Tapas and LGBT Sensitivity Failures

[GesuGesu]

@HGohwell I do consider BL as unrealistic fiction when consuming it, and most people I know around my age (upper 20s-30s) are also aware of its tropes genre when they read it as well. The stereotypical "fujoshi" behaviour we see online is often new fans of BL who are still young and discovering a genre that they assume is reality and not fiction.

My friend, a consumer of BL, (cis male, bisexual) calls it "a genre that's very similar to shoujo romance, from the types of couplings like teacher x student, to the wild tropes like wall slams". We all don't consider shoujo manga to be realistic, and he similarly compares BL manga to shoujo manga.

BL feels like that middle ground between shoujo and josei manga. It has the unrealistic flappy romance adventures that shoujo would have, but characters would often be older like the office ladies from a josei manga. Considering that it is technically considered a genre "made by women, for women", this description of BL fits well as a road between girlish shoujo and mature josei.

If I wanted realistic LGBT stories, I would specifically read stories that are tagged LGBT, not BL. I consider BL to be it's own genre.

[HGohwell]

Unfortunately, it's often the youngster who are loudest and most annoying in most areas. So, I do think it's quite useful for us older fans not to berate them for it but to try and teach them. Most of them will mature out of it. One credit I will give to Twilight is Stephanie always said she never wanted Bella to be a role model. It wasn't supposed to be for people to look up to, it wasn't supposed to be realistic, it was just what she wanted to write. And I think that approach needs to be taken with more typical tropey BL. Just some acknowledgement that this isn't what you should be looking for irl. Unfortunately this doesn't always work.

My friend, a consumer of BL, (cis male, bisexual) calls it "a genre that's very similar to shoujo romance, from the types of couplings like teacher x student, to the wild tropes like wall slams". We all don't consider shoujo manga to be realistic, and he similarly compares BL manga to shoujo manga.

This is true and I think it's partly because of the perceived sexual nature of it. The same way Erotica in general is looked down on compared to romance genres no matter what the actual story.

If I wanted realistic LGBT stories, I would specifically read stories that are tagged LGBT, not BL. I consider BL to be it's own genre

As I say, something like a sentence at the top of the BL search or when you select it while making your comic/novel to make clear what it's supposed to be along the lines of "typically highly something-ized (there's a word here that's not simplified or stylized but I can't think what it is, fictionalised maybe, just something saying unrealistic without saying unrealistic) romances between men relying typically Japaneses tropes" or "typically stories focused on a romance between men" would make it clearer what Tapas thinks BL is.

[spadedigsbutts]

Yeeah tbh Im not even sure how the marketing is helping that much. Ive met a ton of people, queer and not, who were so put off by the fetishization and creepiness of Tapas ads and such that they pretty much vowed to never support the site as creators or readers. I talked to a bunch of people recently and they had similar stories, saying how the app has such a trashy reputation because of these ads that most normies wont even pick it up...

[snailienz]

I think it important to state that I never said “Ew no BL nasteee” I said “the trope of seme/ uke should stay dead because it’s harmful” and I stand by that statement. It’s uncomfortable especially when a platform you’re supposed to be associated with posts about it.

A person enjoying tropes is also LARGELY different than a business perpetuating tropes that are harmful.

[rajillustration]

I do think that we're heading into an era of maturity for LGBT+ content on the internet, where it is becoming more mature than it was 10 years ago. I won't dive into detail more than other people have, but I feel a little bit like we're repeating history, like how there were a lot of blacksploitation novels and movies right after civil rights in the 70's. A lot of older BL will not age gracefully, is all I'll say.

I do think that eventually there will be enough education on this subject that these stereotypes will fade into memory. But, it can't happen unless you bring these things up, so thanks for being brave and saying something. It's not like kids who are writing this stuff are getting educated about this in school (because a lot of BL--it's written by teens and college students). And if the company doesn't do it's part to act mature and stop stereotyping, then how would the kids who are using the platform?

[snailienz]

Okay bringing my own celebration of my own story and characters into an about whether or not seme and uke are harmful stereotypes and not actually fantasy is uncalled for, but I’ll bite.

I celebrate that aspect of my characters because I feel good creating characters and stories based off my experiences. I’m a trans man, I write a story about a trans boy. I felt like pronouns and stuff was important because not everything is apparent visually. I put the lgbt detailing on my icon to attract an audience that celebrates it too. If you do not prefer that, then you are more than welcome not to follow the comic.

I don’t subscribe to fiction affects reality, actually. You clearly glazed right over “a person enjoying something is different from a company perpetuating a stereotype”

[miss.monocle]

Also just gonna add my two cents here.

The terms used in the ad were sexualizing of gay men. BL is in no way bad, the sexualization of all BL as being "insert sexual terms here" is bad. As we saw in both the replies to the ad and some on here, people don't see the issue of seeing these men as only their sexual descriptors. That has a very negative impact on the gay community being seen as just people who are gay, not as some hypersexual stereotype. Also, why was Tapas even advertising such a concept with sexual terms? When Tapas has certain restrictions on sexual media due to wanting to remain in the app store, why would they make an ad with sexual terminology? But since it's taken down, that is less of an issue.

Also, ADVERTISING THAT YOUR CHARACTERS ARE LGBTQ+ BECAUSE YOU ARE IN THAT COMMUNITY TOO IS NOT JUST SHILLING FOR VIEWS! That is the kind of attitude that makes it so impossible to make a diverse comic popular in progressive circles. Stop being so harsh on the people making content about their own identity and being proud of that. Doing so is frankly, a very bad look. Like, how else are we supposed to advertise our stories to the main audience we write for?

But yeah, thank you Tapas for correcting the mistake. Now we can see why promoting those sorts of ideas is damaging to the LGBT community, because they lead to others attacking members for making LGBT positive content.

[laurelkoeniger]

It's really not okay to bring the original poster's comic and their story into this when it's about something different entirely. Maybe read the first post again?
Your comment sounds super entitled and doesn't add anything to the situation.

As someone stated above, yes, maybe mixing up BL- and LGBTQ+-tagged stories as the same genre is a problem here. This is no one's fault, but tapas could for example work on simplifying a difference between those. (I myself read BLs on here as cute LGBTQ+ stories, many not resembling anything yaoi-like).

And just to add because it's so disrespectful: you can't come into a conversation, lash out at the creator for something completely off-topic (to get personal), and then have the nerve to say that you're super busy and won't be responding to anything after your post.
This is not how having a conversation and solving problems work. There is different points of views to everything. You could add your own without being demeaning or condescending.

I don't know where your hostility comes from but please try to be understanding of this problem and how other people (who actually experience the outcome of parts of this convo in everyday life) feel about it.

[HGohwell]

I think it important to state that I never said “Ew no BL nasteee” I said “the trope of seme/ uke should stay dead because it’s harmful”

I just wanna say I hope you didn't feel like I was accusing you of that, and if it did come across that way I'm sorry.

My point was more people can enjoy it as a fantasy, and enjoying the Uke/Seme trope in itself is as fine as enjoying something like Dexter, as long as you know its highly fictionalised and not realistic. The problem comes with the audience often being young and perhaps just coming into their own sexuality not realising it's highly fictionalised and they should not be thinking this is realistic in anyway. And perhaps (very maybe perhaps) the mixing of tropey BL and more realistic Gay Romance sorta makes the tropey stuff seem more "legitimate" and realistic because it's next to it. Like say putting a crime drama in the same category as real crime documentaries. And that's where it can become a lot more troublesome. And that perhaps some kind of brief line mentioning BL is highly fictionalised at the top of the category page as a genre description would at least be a little bit of a warning.

Idk I just wanted to apologise if I made you uncomfortable or anything and clarify what I was actually trying to say I'm not always the best at being concise and clear.

[snailienz]

Oh I figured, I just wanted to make sure it was clear im not attacking BL. I actually like the direction BL on tapas is typically taking, since it is usually more like just teen boys falling in love. I'm okay with most of it? I didnt even care about making a bl oc that much, it was specifically that they started the convo with "WHO TOPS?!?!"

[Iris-Grimoire]

This is just demonstrating the whole problem that defending the tropes has. Trying to depict the characters as a bit more nuanced is the bad thing to do? Between that and "this gay character can be replaced by the cis female reader" as a character type you're defending the latter?

[HGohwell]

I actually feel like this is a huge problem with Tapas and the west in general ignoring that the origins of BL is Boys Love aka Shounen-ai with was the good fluffy shit and Yaoi was the sexual stuff (which, before anyone jumps in me isn't bad either). Instead it's all just been slammed together.

[WillowTree]

???
I didn't see anywhere that she said depicting characters as more nuanced is a bad thing to do? She's defending people's rights to enjoy whatever they want to enjoy, which is fair. I should also point out that there are also gay men who enjoy trope-y unrealistic BL stories, the same way I as a woman enjoy trope-y unrealistic hetero-romance novels.

[snailienz]

I never said anyone couldn't enjoy anything. I said "these words are harmful and promot stereotypes that are not necessary to enjoy boyslove. let's retire them" and she came after me for....promoting that my comic is lgbt+? Which isn't related and was rude. It was unnecessary and didn't add anything but discourse to a thread that was mostly finished since the problem was resolved.

[RandomWebComicFan]

I don't think I could have given my opinion in a more well thought out manner. Brilliantly said.

[WillowTree]

I'm specifically talking about @Iris-Grimoire response where it seems like she claimed @Cavechan was saying that making characters nuanced is a bad idea I've made no other statements on anyone else's comments in this thread. I added the question marks because I wasn't sure if I was reading her response correctly or not

[snailienz]

It's related to how @Cavechan responded, because they yelled about my being enthusiastic about the inclusiveness of my comic. (Which is weird, given that the reason im enthusiastic is because I feel good writing about people that are like me??) I don't know if the concept of "dont have nuanced lgbt characters" exactly applies, but you did indirectly reference as if I had said people couldnt enjoy bl, which isn't the case.

[Iris-Grimoire]

From Cavechan's wording, having a trans main character was pandering, and that looked to be the argument against the criticisms OP made. If that was not the intention I'm sorry for misinterpreting it, but it seemed to be it.

[nostalgicroxas]

If I wanted realistic LGBT stories, I would specifically read stories that are tagged LGBT, not BL. I consider BL to be it's own genre.

I agree and disagree as a "marketer". If you're writing a LBGT story that happens to feature homosexual males in a relationship, by default it should be categorized into the BL category?

I do think a larger problem, and it's been one for well over a decade, is how people assume BL = Yaoi in tropes, norms, and so forth. You don't look at the shoujo genre as the hentai genre for example. Hentai, Yaoi and Yuri are all seperate genres from BL, GL, and "romance" stories. It's a hard line and something I feel we've failed to really readily distinguish teh difference between them (as a giant online community, especially people outside Japan absorbing material who think bishoujoai and bishounenai = yuri and yaoi). It's just a problem with terminology that's become a larger problem as "people in the West" (for ease of speaking about this) want to change them into LBGT stories.

In my mind, a LBGT story could equate to a BL or GL (bishounenai or bishoujoai / pretty girl pretty boy love centric stories that focus less if at all on the sexual components of the story). But a LBGT story likely would not equate to hentai, yaoi, or yuri, which in our terms is straight up porn and smut magazines. ::shrugs::

We've had threads in the past about things like this, the culture inside Japan as a creator in relation to BL vs yaoi and so on.

Now, speaking as a creator on Tapas, I think the whole "let's create a BL character!" is fine since you're buying into the BL trope system, but upon using words like seme/uke -you're putting into the realm of yaoi moreso. It just seems... odd. Since that's porn, and should be limited to the Mature section of their site.
But as a writer of homosexual males who have a story that balances between "wee romance" and "actual plot", I don't feel my story fits into the LBGT genre. That genre as I've seen it over the last few years and now, has always only been "coming out" stories. That doesn't fit into my High Fantasy world, since they don't suffer from oppression in their world that matches ours in a "coming out" story; None of my characters live in fear of "having to come out".

[WillowTree]

This has made me uncomfortable as a reader because it felt like the LGBTQ+ aspect of the comic was there as a way to get clicks and for promotion rather than sincere characteristics of the character. Not saying that's bad or anything. If that's your thing, then cool, but I do have to say it's a bit hypocritical to do that and then call out others for using seme/uke for clicks.

@Iris-Grimoire She's speaking about how seeing that makes her feel and earlier in her post she said she had been following OP's comic for awhile. She even literally says that it's not bad, but it makes her uncomfortable. Which leads back to - people can feel however they want. I've unfollowed people's stories because of how they act/talk in the forums, but what bothers me about how someone acts might not bother someone else.

Trying to depict the characters as a bit more nuanced is the bad thing to do? Between that and "this gay character can be replaced by the cis female reader" as a character type you're defending the latter?

I'm still not seeing where she's claiming these things in her post? I promise I'm not trying to be difficult, just trying to understand! I know tone of voice is easily lost in text formats, so please understand that at no point am I attempting to argue with you, just understand where your comment came from