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Maryedraws
Dec '19
1

Hi, I'm new to Tapas so I hope it's okay for me to post this here.

I've noticed on webcomic hosting sites is that there's a heck of a lot of BL (BoysLove/Yaoi). When I looked at publishing on Tapas, BL is included as a whole genre alongside action, comedy, drama etc. It's strange to me that BL is listed as a genre on here, but LGBT isn't.

So obviously comics with gay male characters are EXTREMELY popular, and all you have to do is look on the front page to see how common they are. I was curious as to people's thoughts on why this is?

I'm not saying there's anything wrong with comics with gay male leads, and I enjoy some myself, but it's hard not to notice the trend.
I hope this topic isn't too controversial and people feel comfortable sharing their opinions on this.

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There are 94 replies with an estimated read time of 11 minutes.

gempompadour
Dec '19

I have a friend who loves BL (she calls it slash, I don't know if that differs from yaoi/boy love?) and her explanation is simple: slash has better written/drawn media, the relationships usually have better dynamics than straight ones, male characters themselves are usually more fleshed out and better written so she's drawn to them more than the token one dimensional female love interest that is thrown in the middle of a well developed male relationship to stop anyone from thinking they're gayyyyyyy.

And as a woman she gets to escape the certain kind of expectations that are pushed onto women/ women have suffered from for a millenia. Fantasizing about two men is about escapism; men don't get pregnant, sex isn't usually about domination etc. Even in a relationship a man gets to be a character while a woman disappears behind terms like wife, mother.

Then there's the fact that lgbt-media is still rather rare so their media is largely fan produced be it original works or shipping.

darthmongoose
Dec '19

Speaking as a lesbian, I'm vaguely irritated that BL gets so much focus and a category, while the rest of the LGBTQIA+ umbrella is just like... whatever? I know it's not really Tapas' fault, and they likely made it a genre so that people who like it could find it easily and it didn't gum up the whole romance genre, but the prevelance of it always sort of bothers me, mainly because it so rarely translates into actual support for queer creators and our content based on real experience of being queer?

A lot of it is a sort of fetishisation of hot, young gay men, often by straight women that I find icky in the same way I'm really just not into comics about hot busty lesbians by straight men (like, there definitely are good comics with F-F relationships by men, Gunnerkrigg Court and Homestuck both do really well with non-fetishy, genuinely well-developed, believable relationships between flawed, interesting characters, but then you have... you know... other stuff).

I also don't like it because of the internalised mysogyny that's so obviously in effect in many of these female creators who have no interest in writing stories about women, either because they see female characters only as competition for the male character and therefore a threat or antagonist, or because the media has trained them to believe female characters are inherently uninteresting and instead of thinking "well screw that, I'm gonna write interesting women based on my experience of being one!" they've taken it to heart and instead think "only men can be interesting characters, so I'm just gonna write men and ship them together". The media is flawed and massively biased in favour of male characters in terms of complexity and agency, and instead of trying to fix it, these creators have just embraced that flaw, I guess?

Overall, I don't think it's exactly harmful... but I think a lot of it doesn't really help the queer community or women either. (Obviously there are exceptions, but most of them are made by actual queer people).

sekabead
Dec '19

Because guy-on-guy is hot

Some interesting things: most yaoi features bishonen / twinks/ pretty boys stereotype as their mains, and most of the audience is indeed teenager girls (even adult women). I've seen yaoi featuring other stereotypes, but they're quite rare and kind of drowned....

elyss
Dec '19

the TLDR of it is BL gives the softness of a romance a la art and romance, but also the roughness women have been cultivated to feel ashamed of for wanting whether it physical or sexual in nature.

Kura
Dec '19

It's what a large majority of the readers want, so the artists are providing in the hopes of making $$$

Now that's not saying that artists are making BL comics against their will (though yeah... some pretty much are) it's more like, even though it's fuled by mostly BL, these actually a demand for queer stories, so all those artists and writers that were denied entry into traditional publishing because of their queer stories are finally finding an audience, more queer creators = more queer stories.

GesuGesu
Dec '19

It's just the age of BL, that's all. I just accept it, since I was already a fan and reader since the 2000s.

I mean, we've also had golden ages of classic horror, and the current mainstream genre is crime TV or superhero movies (thanks marvel).

azzy-m
Dec '19
darthmongoose

I 100% agree, even if I don't really care about BL. This coming from a bisexual girl [who likes girls more than boys ahem] who once was pretty obsessed with that stuff when I was 11.

Though I think modern BL's actually gotten less harmful. Maybe it's because I stopped actively paying attention a long time ago? I dunno, but I haven't heard of a doujin or anime released recently that has those harmful stuff. The ones I can think off the top of my head were anime from the 200s/early 2010s.

ratscout
Dec '19

Probably because women are the ones who read the most webcomics, and well... Similar to how straight men like watching/reading about lesbians, I think straight women like reading/watching gay men. Because it's so popular, and that's where the money and audience is, I think a lot of people think to themselves, 'well. That person got a lot of tips and fans from doing BL. I better try that, too'. Not personally into the BL genre, myself. It's a little too sex-focused most of the time instead of story-focused for my tastes, but I have nothing against anyone who is into it.

These BL threads always get heated so fast, so I must make my departure now haha.

joannekwan(ง ˙o˙)ว here to help~
Dec '19

Simply put, it's everywhere because there's a demand for it.
While overall LGBT content is gaining traction and building an audience, BL has the advantage of being around since the 2000's with a vast percentage of its audience being straight women.

Much of it is just a straight-up escapist fantasy with the 'uke' as a thinly-veiled stand-in for a woman, hence the big draw. And since a lot of these women aren't part of the LGBT community, there never really was a demand for BL to be more honest and truthful to the real lives of gay men.
Of course BL written by LGBT creators exist and are more sensitive to the community, but those are just a bucketful in an ocean of straight-made wish-fulfillment.

Personally I'm irked 'cause I'm like, "Melissa, if you want to explore your sexuality, just write a female character! Break that societal mold! Don't put it on poor old Mel, the waif of a brunette with green eyes and freckles who stands at 5'5" and blushes every time he hears the hot guy speak at the coffee shop he's working at!"
Heckin' own your sexuality as a woman! The world needs it.

JRHoch
Dec '19
1

I remember having a conversation with a lesbian about why some lesbians watch gay porn and she said it's more physical than straight or lesbian porn and she gets to fantasize. Gay men never watch lesbian porn--though some do love many lesbian-themed comics and movies for the character development.

AmazementComicsThe Best Fruit Smoothies
Dec '19

because LGBT representation is becoming more mainstream. Tapastic just so happens to be one of those media outlets that promotes it more often than others. Some of the comics are written by women, but some i'm almost certain are written by gay men. The influx of said BL/Yaoi stories in general is unbelievable in my opinion.

Zyephen
Dec '19
1

It's because it appeals to female audiences in a way that most western media does not. Romance and sex between 2 guys, allows women to fantasize and objectify men, wherein, most media(especially western media) does not allow women to express this. Women are sexualized and objectified in practically everything in the west, from commercials, to comics, to movies, games, and tv. But rarely are men portrayed like this to women, and if they are, its to a much lesser degree, as it is just not really as acceptable in western culture. BL just sort of allows women to embrace their sexuality in a safe and fulfilling way.... at least that what I think.

Eightfish
Dec '19

Adding on to what everyone else is saying, I think BL stories also have the inherent drama of being "forbidden romance." When done well, coming out or persecution stories can be very powerful. And even when not, they're an easy way to add emotion to a story.

Maps
Dec '19
1

I sort of thought that too about the forbidden love thing. And like a femininity and masculinity thing. It's never been taboo for girls to hug, hold hands, and touch one another (and I mean this mainly platonically), but it's always been a taboo for men to do that the way women can (in Western culture anyway). I think people enjoy reading stories where that barrier is being torn down.
That said, I'd love to see GL get it's own category.

indagold
Dec '19

It's cause girls don't like seeing other girls doing the dirty, makes them squicked out. Same with dudes into lesbo porn. It's not rocket science. Fujo girls probably read comics more then men too so there's a surplus.

Eightfish
Dec '19

They're probably also turned off by the horrid acting by women in porn. I feel like it's harder to tell when someone is faking when they're the opposite gender.