Bait and Switch Lesbians: Difference between revisions

{{quote|"''[[Girl On Girl Is Hot|We like our ladies to go les]]... but not [[But Not Too Gay|full]] les.''"|'''Brian Safi''', ''[http://current.com/items/90732681_thats-gay-lady-kisses.htm That's Gay]''}}

The is pretty common in [[Moe|Bishoujo fandom]], where the [[Romantic Two-Girl Friendship]] develops for a number of unintentional factors. One could say that [[Girl On Girl Is Hot|audience likes girls in large quantities, and seeing two girls acting cute, even at each other, is better than one]]. One could also point out that ''far'' more attention is put into the interaction and communication between the girls; while a relationship with a guy just "happens" with most development offscreen. And if they're the [[Improbably Female Cast|only people you see]] but the show still maintains particular tropes, the audience is sometimes led toward an imagined payoff that might not be there. Often, this is coupled with a young age for both characters as well as the lack of any actual 'sexuality' in either character, barring [[If It's You It's Okay|concessions]], as this outcome is harder to rationalize for an adult character. Note that any romantic relationship with boys, on the other hand, is considered completely serious at any age. Yes, it's [[Double Standard|hypocritical]].

Tends to raise the hackles of a show's [[Yuri Fan|Yuri Fandom]], who tend to crop up more infrequently, but also makes them paranoid in the long run. Any male friend of one of the girls becomes the [[Sword of Damocles]]; a possible route of escape for the writers via [[Last Minute Hookup]]. So [[Die for Our Ship|expect malevolence.]] It takes frustratingly little for a male character to become a love interest. A single scene, a [[Where Are They Now? Epilogue]], can instantly make [[Canon]] to overturn entire seasons of interaction.

Outside of canon this trope is invoked a lot especially in H-doujins due to a rather persistent tendency for [[Most Writers Are Male|male writers]] to be intimidated by the idea of girls who don't find them sexually attractive (though generally only mildly). This is the reason why a disturbingly large number of popular lesbian characters and characters who are popular in part because of their [[Romantic Two-Girl Friendship|near lesbian tendencies]] are depicted in huge amounts of heterosexual porn with a random [[Author Avatar|male insert]] or more and very frequently in the form of rape instead of [[Girl On Girl Is Hot|with each other]].

* ''[[Bubblegum Crisis]]: Tokyo 2040'' spent its first half building the [[Sempai-Kohai]] relationship -- and [[Romantic Two-Girl Friendship]] -- between Priss and Linna. The final half of the series drops this subplot like a hot potato for a [[Last Minute Hookup|sudden romance between Priss and Leon]] that fits the "offscreen explanation" part of the trope to a T; Leon shows up at her club while she's on stage, does a smarmy clap for her, Priss grins a bit, and from thereon in they're treated as dating.

* In the TV ''[[Doctor Who (TV)|Doctor Who]]'' there was some fairly strong innuendo that [[Mad Bomber]] [[Action Girl]] companion Ace was bisexual if not preferentially lesbian, especially in the stories ''Ghost Light'' and ''Survival''. But when the TV show ended and the [[Virgin New Adventures|New Adventures]] spin-off novels were allowed to go for a [[Hotter and Sexier|more]] [[Darker and Edgier|"adult"]] tone, she was depicted as entirely straight.

* Since your typical [[hentai]] [[Eroge|game]] has one or two major male characters and boatloads of pretty girls, the marketing images often involve multiple female characters looking mighty friendly, even if there's not even a romantic friendship between them in-game. For that matter, several games play up a romantic friendship between two girls and teasingly suggest that one of them may be gay for the other, only to eventually drop that subject without so much as a girl/girl kiss ever being shown. Obviously some authors do not agree that [[Girl On Girl Is Hot]].

[[Category:Trope]]