Gay men do not want to be your best friend

Gay men do not exist to be called sassy.

The term gay best friend has been thrown around, particularly by straight women, as a label for a platonic relationship between a flamboyant gay man and a straight woman. Teen Vogue even named it a “must-have” item on their blog in 2010.

Naming a gay best friend a “must-have” demeans gay men by turning them into an accessory. It sends a message that gay men are only useful in stereotype.

Perpetrators are most often straight women who see gay men as a relationship coach, a shopping companion or a confidant for juicy gossip.

Social psychologist Eric Russell examined the relationships between straight women and gay men in a series of four studies titled “Why (and When) Straight Women Trust Gay Men: Ulterior Mating Motives and Female Competition.” The first of the four studies showed that compared to the opinions of a straight man or woman, women only trusted the opinion of a gay man when it came to advice on a potential boyfriend. The other studies followed the common theme of trust due to a gay man’s lack of ulterior motives when befriending a straight woman. Gay men may also find that befriending a heterosexual woman is easier because of rampant hypermasculinity amongst straight men.

People should not be judged by their sexual orientation when beginning a relationship. It should be about the personal connection one shares with another.

Stereotypes portrayed in the media fuel the fire. In movies and television, the gay best friend characters are usually seen giving a sassy one-liner and are almost never given a true storyline to realize them as a fully formed character. Popular tropes include dating one of the main characters before coming out and being unapologetically and stereotypically gay.

The movie “GBF” explores the concept of the gay best friend. Three women characters act out their fantasies using a classmate who was involuntarily outed and attempt to turn him into the walking pride parade he is not. While the main character makes a speech at the end touching on how he felt like he was treated as an object rather than a person, that is as deep as the movie goes as a serious look at the topic.

Another manifestation is the fetishization of gay men. Pornography website Pornhub published that 37 percent of their gay porn viewership came from women. Heterosexual porn is widely believed to only pander to the male gaze, whereas gay porn is seen as more versatile.

Fetishization of gay men goes beyond porn. Shipping is the act of a viewer wanting two characters or people to be intimately involved. One of the biggest examples of shipping features One Direction bandmates Harry Styles and Louis Tomlinson. For years, their audience of mainly heterosexual teenage girls watched their friendship and analyzed every move, conspiring that the two were in an intimate relationship. They went even as far as naming them (Larry Stylinson) and suggesting Tomlinson’s son is a cover story. It is similar to heterosexual men’s fetishization of lesbian relationships, but there is rarely pushback for women fetishizing gay men.

Stop perpetuating stereotypes as acceptance. It is not better than nothing. The subjugation proves society has not moved on from its homophobic past. To break down these walls, more conversations have to start around these relationships.

It is okay to call these friends out. It is not wrong to expect to be treated like a person, not an accessory.