The debate about whether lesbians and straight men should be the new BFFs crossing the queer-hetero divide is raging once again, and people have so, so many thoughts.
"Lesbian women and straight men need the relationship that gay men and straight women have," @andrew.geels said in a TikTok that went viral earlier this month, adding that one of his own best friends is a stud.
We all know the stereotype. It's been immortalized in countless movies and TV shows — every group of straight women has their token gay male BFF, and every group of gay men has the straight woman they allow to tag along.
To a certain extent, it's a mimicry of real life. Gay men, especially ones that are younger, not yet out, or living in a place that doesn't have a large gay population, might feel more comfortable confiding in and being around straight women rather than straight men.
There's a lot to unpack in that history, both positive and negative. Despite the shows and films containing these stereotypes often being created by gay men, they've often led to women being criticized for tokenizing gay men, something that isn't necessarily untrue.
And it might make some level of sense, on the surface, why people might suggest the inverse should be true. Why aren't lesbians and straight men besties in the same way?
Well, to start, a lot of times... they are.
Every time this conversation pops up, the comment sections overflow with lesbians and straight men alike pointing out that they've developed great friendships with one another, actually.
Part of the issue literally just might be branding. It's always been a struggle to have female characters whose lives aren't defined by romantic relationships with men represented in media. In the 2010-2011 TV season (aka the year after The L Word went off the air), there were 33 gay male characters on TV, compared to 14 lesbians. When looking at series regulars, the numbers shifted from 14 to 2. Even though the numbers have shifted, gay men still have a solid lead on lesbians in TV representation.
But that doesn't account for real-world experiences. While some straight men will immediately dismiss the issue as "lesbians are man haters," plenty of lesbians (and some straight guys) were all too ready to share the experiences that make them feel like these two types of friendships just aren't comparable.
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The gist of it often boiled down to experiences that involved straight men disrespecting women — whether that meant the lesbians they didn't manage to be friends with or the straight women in their lives they wanted to discuss.
One popular stitch with Andrew's TikTok comes from KJ (@cheugyneat) and touches on this directly.
"Something that makes a lot of men insufferable in the eyes of lesbians is how they treat women," she said. "When I'm around them, I'm like, I could never talk about my wife that way. I would never treat a date that way."
@cheugyneat I DO have a singular straight man friend. I’d consider him the exception, not the rule. He’s amazing. #wlw #wlwtiktok #lgbt
And that opens up the opportunity to theorize something else — that the entire premise of this debate is flawed.
Gay men may not hit on their straight female best friends in the sense that they actually want to date them or sleep with them, but do they actually respect women?
We're obviously painting with obnoxiously broad strokes throughout this entire discussion, but it's long been quietly understood that gay men tend to be vocally judgmental of women, and even entitled to women's bodies. It's just perceived differently because the dynamic is different — the sexual component is taken out without the sexual harassment necessarily joining it.
Straight women can also reciprocate this kind of behavior, of course. But when we actually step back, it feels entirely possible that — to a certain extent — both straight men and gay men tend to express a certain level of ownership over women and women's bodies, just in different contexts.
And those contexts do matter, sure, but it might leave straight women more tolerant of treatment or talk that lesbians left behind when they closed the door on romantic relationships with men.
Personally, as a lesbian, I count straight men among some of my closest friends. I've also repeatedly challenged things they've said, scrutinized how they treat and talk about women they're interested in, and thrown them into the deep end (Fletcher concerts) to see how they fare around a bunch of ladies who don't want to sleep with them.
I don't think there's some impossible friendship gap to bridge between straight men and lesbians. But it does seem that comparing these two types of friendships without taking the time to consider where they're both coming from rather than just treating one as the gold standard of friendship is the wrong way of looking at things.
As X user @alonaonline observed, "Straight women and gay men center men. Straight men also center men. Lesbians don't."