Hey do you have any meta on dean and on the road being bi etc

charlie-minion:

andythanfiction-deactivated2017:

I don’t think the sexuality (subtextual or textual, depending on the edition) of Kerouac’s Sal has fucktweezers to do with Dean’s sexuality.  They aren’t copies or an AU version, it’s just a character Kripke used as a partial influence…along with Han Solo, James Dean, and Have Gun Will Travel.  

I definitely don’t think it’s a hidden “clue” as to or “reference to” Dean’s bisexuality, because I don’t think that Jensen is playing him bisexual, he’s being written as bisexual, or that he was conceptualized as bisexual, and therefore that there aren’t any hints from TPTB to be found.  

STOP A SECOND BEFORE YOU SEND THOSE ANONS!

I do believe that Dean is bisexual and that has been written in canon and portrayed by Jensen, both very much on purpose.  But I think they’d swear to you all day otherwise and mean it, because I think the problem here is one of definition.  I think that they’d both tell you that Dean is a very masculine man whose masculinity means a lot to him to the point of occasional overcompensation and not infrequent chauvinism and misogyny, that he really, really really enjoys women sexually, visually, and sensually, but that he’s also secure enough in himself that yeah, sure, there’ve been a few times he’s glanced at a dude and thought dayum, can’t say I might not hit that if I had the chance.    

And yes, that makes him bisexual, you’re right.  But the thing is, we’re a fucking ignorant society when it comes to non-binary sexuality.  Homosexual, we get. Heterosexual, we get.  But there’s this idea that bisexuality is the thing exactly in the middle only.  Dean is NOT written or played as equally attracted to men and women romantically.  Dean is NOT written as giving no shits about his partner’s gender.  Dean is NOT written as equally sexually aroused by men and women.  Dean is written and played as a man attracted 99% of the time sexually and romantically to women who has had his moments of interest in men but never had a boyfriend, consensual sex with a man, used gay porn to get off, or otherwise had anything come of it beyond a raised eyebrow or a dude, tappable nod.  And to the majority of non-Tumblr-SJW 30 and 40-something American adults (aka Jensen and most of the writing staff) that does not make him bisexual, that makes him “not narrow-minded heterosexual,” which is how they write and play him.

It is and isn’t the same thing, and I think it’s one of the biggest thing that wanks this fandom in circles, because when the fandom asks Jensen and TPTB if Dean is bi, they mean “is he ever attracted, even latently, to other men?” and when Jensen and TPTB answer that he’s not bi, they mean “He isn’t a Kinsey 3…he’s like a 1-point-okay-he’s-severely-confused-about-the-whole-angel-thing-but-so-not-even-addressing-it-yet-because-other-apocalypses-to-fry which means he’s straight.” I think this is also where the “bisexual would make Dean OOC” thing comes from, because they’re looking at it as suddenly having to retcon him as right in the middle of the rainbow and “half gay” (with accompanying stereotypes about what that would mean) rather than simply saying it is not impossible he could get hard for a dude occasionally with no change to anything else about him.

And what about the whole angel thing?  I think they haven’t decided yet, I think that right now Misha and Jensen are just playing I LOVE YOU I NEED YOU at the top of their hearts’ volume and leaving it for the writers to parse what kind of love and need later, but I think that even if they do decide it’s a kind of love that involves sexual and romantic attraction, they still won’t consider Dean a bisexual character: He’ll be “het with an exception.”  

Because biphobia and bi erasure means that unless you’re smack dab in the middle Kinsey 3 Oberyn “then everyone is missing half the world’s pleasure” Martell, you’re gay or straight with “phases,” “exceptions,” “moments,” “fantasies,” and “asterixes.”   

I’m bisexual and this is perfect! I have such a hard time trying to explain to people that I don’t have to be 50/50 to be bi. Bisexual erasure exists and is cruel. It’s not “a phase”, it’s not “the result of bad experiences with men” (in the case of females), it’s not “because you haven’t met the right man” (again in the case of a female). Being bi doesn’t automatically make you 50/50 at all. I wish people understood that! Thank you for this, Andy!