified as bi for a couple years before realizing the ace spectrum existed. The poster right above me pretty much describes exactly my thought process. Basically, it went:
I’m not gay, and I’m definitely not straight, so I must be bi, because I find people of many different genders attractive (notice i say find attractive, not attracted to). I chalked my icky-squirmy feelings when thinking about sex and to a lesser extent relationships up to lack of experience as I’ve never been in a relationship or even been on a date.
But then in the past year or two I finally learned about asexuality and one night I had this huge emotional revelation when things just clicked suddenly.
So yeah, until recently, bi is where i fit best, and where i felt most accepted.
Up until now I thought “ace ppl were bi/pan?? that makes no sense????’
But reading this I remember–I thought I was bi/pan too!! When I was in high school, I thought I was romantically attracted to men nd sexually attracted to women (I knew almost nothing about gender). I didn’t know about split-attraction so I was horrified of being some kind of freak and doomed to be alone and/or unhappy, to say the least.
People get all offended and insulted and furious about how aces identified as bi/pan, but you need to understand: I only did so because I didn’t know/think asexuality was an option. I wasn’t gay, I wasn’t straight. What else could I be?
At 15, when I was just starting to use the internet to learn about sexuality I came across this: “Bisexuality is the ability to reach down someone’s pants and not care about whatever you find.” And that was, I thought, the closest thing I could find about how I felt.
You might be thinking, “But this is such a wild contradiction to what asexuality is! How could you possibly be bi/pan?” In my experience at least, the logic was something like, “Being bi/pan is an attraction to all genders, but I don’t experience attraction to two+/any gender. Which is similar in that I’m equally indifferent to multiple/all genders. They cancel out, or something? I’m romantically attracted to men, sexually to women, they cancel out?”
When you don’t know what asexuality is, you’re going to come to some conclusions that may make no sense at all to someone else. And they might not make sense to you, either. But what choice do you have? You have to be SOMETHING, or so we’re taught.
And then once I realized I wasn’t REALLY bi or pan, I chose not to identify as anything, since no labels fit me. I thought it would be freeing, not having to worry about labels. But god, it was so lonely. Here I was, some kind of anolomy, brimming with so many questions and no answers. And this is why asexuality is an orientation, rather than a lack of a sexuality. Ahaha, high school was misery in terms of finding my sexuality.
I don’t know, does this make sense to anyone? It’s hard to explain, at least for me.
“I’m nothing” eventually became a common response for me as well.
and gee, I wonder if the feeling of “I’m nothing” contributes to the higher rates of suicidality for a-spec people, like bi erasure does for bi people
for that matter, I wonder if the double whammy of “what I am doesn’t exist” and “what I think I am doesn’t exist”, of bi erasure and the even worse ace erasure, does too
and by “I wonder if” I mean “I bet that….”
I’m Ace and my girlfriend is bi. We were best friends in high school and both went through the process of figuring out our sexualities around the same time. It was surprising how many parallels we had during that time. We were both baffled by how much gender seemed to matter to everyone else since neither of us had a strong pull towards one over the other. We had both assumed that we were straight for a long time – her because she was attracted to boys and me because I wasn’t attracted to girls. It was a huge relief to the two of us to realize that “both” and “neither” were options.
Another word that we seem to default to a lot? Broken. Especially if we’re not just sexually uninterested, but sex-repulsed, like I am. Or also on the aromantic or demiromantic side of that spectrum (yes, it also me). Relief is nowhere near a strong enough word for how I felt when I found out I am allowed to just not want any of it. I’m allowed. I’m not nothing, or wrong, or broken.
And less-than-surprisingly, the bi and pan people I know tend to be a lot more accepting of that, on average, than the heterosexual and homosexual crowds
¯_( ಠ_ಠ)_/¯ 