A lot of BL / Yaoi fans hate women, but why?

[amortelito]

For sure I have seen poorly written female characters designed to be the human "piñata" of the story and she is mean for the sake of making the main couple more endearing. I didn't know It went beyond fiction. I haven't seen yaoi fans hating on real people. At most I have seen people hating on actresses. I don't think the authors had the intention of being misogynistic but some people get fiction to places they were not meant to go.

As for the reddit threads, etc. some people who were already misogynistic will jump to any opportunity to trash talk women, not only Yaoi fans. Maybe the tread is hating on a specific trope or a specific character in a yaoi manga and some idiot takes the chance to be like "yeah!!! women are always doing that!". "uh straight women are awful". etc.

[PlsDelMe]

A favorite of mine (when I was young!) was 'The Tyrant Falls in Love.'

Due to the effects of the drug, his weakened body trips and wakes up Morinaga. Morinaga sees that Souichi is aroused and understands that the drug Souichi has taken actually works. Thinking that Souichi would never return his feelings, Morinaga decides to take advantage of the situation and despite Souichi's weak refusals, telling Morinaga to stop, he goes on to rape him.

Yuck! I'm not reading this, sorry.

[WillowTree]

I wasn't recommending it, hence me saying it was absolutely covered in red flags and is an abusive relationship Just that when I was young and first discovering the yaoi genre, it was a big favorite of mine. I still read it today as an adult, but if I had first discovered it as an adult then I highly doubt it would be as high on my list of things I enjoy re-reading

[PlsDelMe]

I wasn't recommending it, hence me saying it was absolutely covered in red flags and is an abusive relationship Just that when I was young and first discovering the yaoi genre, it was a big favorite of mine. I still read it today as an adult, but if I had first discovered it as an adult then I highly doubt it would be as high on my list of things I enjoy re-reading

I'm sorry, I was talking to myself, sort of, English isn't my native language lol.

[PlsDelMe]

Complete:GIFT (top fav, very uniquely told story but is only partially translated and is a biotch to find translated)Yagi to Ookami no Hatsujou Jijou (Animals ears, basically omegaverse)Wolf in the House (Masterpiece, awesome werewolfish and amazing ladies here)Shiba-kun to Shepherd-san (Short Uke, adorable manga)On Doorstep (delinquent X cop)Fukouchuu no Shiawase Koubutsu wa Ichiban Saigo ni Hara no Naka (cat ears, omegaverse, absolutely adorable)Midnight Rain

Incomplete but seem really good so far:Love Me DoctorBlack MirrorCherry Blossoms After WinterLegs That Won't Walk

Thank you, I just add 'em to my TBR.

[WillowTree]

Haha no need to apologize! I try to throw the 'hearts' into my posts to make sure people know I'm not being rude/abrupt though sometimes it still doesn't come across right (and sometimes I just forget to toss it in.) Written word can so easily be read in the wrong 'tone' especially when English isn't your first language!

[PlsDelMe]

Haha no need to apologize! I try to throw the 'hearts' into my posts to make sure people know I'm not being rude/abrupt though sometimes it still doesn't come across right (and sometimes I just forget to toss it in.) Written word can so easily be read in the wrong 'tone' especially when English isn't your first language!

Oh, that's what the cute heart mean? to make the tone not rude / abrupt? I saw it right after "abusive relationship" and I thought: Oh, someone loves this stuff huh, lmao, sorry. xD

[WillowTree]

Whoops! Me using it in that post REALLY backfired then!

[IndigoShirtProd]

Oh yeah it's super unrealistic, but I'm pretty sure BL is the more grounded of the two. Maybe I wrong, actually I think BL is the umbrella term. There's more realistic yaoi out there. I guess when I mentioned that, I was trying to attribute that theme to real life.

[PlsDelMe]

Whoops! Me using it in that post REALLY backfired then!

lol, it's funny, because I'm pretty sure that you (and other natives) misread me too, I guess it goes both ways, and I didn't get the rude tone at all from you(no need for heart) actually you come across as a kind person, idk, maybe I'm tone deaf(?)

[PlsDelMe]

Oh yeah it's super unrealistic, but I'm pretty sure BL is the more grounded of the two. Maybe I wrong, actually I think BL is the umbrella term. There's more realistic yaoi out there. I guess when I mentioned that, I was trying to attribute that theme to real life.

Oh, makes sense, then is bara under the BL umbrella too?

[IndigoShirtProd]

I guess it has to be, I guess it has to be. I mean it fits the criteria of mxm relationships.

[joannekwan]

BL (boys love) was a term originally used in the Japanese publishing industry for mxm stories that were generally written by women for a female audience. Yaoi is used interchangeably. But a lot of people see yaoi as more sexual while BL can be simple G-rated fluff.

Bara is generally written by gay men for gay men and normally features more masculine characters with muscle, fat, and body hair (as opposed to the pretty boys often found in BL).

Bara was considered separate from BL and yaoi, but nowadays you can find people who interchange terms all the time and the definitions have broadened from their specific historic uses. However, bara is still usually classified by the type of men depicted in the stories, ones that wouldn't look out of place among 'bears'.

[GoldenHoneydew]

I hated seeing this with a passion. the scene would be a girl with black hair giving the mc a paper that he dropped & all the comments would be "omg idk about her she acts kinda b*tchy"

[BrambleberrySquirrel]

I’ve ran into this a little bit with my own comic which has BL as a secondary tag. I have one female character who hasn’t done anything terrible. I consistently get comments on episodes she is featured in calling her slurs or saying she is just motivated by a desire to use the male characters in the comic. This being despite her only appearing in a handful of episodes and having fairly sympathetic characterization. Now these comments are all on Webtoon rather than tapas and that platform seems to have a much more immature or at least less sensitive reader base judging by comments alone. I think this is likely to the Yaoi and BL genres conditioning their audiences to see women as a foil or a barrier to the male/male relationships they’re looking for. If you’re just reading for steamy guy on guy scenes then maybe you’d grow to automatically hate people the genre sets up to deny or disrupt them.

[BrambleberrySquirrel]

Thanks for writing this little explainer for people. Only thing I would add is that generally Bara has more realistic depictions of male/male relationships since it’s written by men for men rather than for a mostly female audience. Bara is gradually gaining more traction it seems. I’d love to see it become as relatively mainstream as BL and Yaoi have. A lot of times the storytelling is really emotionally deep on a level that the other two genres in this thread don’t hit for me.

[HGohwell]

Tbh you say that but I've read a lot of bara that's just as unrealistic and toxic played as romance as BL. Being the demographic you're writing about doesn't stop you writing toxic, messed up, unrealistic portrayals of something or all that toxic straight romance wouldn't be a thing either.

And also, hating women isn't just a BL thing. Look at any straight teen romance, or even lesbian romance. It all comes back to that "other girl" trope. Any other girl is a homewrecking slut who's popular and pretty and looking to steal the MC's love interest. It's just more obvious in BL because the MC that's generally a stand in for the reader is a boy not a girl.

[BrambleberrySquirrel]

I haven’t encountered a lot of this in Bara I’ve read, but I’m sure it’s out there. It sounds like you’re making an important observation about the pitfalls of romance as a genre in general. Hopefully since this is a forum populated with creators people will take heed and try to change the landscape of these genres in their own small ways.

[Comic.Kikikora]

I get jealous when i see my fav handsome character dating girls but i am ok if they are with boys

[darthmongoose]

In my experience, this isn't just a BL problem. I see it a lot in Het romance stories with female main characters too. The only other woman in the story is this jealous, antagonistic force, or there are only two female characters outside the main heroine and one of them is pure evil and the other is sassy bff who is not conventionally pretty (ie. she's slightly chubby or wears kooky clothes) and therefore not seen as a competitor for the hot boy/s.

I think there is a lot of internalised misogyny in fiction. It can make it pretty hard to relate to as a queer woman. I'm just there like "wow, look at all these cool ladies, they all sure are uniquely attractive and interesting! ...wait, are they seriously fighting over this boring noodle-boy?"