Forum - View topicNEWS: Tsubasa Yonaga, Takuya Eguchi Star in Love Stage!! Anime
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CrowLia
 Posts: 5505 Location: Mexico |
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Yeah, BL is definitely not a (usually) cheaply written derivative of porn, it's definitely a profoundly thought, complex and intricate social commentary on women and their perspective of social expectations of sexuality and masculine/feminine roles.
Dude/Gal, you need to get out more. |
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Chagen46
 Posts: 4377 |
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I know that, I'm a man. There seem to be very few female fans of otokonoko and stuff like that*. But if it's not BL then what exactly can we call it? It's still manga about gay dudes. *: The differences in what women and men make on terms of porn, such as straight-shotacon works exist for men but straight-lolicon works for women don't exist, always interested me, especially as a bi male who reads works for both genders CrowLia: I get what you're trying to say but you sound more like a hater of BL than a fan of it. |
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CrowLia
Posts: 5505 Location: Mexico |
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Just because I'm aware that a particular genre I enjoy is (usually) really trashy doesn't make me a hater. I just find it kind of funny that lebrel seems intent on validating BL as some really profound genre dedicated to portray alternative gender roles and sexuality when it's (mostly) just crappy man-to-man/girlwithpenis porn.
Of course, the few genuinely well-written BL manga that don't fall into most of the terrible BL cliches absolutely make the digging through all the crap really worth it (thinkink Kotetsuko Yamamoto, Sakuragi Yaya, Hinako Takanaga -when she's not writing rapey garbage- Sakuraga Mei, Nekota Yonezou and Natsume Isaku, Kanda Neko, Inoue Satou, off the top of my head). And heck, even the garbage can be entertaining as light reading. I'll never deny going back to Sakira whenever I'm in the mood of just watching hot men getting at it, regardless of how trashy (sometimes even offensively so) her stories and characters can be. |
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Parse Error
 Posts: 592 |
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Where in the hell are you even getting that from? The post I read boils down to "BL exists mostly for women like porn of girly men." |
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CrowLia
Posts: 5505 Location: Mexico |
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^
I may be getting thrown off by the unnecessary wordiness, but to me the whole post just screamed "I'm reading too much into the concept of man-to-man porn" Last edited by CrowLia on Wed Mar 19, 2014 1:50 pm; edited 2 times in total |
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Chaos Salad
 Posts: 32 |
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It's definitely OK to like BL for the reasons that you have listed, and I'm sure that there are fans that enjoy BL for that very reason. However, you don't seem to be well informed of the larger cultural context which makes the "girly uke" an issue. I've dabbled in research on differences in perception of sexuality in different cultures, mostly comparing western perception versus Asian perception. It is actually a very prevalent belief in a number of Asian countries that a gay man is considered a woman trapped in a man's body. In that video I referenced earlier, it looks as if the younger Japanese generation is starting to move away from that line of thought, but it is still a harmful stereotype that is perpetuated by the portrayal of gay men in the media (one example is that gay men in Japanese television are often considered the same as cross-dressers). Taking into account the cultural context in which BL is created, I would strongly argue against the idea that "BL is fundamentally driven by a dissatisfaction with conventional masculinity". That may be the reason why you and other fans enjoy it, but I think that it's difficult to deny that the "girly uke" is profoundly influenced by an inaccurate perception of homosexuality in Japan. I believe that you are correct in that BL is aimed at women. This is exactly why the "girly uke" is the main character whose perspective we see the story from. The character that is telling the story is usually the character that the reader is suppose to relate to (this is exactly why young adult novels are told in the first person of a female narrator). Your view would make more sense if there were BL that were told from the point of view of the "manly seme", but those are fairly rare I believe. A man who does not wish to be feminine does not devalue femininity, just as much as a woman who doesn't wish to be masculine does not devalue or hate masculinity. Your idea that gay men don't want to be considered feminine because they view femininity as inferior is problematic. Put yourself in the shoes of a gay man in Japan that genuinely enjoys masculine things. This is widely accepted in America, but in Japan this is considered a contradiction. Again, BL and other media perpetuate this idea, even if BL is intended for a female audience. Any other day, I would be on your side of the feminist argument, but I would have to say that the "girly uke" is primarily an issue of homosexuality in Japan. Women have it rough, but so do gay men. No one is trying to shame you for enjoying the "girly uke", but you can't deny that it is part of a larger social issue. |
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lebrel
Posts: 374 |
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1. Yes, BL is largely disposable entertainment. So is most manga of any kind, including gay men's manga. That doesn't mean it contains nothing worthy of analysis or nothing that speaks to its reader's desires. 2. Most BL is not porn, unless you think josei romances and Harlequin novels are porn, in which case you have a different definition of porn than I do. 3. Many BL writers, from Moto Hagio (one of the inventors of the genre) to Youka Nitta have given interviews, available in English, in which they talk about why they write BL and how it relates to their feelings about social expectations of sexuality and masculine/feminine roles. I'm not in the mood for hunting down links, but Google is your friend. 4. As I said, I'm a woman. |
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lebrel
Posts: 374 |
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It's m/m otokonoko. It's not BL. Gei comi is also about gay dudes, for an audience of gay dudes, and it's not BL either. BL is, by definition, for women. It's not an umbrella term for depictions of m/m relationships in manga. |
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CrowLia
Posts: 5505 Location: Mexico |
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But the type of BL we're discussing is essentially porn. A discussion about non-pornographic BL that centers around "girl with penis uke" makes literally no sense at all. It's like arguing about "rape>love" in shojo romances that don't have any sex.
Also Youko Nitta is one of the finest BL authors out there (even if all her characters look exactly the same), not to mention there's not a single case of "girly ukes" in her stories, so honestly, I don't think her single opinion accounts for the bulk of trashy "alpha male-to-girl with penis" porn that's at the center of the discussion. |
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Parse Error
Posts: 592 |
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Actually it's looking as though I was.
I checked out the first few chapters when the adaptation was announced, and had a hard time stopping to wait for the anime. From what I saw, you should be perfectly fine with it. |
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lebrel
Posts: 374 |
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@Chaos Salad: You raise a lot of points, so this will be long.
i agree entirely that the larger Japanese culture has difficulty separating homosexuality from transgenderism. I don't think that's what's driving BL. There are BL manga with trans women in them, and the authors, overwhelmingly, seem completely clear on the difference between a feminine uke, a crossdressing cis man, and a trans woman.
I disagree. BL is largely part of shoujo. Shoujo in general is deeply invested in gender non-normativity. Look at the number of heterosexual romances in which the male lead has overtly non-masculine traits, from his hobbies/personality (Otomen) to outright crossdressing (at least four in English; of those not in English, Usotsuki Lily is particularly interesting). Look at the shoujo series where sexually aggressive women target feminine uke-ish men (Train*Train, Gakuen Prince). Look at the sheer amount of shoujo-related merch featuring cute uke-type guys who are not presented as being in gay relationships. You can't tell me that that is all byblows of stereotypes about homosexuality.
Most BL is from the uke's perspective, yes (although the converse isn't all that rare). But quite a lot of men's ero manga is from the woman's perspective, and no-one ever argues that that means the male readers identify with the women. I think there are two inputs here. 1. Manga is visual; the main character is the person you see most often. If the uke is the main character, that means he is the person you, the reader, are looking at. Consider the vast amounts of smutty BL fanart that feature ukes with no semes; the experience on offer is looking at the uke. 2. The main character is the person you get to know best. Het American romance novels are also mainly from the woman's POV, and readers regularly complain about this: they want more scenes from the man's POV, so they can get inside his head and get to know him better. (As far as I can tell, authors/editors are resistant to this idea largely through inertia.)
I really don't think it's only because gay men don't want to be stereotyped generally. Japanese gay men's media (and to a large extent Western gay men's media) overwhelmingly represent gay men as uniformly hypermasculine, which is itself a stereotype. There are gay men who do not identify with this stereotype, and there have certainly been gay men who have complained about it, but not to the degree or with the vitrol that the majority complain about being stereotyped as feminine. The particular distaste for being represented as feminine is absolutely related to the devaluation of femininity. (Not at all related to BL, but for a Western gay man's take on this issue, David Halperin's How To Be Gay discusses the relative valoration of gendered traits in American gay culture.)
We agree on that. But we disagree on which social issue. 
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lebrel
Posts: 374 |
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Huh? People complain about "girl with penis ukes" even in the tamest of G-rated stories. A feminine appearance and/or feminine personality is all it takes. (Also, having sex scenes doesn't make a book porn.) And people complain about "rape>love" in the context of aggressive, molest-y male leads in completely sex-free shoujo all the time, too.
I included her as an example of a relatively high-profile modern mangaka. There are other interviews out there; e.g. Hinako Takanaga, est em, Makoto Tateno... basically anyone who has come to the US. If you read Japanese, there are entire books that center on interviews with BL mangaka.
I don't think you've read all of her stuff. She does write feminine ukes on occasion. Off the top of my head, the "LOL Theatre" short story on Kindle, for example. |
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sakuragtin
 Posts: 222 |
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Would smut be a better term rather than porn? Or is it girls don't read porn so BL can't be porn. Cause I always thought Harlequin novels were basically porn with romance myself so maybe it really just boils down to personal definitions.
Now, I'm trying to figure out what your saying and who you are arguing against. I'm thinking it's you arguing that women read BL so we can fantasize about doing it with a feminine man and that if we even say that we're tired of the girly ukes that keep with the normative hetero-relationship stereotype that's wrong because we're just feeding into the stereotype that women are somehow inferior. I think that super sentence might have summed it up. Yup....still doesn't make sense. I see where the argument is coming from but honestly you are reading way too much into a genre that for the most part its main purpose is to get two guys in the sack as quickly as possible. Is it all like that? No. A majority? Yes. And as a BL fan I feel very comfortable saying that most BL is porn/smut @Crowlia I'll just add Yugi Yamada, Moegi Yuu, Yoneda Kou, and the author of Man of Tango whose name escapes me to your list as well. Although I disagree about Youka Nitta. To me most of her work is just smut and not much else. |
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lebrel
Posts: 374 |
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To me a work isn't porn unless the primary purpose is to be masturbation material. The primary purpose of the vast majority of BL (and Harlequin novels) is to be romance. Romance with sex isn't necessarily porn. Women do consume porn, and there is some BL that is porn, but most BL is primarily romance, with or without sex, and I don't classify that as porn. YMMV.
I'm arguing against people who insist on insist on processing feminine ukes as coded women and complain that BL with such characters is a coded heterosexual relationship.
A significant number of female readers enjoy BL because they like gender-non-conforming men, yes. The vast majority of BL critics refuse to acknowledge this, because these characters "must" be coded women.
As I've said repeatedly, BL with feminine ukes is not a "hetero-relationship stereotype". It is the exact opposite of conventional female sexuality / male desirability stereotypes.
Yes. People here (like many people elsewhere) are defending the proposition that a fully feminine male character is not a man and must be an identification figure for women rather than a representation of a desirable man. You may not have completely thought this through (most people haven't), but this attitude is based in sexism.
People in media studies dedicate their entire career to the social and psychological implications of popular TV shows (you could fill a decent library with just analyses of Star Trek). I don't think it's excessive to think about the representation of gender issues in a genre that is primarily driven by gender issues. |
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Chagen46
Posts: 4377 |
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Since I'm not a girl I can't really add to the conversation, I have to say that debates like this are why I prefer ANN to other anime forums. You don't have calm debate like this on other sites.
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