Het Is Ew

"The world of the heterosexual is a sick and boring life!"
—Aunt Ida, Female Trouble

Some people are fans of Slash Fic—the Shipping of two same-sex characters from a fandom together. Some people take this is a little further though; they don't just like Slash but also dislike the idea of Shipping two opposite sex people together, even if those suggesting the shipping are themselves straight.

This is a subculture-within-a-subculture; these people are usually both a Yaoi Fangirl and a Yuri Fan and while they may favor one of these over the other they engage in both. This can range from people who merely prefer to pair off every character they like with another of the same sex to the more extreme people who appear to argue that writing slash is a politically liberating act. Occasionally it can be an unexpected by-product of backlash against the addition of Mary Sue Original Characters just to pair off canonical characters.

The extreme versions are the kind who write J. K. Rowling hate mail for daring to give Remus Lupin a wife and impose Die for Our Ship on any female character who so much as has sexual tension with one of "their" guys, often in the most sadistic and humiliating ways. They also don't seem to want to listen when many real gay people point out the fanfiction they're writing is highly stereotypical and doesn't really reflect reality (not that all Het Fic does this either, but there you go). Mind you, more extreme typical Yaoi Fangirls might engage in this sort of flaming as well. There are also those who are just tired of the ubiquity of het romance plots in all variety of fiction and the tropes that go with them, particularly the stereotyping of everyone involved. This has been known to scare artists away or outright refuse to draw yaoi or yuri.

Counterintuitively, there may be a homophobic element to Het Is Ew in some cases; straight women (and straight men) who subscribe to the notion may feel that their own sexuality is threatened if they find a work that includes a member of their own sex arousing. This is one of the reasons for the prevalence of lesbian porn aimed at straight men; viewers don't need to worry about being turned on by another guy.

One thing about people who think Het Is Ew is that they may not engage in Die for Our Ship as much; instead they Ship the person "in the way" with a different person in the cast who is the same sex as them - i.e. if they Ship Bob and Dave, but Alice is Bob's Canon girlfriend, they write fics about Alice realizing she actually loved her best friend Carol all along, rather than about Alice dying in a house fire. This isn't universally true, but not uncommon either. Basically, when these fans write Fanfic, Everyone Is Gay.

Depending on what circles you run in, this can actually be a joke, usually about why they don't write "gen"[1] fic.

See also Het.

In-Universe examples only please, and remember, this is about a specific attitude towards heterosexuality, not just homosexual pairings.

Examples of Het Is Ew include:

Film

  • The 1992 short film Gayniggers From Outer Space shows space aliens arriving on Earth and "liberating" men by exterminating women to create a homosexual utopia led by a Gay Ambassador.
  • In 2011 short film, Love Is All You Need? opts for this trope in an effort to bring attention to about the violence against LGBT people. It focuses on a girl named Ashley, is target for being a heterosexual in a society where homosexuality is the norm and heterosexual sex is only allowed in the breeding season.

Theater

  • The entire premise for Xana Don't. Somehow, all of human history had been like this. It's... weird.


Web Comics

  • Summer from Moon Over June finds it repulsive that anyone would ever engage in heterosexual sex; however this is mostly because she is a raging misanthropist who finds gay male porn almost as disgusting.
    • Hatsuki is a straighter example (no pun intended), having a large collection of gay male porn and a strictly lesbian love life.
      • She doesn't seem particularly grossed out by het sex, it just isn't her thing. At one point we see her working a phone sex line for some extra cash and not being unduly put off by a male customer.
  • Almost the entire cast of Amazoness

Web Original

Marik: What?! No way, that’s insane! What kind of messed-up fanfics have you been reading?


Western Animation

  • Tripping the Rift centered an episode around a planet that pretty much had this as its Hat, to the point where heterosexuality, bisexuality, or any of the many available options out there in the great big universe was punishable by death.
  • Rick and Steve have had plenty of this, playing it for laugh, especially from resident Fag Hag Condie Ling (who uses the term "breeder").
  • Drawn Together shows an alternate future where Wooldoor's show has turned most of the world gay, and the "breeders" have been driven underground.
  • On South Park, the men in town decide to destroy the future immigrant population by having a massive gay orgy, hoping to make the entire world gay to wipe out the species. It Makes Sense in Context. Kind of.
  • Played with in an episode of King of the Hill. Luanne and Bill begin working at a trendy new hair salon, but none of the female clientele want Bill near them until he starts pretending to be like the only other male hair dresser on staff, who is Camp Gay. Bill's clients even mention how "unfortunate" it is he's gay and how they'd love to have a boyfriend like him. The minute Bill admits he's not gay everyone becomes immediately disgusted. To them he was "interesting and unique" when he was gay, but straight he's just a "sleazy barber".
  1. ↑ "general"
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