I'm a BL fan, so I went deep dive into BL Academia. (LONG READ)

[GesuGesu]

EDIT!! Trigger warning: references and mentions to sexual violence, pedophilia.

I've been in the mood to return to reading some more "scholarly" stuff of late, so I decided to pick a topic that was of personal interest to me: BL. Now, I am not really trying to push, defend, or propagate any one opinion on the genre itself, but if my personal bias does leak out any time throughout this thread, I apologize in advance. (I'm a BL fan after all!)

Considering that many current online discourses on BL that I encounter tend to tackle issues of "underage characters", or "problematic, abusive relationships", and the "female fetishization of gay males", I wanted to pick out a few choice lines from my various readings that address some of these concerns.

I read the first article that popped up in my search for relevant BL-related texts:

Unfortunately it was short as heck, so I ended up clicking on the article that was referenced in their citations for further reading.

The next one was quite interesting. It began by raising its concern towards the female gaze.

The full book is Girl Reading Girl in Japan: https://books.google.ca/books/about/Girl_Reading_Girl_in_Japan.html?id=dqPBR-Nx77UC&redir_esc=y

I liked sections where they focused on the fact that BL originated as a space for females to be able to create content for other females. Literally girl-to-girl. We as westerners see BL as a large section of LGBT content, but BL's origins was a female-oriented genre that allowed females to explore their sexuality in safety, without using their real bodies. Understandably, an overwhelming majority of BL fans are female. The book further indicates that females who dabble in BL also use it as a means to navigate their own sexuality, whether leaning towards homosexuality (lesbian), coming to terms with relationship issues in heterosexuality, (being able to read about traumatic relationships without having to read from the position of a female-bodied character), and so on.

Finally, I made it to a journal article that I actually quite liked! Here's a highlighted section to build off of how females use BL as a space to explore their sexualities from a safe distance.

All the further lines I share from here on are all from:

Mark McLelland (2005) The World of Yaoi: The Internet, Censorship
and the Global ‘Boys‘ Love’ Fandom, Australian Feminist Law Journal, 23:1, 61-77, DOI:
10.1080/13200968.2005.10854344

So here we can tackle the often-raised concern of BL being a genre where females fetishize gay male relationships.

First off, referring back to the highlighted lines from "Girl Reading Girl", it is suggested that the female can take back power by being able to "play and act with fictional male characters" to her discretion. This can be akin to the modern argument, "If men can enjoy lesbian porn, then why can't women enjoy gay porn?". If it can be said that men have colonized women, women can also colonize men through their images. (Matsuura). If we try to step away from associating BL with LGBT studies, and more towards BL being connected to feminist idealogies, then the BL genre can be regarded as an avenue for women to empower themselves.

The opportunities BL gives to its female audience is not just limited to sexual exploration and communication with other females, but also economic or financial benefits.

Of course, we know that particularly in Japan, women don't have a very equal role in the work force. It has been improving, but there are still some societal and deep-rooted cultural barriers to females in the workforce.

The other concern in criticism of BL as a genre is that it features many violent sexual relationships, often depicting rape in its plot lines. In regards to that, the third shared image highlights a possible reason behind the frequent depictions of sexual violence in BL. While allowing depictions of so-called "deviant" sexual interests may lead to real, physical harm in the most extreme cases, at the same time, women are using BL as a tool to navigate otherwise traumatizing sexual violence through a fictional character that cannot face the same ensuing consequences of unwanted pregnancy and childbirth. In a sense, to be able to experience the trauma by separating their real self via a complete fictional entity can lead to female sexual liberation from what normally would tie them down.

Finally, the issue of underage characters in BL. The early sections of McLelland's article does address the overarching concern of virtual child pornography, and began its foray into yaoi culture as a way to examine it from a different, female, point of view.

Not entirely captured in this image is an early explanation on the original Japanese audience for BL. Originally an off-shoot of the Shoujo genre, its primary consumers were aimed for school-age girls who read BL as a subgenre to classic heterosexual romantic comics and literature. As BL tended towards more sexual relationships, when it expanded in the west, it's audience became more limited and targeted towards "adult content" rather than the original juvenile audience. Hence, that may be one explanation why many BL manga of Japanese origin feature school-age boys.

Let's look at more highlights from the article:

Now, here is where I disagree with the author's sentiments. Mark McLelland describes yaoi culture as "a non-pedophile network" in contrast to the often male-dominated pedophilic interest groups online. While he states that "there is no evidence whatsoever to suggest that these women have any connection with pedophile networks", there is also no guarantee that these women DO have connections with aforementioned networks.Regardless, the key word in both his and my point here for BL fans is "fictional".

We all know that the males in BL are not necessarily realistic depictions of gay men nor gay relationships. A frequent discourse I see around the internet is that by perpetuating constant unrealistic and inaccurate male homoerotic fiction, it in lieu hurts or damages real gay men and their relationships.

This highlighted section offers an alternative suggestion behind why the males in BL is often unrealistic. It suggests that these boys are simply "the idealized self-image of girls", hence neither male nor female. In addition, by emphasizing that these fictional males in BL are not "male", then they also do not necessarily represent "children" in the same logical sense. The characters are representations of the female ideal, a symbol upon which the audience lavish their most idealized sexual fantasies, and their darkest fantasies.

Due to the sexual nature of stories and its general youthful characters, BL toes a dangerous line with child pornographic laws. In Japan, yaoi, along with any other generally "deviant" sexual genres such as lolicon, is not criminally prosecuted due to Japan having a category of law similar to Antragsdelikt, which is a category of offense which cannot be prosecuted without a complaint by the victim. As the "victims", fictional characters in erotic works cannot complain, and thus creating, consuming, and selling such content has become integrated as a part of Japanese pop cultural society.

Antragsdelikt

However, with the increasingly globalized world and a growing BL audience, fans of BL outside of Japan now face the laws and regulations of their own countries.

As the highlights point out, western fans of BL end up taking a defensive position regarding their activities. There is no deep-seated origin story of how the "shoujo genre branched into the shounen-ai genre" in the west like how it grew up in Japan. The law of Antragsdelikt applies only to a few countries, and in Germany, the this category of law cannot be invoked regarding fictional child pornography.

In fact in most countries, child pornography, whether real or fictional, is illegal.

There have been previous cases where people who ordered manga from Japan were arrested, convicted, and sentenced for breaking their home countries laws.
https://comicsalliance.com/man-sentenced-to-6-months-in-prison-for-buying-lolicon-manga/

The-O Network - U.S. Man Arrested in Canada for Possession and Importation of...

Middlesbrough man creates legal history after being convicted of possessing...

Of course, while these cases highlight the issues of an international fanbase for erotic manga, in some cases, conviction completely depends on what registers as "offensive".

The problem highlighted in the Australian law is that the definition applies if it "[causes] offense to reasonable persons", and homoerotic content is already somewhat outside of the norms, least to say "cause offense". Meanwhile, for other countries, laws are strict:

Andrea Wood (2013) Boys' Love anime and queer desires in convergence culture: transnational fandom, censorship and resistance, Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics, 4:1, 44-63, DOI: 10.1080/21504857.2013.784201

Once again, due to the varying degrees in law enforcement, and the fact that regulations regarding real, virtual, and fictional child pornography across countries vary, international BL fans find themselves feeling defensive over their interests and activities. The more that commercial BL finds itself into the spotlight outside of Japan, the more opportunities for "reasonable persons" in the West to find the content offensive and make fans of the genre feel even more stigmatized. While my thoughts may not be wholly accurate and possibly missing a complete view on the topic, I do feel that the western concern on BL, regarding the fetishization of gay males, depiction of harmful sexual relationships, and frequent underage characters is justified considering the global outlook. However, we mustn't forget that BL had its origins as a genre by females, for females, for the greater liberation of control and communication between females regarding their gender roles and sexuality. BL may now be better known or infamous for its impact on the LGBT community, but it has also been an avenue for women to empower themselves through fiction.
--

Sorry that was so long! If anyone wants to add on their thoughts to what I've provided, feel free! I can't guarantee that this thread won't go down like all the other BL threads, but I did want to put out some academic background behind the whole "BL blah blah" thing that happens here and elsewhere on the internet.

My personal background behind this is just as a BL fan. If knowing my ethnicity, gender, and sexual orientation will help you better understand my personal outlook on the subject, I am happy to share.

[Seaby]

I wondered what was meant when the text stated 'children', because when that word in particular comes to mind I imagine those 13 and younger, but I assume that most of the text is referring to middle/high school boys below legal age (I'll be referring to the U.S.'s 18). Which is not to say it changes the implied problematic nature of Yaoi/BL, but it puts it into another context.

There is the ultimate problem that these manga are being created by adults for an adult audience and contain boys that are not of legal age in sexual scenarios. But it can be said that, despite the over 18 warnings placed on these manga, teenagers are also reading them.

Looking further into the western experience with BL, many of these girls/women gained interest young, [I'm assuming based on personal observation] during their teenage years. To them, the compromising situations that these other children are placed into do not register as obscene. It is a sensitive discussion topic, but the obvious reality is teens seek out these types of sexual media, and they prefer the ones that best reflect the current period of their lives. Yaoi about high school boys fit the bill, because they share the same age group.

I cannot say whether or not it would be considered unfair for Yaoi manga to be under such heavy restriction. There's a very real pedophilia problem in Japan, and the effects of it on children might not be obvious on the surface, but they are present. And it only makes sense that the sexual media that adults view, be they male or female, should be devoid of children. The normalization of that kind of media has consequences. The same can be said about those that contain sexual violence - it's difficult (if not nearly impossible) to depict such an act within a sexual piece of media without the scene trying to come off as titillating to the reader.

But it's also difficult to determine to what extent a restriction on that type of media will detriment female readers/writers that want to explore their sexuality through the lens of a homosexual male relationship. If not through the safety of a fictional narrative, how and where do they find an outlet to explore these themes? Especially with the topic of sexual violence; there's a disconnect between those who want to view it in a safe space and those who believe its placement within these manga fetishize something that causes great distress to those who have experienced it.

[amortelito]

I support creative freedom, as the article points out, fantasy is a way to explore subjects from a point of safety. I personally find it troubling when people are trying to control what people should write about.

I struggle when I hear people say that heterosexual women don't have the right to write about gay men, or that they need to be LGBT to have the right to make their story. I truly don't think it is anyone's place to tell others that they can't explore sexuality in fiction. You can't blame people for their preferences or what they are passionate about. That can't be helped.

At the same time, I recognize the concerns around BL. and the fetishization should not cross the line of reality. I don't support people sexualizing gay people influenced by what they see in the BL series. (I knew a Yaoi fan who would follow gay couples to see when they kissed, she even set up his own friends to kiss. That's a no!) Real-life people should get respect. In the end, people should be able to distinguish right from wrong, not only BL fans but fiction in general, people need to have criteria instead of blindly follow what they see in fiction.

I also understand when people want to have stories that represent them, to have stories that are healthier and realistic. This is totally fine and fair too. In this case, I see that if an author decides to go into the "realistic" approach real-life LGBTQ members will be critical because the intention is to represent them. But to me, it would be unfair that the whole genre gets demonized and banned when they are not showing pretty and correct content.

---

As a whole different subject showing sexualizing children is not the same as exploring sexual orientation and preferences. Homosexuality and pedophilia are not comparable. In some countries, even cartoons count as child exploitation and child porn. This is a crime. While I support creative freedom I also believe in responsibility and there is content that should not be distributed if authorities consider it illegal. To summarize this point freedom ends when a crime is committed.

[Cavechan]

First of all, amazing job compiling and typing all of this! Perhaps there isn't a max character limit after all.

I don't have a lot of time to read into every word here, but here are some of my thoughts from what I have read.

We as westerners see BL as a large section of LGBT content, but BL's origins was a female-oriented genre that allowed females to explore their sexuality in safety, without using their real bodies.

I agree with BL being separated from LGBT+ content, but "exploring their sexuality in safety".... eh.... maybe for some people? I just don't see BL/yaoi as anything more than eye candy really. Maybe exploring sexuality in general... but exploring for the sake of "not getting pregnant, losing their virginity, or becoming unsuited for marriage"? I think that's stretching it for most, especially since most BL stuff is pretty vanilla.

While allowing depictions of so-called "deviant" sexual interests may lead to real, physical harm in the most extreme cases

I'm sorry, but I don't understand how a drawing of something can lead to someone committing or normalizing a violent act. In fact, I'd say it usually has the opposite effect as people can see the trauma it causes and emphasize with the characters or in the case of sexual gratification... well, it could gratify their sexual fantasies in a safe space.

Originally an off-shoot of the Shoujo genre, its primary consumers were aimed for school-age girls who read BL as a subgenre to classic heterosexual romantic comics and literature. As BL tended towards more sexual relationships, when it expanded in the west, it's audience became more limited and targeted towards "adult content" rather than the original juvenile audience. Hence, that may be one explanation why many BL manga of Japanese origin feature school-age boys.

I think the main reason, at least when it comes to BL doujinshi, is that most of the characters just happen to be school-age because it's where like 90% of manga tend to take place. It's more so the character the reader is fantasizing rather than the age of the character (not that they have actual ages, being fictional characters/abstractions and all).

Mark McLelland describes yaoi culture as "a non-pedophile network" in contrast to the often male-dominated pedophilic interest groups online. While he states that "there is no evidence whatsoever to suggest that these women have any connection with pedophile networks", there is also no guarantee that these women DO have connections with aforementioned networks.

I do get what he's saying. There is a clear - VERY CLEAR - difference between a BL work that features teenagers and straight up shotacon in which the characters can look like 5 years old. Just google some covers and you get the idea.

It is a good point though that you cannot completely separate the two. There will be overlap of these categories, though it is just staggeringly less for women.

It suggests that these boys are simply "the idealized self-image of girls", hence neither male nor female. In addition, by emphasizing that these fictional males in BL are not "male", then they also do not necessarily represent "children" in the same logical sense.

I do agree that the characters shouldn't be understood as 'children', but not really for this reason. Like, they just aren't children. Period. Like I can't punch a drawing of a character and that means I punched a person. I always like to refer back to one of my favorite paintings "The Treachery of Images" by Rene Magritte to illustrate the point.

To an extent, every character we create does have a bit of ourselves in them. But I think most times, people draw the characters because they like the characters. And people draw teenage characters because that's overwhelmingly the market. I really think many times these things get read into more than they need to be.

[GesuGesu]

I wondered what was meant when the text stated 'children', because when that word in particular comes to mind I imagine those 13 and younger, but I assume that most of the text is referring to middle/high school boys below legal age (I'll be referring to the U.S.'s 18). Which is not to say it changes the implied problematic nature of Yaoi/BL, but it puts it into another context.

Yup! The "children" in these texts as well as according to most laws regarding the abuse of children are for people under the age of 18.

There is the ultimate problem that these manga are being created by adults for an adult audience and contain boys that are not of legal age in sexual scenarios. But it can be said that, despite the over 18 warnings placed on these manga, teenagers are also reading them.

This is the issue in the difference between BL marketing in Japan versus BL marketing in the rest of the world. BL is considered in the same category as "girls' comics" in Japan, so shoujo and the like, generally targeted towards high school girls. In the West, BL is considered an "adult genre". So on one side of the world, teenage girls are reading homoerotic manga about teenage boys, which makes it seems fairly normal and acceptable for their audience's age range, and on the other side of the world, adults are reading homoerotic manga about teenage boys. which suddenly changes the context to be more pedophilic in nature. The problem probably got lost in localisation.

There's a very real pedophilia problem in Japan, and the effects of it on children might not be obvious on the surface, but they are present. And it only makes sense that the sexual media that adults view, be they male or female, should be devoid of children. The normalization of that kind of media has consequences. The same can be said about those that contain sexual violence - it's difficult (if not nearly impossible) to depict such an act within a sexual piece of media without the scene trying to come off as titillating to the reader.

I totally agree. This doesn't erase that there is INDEED a pedophilia problem in Japan. I think the most famous case regarding how dangerous erotic manga depicting children was the 1987 case where a Japanese otaku did something something to 4 preschool-aged girls. Ew. That case is the definitive spark that gave Japanese otaku a bad reputation.

Unfortunately with manga also being a protected Japanese cultural arts, it's hard to really regulate and draw the line between artistic expression, freedom of expression, and depictions of child abuse IN artwork. At this point, it's getting a little out of my research and I'd have to go back out into the wild to research some more.

At the same time, I recognize the concerns around BL. and the fetishization should not cross the line of reality. I don't support people sexualizing gay people influenced by what they see in the BL series. (I knew a Yaoi fan who would follow gay couples to see when they kissed, she even set up his own friends to kiss. That's a no!) Real-life people should get respect. In the end, people should be able to distinguish right from wrong, not only BL fans but fiction in general, people need to have criteria instead of blindly follow what they see in fiction.

Yes, I agree with you! Unfortunately, we can't exactly determine how to prevent and control a percentage of the BL fandom and culture that do end up confusing the line between fiction and reality. Those few are what lead to those unfortunate and reputation-damaging news articles for anime and manga fans.

I also understand when people want to have stories that represent them, to have stories that are healthier and realistic. This is totally fine and fair too. In this case, I see that if an author decides to go into the "realistic" approach real-life LGBTQ members will be critical because the intention is to represent them. But to me, it would be unfair that the whole genre gets demonized and banned when they are not showing pretty and correct content.

I think it's also fair! BL fans can't create and consume BL without expecting that members of the LGBT community will encounter it at some point. Of course, while the genre is steeped in "fantasy", because of how BL and LGBT are slowly becoming more and more intersectioned, BL in recent years are becoming more realistic, or at least, authors are trying to be more wary of their wider audiences.

As a whole different subject showing sexualizing children is not the same as exploring sexual orientation and preferences. Homosexuality and pedophilia are not comparable. In some countries, even cartoons count as child exploitation and child porn. This is a crime. While I support creative freedom I also believe in responsibility and there is content that should not be distributed if authorities consider it illegal. To summarize this point freedom ends when a crime is committed.

Yes! Actually, the main concern I had with BL were the criminal offense side of things. I want to consume what I want to consume, but I also don't want to break the law! The main takeaway I got from looking up all those laws on child pornography and fictional child pornography was that I need to be careful and better protect myself by avoiding the BL content that could land me in jail. However, we cannot prevent more content that sexualizes "children" from being produced in countries where fictional children are not protected under their child abuse laws.

I'm sorry, but I don't understand how a drawing of something can lead to someone committing or normalizing a violent act. In fact, I'd say it usually has the opposite effect as people can see the trauma it causes and emphasize with the characters or in the case of sexual gratification... well, it could gratify their sexual fantasies in a safe space.

Haha, I don't really believe in it either, but I do want to account for the people out there who do think that fantasy can lead to reality. I mean, it's an argument that people have been throwing around for ages, like how "Death Note is dangerous because kids have been writing their teacher's names in a fake death note!" I gotta consider all the sides and be prepared for counterarguments, right?

I think the main reason, at least when it comes to BL doujinshi, is that most of the characters just happen to be school-age because it's where like 90% of manga tend to take place. It's more so the character the reader is fantasizing rather than the age of the character (not that they have actual ages, being fictional characters/abstractions and all).

Yeah, it's hard to really put a label on drawings AKA abstractions. If a creator draws a young-looking character and says they are 2000 years old, what can we say? But at the same time, there are also arguments saying that drawing a "child-like" character is still enabling dangerous behaviour by some convenient nature.

[Cavechan]

I want to consume what I want to consume, but I also don't want to break the law! The main takeaway I got from looking up all those laws on child pornography and fictional child pornography was that I need to be careful and better protect myself by avoiding the BL content that could land me in jail.

Yes, I think this is important to keep in mind. I've been an anime/manga fan since I was 13 years old. Over the years, you collect a LOT of stuff from here and there without really thinking much of it. Now I know how to avoid things that someone might see and find gross or whatever and get rid of things I don't like any more.

If a creator draws a young-looking character and says they are 2000 years old, what can we say?

Seriously, it's so stupid. I can create a really old looking person and say they're 4 years old. I can create a young person and they're 2000 years old. It's meaningless. You can't go by looks at all, not IRL either. "She looked 18" doesn't fly as an argument. And people can be short and have "baby" faces.

[nostalgicroxas]

I didn't get to read your whole post, but did you come across the articles that talk about

1. Women in Japan are less and less wanting to have kids / marry and fit into the expected role in society. Because of this, "they" being men (assumed by the writer of the article iirc) blame things like BL and Yaoi, and general internet, being a thing that has decreased the woman's interest in having a family.
2. Marriage rates and women having kids has dropped in the last decade, leading "Japan" to worry that their workforce will become "nothing" (because of their refusal to hire women).

My only comment somewhat outside of these two points I have seen in prior articles on the topic, is in the regard to rape/rape being glamorized/rape being a tool for love and relationships in specifically yaoi, is not something unique to the male gay porn in Japan. Much of hentai involves rape. And a quick visit to practically any porn website (USA based iirc, like pornhub) will show their most searched keywords, and words like "rape" are in the top three, if not the number one slot.

[GesuGesu]

Women in Japan are less and less wanting to have kids / marry and fit into the expected role in society. Because of this, "they" being men (assumed by the writer of the article iirc) blame things like BL and Yaoi, and general internet, being a thing that has decreased the woman's interest in having a family

I will actually have to look up articles on the correlations between women in Japan being less willing to marry and have kids and their participation in BL culture and similar internet-based activities.

Marriage rates and women having kids has dropped in the last decade, leading "Japan" to worry that their workforce will become "nothing" (because of their refusal to hire women).

For this point, yes, I have read articles that talk about the Japanese workforce fears and their response to women in the workforce, as well as workplace discrimination on unmarried young women. I haven't read any articles from scholarly journal sources yet, but I should when I have time. While your first point does relate to the overall post about BL, I'm not sure how reading more into "Japan's refusal to hire women" is related to the BL topic.

rape/rape being glamorized/rape being a tool for love and relationships in specifically yaoi, is not something unique to the male gay porn in Japan. Much of hentai involves rape. And a quick visit to practically any porn website (USA based iirc, like pornhub) will show their most searched keywords, and words like "rape" are in the top three, if not the number one slot.

This point is a little difficult to address, since hentai, or ero-manga in Japan is less of a female-dominated sphere, so the argument that "rape is a tool for love" does not apply as cleanly as it does to yaoi/BL, where women may use it as a means to safely experience trauma. While there is no lack of female hentai manga artists out there, I have not found any evidence supporting the prominence of rape in hentai written by female creators.

On a side note, Midori Makita, a Japanese statistician, compiled a chart on 19 adult manga magazines on what percentage of their intercourse is consensual: https://soranews24.com/2019/05/03/how-much-erotic-manga-intercourse-is-consensual-researcher-releases-findings/

Some of the numbers do not add up to 100 due to some of the intercourse being grey-area, or what we might call dub-con / dubious consent.

In summary, 79% of intercourse in Japanese erotic manga according to 19 magazine publishers is consensual. 19% of intercourse in manga is non-consensual. The remaining 2% is grey-area/dubious consent. Magnum X is a 100% consensual sex magazine, while Angel Club is over 75% rapey stories.

Of course, because this source didn't come from like, a .gov, .edu, or .org domain, I can't say that this can be trusted.

Edit: I did a quick visit to "Pornhub" as well as "any porn website" (actually, I just went for a global map of most popular porn searches). Click to open the details since there's gonna be some... spicy tag names below.

Summary

The short answer: No, rape is not anywhere in the top searched keywords on a certain porn site.

The extended answer: Take the statistics with a grain of salt as Pornhub isn't exactly a professional statistical organization, just an adult entertainment company.

[GesuGesu]

In regards to @nostalgicroxas 's first point that I said I'd have to read more on: I found some stuff! It's not directly related to "men" blaming decrease in marriage on BL and Yaoi, but we can probably draw some conclusions from it.

Let's take a tentative look at those highlights, and say that it's possible that women in Japan are increasingly resistant to marriage and expected gender roles may be that the introduction of BL, especially in this case of "Barazoku" and "Yurizoku", awakened consumers of the genre to their own lesbian identities, thus leading to a decrease in wanting to participate in traditional heterosexual values. As more and more women discover that they may in fact, be homosexual themselves, then logically that would correlate with the dropping interest in marriage in a hetero-normative Japanese society.

Honestly I'm not a big fan of this article, but we gotta make do with what we have.

There's a little bit of a shallow darkness exposed of the female readers in this article. They are straight women, who, due to their love of the BL genre, also wish that they could be "homosexual", but they cannot suddenly become lesbian, and they also cannot become a gay man. They are locked in this battle between consuming an ideal and becoming an ideal. This article actually provides good fuel for the argument FOR female fetishization of homosexual relationships.

In the end, I don't see anything here that may imply a male blame on BL for why women are becoming less willing to marry, have kids, and fit into their expected gender roles. Maybe someone else can draw more from this? Sorry, that didn't really answer the question raised earlier

[nostalgicroxas]

The bit that I saw from what I recall, was someone talking about their article they had written. The segment on TV was outlining what their article was about, and mentioned the name of it, but it was a year ago at least. It was OPB or CNN or some such. I didn't put tons of stock into it, nor in remembering it, since while it felt on the surface like an innocent peek into "this is what yaoi is" and "women spend their days off from work reading yaoi" and "women find comfort in reading yaoi than having a relationship" for the Westerner to see what it is, for those who didn't know, it felt like it had a lot of societal undertones of stigmatizing and generalizing yaoi and shounen-ai/BL. Primarily in regard to the "women don't date because they'd rather sit and read" and, it felt like the women they did interviews for it, had their sentences taken out of context. Such as: one saying something along the lines of "work is hard and stressful, and a relationship is too much stress, so it's easier to relax and just read", but taken out of context in it stating "this woman would rather read about two boys having sex than be married". Not exactly the most helpful interview/article in today's LGBT+ climate

[GesuGesu]

Ok, I think I know which article that is, since I swear there was a video on Youtube where I remembered those exact lines "women don't date because they'd rather sit and read". If you somehow manage to find it, please link it to me!

And, news media tends to chop up information to deliver the narrative they want. That's just the unfortunate truth of today's mass media climate. I've had my friends get interviewed about cosplay, only to get their part cut out from the TV segment because they didn't give the answer the reporters wanted.

[Cavechan]

The main takeaway I got from looking up all those laws on child pornography and fictional child pornography was that I need to be careful and better protect myself by avoiding the BL content that could land me in jail.

I just thought of another thing concerning this too. I would recommend people who travel pay attention to these laws in other countries if something is legal in their country but not legal in the other country, you could get in serious trouble.

Canada, for example, is EXTREMELY strict on drawings that they have arbitrarily decide look "underage" (probably similar to Patreon's policy) or even just too obscene. Here is the case that was incredibly ridiculous: http://cbldf.org/about-us/case-files/cbldf-case-files/cbldf-case-files-canada-customs-case/

In the end, the case was dismissed, but not before years of his life was ruined and he had $75k worth of legal fees.

I remember before they had one of the "obscene" images on the website as an example, but I'm not finding it now. It was seriously like these super generic and simplified characters, like a step above stick figures, in karma sutra positions and didn't show any "dangly" bits or the like.

There is a list of manga and comics that have been prohibited or admissible by Canadian customs: http://cbldf.org/resources/customs/comics-seized-by-canadian-border-officials/

[NickRowler]

Westerners are critical of BL/Yaoi but I feel like it is also something that is also very criticized in Japanese culture as well. Fans are referred to as "dirty" and I don't think it is something that is widely embraced by that majority of Japanese people. I don't think the problematic tropes are anything unique to just BL, they are only same-sex version of what appears in a lot of straight media. Yet does Japan really as critical as the fetishization of school girls? And even Western otaku may point out the problems of something like Boku no Pico while turning a blind eye when similar elements happen in erotic anime featuring straight relationships.

I also find a weird double standard of Americans who may point at Japan for their problematic perversions yet not assess YA novels which depict minors in sexual situations but can get away with it because there are no pictures.

I am not trying to defend any of it, I just think it is a problem that is not unique to just BL or Japan.

[Mallory]

A couple of my own thoughts:

"Exploring sexuality safely" generally means "having space to acknowledge oneself as a sexual being with desires and interests" rather than "lol fantasy were I don't get preggo or raped." In other words, it's an opportunity to regain control and power in one's own sexuality, rather than pursuit of any specific scenario. I think the point of yaoi being devoid of women serves more to that fact, since not having women = not having a reminder of what you, a woman, are supposed to be like (pretty, passive and dumb) by societal expectations.

I think something that a lot of these articles are failing to consider is that yaoi creates a dual outlet for women to explore their sexuality... Because the readers have the opportunity to vicariously live through both the aggressive AND the passive male. The aggressive is the key bit here, since there are very few (i.e. honestly almost none) opportunities for straight women who are assertive/dominant to explore that aspect of their sexuality, and just from personal experience, there are a lot more women who are into being the pursuer (or at least an egalitarian switch) than any media lets on. Yaoi creates a situation where, if being the one to pursue a guy is your kind of jam, you can focus your attention on the more passive/restrained (not necessarily in the kinky way) male as your ideal partner and view the aggressive/hunter male as a stand-in for yourself.

Lastly, I don't think the consent issues of yaoi can be considered without considering it through both the lens above, and the predominance of "seduction fantasies" straight romance novels. Essentially, (as per academic articles I'm too lazy to locate again, since it's been a while) there is a difference between "rape fantasy" and "seduction fantasy". Rape fantasy focuses on the element of the non-consent as a feature; there's a good chunk of it to go around through all kinds of porn and yaoi is not unique for it. What I think most people call "non-consent" in yaoi is actually the good ol' seduction fantasy, wherein the consent does actually exist (i.e. it's dubcon), but one of the parties "pretends" they don't actually want The Sex until the mighty pursuer converts their way of thinking via being just Very Incredible. There's been a ton of analysis done of that in the context of straight romance novels, and the thinking is that it basically allows women to - once again - explore their sexuality, without having to deal with the trouble that is societal expectations that women who are too happy about having sex are worthless. In the context of yaoi, I think it creates a power fantasy for women where they can fantasize about being so thoroughly sexy (and not shamed/harassed for it) that even a guy who doesn't want the sex (a unicorn - and rarities are always desirable) can't help but fall for "you".

Lastly, I'm honestly all for media catering to sexual needs of teenage girls because they deserve to have their interests and desires acknowledged. But I still can't help but cough when I go to rewatch something that I remember having adult characters, who most definitely LOOK like adult characters, and suddenly one of them goes "Oh yeah I'm 15." Like what is the appeal here? His character design looks like an adult and acts like an adult, why arbitrarily de-age him? Something doesn't sit right here. (I suppose it's infinitely better than "I look ten but I'm a 2000 year old dragon so it's ok, you can bone me")

[yansusu]

There's one thing (or actually two) I'd like to add in regard to the depiction of "idealized versions" of men:

For one, beauty standards in anything romance-related are often ridiculous. Whether it's shoujo manga or even western het romance novels, both the protagonist and the love interest will both be ridiculously good-looking. (Unless it's YA where the female protagonist will at least describe herself as only average.) So I don't find it strange at all that it's the same for BL which is just part of that very same genre.
Second (although this is pretty much connected), I highly doubt that this is just because most creators and consumers are females. I did a study on magazines for gay men back in university and you bet that the men shown in there are just as much idealizations (and very, very much stereotypes).
Now, you can argue that magazines are different but I think it just boils down to the fact that most people like looking at good-looking people. Like, if you look at any media (both straight and gay), then 90+% of people shown (or described) will be good-looking. In fact, if there's ugly people (or maybe even just average-looking that will be sold as being ugly), then they'll often be the odd one out where their whole point will be being ugly.

So, overall, I think that the idealization of the men in BL doesn't actually have very much to do with who creates it or the genre itself. It's a universal problem across all types of media.

[nostalgicroxas]

Agreed. The idealized versions of men and women is a thing that just is everywhere. And even "average" or "ugly" characters are drawn or somehow made more handsome by tricks like lighting or adjusting something to make that ugly thing beautiful. Which isn't bad. It's just something that's common across the board- we want to all be beautiful, look at beautiful people, and be accepted as beautiful even with our physical traits not being "hetero norm beautiful".
An example of this is the movies on Hallmark channel -their actors could all be the same person based on how they do the hair for the girls, and the clothing for guys. They're all similar builds, similar hair, similar features. If it wasn't a live action, people'd be screaming the Disney-face syndrome was happening.
I think the same is also the same for fashion magazines- even ones entirely "innocent" and are just selling clothing like say L.L.Bean or Duluth or Hanes. Much of their models are similar. Hanes, men, can have a wider variety of colors and builds, but the women are almost all the same in builds.

It's like cursing tropes and clichés - they're those things for a reason.

[GesuGesu]

There is a list of manga and comics that have been prohibited or admissible by Canadian customs: http://cbldf.org/resources/customs/comics-seized-by-canadian-border-officials/

This list is amazing! It's so funny how Ramba, No. One: Violent Death is prohibited but Ramba, No. Two: A Perfect Hit was admissable.

Fans are referred to as "dirty" and I don't think it is something that is widely embraced by that majority of Japanese people. I don't think the problematic tropes are anything unique to just BL, they are only same-sex version of what appears in a lot of straight media. Yet does Japan really as critical as the fetishization of school girls? And even Western otaku may point out the problems of something like Boku no Pico while turning a blind eye when similar elements happen in erotic anime featuring straight relationships.

You make a good point there. Fujoshi and Fudanshi still aren't exactly looked well upon in Japanese society, much like regular otaku. I'm sure "typical" Japanese people regard all otaku culture as weird, regardless of little girls or boys love.

I think something that a lot of these articles are failing to consider is that yaoi creates a dual outlet for women to explore their sexuality... Because the readers have the opportunity to vicariously live through both the aggressive AND the passive male. The aggressive is the key bit here, since there are very few (i.e. honestly almost none) opportunities for straight women who are assertive/dominant to explore that aspect of their sexuality, and just from personal experience,

I think one of the articles did imply that yaoi allowed women to "play with men like puppets on a stage", so whatever violent sexual fantasies they wanted to INFLICT was also under the woman's control.

Lastly, I don't think the consent issues of yaoi can be considered without considering it through both the lens above, and the predominance of "seduction fantasies" straight romance novels. Essentially, (as per academic articles I'm too lazy to locate again, since it's been a while) there is a difference between "rape fantasy" and "seduction fantasy".

I actually did not know there was a thing called "seduction fantasy"! Even if you are too lazy to locate the articles, my curiosity is piqued enough that I might attempt to look them up myself.

But I still can't help but cough when I go to rewatch something that I remember having adult characters, who most definitely LOOK like adult characters, and suddenly one of them goes "Oh yeah I'm 15." Like what is the appeal here? His character design looks like an adult and acts like an adult, why arbitrarily de-age him? Something doesn't sit right here. (I suppose it's infinitely better than "I look ten but I'm a 2000 year old dragon so it's ok, you can bone me")

Part of it is the humor in breaking down your expectations. Jotaro is a huge, hunking 6" tall male, but he's only 17. It makes scenes where people offer him alcohol only for him to refuse because he's underage that much more amusing. The reverse situation is also true, such as how very few people expect a 10-year-old looking person to actually be their classroom teacher! I don't really see a problem with playing with fictional character ages in non-sexual situations, but in sexual situations, I tend not to think about it too much.

So, overall, I think that the idealization of the men in BL doesn't actually have very much to do with who creates it or the genre itself. It's a universal problem across all types of media.

That I can agree with. People just like "eye candy" sometimes, and the media will cater to what sells.

[Mallory]

Part of it is the humor in breaking down your expectations. Jotaro is a huge, hunking 6" tall male, but he's only 17. It makes scenes where people offer him alcohol only for him to refuse because he's underage that much more amusing. The reverse situation is also true, such as how very few people expect a 10-year-old looking person to actually be their classroom teacher! I don't really see a problem with playing with fictional character ages in non-sexual situations, but in sexual situations, I tend not to think about it too much.

Oh yeah I specifically meant in sexual situations. I have the "2000 year old dragon" archetype myself in my own story, but he doesn't do anything sexy or anything like that. I'm fine with the weird age appearance in other media, I was actually specifically referring to a very specific yaoi I watched in recent memory (Ai no Kusabi remake, I was a sucket for the convoluted sci-fi world-building original back in high school and I wanted to see what the remake was like) that made me go "hol up" when the main character casually says he's 15.

Also, I have a fun story from a friend who used to be a manga illustrator in Japan. Specifically, she worked for a doujinshi house, and more specifically, they hired her for the porny stuff. She said one day her editor (a middle-aged man) comes in (or calls her, I can't remember) and is like "[Name] - your stuff that you're drawing it's... too gay." And she was like "Uh what does that even mean, I kinda... draw gay sex comics for you?" And he's like "No no no, your art - it appeals too much to gay men. You gotta read the wind here. We might have an 18+ logo slapped on the front, but friend, we all know we draw this stuff for 14-year-old girls. Add some sparkles, get rid of the pubes, and hide the penises, please." She might have actually done a comic about it since she was doing a slice-of-life comic for a while, I'm not sure though.

[thedude3445]

I have only anecdotal evidence to provide (qualitative analysis lol) but I have been to many, many stores throughout all of Japan dedicated to selling character goods and used comics, and a common theme pops up in almost every location: In every Book-Off I've been to, there is an entire aisle for BL mangas, or more if it's a bigger store. It's right next to the shoujo aisle(s), which itself is quite huge. The actual 18+ stuff is relegated to a tiny corner of each store, if there even is one, but for all that steamy-but-still-for-teens BL content, it's pretty proudly displayed. In stores like Animate, the line between "cute boy merch" and "cute boys making out" merch is pretty blurred as well, unless that Animate literally separates them by floor as they sometimes do. In the bigger (or just taller) stores I've been to, entire floors dedicated to nothing but BL content is completely normal.

Regardless of that, though, there is a HUGE portion of each of these stores that serve people looking for yaoi boy kissing, and even though the term Fujoshi 腐女子 is commonly used to deride the people who consume this stuff, it's pretty dang accepted in Japanese nerd culture in a way that I think other slices of otaku really aren't (such as creepy idol group fans). This may have been a shift in culture in recent years but I have no idea.