greysides

see this is what i don't get. what is his "gentle manners and nature and coyness" what is that? this is what seems made up to me. based on what. what is so soft and gentle and coy about him compared to the rest? is it cause he's sometimes flirtatious? why doesn't that mean he's seen as fuckboy-ish (sorry to put that forward, i definitely dont think any of them are like that, but for arguments sake) rather than a femme fatale? again, this all feels like a baseless way to emasculate an east asian man to me. i know that could be seen as controversial but i genuinely dont know how else to interpret peoples determination to make jimin into something he doesnt seem to particularly be. all of the bts members are kind and arguably sweet? say jimin is more altruistic than the others, why is that the only trait acknowledged here when he can also be very petty and sly? he also likes to pick on the members (in a good-hearted way) a lot and tease them. why is that ignored in favour of his sweet side? "But he's obviously 'male looking' out of it" and jimin isn't???? i'm sorry but what does this mean?? this is my exact issue? so yoongi is obviously male looking but jimin isn't? based on what exactly? is it cause jimin has big lips? then why isnt jin seen in the same way? "so the 'gentle, femme' persona has stuck for large (vocal) sections of fandom." i'd argue this has only stuck since around 2019, i swear this did not exist the way it does now before then and it doesnt exist in korean fandom circles the way it does in western countries and that speaks volumes. "publicly genderfluid direction" WHAT DOES THIS MEAN??? how is he gender fluid??? at all? what has he done that makes you think this? im not saying he's trying to ne super macho either, just that he gets singled out for no reason compared to the other members. i dont think any of them are that masculine or feminine. and yeah he does seem to be more content but i dont think theres any way for us to know that has anything to do with him apparently being feminine or not being feminine, especially because i doubt he even really knows that people think of him in this way in western circles, again this isnt a universally accepted notion toward jimin in korea

i was back reading and im sorry but why do people act like jimin is innately especially feminine compared to the other members? i swear this is a new thing that never existed a few years back. i feel like since bts’ fanbase is so much bigger now and more geared toward american or western fans, people just glance at jimin and decide he’s really feminine when there’s nothing unique about him in that regard compared to any of the other members. ofc they all have feminine and masculine sides to them like any other human does. but him saying he’d get make up for his dad sounds more like him being a seoulite than feminine, as skin care and men wearing light make up like concealer is not effeminate in seoul, its pretty standard self grooming. him saying “what is men” when jungkook said he shouldn’t take selfies back in 2016 is such a weird example because that was during a time when nobody considered him feminine the way people do now and if anything he was still in the middle of trying to be a ‘strong man’ if we go along with that narrative. its also a really innocuous comment about toxic masculinity that other members have made FAR bolder comments on since then that nobody says anything about. nobody says namjoon or yoongi are super feminine because they’ve denounced toxic masculinity in the past few years openly in english interviews (i.e. https://www.papermag.com/bts-2652995733.html?rebelltitem=2#rebelltitem2). jimin makes two vague comments and that means he’s the one and only bts member who is especially feminine, who has been so brave to have denounced gender norms, he's accepted the real feminine part of himself and no longer has to lie and pretend to be masculine. wtf is that narrative. like if it were real it'd be awesome and i wouldn't blink before i'd be there supporting him, but what agitates me is it isn't real, it's made up and isn't genuinely based on anything, it's all projection. i'm sure he's grown in his own relationship to gender expression and i dont deny that and thats great, but thats not reflective of such an elaborate narrative that gets pushed around. I’ve seen arguments like “he clearly wears more makeup/wears girly accessories” when he doesnt compared to any other members. he wears hoop earrings when lots of the other members have worn dangly earrings before? when nearly every kpop idol wears "effeminate" earrings by western standards? all of this seems to have been started by him saying he doesnt have to pretend to be a strong man in 2017. I’m really glad he doesnt feel pressured to do that anymore, but by god have people taken a personal, brief statement and ran a massive narrative about how it means he’s accepted that he’s truly very feminine (some people even insist he’s non-binary, he's frequently misgendered and over-sexualised on twitter) and has finally accepted that about himself. its a necessary convo to have about what its like to have hyper masculinity enforced onto men (its horrible) but its equally necessary to consider the dangers of enforcing hyper femininity onto people, women or men, especially when its based on very western standards of perceived arbitrary traits like things jimin wears or the way his body is (btw idk what these "things" are cause i dont get whats different about him than the other members?). before people get angry, i have nothing against feminine men, i love feminine men, random example but olly alexander from years and years is one of my heros and i adore tf out of him (he recently did the most iconic performance with elton john, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hk4eMIswunQ&ab_channel=EltonJohn trust me im down with femininty), im a more feminine person. this has nothing to do with femininity itself, seeing men be open about and express their femininity is a beautiful and important thing. what bothers me about this is a) its fucked up to enforce anything upon someone, especially when its personal and especially when its not based on anything concrete in the first place. jimin just breathes and it feels like theres apparently some secret feminine way he did it that im missing with the way people refer to him nowadays. like its just common place that everyone has agreed he's especially feminine and androgynous. b) it feels covertly racist. it reminds me of the way in western culture people put so much effort in trying to emasculate east asian men. just because jimin has nice lips and a nice face doesnt mean he needs to be the super feminine gender-norms-shattering andro fantasy you have. he could be considered similar to a young brad pitt with that face but ofc not, really it means he’s actually androgynous according to people. on top of that nobody in korea or the korean fanbase seem to have the same narrative. at most people admire his cute side, but even then people see that its just one side of him. ive never heard or seen the korean army describe him as feminine the way people in american fandoms do. in interviews in korea nobody has trouble acknowledging he's your run-of-the-mill idol, even if they appreciate the different sides of him. why does jimin’s very standard expression of femininity and masculinity as a 21st century idol male from seoul need to be put under a microscope and constantly defined. why is he special compared to the other members who don’t behave any differently to him? is it cause he’s a shorter, smaller member? then why doesnt yoongi get the same treatment? is it cause his voice is high? is it cause people hate seeing an east asian man who is smaller and has a pretty face not be especially feminine? cause it feels like that

yeah thats what im saying too, i dont think he has a difference and seems genuinely attracted to women and men or at least has appeared to genuinely flirt with both

“I've watched 'Jimin flirting with women' videos and his vibe with women is just...so different. A lot of the 'flirting' isn't even flirtatious, and when it is it feels more 'I'm doing this because its funny and fun' where as with men its more 'I know you want me and I like that’” i feel like you havent seen him flirt with enough women then? he’s extremely flirtatious with everyone and anyone imo, including men but also women. these may not be the best examples so im sorry but its the stuff that i can think of off the top of my head https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghgj13CfPo4&ab_channel=tRNA, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvZ-PUBdBf4&ab_channel=SBSEntertainment and he also seemed very genuinely attracted to the girls in ahl

i think part of the reason why ive found this explanation hard to understand is aside from both lyrics being explicit, i dont see how this Bitch, I'm a thot, get me lit // I can't fuck with these niggas 'cause niggas is gay // All on my page suckin' dick // All in my comments and screamin' my name." is interchangeable with what yoongi said. if i understand it correctly that lyric is saying he's so attractive that there are even men going crazy for him but he doesnt f with it cause theyre so into him theyre gay. yoongi's lyric is a double entendre using his rap as a guise to talk about how good he is at giving head to men and women to the point where their orgasms are mindblowing. in the former the rapper isnt an active participant but in yoongi's he's purposefully trying to give men (and women) orgasms from his "flexible tongue movements" as he puts it. i get that there are explicit lyrics in majority of rap songs and its not just the fact that yoongi's lyric is explicit that makes me think its gay, its what the lyric is specifically and ive never seen lyrics exactly like that in other rap songs. im not a rap enthusiast or something but im someone that listens to literally every genre of music on the regular so im not unfamiliar either

rappers like drake are saying things like "men will come from my tongue"?

"my rap game is so good I can make anyone come, man or woman". Yoongi's is the latter, and while it doesn't imply sexual attraction towards men sorry to keep going on about this, im just amazed people dont find it convincing cause for me its the one thing thats always been the most convincing of yoongi not being straight. doesnt this definitely imply he does have sexual attraction towards men though? like what straight man would ever want other men to have an orgasm because of him?

maybe those rappers also have questioned their sexualities before then? i honestly cant wrap my mind around yoongi going out of his way to clarify man or woman before talking about oral sex if he were straight. idgi

i honestly don’t get this explanation though? the lyric was extremely sexually explicit, not an insult like “go suck my dick”, it was “I’m so good at head you’ll see stars” and explicitly directed toward men and women. i get that he was trying to boast about rap but tell me right now what straight man would ever even think to boast about his rap by giving men orgasms? most straight men wouldn’t even think of it conceptually in the first place, plus if he wanted to boast about his oral skills and his rap skills then why on earth did he need to go out of his way to specify that its toward men and women, why not just say “ladies my rap is so good it’ll make you come”, thats what 99% of rappers would do. the lyric just doesn’t make sense to me coming from a man who isn’t at least somewhat into men

i used to be sure yoongi was bisexual, or possibly even gay, and was 100% self aware of it and of how he came across, he just couldnt openly state it, but after that "my heart doesnt flutter for men" comment it confused me and made me reconsider. I also vaguely remember in a chinese radio interview bts did around 2014 yoongi pretty clearly seemed to be flirting with one of the female hosts. he's definitely confusing, because at the same time i can't fathom how he wouldnt be aware of what the lyrics "whether a guy or girl, i make them come/send them to hong kong with my tongue" and the "flowjob" lyrics imply.

a lot of people were convinced taehyung must be in love right now or in a relationship because of the lyrics. it is a christmas song so maybe the love vibes was just to make a romantic christmas song but i have to admit when i was first reading the lyrics its what came to my mind as well. it sort of sounds as if he's found someone who just makes him feel a lot better, like with the "you make me want to be a better man" line. i kept waiting for girl or she to appear and it didn't. it could be nothing but with the way he seems to have been more accepting of himself lately, i wouldn't be surprised if maybe he is dating a guy and is finally kind of allowing himself to do that

when?

sorry, you're right, i just double checked it. he never said he would fall over if you hit him, but he said his body is weak so he'd choose that flower. thats one of the few times i feel like he's actually said something like that

i think if i remember correctly jimin said he was weak at one point while jungkook was working out? if im correct i just took that as him joking about having lost all his muscle. its funny about how different people see different features, for example i often notice jimin has really nice jaw structure that is pretty masculine. namjoon's nose is also very small but he isnt seen as feminine either, all the members eyes look sultry in makeup, idk how jimins lips are more feminine than jins, they're both really plump luscious lips. idk i just find it confusing cause its incongruent. nonetheless its fair enough if we just disagree, so agree to disagree

theres no problem in saying or speculating that jimin might be non binary, its the fact that a) ive seen people genuinely claiming he is non binary (primarily after the filter performance) and that we need to start using she/her and they/them pronouns for him - and they werent just jokes, some people were joking sure but others were genuine. and b) there is a distinction between who you are attracted to and who you literally are and the latter can be more intrusive to assert and also can be more ambiguous to actually conclude, especially from afar, considering how muddled different terminology like transgender, non binary, feminine man/masculine man and gender expression becomes. and c) jimin just hasnt expressed any discomfort with being male. jimin gets singled out for no legitimate reason. its hard to understand why you would speculate about someone being non binary if theres little reason to actually do so. this thread speculates about the sexuality of idols because theres a whole bunch of stuff that indicates to the likelihood that they could be non-straight. know you disagree with me and i respect that we likely have a different perspective on this topic, but to me jimin hasnt done anything to indicate he could be non-binary. at most he seems to have indicated he no longer feels trapped by toxic masculinity, which is great, but he never said "so therefore im going to be feminine now" and even if he did, that still wouldnt mean he would have to stop being a man because of it. if we had something more substantial to go off of that really indicated jimin was questioning his gender identity rather than gender expression (if he even does question that) then i dont think this would seem as odd to me. i should reiterate again though, its ok if we disagree on this and you're right, there's nothing bad or negative about speculating over an idol possibly being non binary, its not a negative thing, i just dont know why jimin only is the one who gets singled out.

also, to be honest, how is jimin’s face + body all that feminine? he has lovely lips but so do namjoon and seokjin who dont get the same treatment. other than his mouth, what about his face is considered particularly feminine? his body is a bit smaller than the other members but not this teensy person who would topple over like a leaf if the wind blew people sometimes make him out to be. people are forgetting back in 2015 he was super muscular and had thighs so big sometimes they were nicknamed boulder thighs. aside from him being 5'8 (which isnt super out of the realm of commonality for a man even if its on the shorter end of the height spectrum) his body shape is pretty masculine. so honestly even the argument that he looks feminine is difficult for me to understand. it reads more like people WANT him to be feminine or prefer him to be feminine because of how they choose to perceive certain traits of his and find it uncomfortable to not see him that way, its a projection thing. the only thing about him physically that feels legitimately feminine is his voice because its high but even then nowadays he's made to sing at the tip top of his register which gives off the impression that its even higher than it already is "So how is he THEE representative in the group for this with all these expectations and ideals placed on him when Jungkook said great style is wearing anything regardless of gender and often personally buys from genderless clothing brands, when Taehyung was wearing a pajama dress and said he hopes it can be popular among men in the future, when Yoongi questioned why certain things equate to masculinity, etc etc...and Jimin’s made zero statements at all." this , this is the exact reason i never understand this recent view that jimin is super feminine, why is it him that gets singled out and nobody else?

adding onto the race thing + im kind of taking out frustration on stuff ive seen from heaps of different people in the fandom since that interview in 2018; claiming that you have a thing for an entire ethnicity just because you’ve been attracted to one or two people from that ethnicity has lowkey racist undertones because it makes it seem like its more convincing that someone would casually be attracted to say a black man only if they had a fetish for black men, as if that’s required or something. its like saying i have an asian fetish because i find bts members hot. if jimin had only showed interest in black men say 6 or 7 times i might get it, but from my memory its literally been 2 men among other people of different races. people taking that one clip of him into that interviewer and people saying he has a fetish for black dudes is just…black men are humans not a sex object

“Jimin is so stereotypically gay it seems to me a lot of people want to call him bisexual or "just flirty" because it would seem tacky or reliant on stereotypes to say otherwise" "Jimin is increasingly feminine and fey the more he grows comfortable and happy with himself” based on…what? sorry this might annoy people and im not trying to target you specifically because its a common thing that has come up in the past year or so but this somewhat recent narrative that jimin has completely turned masculinity on his head because he said vaguely in one interview he didnt feel the need to pretend to be a tough man the way he used to is really weird to me. people keep applying this whole narrative onto him because they perceive him to be really feminine and would rather it that way. that in and of itself is lowkey problematic to me, it implies that if you have perceived physical feminine traits (perceived being the key word) people expect you to behave femininely accordingly. people constantly dismiss jimin’s natural masculine traits as if they’re not comfortable seeing someone who looks like him just be masculine (what is it about his appearance or face that convinces people he's so feminine anyway? and if thats not what it is, then what is it about his personality that convinces people?). the whole point of rejecting toxic masculinity is that you can be feminine + masculine to any degree without it invalidating who you are, in jimin’s case, a man (not that you need to act a certain way to be a man, but i mention this because ive literally seen people claim jimin is now non binary). jimin isnt any more feminine than the other guys and if you think he is, then how? mind you there’s literally nothing bad about being feminine at all, but i just dont get why people are so desperate to make sure jimin is seen as such when there isnt really anything particularly feminine about him compared to the others. i assume ill get negged for this or something but i honestly dont get it

sorry to randomly butt in here after having been gone for such a long time and maybe im overreacting but when he engages in lgbt media like that it honestly feels personal. it reminds me of myself. when ur lgbt finding media that represents you in any way can feel personal and become something you cherish because its relatively rare, you kind of cling onto that moment you recognise yourself in the song or the movie or whatever it is, like a reflection. whenever he talks about movies (like cmbyn) or listens to explicitly lgbt songs or praises lgbt artists it really gives me those vibes. im not saying its irrefutable proof because a lot of het people can appreciate that stuff and other bts members have done the same thing here and there, but recently taehyung seems to have been doing it a lot and to the point where its getting really hard for me to rationalise a straight man having that level of connection or interest with that content.

taehyung's genuine appreciation and connection to this film continues to be pretty sus for me. not that as a straight person you can't enjoy this film, but taehyung seems to have felt very touched by it and it just comes across as an interest that wouldn't resonate as much with a straight person

does anyone know what happened to the discord? cause if it's gone and there isn't another one i kinda want to make one just to have a place to talk more about bts and lgbt topics specifically, or even just bts at all lol i have nobody to talk to casually about them

what he said about skinship is worth noting i think

https://twitter.com/247_148/status/1003823557632114689 the video this is from is in the replies. namjoon was translating jimin not hoseok and I don’t know if this is actually why namjoon started struggling with the translation or if he was just tired, but either way jimin’s answer was gender neutral (which I know is standard in korean with pronouns but he still could’ve thrown girl in there) and the translator added she pronouns to his answer

https://twitter.com/taegukkei/status/1002872344048644097 btw i don't ship taekook, i just thought this was gay of taehyung

i always thought ppippi was an adlib meaning a phone is ringing. i guess that doesn't explain the usage of unnies though