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Chicks On Anime - Yaoi

I really don't have a problem with yaoi/boys love being fantasy, because that is exactly what is designed to be. Yaoi/BL's original appeal when it started coming out in 1970s Japan was as "safe" romance stories for girls to read because it had nothing to do with their real lives. Stories like "The Song of the Wind and Trees" were often about beautiful boys in European settings - they clearly had nothing in common with Japanese schoolgirls. These stories don't feature sexually active girls whose example might encourage the readers to behave the same way - they feature men in impossibly beautiful, clearly fantasy relationships. It's not like BL ever received the parental stamp of approval in Japan, but I think it's only been the recent (last 10 years) increase of smutty shoujo manga with female protagonists that have caused Japanese parents to decry the "lack of morals" in today's manga for girls. Sometimes I think many of us forget that despite the prevalence of porn in Japan, it is still a socially conservative society in many ways. It's just conservative in different ways than American society, since because of the way homosexuality is viewed in America, conservative American parents would have a problem with their daughters reading comics with male-male romances.

The stupid fangirls who start squeeing over gay male couples in real life are the same type of manga/anime fans that start making their own little death note books after reading Death Note. Lots of anime/manga fans get confused or refuse to see the difference between reality and fantasy, not just yaoi fangirls. I myself like yaoi/BL, but I also have a lot of gay guy friends who are frankly either ugly or average looking, and I don't really want to imagine the explicit details of their romances Wink

(same with my girl friends). Yaoi/BL is usually about beautiful men, not real life people.

FAKE was the first BL series I ever read. That was about six years ago, and I can still honestly say it's my favorite. Part of it is because Ryo, even though he's clearly intended for the uke role, is not very feminine or weak at all. Nothing irritates me more than when the "bottom" is nothing more than a girl with a penis.

I actually really liked the ending to FAKE, and not because of the "OH MY GOD, FINALLY, SEEEEEEXXXXXXXX!" It's another part of why I like the series. Rather than just throw them in bed in the first volume, the relationship is allowed to build over time. The payoff of the series is Ryo finally being able to accept himself for who he is and accept Dee's love. Really, I could care less if they get it on.

Compare that to something like Haru wo Daite Ita, where they have sex every single chapter. Over and over again... it gets tiresome after awhile, at least for me.

I think, as a hetero female, part of the reason I read BL is because I have a lower tolerance for female characters. I realized awhile back that most of my favorite characters, regardless of genre or country of origin, are male.

This is a very interesting discussion. BL is a phenomenon that I have enjoyed for a good 7 years now, and I find it interesting as a form of sexually explicit material made by women for women (which is pretty rare in and of itself outside of harlequin novels).

BL is something that people often question because of the gender norms in our society that tell us that women are sexual objects and men are the objectifiers. The reason that the image of a man in a position that a woman would often take that you discussed is seen as uncomfortable is part of this perception. When women are sexualised it's considered normal, when men are it is almost automatically considered homoerotic, or 'not normal', simply because it is not done that way for women. ‘Women don’t objectify. Men do.’ That’s where the uncomfortably factor comes in.

I think yaoi is interesting because woman are treating these fictional men as fantasy material in the way men (and women) would treat women. There are no other women to get in the way of the fantasy, making it 'safe', and also taking the reader out of the realm of identification with the characters, so they can objectify them more easily. It defies alot of societal norms, while conforming to many others. It's really very cool if you think about it.

I personally read yaoi cause I love homosexual literature, and I love the beautiful boys, and I love reading about beautiful boys who have beautiful sex with other beautiful boys. It’s all for simple personal enjoyment. I also feel strongly about the gay community and gay rights, but that is something I separate from my interest in yaoi entirely.

And on the subject of the fans, well all fan groups have crazies. Just look at the Twilight fandom. Or Harry Potter. Or sports even. Yaoi fangirls can be obnoxious but they often grow out of it.

I think in some ways that yaoi is good for normalizing homosexuality in our society, but bad in that it often misrepresents what it means to be gay. But you have to keep in mind that these are fantasy stories, written by outsiders for the enjoyment of outsiders. They shouldn’t be expected to be accurate to a T. In the end it's just simple entertainment.

I really like that people are arguing for the worth of yaoi porn as well as romance.

On a side note, a friend of mine did a college thesis on yaoi culture and she dug up another theory on it's appeal to women that hasn't been mentioned. I'm sure a lot of people don't relate to this at all, but it's an interesting idea. It kinda builds on posterior's point:

I'm in the so called "jealous" camp, although it's less jealous & more detest idiots. Yu Watase commented in one of her sidetalk columns when she came to Anime Ex one year she was surprised to discover American yaoi fans prefered what she considered one of her more intelligent heroines-the lead from Ceres vs the very popular in Japan idiot lead from Fushigi Yugi Miaka. Lots of people seem upset when one points it out, but I have seen it mentioned there is a certain popular genre of the "idiot hero" (Goku/DBZ for one).
However, I am firmly in the camp that hates all these stupid, stupid, stupid chicks with less brains than a brick, but look-ooo, she has that hot bishie chasing after her! Of course she's too stupid to notice it. They're straight out of our own soap operas & yeah, I hate those gals with a passion also. I consider them an insult to women. Guys see these things which feed their warped vision of what a gal is--no thank you.
I kept hoping some horrid disease would wipe out all the chicks in Fruits Basket leaving just the hot guys. The twins in DNAngel need to go. Daisuke, for that matter, needs to be slapped hard several times. One of the Ghost Hunt team needed to put Mai in a box & ship her to Outer Mongolia, Atlantis--anywhere she wouldn't make it back until the story ended. However, she's one who has her ok moments. Misa must die. She is the worst anything-to-get-her-man stereotype on the planet. The lead in From Far Away was good as was the lead in Red River, although it was the Sailor Moon stereotypical embodiment of all evil that drove me away from that one. Alice had her moments, but overall was ok in Please Save My Earth. And yes, Miaka must die, but Yui first. Slowly. Painfully.
It's not just shojo. Nami must die. Robin's ok, but Nami is soooo damned evil to her fellow crewmembers. The Knights need to let Athena die instead of dying for her.

I can read yaoi & usually even if it's a simple, throw-away romance story there's at least one excellently drawn page--pin-up worthy. Often there isn't a chick in sight. Yeah! Far less stress to reading yaoi.

Yeah, I have run across a few decent chicks in manga, but overall, I do grade the females harder. I have higher standards for their behavior & they usually don't live up to it.

Do I think yaoi is an accurate portrayal of homosexuals?
Hell, no. My god, one (the uke usually) is often more chickish than some shojo heroines (& yeah, I've wanted to slap a few, but they were usually cute enough to forgive.) They are HEAVY on the fantasy--rich guy saved poor boy. Gruff guy opens up a bit once he finds love. It is very much more often lifestyles of the flawless & beautiful. More often than not if I'm going to name an incredible read I am not going to name a yaoi title. Breathtaking art-yeah, very often.
Yaoi is like putting a poster of an actor or a rock star on my wall. I can drool over their beauty (Yes, guys can be beautiful), but I do not have to deal with their very real personality flaws. I can read about the boys in yaoi & they don't call me names or tell me to go to hell or to do what girls do best or ignore me to drink with their buddies. No matter how annoying the uke is, the seme loves him.

Yoshinaga has her moments, but I'm not a big fan. Same for Yamada. I prefer Minekura (Wild Adapter 6 was intense & excellent). For art--Higuri, Yamane, Tateno, Minami. Murakami is hilarious. I like Minekura & wish we'd get more of her stuff over here. Granted, one could just buy the artbooks for the art.
A lot of yaoi IS one-shots. There aren't really a lot of titles that make it to a 4th volume. 1 to 2 is the norm. 1001 Nights is up to 5 volumes, so it's looking to be a longer title.
There's the light/near stuff. Princess Princess has all the trappings but is safely not, though it runs 4 or 5 volumes plus the related Family Complex & Day of Revolution.
Love Recipe's an interesting read since it's an "insider" look of a guy getting hired as an editor of a yaoi magazine put in charge of their star artist who they are keeping secret from everyone is a dude. In the 2nd volume it gets into words that are ok & words that are not, the difs between yaoi & other titles, etc.

I did finish Wild Butterfly today & found it to be very interesting, though very violent with very little actual sex--more the lack of females in the stories. Curses & demons & vampires.
I found Melted Love interesting. While I didn't care for the art, I liked the way the author captured the fragility of some relationships--how one can fear the other person could vanish into the night & never be seen again.
And I prefer the funny stuf like Waru & Gravitation.
I don't really care if I get sex, but give me some framable art with a few down-to-there drawings & I'm good. Saikyuki delivers that. Make me laugh & I'm good.
I'm in the older camp-48-so I remeber gals who felt women couldn't enjoy sex, hence the rape stuff. When I got married back in 1980, my mother actually gave me the "It's a wife's duty to submit to her husband whether she likes it or not" I'm frankly amazed my mother-in-law had about a dozen kids because she was always saying sex was nasty. So for THAT mentality, for those gals who are of the sex-is-something-women-can't-enjoy, the rape fantasy allows them to have sex--it was HIS fault, he raped me-but then they fall in love so it's ok-they may even enjoy sex. It removes the responsibility from the female
Yes, this totally ignores ALL the realities of rape in the real world. This is pure fantasy. Most of the gals I know who like rape fantasy yaoi recognize they are not the same.

On the note that yaoi is the same as pornography, I would disagree. Yaoi is the same as has been said, trashy romance novels, only with pictures and both love interests are men. That is not to say the stories can't be rich, but it does imply that they are less about telling a good story and more about exploring a steamy romance. It isn't designed to get women "off" it is designed to appeal to their romantic interests, though, yes, those interests are often sexual as well (just not exclusively).

On the note of obnoxious fangirls, I would add to the discussion that most of these people are indeed children. The demographic of yaoi/BL used to be a lot oler than it has become in recent years, and probably due to the availability online of manga and anime (illegally). The same generation that is watching all their anime fansubbed is the one that has become this obnoxious and rude group that has taken over the "face" (not the actual content) of yaoi fandom. It is just another commodity to them, one to be objectified and while that would be fine they are simply not mature enough to understand and stop short of continuing to objectify outside of the realm of the fantasy, so that is why I call them "children." I've also noticed the longer I've been in the yaoi/BL fandom that the average age of the fan is dropping. It used to be some high school and a lot of college and now I'm seeing a lot more high school girls getting into it, and we all know teenagers can be some of the most obnoxious people on the planet. All of the older fans I have met I would not put into the category of rabid fangirl. At some point in the maturation process a person still enjoys the content, but learns to put a lid on expressing it so obnoxiously.

As a straight guy, yaoi holds no real appeal to me whatsoever, but it was interesting to read about it from a perspective other than the hordes of screaming fangirls. I'd never really considered the perspective of gay men on the whole phenomenon, but I can see how the artificial idealization of some blissful state of guy-on-guy romance in many of these titles could be viewed as being offensive by them, much as the more insipid tropes of shoujo seem to be offensive to some women. (On the other hand, my one close friend who happens to be gay seems to like bishie-love images as much as anyone, so I guess it's really all up to the individual. Said friend also has a whole Photobucket folder full of yuri images, which I find a bit puzzling. Very Happy

) I don't know if it is the sense of taboo or simply the aesthetics that drives so many teenage girls to the genre, and I suppose it's harmless enough if it stays as just an interest, but if it provides the wrong impression on romantic relationships to the point where throngs of con-goers yell at couples to make out on the street...there's a definite problem.

(And to those who don't take any satisfaction from the way that romance is portrayed in shoujo series, maybe looking elsewhere would prove useful. I've seen a few shounen and seinen series that, surprisingly enough, take what I'd assume is a much more realistic angle on relationship development than your stereotypical shoujo. Hell, Eureka seveN featured the best-plotted developing romance I've come across in any sort of fiction, and it was ostensibly about giant robots. Razz

)

wow, this came as eye opening. I'm a huge yaoi fan, but i never thought of it in this way. I never knew people where being yelled at, or even that some girls decided to think of it like this. I thought it was just another genre of reading, a new view, from a guys perspective because sometimes it just seems harder to decode guys then they like to let on. I've never been to a convention but some of my friends have told me storied of random fights and even who would do yaoi for candy. It just baffles me.

But the heterosexual relationships...I don't know, they don't seem as appealing anymore. Not that im calling myself ugly or anything, but for some reason they don't like me, and i juts think a relationship like that doesn't count me in anymore (Im Not Gay:), or Bi), and so i turn to other ones. And maybe because they don't seem to show a real relationship or feelings that it should..and HELLO?! can we have some drama?? its anime people, get with it! some of them are just not as spicy as i hoped or wanted. Show me a manga with a good story line, and then we'll talk.

The subject of Yaoi has always fascinated me. I was very surprised at first to hear that stories featuring male/male romance were predominantly written for and by women. I'd agree with some of the other posters here that one of the reasons for it may hearken back to the image of womens sexuality being shameful. Women are still commonly referred to as "sluts" for being openly sexual. Whether we want to or not, some of that societal pressure does get internalized. We may enjoy sex as much as men, but we don't proclaim our exploits too loudly for fear of being demonized for it. Some of us are more open about it than others, but we are still usually mindful of our reputations in a way that men don't need to be. Women can be some of the worst offenders with regards to judging ourselves and each other as well. With yaoi, both characters are men (who are traditionally allowed to be sexual without any societal taint) so there is none of that baggage. A female reader can enjoy the fantasy without having to identify with a character that incorporates traits considered low class by mainstream society. Granted, this may be more of an issue in Japan than it is in the US where gender identity is more conservative in some ways.

Though I'll confess to watching some hentai, yaoi often appeals more to me. A lot of women enjoy sexual fantasy as much as men do, but many of us prefer there to be some character development prior to the sexual culmination. My husband doesn't have to relate to or care about any of the characters in his porn. He simply likes to see people get it on with little or no depth. Any speaking parts should be limited to talking dirty. I, on the other hand, get bored if there is no build up. The passion or tension between the characters is what appeals to me. It doesn't have to be literature for sure, but they have to have a reason to want to screw for me to find it worth my time. I'll admit to being a pervert who enjoys a smutty story. The gender doesn't really matter to me much as long as I like the story and the artwork. Though, to be honest, I'd prefer something like Nana with more explicit sex scenes. However, there seems to be a real lack of mature, sexually charged anime with male/female pairings. Most hetero romances shy away from showing the "completion" and certainly don't highlight it. I can count the ones I've heard of on one hand. The only non hentai male/female smut that I've ever seen is Honey X Honey Drops and that's tame compared to the manga. Rumbling Hearts, Honey and Clover and Kare Kano are not really smutty, but they at least approach the subject of sexuality in a relationship. Still, there are precious few. The plethora of saccharin sweet high school romances are plain dull. These stories, be it anime or manga are primarily escapist in nature, just as a typical romance novel would be. These just have lovely pictures. Erotic yaoi is more plentiful, so if I want to watch an animated "Romance Novel" rather than a flat out porno yaoi's the only real choice. We had a lively discussion on this a while back:

http://fast.animenewsnetwork.com/bbs/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=47690&highlight=mature+romance

In regards to the comparisons with real life homosexual relationships, I've have had gay and lesbian friends my entire life so I certainly see the lack of realism involved in how these relationships are portrayed. That being said, the way heterosexual relationships are usually portrayed is equally unrealistic, if not more so. Any kind of romance story exaggerates the most alluring aspects of both sexes for its intended audience. Otherwise, it'd be just as brutal as real life and I, for one, wouldn't want to read or watch it. Real life relationships are messy, difficult and painful. There are dramas to watch for that kind of angst.

I'm an aromantic asexual, and I really enjoy all sorts of gay/lesbian/het/??? titles, whether they be manga, American, or European. For me, it's most definitely not about self-insertion (hurr hurr) or relating to the characters, but for the same reason that I, as an agnostic, love religion.
Sex, although it plays little to no part in my life, plays an enormous role in pretty much every one else's lives. Whether they are thinking about it or having it or wanting to 'wait for' it. By reading stories featuring sexual (or deeply emotional) relations between characters, I feel like I can relate more to the world. Is that stupid? Probably, but at least while reading them I can go 'Oh, so that's why people think it's so important.'
I tend to prefer the 'deeply emotional' stories to the straight-up sexy times stories, as I can connect to those on some level.

I have to say that my favorite category tends to be the ??? category, though. Karolina and Xavin (Marvel's Runaways) and the Sou/Mashiro/Kureha triangle from After School Nightmare are some of the more interesting relationships around.

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Forum - View topicChicks On Anime - Yaoi

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Chicks On Anime - Yaoi