Babe Wake Up, Pup Hood Discourse Is Back!The Call Is Coming From Inside The House 6 Feb 2026
Puphood discourse is so back! Amid the latest drop of Epstein files, DoorDash arguments, and declarations of Asian food being “impossible” to cook at home, unlike "regular" food, many LGBTQ users have also seen the return of an old friend... alphabet people fighting about pup hoods!We Have This Thread Every Week, Comrade
It’s been at least a decade of this shit. Someone posts a photo in a pup hood. Rather than a dark, isolated bedroom as God intended, the background appears to be… outdoors? On public transit? On a boat?A wave of users with gay flags, trans flags, and mushroom emoji arrive on the scene to scold the poster for assaulting their eyes through the screen.
“It’s fetish gear.”
“Nobody in public consented to seeing that shit.”
“Stop being a degenerate.” <- this last one posted by a 19-year-old fascinated me the most. Indistinguishable from a 4chan incel opinion.
I hate the word “puriteen”.
It’s overused by adults who are upset that children don’t want to see porn of child characters from children’s TV shows. I refuse to use this cruel label and cosign the stance of such pathetic people.I would like to thoughtfully analyze the phenomenon of young adults, newly 18s to mid 20s, who share the identical reaction as right-wing homophobes to LGBTQ “fetish” accessories.
It’s Not Just “Kids These Days”
I am not singling out the young adults of now. There is nothing unique about the 18-25 y/o’s of 2026 when it comes to Puphood in Public Drama. Sorry.
This dumb fucking topic has resurfaced again and again on scroll-crack social media for over a decade, and on forums in the before-times. I wouldn’t be surprised if pre-computer queers fought with fists over how to acceptably ‘blend in’ in public.
It’s a constant phenomenon, where the newest batch of adults in the LGBTQ community are quick to police fellow alphabet people with the exact same lines their parents probably said to them not long before.
I should know, because that’s how I used to think, ten years ago.
You’ll notice most of these same users repost photos of alternative women in bikini/crop tops, mini skirts, collars and harnesses, and all sorts of skimpy pleather clothes, including… photos of these outfits in public.
It’s not an issue when the “fetish gear” is worn by someone appropriately and “correctly” enticing straight men or the fashion sense of certain gay men. It’s ok when a woman dresses alternatively, it’s palatable.
It’s Cunty When Cis Women Do It
It’s ok when cis women do it. “Real Women” are biologically harmless, receptive, passive. When she wears alternative or fetish-esque clothing, she is seen as consenting to be involved in the viewer’s fantasy. Cis women of all orientations can tell you horror stories about dressing alternatively in public and the interactions it seems to “invite.”
Even Dominatrix gear, seemingly ‘dominant’, is interpreted as servitude towards someone else’s desires.
There is virtually no way a woman in BDSM gear is seen as a threat, other than a moral one.
Now put the exact same “BDSM” accessories on a gay man, a trans man, a trans woman. NOW it’s “freaky”. Now it’s “wrong”.
The same cat ears worn by an alt girl suddenly become sinful and pornographic when a trans woman wears them.
I think this topic could lead many to confront other hidden opinions they have, but most won’t explore that far. Like the overall explosion in popularity of transgender porn as public right-wing hatred of trans people becomes more popular than ever.
I can almost guarantee you, some people’s takeaway from this opinion piece will be that I believe women have some sort of privilege because it’s acceptable to fetishize them in public.
No, I don’t think that. I believe anyone and everyone should be free to wear alternative accessories in public. But let’s be real, there are many interwoven reasons why this is not the case, and probably won’t .
There is, in my opinion, a sinister reason why women can ‘get away’ with doing something that other LGBTQ people can’t.
Yes, she may be simultaneously fetishized and criticized by conservatives. She might be called anti-feminist and self-exploitative by other women.
But she will likely never be called “degenerate” and told to “keep it in the bedroom” from within the LGBTQ community in the same explosive way that trans people are when they wear the same exact thing.
