Forum - View topicNEWS: Lesbian / Bisexual Website Profiles Yuri
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Demaar
Posts: 84 |
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Vekou
 Posts: 329 |
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The main focus of the article is an attempt to show that Japanese culture is supposedly more accepting of or more fixated on lesbian relationships in entertainment than American culture. Like it or not, such a subject is definitely politically charged. The author uses one example, a tiny sub-sub-subgenre of anime/manga, as evidence. I didn't find the arguement very compelling, nor did I find the examples given entirely appropriate or accurate.
Well, clearly, I guess I don't know what I'm talking about. Thank you for the counterpoint, which is also nothing more than a "baseless opininon," except that you are trying to pass yours off as fact. At least I was upfront with my speculation being just that - speculation.
I don't believe I claimed it to be anything more. I appreciate your very lengthy post on the subject but I see nothing more than a first-hand perspective with a few personal examples. If worded carefully, this would make an excellent ANN poll. |
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Zeiram
 Posts: 317 |
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blah i am a guy and a fan of all this, but save a few bout everyone who posts at shoujoai.com forum is female and i speak with many yuri artists who are female x_x c;mon, guys like yaoi but girls run the genre
point is, girls tend to run the genres, they just enjoy it more |
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jsyxx
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No its not. Its from a lesbian aimed site pointing out entertainment containing lesbian characters and themes for lesbians and people interested in that kind of thing to enjoy. Thats what it is, nothing more. Stop trying to find a reason to get upset. Obviously, the article wasn't even directed at you. And there was absolutely nothing that was stated in that article that wasn't fact. It was pretty objective. They were even honest enough to point out:
I've been to those sites and have seen the shoujo-ai fandom. The female and lesbian presence is very high there. My opinion isn't baseless. However, your "speculating" and talking out of your ass are pretty much the same thing. |
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Andromeda
Posts: 119 Location: Florida |
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[quote="Vekou"]
I worded that more harshly than I intended. 
Over a period of six years, and on two of the MOST popular and well-known shoujo-ai and yuri sites on the web. "Personal examples"? Try running a poll over on the Yuricon ML or the shoujoai.com forums. Ask what their genders are. A majority will be female, I can pretty much guarantee it. Yuricon ML posters seem to be primarily female, and gay or bi, and the Yuricon convention even had a charity (I think) auction where you could get a woman to be your mock "slave" for the day... considering the con is aimed at yuri and shoujo-ai fans, who tend to dislike the old "women are weak, inferior beings who deserve to be a man's slave" cliche, and because the con was entirely devoted to yuri and shoujo-ai, it was pretty obvious that they were expecting mostly females to bid. And why would they expect that? Well, the only reason you'd expect that, if you were them, is obvious: most of the people you know in the fandom for that convention are female, and probably (though not neccesarily, since IIRC, it was for charity) gay or bi. 
A majority of writers on shoujoai.com also seem to be female, but that is of course, not to say that there aren't male writers; I've seen two guys at least... of course, one sucked ("purple prose to the point of pompous incomprehensibility" comes to mind when I think of that one, Spacedust and Chaos: A Requiem, which was an Eva fic... though you wouldn't know it without seeing the summary until you got several paragraphs in... and the ending, good God!), but Micheal Streiber (Not sure if that's spelled correctly or not, but it's close) does wonderful, wonderful humor fics. "A Wedding Story" was one of my favorite Haruka/Michiru stories a couple of years back... probably still is, but it's been a while. Of course, I've also noticed that women in general are more likely to write, more likely to write fanfiction, and especially MUCH more likely to write romances that aren't pure sex stories, so this may be why there's always more female than male writers on there. Still, from several years on those boards... I would argue that at very least the more POPULAR side of the fandom over here in the states is very well-supported by women. Very.
You mean like this?: "Yuri/Shoujo-ai preference and gender": [ ]I'm a 'straight' woman, and I don't like shoujo-ai or yuri. [ ] I'm a 'straight' man, and I don't like shoujo-ai or yuri. [ ] I'm a 'straight' woman and am neutral about shoujo-ai or yuri. [ ] I'm a 'straight' man and am neutral about shoujo-ai or yuri. [ ] I'm a 'straight' woman and enjoy some shoujo-ai or yuri. [ ] I'm a 'straight' man and enjoy some shoujo-ai or yuri [ ] I'm a 'straight' woman and I love shoujo-ai or yuri. [ ] I'm a 'straight' man and I love shoujo-ai or yuri. [ ] I'm a lesbian or bisexual woman and I don't like shoujo-ai or yuri. [ ] I'm a gay man and I don't like shoujo-ai or yuri. [ ] I'm a lesbian or bisexual woman and am neutral about shoujo-ai or yuri. [ ] I'm a gay man and am neutral about shoujo-ai or yuri. [ ] I'm a lesbian or bisexual woman and enjoy some shoujo-ai or yuri [ ] I'm a gay man and enjoy some shoujo-ai or yuri [ ] I'm a lesbian or bisexual woman and love shoujo-ai or yuri. [ ] I'm a gay man and love shoujo-ai or yuri. Yes, that would be interesting. You think they'd run it? It'd be interesting to see the results. I mean, I know that if we're counting people at shoujoai.com and Yuricon, a lot of them are going to be female, but there's no way of knowing which way it would swing percentage-wise, especially if you also break it down into the "sort of like it"s and the "love its" or the gays and the "straights". You could also take out some of the questions about not-liking it or neutrality (since it'd be probably a waste of space to include them on a specifically pro-yuri/shoujo-ai website) and post it to the shoujoai.com forums or Yuricon's ML. Hell, ask I think her name is Erica? At Yuricon if she'd like to help run a version of the poll through the Yahoo! Group. I would think that ALC and Yuricon would also be interested in the results of such a poll, seeing as the demographics of the fandom could have a lot of influence on how successful certain methods of marketing or packaging are, etc., or what titles are picked up.
And of course, we'd have an answer to a very interesting question. |
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Wyvern
 Posts: 1555 |
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Well, considering that stories and depections of ambiguos sexuality and homosexuality have been an accepted part of japanese culture for centuries, while here in America, we can't even have a sitcom with a lesbian in it without a gigantic explosive controversy, I'd say it's not so much a controversial statement as it is a social reality. Is the idea that different cultures have different value systems really that explosive? Seems to me it's only a politically charged issue among people who want to poltisize everything. All the article was saying was "hey, lesbians! Looking for some good shows about girls in love with each other but can't find anything in American TV? Then check out some anime!" That's all.
Even if it were a tiny sub-sub-subgenre (which it isn't) the fact that it's become acceptable enough to be considered a genre AT ALL pretty much proves the point you're trying to refute. There is NO such genre here in the US. |
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asumikamogawa
 Posts: 13 Location: Hell with fluorescent lighting |
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LOL, nice poll. I'll go for "I'm a 'straight' woman and I love shoujo-ai or yuri." Or maybe..."My kinsey scale is between 1 and 2 and I love shoujo-ai or yuri"
 Just kidding on the latter part. I'm just a feminist who happens to love shoujo-ai very much so... thanks for the article Make love, make peace, make more yuri!
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Mohawk52
 Posts: 8202 Location: England, UK |
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My marble slots into number 4 there.
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Zeiram
Posts: 317 |
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mmm i spose its safe to say that those two sites mean there's more women there.....ok that idea makes no friggen sense x_x
they are the main websites and they don't appeal to women or men specifically, they appeal to those who like the genre x_x and i happen to see more females i will concede a point you might make tho, actually i made it allready, do women voice theirs views more than men on such sites? do they post more? do they join them more? do they participate more than men? as i pointed out, they seem to enjoy the genres more whatever it may be. They stand out more. Just look at doujinshi, mostly female artists and fans, right? i was thinking yes depsite how much effort i put into it (800 posts? not bad) as a male. So yes, that would skew the results, but it doesn't have to be interpretted as that either. to asume men like yuri because of pronography and there fore are more into it is a bad assumation no matter how many examples of truth you can find x_x myself to a point included. Most women are in it for the romance which i can agree with and this leads to more conversations and pic posting than adult yuri pics. Many women also enjoy such pics. so that would skew your results more than my own point skews mine heh. dunno bout the poll, seems proposterous despite the favorable ideas put forth for it. eh that is we are asking our fans their sexuality x_x hehe |
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chicogrande
 Posts: 190 Location: Huntsville, Alabama |
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Well, I may be off with my comment, but a lot of people see some of these works as justification or validation of alternative lifestyles. They don't realize that, for the most part, the artists that created them were only thinking of sales and exposure. They were also created for a female heterosexual market interested in fantasy romances. The trend now may be that some readers want to adopt these titles as homosexual literature when, in most cases, it is not. But hey, that's just my opinion from what I know. |
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jsyxx
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The article doesn't do this at all, so yes your comments are off. Everything that pertains to homosexuality doesn't need to be turned into a debate, despite some peoples wishes to do so. This is akin to opening up a lesbain magazine and then acting shocked about them mentioning movies that contain lesbian characters.
Definantly not the case for the series mentioned. I think you need to apologize to the authors of those animes mentioned in this artilce for suggesting such rubbish, since they are all great works. But I guess a reocurring theme in this thread is having slanted opinions on things you are not at all familar with. Good anime with homosexual characters is homosexual literature. Deal with it and perhaps move your pseudo-intellectual debating to some other topic you feel the need to be concerned with. |
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Andromeda
Posts: 119 Location: Florida |
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It does, actually, when you consider the attitudes towards yuri/shoujo-ai that they take. Granted, I have not yet downloaded any of the AMVs from it and haven't been in tthe group for a few months, but... Yuricon gives me the impression, and always has, of "lesbian= cool and independent" in thinking. In other words, a lot of the women on that site *seem* to like lesbian themes , whether on a fully concious level or not, because of the independence from men, breaking with pre-feminist traditions... or because, like many people, they like stories that revolve around people with similar problems, feelings, attractions, or social values (ie "gay= perfectly OK") as they have. Again, this is just my impression from the content I've seen on their site so far and the interaction between the ML members I've seen. Shoujoai.com is a little wider-ranging, at least in their fanfiction. You get a good mixture of sexual stories and pure romance and ones that are in fact both as well. You get angst, fluffy romance, humor fics, AUs that happen to have a lesbian couple or two prominent in them, etc. Quality definately varies, but the general feeling I get from that site is probably closer to reflecting the general shoujo-ai fandom as whole; you have people who just think it's hot for two lesbians to get it on, you have people that like character-driven romantic dramas (both in general and specifically shoujo-ai) or that like cute fluffy, WAFFy(Warm And Fuzzy Feeling-y) romance with sometimes a bit of humor mixed in, and even people that like the idea of lesbian sex but also like a little good character devlopment first. Really, I see everything from explict lemons to angsty soap opera-esque stuff to fluffy humor fics on there. The one and only thing they all have in common is that one of the main themes is lesbianism of some sort, whether it's a specific pairing(s), a schoolgirl crush (like Kaorin from AD has), or I'd say even if it's just that the main character happens to be a lesbian or bisexual woman and that factors into the events or emotion of the story at all, really. So... actually, a lot of it's just like normal shoujo.  It just has girls with feelings (whether romantic or sexual) for other girl(s) in it. Actually, some of the shoujo-ai works in the '70s were also shoujo, IIRC.
So, it's not surpirsing that I have seen more men on shoujoai.com than I have ever seen on Yuricon. Yruicon seems to be more of the attitude of "lesbian stories for lesbians/bisexuals" and shoujoai.com is a little less specifically aimed as a site. Once again - only my general impressions of each site. I certainly don't know all of the members, so I can't be sure, but that's what my impression is. Especially of shoujoai.com, which I visit a lot more often.
Weeeell, Yuricon seems slightly more aimed at women, but yeah.
Perhaps it's just that women are more active in the communities and in producing art and fiction for it? Women are *supposedly* more social and more inclined to become writers, after all.
Hey, now. I never "assumed" ALL men would like it ONLY because of the porn stories (though it's not exactly a secret that "lesbian fantasies" are a popular subgenre of porn, and it's usually men that buy that porn, traditionally). I just said that men *in general* are *more likely* to enjoy the porn stories MORE, or to be MORE LIKELY to look for the sexually explicit stories (which on some sites, still have perfectly good romance/character development, you know). And that as a rule, women TEND to enjoy pure romances, ie stories with no sex, more than men. I don't mean to steroetype, but men are in fact SLIGHTLY more sex-minded than women, whereas women TEND to seek emotional connections before sexual gratification. TEND, mind you, and it's partly hormonal anyway (though estrogen is not exactly absent from sexual enjoyment, either, to be truthfull). I really, really hope you realize I'm not meaning to stereotype, it's just that I have studied a little psychololgy and sociology in the past, and one of the thigns I realized is that while almost all people are sexual to some extent, men are socialized to be "more sexual" and women to, traditionally at least, seek emotional fullfillment and THEN sexual fulfillment. Again, in general and traditionally; these are changing the more more people become aware of it. And the older you get, the less true this becomes - hormones that may have raged a bit in youth even out, life experiences are learned from, etc. Thing is, most of the shoujo-ai fans I've seen thus far on the English-speaking net? They're in their 20s or younger. Again, though, this would obviously still not be true of everyone. Just a general PROBABILITY, judging from the *average* psychology of men and women particularly in their early 20s or younger.
The adult ones or the romancey ones, for clarifiction? I liek both, so long as it's well drawn, but I do prefer to romancey ones. 
Why?  I see nothing preposterous about it.
Well if you'd like, I could add a few options that simply read "I'm a man/woman and...". See, what I was curious about - and a few others as well - is this: out of the fans, how many are gay (ie probably interested in it because of it including people like them, much like how a lot of viewers of mecha shows with 14-and-under main characters are kids or teens themselves) or not gay (ie other factors influence their like or dislike of it, such as "It's very feminist, I like that/I don't like gay stuff/I just like to see two women kissing/etc.")? We already know that a lot of the ACTIVE fans are female - how many are actually lesbians? How many are writing about it or reading it for very personal (ie the old "schoolgirl crush" story seems to resonate with a lot of bi or les women because they had a similar experience, for instance) or political reasons (feminism, gay rights, etc. - granted, a lot of the "gay marriage" stories are preachy and stupid because the authors can't work it into the plot well at all, but it's a popular sub-subgenre nonetheless) or because they're actually attracted to the characters (mmm... Haruka), and how many just think the romance is cute and/or interesting because it's girly, or shoujo-y (shoujo is after all, incredibly popular as a genre), or non-traditional and often has a feminist motif (Utena and SM, especially the former, are good examples)? That's why those were in there. It's to be more specifc. SAy 75% of the fans of shoujo-ai are women, for example. If 90% of them are lesbians, that's WHY they're fans. If only 10-25% are lesbians, then the majority of female fans and in this example the majority of fans, are not gay, and thus aren't reading it BECAUSE they're gay, but for other reasons, whether it's the feminist bent, the interesting psychology of some stories or the cute factor.
That's why. 
I hope this all made sense... I'm at work, so I'm a bit distracted and keep getting interupted, and I'm kind of sleepy.
-Andromeda |
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smutchi
Posts: 189 |
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In the article:
Did anyone notice that this manga's not in the encyclopedia? That's called good research I guess...
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Zeiram
Posts: 317 |
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mmm alright, spose i can concede in full then. Just figured there was more to it than you previously implied and justified. Yes being lesbian orientated perhaps it would be more pro lesbian, but even if so with this in mind plus the theory of women being more into it in general, i'm still under the impression that women are more into that genre than men overall.
still dunno bout the poll, frankly it doesn't bother me, i just figured in spite of your well thought out justifications, which i had admitted to even without the further explanations, was kind odd in a simpler frame of refferance. Spose its up to those partaking in it |
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Nenena
Posts: 10 Location: Nagano-ken |
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Hi, I just wanted to say that I've been reading this thread and love all of the thoughtful, interesting things that y'all have been saying. But if I may step in and say something (and in doing so possibly slip my foot into some deep doo-doo...)
I love being a part of the English-speaking shoujo-ai fandom and yuri fandom because it's mostly dominated by women. And I'm a woman and I like that. ^__^ But as has been previously pointed out, a large portion of the *inactive* English-speaking yuri fandom is, well, guys. You won't find the men on websites like Yuricon, and you'll find some (but not all) of them on shoujoai.com. But I have noticed that there are many of them on other websites and in other communities. Specifically, I hang out in a few heavily fanboy-dominated communities (like several Ah! My Goddess message boards) and yes, almost every guy there would identify as a fan of yuri. (Also, quite a few are open about their maid fetishes...) I think it would be easy for us to underestimate how large the male fandom of yuri is, because guys tend not to be as open about their appreciation of yuri, at least not unless they're already in a community where they know that they're surrounded by like-minded guys. This is just a general trend I've observed, and I'm sure that there are many good reasons for it, and I don't want to make a blanket generalization that accounts for everyone's motives, but... In general, it does seem less socially acceptible for a guy to be forward about the fact that he's a fan of lesbian anime/manga/porn/whatever, because it makes him look bad, at least to many of the intelligent and sophisticated women in anime fandom who are likely to get on his case about it (and boy, have I seen the girls get on a guy's case about it before). Ironically, at the moment it seems perfectly okay for most of us girls to be quite forward and unabashed about how much we love us some hot yaoi. But anyway, that's why I think that we're probably underestimating the size of the male yuri fandom. Social pressures conspire to make them a bit more closeted about their fandom. Also, so far in this post I haven't seen much of a mention of the fandom demographics in Japan. I've lived in Japan before, and moving to Japan after spending years nicely isolated in my female-friendly English-speaking yuri fandom left me unprepared for quite a shock: Yuri is unabashedly a guy thing in Japan. It just is. I don't know whether straight or queer females compose any sort of silent yuri fandom in Japan, but it's the male otaku who comprise the vocal, active segment of the fandom. Also, men are generally the ones who create most yuri anime and manga, yuri manga runs in men's magazines, and yuri anime is agressively marketed toward men. Just go to Yuricon's list and see how many of those characters/series were created by an all-male staff, based on manga that ran in men's magazines, etc. I mean, this stuff, generally speaking, is created by men for men, the same way that yaoi is created by women for women, and I know of only a handful of actual gay men who have ever been able to enjoy yaoi without screaming in horror and running away from it. Obviously, that's a blanket statement and there are exceptions. Maria-sama ga Miteru is based on a manga that ran in Margaret and was actually - gasp! - targeted toward girls. (Although I have to admit that in both Japan and the US, the number of male fans of Maria-sama ga Miteru that I've met far outnumber the female fans And that includes the number of female fans on the Yuricon ML.) Likewise, two of the three series profiled in the news article were shoujo. (Battle Athletes was not.) Of course that doesn't mean that either queer or straight women can't enjoy yuri, even if a particular series was created entirely by men, marketed toward straight men, and generally intended for straight men. If marketing demographics determined what we all consumed and enjoyed, then I would be a brainless makeup-slathered bimbo who spent more money on grocery-store paperback romances than on Star Wars action figures. But I do think it's important to keep in mind who a series was created by and who is was originally intended for.
I strongly disagree. In my limited personal experience, the gay men that I know tend to digusted or horrified by yaoi. It is NOT literature for them. And I'm not just talking about the shameless porny stuff - I'm talking about actual *good* stuff with strong yaoi themes, like Banana Fish. And yeah, everybody tells me that Kannazuki no Miko is supposed to be brilliant and wonderful, and maybe on a certain level it is, but I still don't like it because the lesbian relationship in it basically exists so that male viewers can have some hot fanservice. I know that there are some women, including lesbian women, who love this series. I know of other who hate it. Because to them, it is NOT homosexual literature. So I guess the sum point of this post is - Yuri fandom is not exclusively for women, especially considering that the majority of yuri titles in Japan ARE created by men and ARE marketed toward male readers and viewers. And as far as English-speaking fandom goes, there are tons of guys out there who are into yuri. Tons. We don't know exactly how many and probably never will. There are probably good reasons why the guys don't have much of a presence on the Yuricon ML or whatever. |
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