In our podcast, we explored the fetishization of the LGBT community, breaking it down letter by letter. Fetishization refers to the sexual fascination of things that are not inherently sexual. With increased acceptance of queer and transgender people in today’s society, we embarked on a journy to discover how these people are objectified by the media due to their sexual orientation and/or gender indentity. We included a significant amount of online research as well as conducted interviews of members of the LGBT community who have experienced the ideas we describe firsthand. We described the consumption of homosexual pornographic material and the creation of negatives sterotypes of LGBT people that are based on what society expects of them rather than who they truly are, all without truly understanding the hardships that the LGBT community undergoes as a minority. Notable phenomena discussed include the hypersexualization of lesbians to appeal to straight men, the trend of the “Gay Best Friend,” bisexual erasure, and “trans chasers.” In closing, we found that heterosexual culture endorses the reduction of these people to their unusual traits, which is dehumanizing at times.

Ari Barbella

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