I just think these authors (presumably females with vaginas) have no idea how gay sex works and simply equate a male's butthole with a vag.
ALL THESE POINTS!!
Tho I have seen my fair share of BL's where the 'uke' is also a weak and fragile thing, actually a LOT.
But yeah, in my current f/m story, I never put an emphasis on beauty for my heroine. She sometimes gets insecure about her looks only because of a rather prominent burns and scarring on her head. But other than that she doesn't go the extra-mile on her appearance.
And once she gets with her partner, he doesn't make any demands for children either, and she doesn't really want them in particular.
I was just saying to Darthmongoose that if BL had anything to do with internalized misogyny good stories with female protags like Mistborn wouldn't be a thing in the first place, but, as I also said, that's neither here nor there
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Thank you! THANK YOU!!
I do always dislike this idea that everyone who reads BL just wants the typical "uke" and "seme" relationship. Makes me roll my eyes hard. BL has come a long way from those old ideals. It's allowed plot and switch characters and equal relationships. That everyone who read BL wants their ukes to be female stand ins who are 5ft and girly (there's a middle ground between that and people who read bara, you know?) personally most of the BL and ships I'm heavily into are equally (even if in different ways) matched people, and many of them 6ft tall, ripped badasses (yes you can do that without crossing into bara) and quite like when that's not eroded for a ship (the only particularly short feminine one is a god of destruction incarnate who can destroy the world and manhandle most the cast without powers and if that isn't hot idk what is).
We all know the reason a lot of young teens get into BL in fanworks is because the relationships between male lead and his best friend has way more chemistry than the male lead and his cardboard cut out love interest. You can't be blamed for wanting the main character to have a relationship with some he has chemistry with over a sexy lamp. The problem is when creators don't grow out of these old childish and ingrained tropes. It's just as bad with people who don't grow out of het romance tropes as they mature as creators. Het is just as bad for things like stalking is romantic, possessiveness and jealousy just means he cares ect.
Yeah, lol, I always avoid any story that use the term Uke/Seme or Alpha/Omega. I dunno it just feels like cliche hetero relationship with extra step where one partner is submissive(female) but has a dick instead of a vagina. Then again I never enjoy porn for the sake of porn. I don't mind reading it sometimes but I can't get into story that's just pure porn or erotica. I need real plot damn it not "Plot".
Short school skirts are a thing though, even with a school that has knee-length skirts some students will take the extra-step to shorten it because they dislike the length. But yeah, the skirts that are like barely covering their vag need to go.
I've been taking a look at the thread, didn't add anything because... I don't have a lot to add lmao, it's not my kind of read (anymore at least, I'd rather read fantasy now lmao). Anyway, I found this thread in my dash, in case anyone wants to take a look, I think it makes some interesting points.
That was an interesting read. Thanks for posting. I like reading the views of people whose perspective is very different from mine.
Agreed. When I saw that it was on tumblr I was like “oh gawd what are the comments going to say” but everyone kept it cool.
That's … pretty disheartening to see readers ascribing real world baggage to female characters (of course in many cases this is written into the work as well).
I just think it's all the more reason to write BETTER female characters as a whole, in romances and non-romances. Break this patriarchal system and what not.
(and as an aside, if any of y'all think I'm against BL as a whole, psssshhhh, have you seen the stuff I write and draw? I just have issues with some of the fujoshi community and how some of the stories are framed in a such a heteronormative nature)
I kinda get the 'female characters are not written good' as an argument because oof I understand, but also, dudes in BL / anime / literally anything are also capable of being written REALLY REALLY REALLY FUKING BAD
So I find it kinda weird that if you have a male and female with the same personalities and levels of character writing, only the female is a 'bad character' but a male character is 'owo cutie gay boi protec'
I personally hate as much bad het romance as bad BL.
But I think what makes me really more upset about the common BL tropes and makes me even more unconfortable with the stereotypical roles and poor romance writing, is that for a long time, I could find relatable het romance, but very, very little relatable BL. I remember discovering BL when I was around 15 yo in the 1990', being so enthousiastic about the fact it existed, and then the immense disappointment when I actually read the comics. For a while I actually thought it was some kind of homophobic propaganda to be completely honest. I had to have friends to explain to me the cultural differences and the fact that is was not actually really LGBT works, etc. and got a bit less judgmental, but still, the typical BL is still at the least cringy and disappointing to me, if not worse.
I've never been a manga reader so that was it for my experience in comic-form BL, as for novel-based stuff, I kept an eye on for a bit longer but, nope...
Now, the situation has changed a lot in 20 years and I'm happy to see more LGBT content, some taking source in BL but going further than the stereotypes and tropes of the genre. That's really great! I don't think they are genres so bad that they can't evolve into something interesting.
But still, I have so much of an old issue with the word BL that I'm decided to publish any m/m romance as 'romance', not 'BL'.
[Plus, for a pansexual non-binary person like me, separating romance into categories depending on sex or gender is weird (however I understand it on a marketing point of view). I'm aware that this specific point is very personal though.]