Shante Joseph

And also I think because I was black as well, I got a lot of like racist abuse on top of this.

It kind of felt like I was ruining the sort of like sanctity of these like straight white relationships, like I was an adversary to them.

And so it was quite, it was quite loaded when I went through a lot of the abuse and I could kind of see where these people were getting riled up from.

Oh, yeah, 100%.

And I think this is what really, like, upset people as well, because we don't talk about heterosexuality in this way.

We're very much, we see it as a norm.

This is just the way to be in society.

And so we should never really question what's going on here.

But actually, I was like, no, it's deeper than that.

So one of the inspirations behind this piece was a book by Professor Jane Ward.

Her book is called The Tragedy of Heterosexuality.

And in the book, she has a chapter that is dedicated to the things that cause

queer people say behind their straight friends' backs.

And it was absolutely fascinating to get into the perception of straightness, straight people, and straight culture.

And I think the idea of embarrassment definitely came from reading that and really realizing the ways that, yeah, straight culture is very embarrassing.

But it's interesting because I've even had like, whenever people kind of responded to me, but in a kind of way, I would always take the time.

I had like young boys like messaging me being like, you know, I've read this piece and I'm like really worried and dah, dah, dah.

And I had to be like to them, look like you're so young, like you're still forming your identity, your values, who you are.

Like you don't need to worry about kind of being embarrassing right in this moment because you're still coming to terms with who you are.

But I would always say to them, you know, please be aware of the media that you're consuming, the people that you're learning from, the people who are telling you how to behave in relationships and really evaluate if they are giving you advice that