Yep, and oh man how I hate the "she'll outgrow this, it's just a phase :)" lesbophobia. (Additional hatred: since you're bi, you'll break up with your girlfriend you're very committed to and meet a man and marry him, of course! Being bi is fine, it just means you'll end up with a man eventually. I'm not bi myself, but I've gotten that from people just hoping I was bi, and it's terrible! Sympathy to bi nonnies who hear that shit more often.) Very frustratingly, that attitude can work its way into canon. I'm thinking specifically the "Class S" precursor to the yuri genre, which saw romantic/sexual interest in other girls as sort of a phase for young women who don't need to worry about getting a husband yet, a lovely part of female bonding but something it would be sad if you didn't grow out of. It's less overtly hateful than other kinds of homophobia in that it isn't like "you're disgusting and should be murdered," but it's still insidious and painful.
I do think people can see f/f stuff as less "threatening" (specifically, threatening to straight men's fragile masculinity) which is why Ally McBeal can have sloppy makeouts with a lady for Sweeps, but you'd never see a previously-portrayed-as-straight male character do that. But that's frustrating, too, because it feels like if we're not being used as "the kind of low-risk gay the network will let us show," we're not included at all. You get to be the "something for the dads" titillation, or the social justice checkmark that gets accused of not rocking the boat (c'mon, we still rock the boat a little), or sometimes, a metaphor for Female Closeness that's sort of a vaguely fetishized friendship? And each time we're like, "You know what, I'll take it! No takebacksies! If you'd like to fetishize or checkmark some butches too I will not be complaining."
Another example of what's canon and what's subtext is how Steven Universe has one very very explicitly canon f/f ship (Ruby/Sapphire, they literally got married and kissed on screen), one heavy heavy subtext and "basically canon but you can't prooooove it" f/f ship (Pearl/Rose, and their...complicated mess of an Everything) and some other more subtexty stuff (Lapis/Peridot, Amethyst/Vidalia, Pearl/Mystery Girl is hard to read as anything but romantic but SHE HASN'T CALLED HER so I'm putting it here for now) as well as tons of stuff that's just plain shippable, but there's supposedly a "canon" m/m ship in the background (Mr. Smiley/Mr. Frowny) that didn't actually get anything to really upset a homophobe in the text. It's not that I personally blame Rebecca Sugar for her priorities--she's a bisexual woman, and the Crystal Gems are actually main characters, while Smiley and Frowny are not. But it is still telling what the network was willing to allow.
I still hate how it's seen as some kind of contest, or oppression olympics. But it is what it is, and the homophobia comes in different flavors with different challenges, and that totally did shape our communities in different directions.
Re: wank containment area
Yep, and oh man how I hate the "she'll outgrow this, it's just a phase :)" lesbophobia. (Additional hatred: since you're bi, you'll break up with your girlfriend you're very committed to and meet a man and marry him, of course! Being bi is fine, it just means you'll end up with a man eventually. I'm not bi myself, but I've gotten that from people just hoping I was bi, and it's terrible! Sympathy to bi nonnies who hear that shit more often.) Very frustratingly, that attitude can work its way into canon. I'm thinking specifically the "Class S" precursor to the yuri genre, which saw romantic/sexual interest in other girls as sort of a phase for young women who don't need to worry about getting a husband yet, a lovely part of female bonding but something it would be sad if you didn't grow out of. It's less overtly hateful than other kinds of homophobia in that it isn't like "you're disgusting and should be murdered," but it's still insidious and painful.
I do think people can see f/f stuff as less "threatening" (specifically, threatening to straight men's fragile masculinity) which is why Ally McBeal can have sloppy makeouts with a lady for Sweeps, but you'd never see a previously-portrayed-as-straight male character do that. But that's frustrating, too, because it feels like if we're not being used as "the kind of low-risk gay the network will let us show," we're not included at all. You get to be the "something for the dads" titillation, or the social justice checkmark that gets accused of not rocking the boat (c'mon, we still rock the boat a little), or sometimes, a metaphor for Female Closeness that's sort of a vaguely fetishized friendship? And each time we're like, "You know what, I'll take it! No takebacksies! If you'd like to fetishize or checkmark some butches too I will not be complaining."
Another example of what's canon and what's subtext is how Steven Universe has one very very explicitly canon f/f ship (Ruby/Sapphire, they literally got married and kissed on screen), one heavy heavy subtext and "basically canon but you can't prooooove it" f/f ship (Pearl/Rose, and their...complicated mess of an Everything) and some other more subtexty stuff (Lapis/Peridot, Amethyst/Vidalia, Pearl/Mystery Girl is hard to read as anything but romantic but SHE HASN'T CALLED HER so I'm putting it here for now) as well as tons of stuff that's just plain shippable, but there's supposedly a "canon" m/m ship in the background (Mr. Smiley/Mr. Frowny) that didn't actually get anything to really upset a homophobe in the text. It's not that I personally blame Rebecca Sugar for her priorities--she's a bisexual woman, and the Crystal Gems are actually main characters, while Smiley and Frowny are not. But it is still telling what the network was willing to allow.
I still hate how it's seen as some kind of contest, or oppression olympics. But it is what it is, and the homophobia comes in different flavors with different challenges, and that totally did shape our communities in different directions.