There are certain betrayals that sting with a unique, confusing venom. For me, one of them will forever be tied to the slick, chaotic world of How to Get Away with Murder. For years, I watched the show with a friend. We dissected Annalise Keating’s every move, gasped at the plot twists, and, most importantly, we shipped Connor and Oliver. Hard. She adored them. She’d gush about their chemistry, champion their relationship through every trial, and celebrate their love story as a cornerstone of the show.
So, imagine my shock when, sometime later, I saw that same friend on social media, unapologetically spewing the kind of vitriolic, casual homophobia that makes your stomach clench. It was a dizzying moment of cognitive dissonance. I had to confront her. “How?” I asked, my fingers trembling slightly as I typed. “How can you stan a gay couple so intensely on TV, but hate gay people in real life?”
Her response, delivered without a hint of irony, was the key that unlocked the entire ugly puzzle. “It’s different,” she said. “That’s just fiction.”
That single sentence is the flimsy curtain behind which a specific, insidious kind of homophobia hides. It’s a phenomenon many of us have witnessed: the straight person who devours queer stories—from Heartstopper to The Song of Achilles—but recoils at the sight of two men holding hands on the street. It begs the question: what is it about the fictional container that makes their existence palatable, even desirable, to those who condemn them in reality?
Fictional Allyship Is Not Allyship
When a queer person exists on a screen or a page, they are a safe, curated object. Their existence is contained. A viewer can pause their struggles, consume their romance in neat, 45-minute episodes, and close the laptop when it’s over. The fictional queer character doesn’t ask for anything. They don’t need you to vote for their right to marry, to use the correct pronouns, to feel safe in public spaces, or to confront your own ingrained biases. They are a perfectly packaged aesthetic, a tragic backstory, a witty sidekick, or a passionate lover, all without the messy, political inconvenience of being a real, breathing human being who demands to occupy space in the world.
This “fictional allyship” allows a straight person to feel progressive without doing any of the work. They get to enjoy the emotional and aesthetic fruits of queer culture—queer art, queer stories, queer love—without ever having to confront the reality of queer oppression. They love the idea of Lesbians and Gays, but not the reality of them. The moment members of the LGBTQ step off the screen and into the real world, they cease to be a consumable narrative and become a threat to the status quo.
The Fetishization of Lesbians By Homophobic Men
This dynamic takes on a particularly sinister and misogynistic flavour when it comes to the consumption of lesbianism. It’s a trope we all know: the straight man who avidly consumes lesbian porn, reads sapphic romance novels, and romanticizes relationships between women in film. Yet, in the real world, his language towards actual lesbians is often laced with dismissal, disgust, or outright hostility.
Why the disconnect? Because, once again, it’s about control and consumption. Fictionalized lesbianism, particularly in pornography, is almost always created through the male gaze. It’s not for lesbians; it’s for him. The women are objects performing for his pleasure. Their sexuality is a product designed for his consumption.
A real-life lesbian couple, however, is a closed circuit. Their love, their intimacy, and their lives are not for him. They represent a world of female autonomy that fundamentally excludes and decenters men. This is not a performance he can watch; it is a reality that challenges his place in the world. And so, the fantasy he adores becomes a reality he attacks. The only time he might “accept” their real-life sexuality is if he can re-insert himself into it and regain control—the classic, predatory demand for a threesome. He doesn’t want to respect their sexuality; he wants to co-opt it for his own gratification.
In Conclusion
It may be the friend who stans fictional gay couple or the man who fetishes lesbians, the root is the same: a deep, conditional acceptance that is not acceptance at all. It is a form of objectification. It says, “I am comfortable with you as long as you are a concept, a story, a fantasy that I control.” It says, “I will celebrate your love as long as it remains behind a screen and makes no demands of me.”
It’s a bitter pill to swallow, this realization that someone’s “love” for queer stories is just another form of consumption. It’s a reminder that true allyship is not measured by a person’s Netflix queue or their favourite “ship.” It is measured in the real world. It’s in the conversations they have when we are not in the room. It’s in their willingness to be uncomfortable, to listen, and to stand up for LGBTQ’s right to exist as unapologetically and complexly in real life as we do in the fiction they so readily enjoy.
LGBTQ lives, LGBTQ love, and LGBTQ identities are not a show to be consumed. They are lives to be lived—out loud, in full colour, and far beyond the confines of a screen. And they deserve friends, allies, and a world that can handle their reality, not just their fiction.
