When fangirls go off the deep end

[the_sun_is_up]

The notoriously batshit SPN fandom is smouldering yet again. As usual, it's the Jared/Jensen tinhats — this time, they're upset because Jensen and his wife are expecting a baby. (Jared and his wife also recently had a baby.)

Amidst all the boggling, ekaterinv raised an interesting question for which I couldn't think of an answer:

Here's one thing that's bugging me: straight men can have masturbation fantasies about two hot women getting it on without believing that said women are actually getting it on. Why is there a a small and very vocal group of straight women who absolutely cannot deal with their masturbation fantasies about two hot men being [just] fantasies?

Indeed, there are several fandoms that contain these RPS "tinhats": people who don't simply ship two male actors — they believe that the two men are actually gay and actually involved in a secret relationship. Not only that, but these fans tend to be incredibly rabid in their beliefs — they're hugely invested in believing that the relationship between these two men is real and not a fantasy.

But the question is: why are these tinhat fans almost always women? Like ekaterinv said, there are plenty of straight men who can enjoy girl-on-girl fantasies without needing them to be real. I'm racking my brains, and I can't think of any instance where a bunch of fanboys were religiously devoted to the idea of two specific actresses being secret lesbian lovers. So why is that?

Comments

[sailorptah]

I don't know about the specific "lesbian lovers" scenario, but aren't most famous, severe stalking/obsession cases perpetrated by guys? I mean, I can't think of any instances where a female fan shot the sitting President of the US and claimed it was an attempt to impress a specific heartthrob male actor.

Maybe creepy celebrity obsessions just tend to play out differently based on gender. The J2 insanity is rife with attitudes about how men are superior, obviously these two men must be in love with each other and can't need any icky women. Arguably the flip side of that would be male fans degrading specific actresses, talking about what whores they are due to their real or imagined relationships, speculating on how kinky they are, feeling entitled to hack their phones and distribute any personal photos they find, etcetera. And that definitely happens.

[the_sun_is_up]

Oh there are definitely plenty of male fans who act creepily obsessed towards actresses, but as you said, those obsessions seem to play out differently. It's usually a guy obsessing over a specific actress, not an imagined relationship between two actresses. I'm just wondering why those differences are present, and why the "obsessing over a secret gay relationship" obsession is (as far as I know) exclusive to female fans.