Bronies!

I have recently begun watching My Little Pony, which is clearly BEST SHOW. But, unfortunately, I began watching it when I was at home with my parents for the holidays. My parents, while lovely people, carry around giant bags of kyriarchal assumptions all the time, and are also rather prone to superfluous geek-punching.

Nevertheless, I was caught up in the fluffy pink stupids of fan-love, and therefore decided to explain to them my newfound love.

Ozy: So I’m watching this new show, My Little Pony–
Parents: Isn’t that a kids’ show?
Ozy: Yes. But lots of people my age watch it. In fact, it’s really popular among geeky college-age men.
Parents: Are they all gay?
Ozy: …no. In fact, they’re mostly straight men.
Parents: I dunno, any guy who’s into My Little Pony seems like he must be a pedophile.
Ozy: >:(

My parents aren’t the only ones who seem to be under the impression that My Little Pony fans are pedophiles. Entering “my little pony pedophile” into Google gets you Fark informing us that the Internet loves MLP because of its fondness for pedophilia, Gothamist calling MLP fans “men who don’t appear to be pedophiles,” and a Steam group that I really, really, really hope is a parody which explains that the only reason for an adult male to like My Little Pony is to reach out to young females.

If you Google “deadliest catch pedophile,” though, all you get is a bunch of people talking about To Catch A Predator.

 
Stop it, you guys are making Fluttershy cry!

However, all this has enlightened me and brought me to a deeper understanding of gender norms! Men are naturally masculine, and hence like manly things like Deadliest Catch and Transformers and Batman movies. In addition, being masculine is way cooler than being feminine, so if a woman likes Deadliest Catch it’s cool because Deadliest Catch is cool. If a lot of men like watching a feminine thing like My Little Pony +++OUT OF CHEESE ERROR REDO FROM START+++

All right, our systems are back online, except for that one guy whose head exploded from sheer confusion.

So a lot of men like My Little Pony! Of course, it being a cute, funny, well-written show is completely out of the question as an explanation. Men don’t like things that are cute, funny, and well-written! Men like things that are manly! Like Transformers!

Not that kind of Transformers!

However! As we know from EVOLUTION! and also SCIENCE! men are always horny and will have sex with anything. So therefore it is simple enough to explain this bizarre behavior. The men just get off on little girls! And so instead of having sex with little girls they watch a TV show that is directed at little girls! It all makes perfect sense!

The best part is that now that we’ve developed this AWESOME THEORY, we can apply it to all sorts of things people who were born with penises do that confuse or scare us because they don’t fit in our tiny model of how the world works. For instance, crossdressers!

Matt Smith in drag looks so confused. “Why am I wearing a dress? Why are there pearls? WHAT’S GOING ON?”

Clearly, it is never just that men might want to wear skirts. No, crossdressing is always always always a fetish, in much the same way that every time someone wears leather pants it’s a sign that they have a deep-seated leather kink. In fact, it is such a fetish that we can put Transvestic Fetishism in the DSM! Because not only is wanting to wear some kinds of clothing we don’t want you to wear a fetish, but it’s a mental illness.

Not only that, but men who crossdress are clearly weird and creepy and otherwise squicky! All our discomfort with men who break down the gender binary that we think is important is clearly not our own bigotry, it’s a reaction to the simple fact that if you like the way silk panties feel on your cock you are clearly a sexual predator and probably a serial killer.

And what about those bizarre people who are born with penises and think, just because they identify as women, that they’re really chicks? Well, that’s a sexual fetish too: they’re clearly just sexually aroused by the idea of being women. I mean, duh! Women think with their brains, men think with their cocks (because, clearly, all men have cocks!). Men would do any kind of bizarre behavior if it turns them on! Of course!

Fabulous Sir Ian McKellen does not have time for this shit.

So that is how thinking My Little Pony fans are pedophiles links in to transphobia, kinkphobia, and gender-role enforcement, along with probably another thousand cases of pathologization of male gender deviance I can’t think of off the top of my head. So don’t do that shit.

Here, have a picture of Muslim Fluttershy.

From left to right: Rarity, Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash, Applejack, Spike, Pinkie Pie, Twilight Sparkle. This picture is by Shaburdies.