LGBTQ+ Cheating: An Overused, Problematic Trope

Last year, I sat in Foundations of Literature, book in hand, fuming at what I had just read. “Brideshead Revisited” is not, by any means, a particularly engaging book. I was only invested because it was one of the first books I had ever read with queer representation that wasn’t garish. The story is subtle, with plain characters, Sebastian Flyte and Charles Ryder, who may or may not be in love and are haunted by this lack of resolution for nearly 40 years. The author, Evelyn Waugh, confuses his readers with unclear language, but eventually, the main character ends up in a loveless straight marriage and has an affair with his former lover’s sister.

It was unfair for an otherwise sweet representation to be demonized by this affair. It’s heavily implied in the book that Ryder falls for his best friend’s (implied lover’s) sister, Julia Flyte, only because of his nostalgia. When he first meets Julia Flyte, Ryder’s main thoughts are that she looks exactly like Sebastian Flyte. When Julia Flyte gently confronts Ryder about the nature of his relationship with Sebastian Flyte, Ryder says that Sebastian Flyte was the “forerunner” of all his following relationships. Ryder starts a sexual relationship with Julia Flyte, despite already being married to someone else and having children. By the end of the book, due to Ryder’s actions, two straight women, children, and in-laws feel betrayed, while Waugh has little to no sympathy for the homosexual community.

Unfortunately, infidelity was once seen as a natural consequence of homosexuality. Throughout history, it was common for homosexual men to enter heterosexual marriages and cheat with men on the side. This situation was for protection: being openly gay was and still is taboo, potentially extremely dangerous, and often criminalized. In a 2008 study, the two most common reasons for homosexual respondents to enter heterosexual relationships were because that’s what they were told is natural and because they wanted a “normal” family life. Both notions are rooted in internalized homophobia and a historic fear of publicly coming out. Openly gay people were automatically labeled “promiscuous” and “loud.” It was only recently, with the advent of the Sexual Revolution of the 1960s, that the queer community could feel safer in the U.S.

Despite recent advancements in queer representation, the stereotype of queer people being cheaters persists today in our media. Though this trope of infidelity among queer people seems like a way to bring depth to LGBTQ+ characters, it instead perpetuates negative stereotypes about them.

Often, literature that depicts LGBTQ+ characters introduces conflict with infidelity storylines. In a popular young adult novel titled “It’s Not Like It’s a Secret” by Misa Sugiura, the main character moves to California and develops feelings for a female classmate as she tries to deal with rampant racism and homophobia around her. Many readers were shocked when she decided to cheat on her current boyfriend with said classmate. The novel gives the impression that cheating is a normal coming-of-age for queer relationships, when it is not. The effect of this gross misrepresentation is clear: the book was rated 3.6/5 on Goodreads and 4.5/5 on Audible as of September 2022—readers genuinely think that this plot is an accurate portrayal of queer relationships.

The insulting trope of queer people hurting straight couples through infidelity is also gaining popularity in films and TV. One of Netflix’s most beloved shows, “Grace and Frankie,” is built upon this stereotype. The plot is as follows: two elderly women’s lives are torn apart when their husbands leave them for each other. While this show is meant to be a tale battling ageism and sexism, when it comes to the ruinous gay couple, Robert Hanson and Sol Bergstein, the show makes it seem as though the “gay” aspect is more terrible than the “cheating” aspect of the situation. For example, when Hanson and Bergstein try to make amends, one of their adult children complains, “Would you be cool with [the affair] if they’d been cheating with women for the last 20 years? [...] Please. There wouldn’t be cake. There’d be blood.” The show assumes that when heterosexual people cheat, it is immoral, but when gay people cheat, it is an inconvenience. There is no doubt that cheating is terrible, but with the (little) protection that LGBTQ+ couples have, it is also terrible to complain that one cannot be hateful because queer people are now beginning to be taken seriously. Media like “Grace and Frankie” try to pit women against queer couples, even though both groups are struggling in our society and should be supporting, not fighting, each other.

Media that normalize LGBTQ+ cheating negatively affect particular groups, like bisexual and pansexual people. Bisexual characters, such as Barbara Kean in “Gotham,” Maureen Johnson from the hit musical “Rent,” and Oberyn Martell from “Game of Thrones,” fall into the Cheating Bi trope, in which bisexual people are serial cheaters because they are confused and cannot pick which “side” they want to stay on, or the Hypersexual Bi, who is incredibly promiscuous. When bisexuality is linked with indecisiveness and infidelity, people brush cheating off as growing pains or a natural way of life for the queer community, but the fact that this trope is common in media does not mean that infidelity is normal among queer people. Today, one of the most common myths about bisexual people is that they cheat on their loved ones or are too promiscuous, and it’s a shamefully normalized thought.

Cheating is a deep form of betrayal that is completely wrong no matter the context, but connecting cheating to queer relationships can be especially harmful. The oppression and stereotypes associated with queer people are known to escalate into physical violence. In surveys of LGBTQ+ people, 52 to 87 percent have been verbally abused, 13 to 38 percent have been chased or followed, and nine to 24 percent have been physically assaulted. FBI records indicate that 16.8 percent of hate crimes reported in 2019 were based on sexual orientation, the third largest percentage after race and religion. Minority groups have been and continue to be the target of hate crimes. Adding any kind of fuel to that fire, no matter how small, can be damaging.

Many of my friends and family use infidelity as an excuse to disenfranchise the queer community. They genuinely think that cheating is normal in this group and that this group is untrustworthy as a result. When I heard of sexual harassment incidents at my old school, many of my peers excused them because the perpetrator was queer and gave him the benefit of the doubt. At the core of this situation are people who try to keep up with the times and tolerate all LGBTQ+ or genuinely just do not want to understand them. While their efforts to be understanding and less judgmental should be appreciated, normalizing cheating in queer relationships only perpetuates those dangerous stereotypes. No group is more likely to cheat on their loved ones than others, and being gay does not make it natural.

Rather than holding gay relationships in comparison to or against straight relationships, it is far more fulfilling to create a story with LGBTQ+ relations at the center. Readers also have a part to play: we should not endorse books that seek to pit women against LGBTQ+ characters or straight against gay. Film producers should write well-rounded, healthier queer characters and branch away from harmful tropes. Students can advocate for respectful, consensual representation and destigmatize queer couples by supporting LGBTQ+ authors and asking administrators to include more queer books in curricula. Action and support are the only ways to build the future that we want: a future where we can see respectful representation of all kinds of relationships, where minorities are not meant to fight against one another, and where the stereotypes that cause us harm soon fade away.