To an extent, I can understand the dudebros not being very familiar with the shirtless trope since men do not read/watch love stories as much as women do. But what is antis’ excuse for being obtuse about it? Most of them are females who self-admittedly watch CW shows, romantic comedies, Disney fairytales, etc. I refuse to believe no anti has ever read or watched a fictional story where a woman accidentally saw her future love interest shirtless.

benperorsolo:

greyjedireylo:

the shirtless trope is nOT relegated just to the romance genre though. it’s EVERYWHERE, it even happens in comic book superhero films those very dudebros are so fond of. Captain America? Wonder Woman? Thor? I think what’s actually going on with the dudebros is that the men in those movies are THEIR idea of what women find attractive in a man, and Ben is that rare male character in a blockbuster who’s actually designed to cater to the female gaze, not a man’s idea of the female gaze.

antis’ excuse is that if they personally hate something they think they can pretend it doesn’t exist and/or reinterpret it into something else with the power of magical thinking.

Also, in real life, unless you’re at the…fucking pool or something, when was the last time you saw a guy shirtless? Who you weren’t…romantically involved with shall we say?? 

Antis are primarily motivated by “woke misogyny” that is mostly perpetuated in SJ circles (that I have also seen the Reylo community sometimes partake in). It’s basically mean girls bullying with social justice language.

In their minds, women are only supposed to like “PC” and “pure” things and Reylo is obviously not those things. So women who DO like those things are labelled as having “internalised misogyny” or insert buzzword here. It’s also part of the reason why they hate Rose. Their philosophy is “personal is political” and they take it very seriously.

Also, while SW has always been progressive and had elements that women could enjoy as well as men, and strong female characters abound, the ST made those elements more obvious.

And people like antis who perpetuate the myth that geek media has no women/poc/lgbt and that it’s inherently harmful for those groups to like them because they’re “oppressing themselves”, have been faced with an even stronger contradiction to this lie.

So they double down because “Geek media is sexist and full of nasty men!!! Stop liking that! You clearly hate yourself if you do! Those dudebros will never love you! I know what’s best for you!!”

All while blaming their toxicity on fanbois.