Opened this. Also, clocked it.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
WTF is the point of opening a thread and immediately clocking it? How is that enough time to gauge how much interest there is in a discussion?
Anyway, the misuse does strike me as offensive when put the way the OP does, but that's just me.
's was muscle memory kicking in, I think. I am sorry.
Anyhow, are there examples of misuse? I am looking and I am not seeing much.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
While I generally try not to read too much into things like this, in this particular case I'm inclined to agree: the trope seems to have some fairly offensive assumptions built into it.
Zzzzzzzzzz
Yes, and? That doesn't make it not-a-trope, nor does it make it misused.
Provide evidence of misuse, or evidence that there's something else that needs to be fixed, not just that it's an uncomfortable trope to deal with.
edited 4th Nov '14 3:25:09 PM by Madrugada
...if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you for it.
We've already tweaked at least one trope in a similar way because of Unfortunate Implications: Hollywood Nerd used to be close to outright stating that nerds were, by definition, ugly/unattractive. It was tweaked because it was the wiki itself, not the media, making that judgment.
One could argue that this is a similar case: that it is we, TV Tropes, that are stating that people who don't fit certain behavioral stereotypes can't be gay, and that sleeping with a certain gender even once defines your sexuality forevermore.
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
Exactly. It's not that it's an uncomfortable trope to deal with, it's that the trope is being defined in an uncomfortable way. I'm pretty sure there are absolutely cases of this happening, but the way the description's written has a lot of unnecessary and offensive elements added on. The No Bisexuals stuff sort of walks the line between the site saying it and it actually factoring into what writers do, but the stereotyping is totally unnecessary.
Based on the description, it sounds like a case of "Character A is specifically stated or heavily implied to be one sexuality, but it is then changed abruptly later on with no obvious build up or hinting." A closeted LGBT character is not an example of this- it has to come out of nowhere and it has to be already established and important that a character is of one sexuality.
I think the examples could use some clean-up to that effect; a lot of them are just "character comes out during show." The implications of No Bisexuals that come with this are natural, but that's more the works' fault than the trope's. A character who is suddenly bisexual after being rigidly straight for the whole series is just as much an example of this as anything.
Rocks fall, everyone miraculously survives.
Re: The trope also seems to dismiss that homosexuals in the closet are more than capable of sleeping with the opposite sex and even feigning or even convincing themselves of romantic attraction.
You mean when a character was desperate to be with at least one character of the opposite sex and then stops that and only wants to be with characters of the same sex? That happens several times, oddly to girls, and is noteworthy.
Absent a specific "eww, members of the same sex!" declaration, there strikes me as no difference in behavior between the heterosexual and bisexual.
Clock is set.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
I still think there are Unfortunate Implications here - on the part of the wiki, not media, which is, uh, unfortunate.
Possible tweak: make it more about how the media expects sexuality to be permanently defined by sexual encounters and that it's impossible for a character to be gay if he doesn't mince/she's not a trucker? That would certainly get those implications off of US, where it is right now.
edited 6th Dec '14 3:27:22 PM by Leaper
Clock expired a long time ago and stale too; closing.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
Based on examples it seems to be "a character who is Not Camp Gay or Butch Lesbian comes out, therefore their homosexuality makes no sense" it also at times seems to invoke No Bisexuals. Example: In Xena Warrior Princess Xena and Gabrielle's Les Yay subtext pretty much just becomes text and this is viewed as Suddenly Sexuality and not a case of the characters being bisexual with a greater preference for men or If It's You, It's Okay. The characters never identify as lesbians.
The trope also seems to dismiss that homosexuals in the closet are more than capable of sleeping with the opposite sex and even feigning or even convincing themselves of romantic attraction.
Yeah, I get that there are a number of examples when the character was clearly intended to be heterosexual and that changed but the trope just seems problematic to me..