Hi, r/LGBT! Straight guy here. I want to talk about a couple things that sometimes come to mind when I read r/LGBT, such as why I just said I'm straight. Most of these will bore most of you, but I batched them up on account of I'm lazy.

"I'm not gay, but" -- when straight people post here, why are they so eager to put that disclaimer up front? I don't know. Maybe they're homophobic. I can't speak for the entire straight community. But I think the main reason is simply that r/LGBT is a place for LGBT people, and if you don't identify that way, it seems polite to make it clear that you're speaking as an outsider.

Most of us aren't used to dealing with situations where our sexuality isn't normative, so we can be a bit awkward about knowing when it is or isn't polite to bring up one's otherness in a discussion. It might be defensive, but please consider that it might also be a way of trying to recognize privilege and acknowledge that one's a guest in someone else's space.

Why do straight men fetishize "lesbian" porn? Average nominally lesbian porn is better than average straight straight porn in an almost objective way. Production values are higher, but more importantly it tends to avoid the outright sexism, emotional vacuity, and surprise BDSM theme¹ of a lot of straight porn.

So it can be a way for a straight man to say, in a socially acceptable way, "I'm not sure I like porn that's about watching some guy gruntingly shoot a load onto a woman who looks like she's trying not to cry, which is like 99% of straight porn. Maybe, as someone who by definition loves women and gets off on their sexuality, I want to watch women enjoy themselves sex-wise. Turns out that's in the 'lesbian' section which this straight porn site has for some reason!"

And then, like any other means to a sexual end, it becomes sexualized itself, and somehow we (straight men) end up saying kind of horrible things about lesbians. This is really mortifying for me to hear too, if that helps? But I think it often has roots in good instincts, if that helps.

On helping allies help. I try to be an ally as best I can for my LGBT friends (whatever reservations I have about the very concept of ally-ness), and I have a lot of non-LGBT friends who are LGBT-positive but kind of clueless. From this perspective I see a hell of a lot of room for being really specific and communicative about what, in your personal and practical view, the non-bigoted non-LGBT people next to you can do to help make the world safe for The Gay. My advice to them, of course, is to ask, but the other side of that equation is that you should tell. Whatever you're thinking right now -- whatever the "Well, obviously the first step is..." is -- there's some straight cisgendered kid out there who hasn't thought of that and could use a pointer. Or it could be your boss or sibling. An embarrassing conversation? Yes. But maybe worth it. Not that you have to be Helpful Gay, but, well, people do need help.

On normalization. Assuming you live in postpostmodernity, i.e. in a blue state in the US and equivalents elsewhere, please take 99% of silence as acceptance. When I hear a man refer to his husband here in my state where that ain't allowed, I sometimes feel like shaking him warmly by the hand and remarking "I'm so glad you're open about being gay and willing to make that kind of commitment in the face of blah blah blah." Think about just how rude that is for a moment. And that, o my droogs, is why I might look a little bit blank for a moment when you come out in the middle of a conversation, or indeed make out on the bus. It's not because I hate you. It's not because I think you're kewl. It's because I'm trying to be a tiny part of a world where things that should be normal are normal. I hope you'll consider that this is behind some of the weird reactions you get from people who, like me, should know better already.

Alt account because this is kind of karmawhorish. Inspired by this subthread, which I now feel bad about because some innocent person got downvoted for a pretty reasonable remark. I don't imagine anyone will have slightly sheepish, exoticizing questions about my unusual experiences as a heterosexual cisman in America (my AMAs are sparsely attended), but if anyone points out big flaws in the above I'll try to be around to address them.

1. No dis on actual BDSM. The point is that a lot of straight porn has subtexts about hurting women, where is isn't explicit and thus potentially consensual. Not cool! And I bet it has a lot to do with why even fake "amateur" porn has been booming on the internet, just like even fake "lesbian" porn. And indeed, I for one would rather have grainy webcam video of two horny blobs going at it like giggling minks than HD video of a well-hung set of washboard abs joylessly cockstabbing someone hidden deep inside a makeup catsuit. And I'm the target demographic.