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Author: lakingsif

Apr 17th 2017 at 6:12:57 AM

QueerBaiting

In the world of newspapers, there is one definition of "queer baiting": to invoke homophobia as a means to suggest unreliability (e.g. ''"[[http://attitude.co.uk/daily-mail-accused-of-homophobia-after-denouncing-a-judge-whos-forcing-brexit-to-be-voted-for-by-parliament-as-openly-gay/ ... an openly-gay]] [[Memes/{{Politics}} ex-Olympic fencer]]"'').

In popular media, there is another: to portray [[HoYay queerness]] to attract an LGBTFanbase, but [[WordOfGay never actually confirm it]]. Though the term seems pejorative, queerbaiting is not necessarily negative, but as a means to capitalise on both the queer and straight storytelling potential, and to retain as large an audience as possible. Basically, it's allowing the audience to see what they want to -- and never outright denying nor confirming anything.

This is the queer preamble to a ShipTease scenario, but it is not always surrounding a couple -- in many cases, it may be the suspected belonging to the LGBT+ community of a single character. Queerbaiting may also be present in works where the suspicion has been resolved: confirmation either InUniverse of [[WordOfGod out]], either for or against. One of these resolutions is the BaitAndSwitchLesbians trope: teasing a lesbian couple, but they're really just [[RomanticTwoGirlFriendship very close, straight, friends]].