What do you guys think about BLs with NO mature scenes and/or content?

I'm personally not into BL in the slightest, but I am a massive fan of romance in general, and in my experience, NSFW content isn't even remotely necessary to make it work. As a matter of fact, there are lots of writers out there who use sex appeal or outright pornographic content as a crutch to make up for the fact that they can't actually write interesting or engaging scenes without it.
Not that I'm against the NSFW content in its entirety (my day job is drawing hardcore porn, after all), and when used well, explicit sexuality can be a massive boon to a story. It explores an extremely intimate and delicate part of the human psyche, helps develop relationships between characters in a way other types of scenes can't do, and is just plain fun to experience as the reader, so I don't think you should avoid it on principle, nor should you include it out of obligation: you should use the scenes and content that tell YOUR story the best way it can be told, no matter what that entails.

That is, of course, unless you're under the legal age of consent in your location... That could end up with a lot of people in a lot of hot water. But as long as that's not a factor, then it's entirely up to what serves your story the best.

I don't think it matters that it's BL. If you don't want to write it then don't write it. That being said, there's nothing wrong with going "there." Gay people have sex too, it's a part of being in a relationship. Sure, some couples get down more than others, but sex comes into play at some point or another. You shouldn't feel afraid to include it anymore than you might be afraid to exclude it. It's just another part of the relationship. And that goes for straight, gay, bi, or whatever kind of couples you're writing into your story.

Honestly, the explicit and mature scenes are what turn me off from the genre.

Heck, I'd read one if it were just a cute slice of life with the same energy as (the first season of) Clannad. Just two people falling in love.

I write BL, and I've written het romance and GL in the past without any explicit scenes. The weird thing is, the people reading BL are always more likely to complain, which is sad and just shows how much people overly sexualize this particular genre. If you don't want to write sex scenes, don't do it. If you can tell the story without those scenes and nothing changes, then why bother?

Personally, I prefer stories without sex scenes, just because they're usually gratuitous and really add nothing, then I'm stuck reading a chapter where nothing really happens. Sometimes, I do get readers demanding these scenes, and I ignore them. If anyone's gonna quit reading a story because there's no sex in it, then that's a petty ass reason and I don't need people like that telling me what to write, lol.

I love them so much.

Not a fan of (but also not against sex scenes, they're just most of the time not my thing), but I like actually getting into enjoy the buildup the romance was leading up to instead of quickly skimming through the build up the romance was leading up to because I just don't likey the smexy smut sessions.

And yeah as mentioned before, queer romances don't HAVE to have sex scenes for them to fit in the BL/GL/queer genre.

I usually only have NSFW seems when I deemed them necessary or want a little “extra” intimacy between characters, but I don’t really look for them in BL (or any romance). It’s obvious when creators drive the plot to sex because think it’ll get them views/subs and they typically come off stilted and cringy. But I love soft and fluff filled romances

I thought that's not BL, It's called shōnen-ai. I mean its a direct translation but BL is associated with yaoi.

Trust me, I would like to have a couple with a very good chemistry bond than having them being forced into smut with NO love.

I love slow burn, and I don't really care about whether there is NSFW or not. Personally, I have a BL series which I think is unnecessarily slow burn that has no explicitly NSFW scenes. I think it does pretty decently. I had also joked about not having any mature scene and my subscribers told me that it was alright, and they liked the story anyway. So, why not! :3 There are still a good amount of readers who love to read simple and fluffy stories without forcing NSFW in the plot. BL shouldn't need a mature scene to be recognized, just like het romance doesn't require a mature scene. They both are still romance, after all.

Regardless of the genre, I think you should a) write what the story and its characters need and b) what you're comfortable with. I write all genres, including BL/LGBTQ+, and I don't think one is any different from another. Just characters doing their thing in their world. And descriptive sexual content isn't needed unless it's actually part of the story or character development (like, there's something that happens during sex you need to show). We get hung up on sex, but this applies to anything. Nothing is really needed in any story if it doesn't further character growth and plot. Having said that, if you get to the point where you want to write it, there's nothing wrong with that either. I've heard there are BL readers that might complain when there's no NSFW (I've never had that problem), but there are also a lot of voices against NSFW (I've heard more of this, honestly). Don't listen to either group and just write the story you want to write.

I have a BL novel that has NSFW (soft, and only 6 scenes out of 120 episodes). There are some other intimate but not "mature" moments and some fade to black. I include sexual content because the MC suffers trauma from abuse and it shows how the two handle intimacy, how their relationship changes, and how they change as people. How they act and interact during sex is part of their character development, so I personally felt it necessary. And it isn't all "skipable smut" - stuff happens in those scenes. ^^

I have another same-sex light novel (male-male that started tagged as BL but I had difficulty picking a genre lol) that has no mature content. It actually had the most interaction out of anything I've written and I never had a single person complain or even mention NSFW. But it was more of a love story than a romance, if that makes sense? There was also friendship and found family and personal struggles that were just as important as the romance between MC and ML. Even though I changed the genres, at least 95% of my readers are BL readers.

I am working on another BL that has multiple NSFW scenes early on because it's a f*buddies to love story. I want to finish it because I like it, but I'm not sure about publishing for a similar reason. The relationship starts as purely sexual, but as it develops, it becomes more intimate, more emotional. Character development and all that. Sex is no longer the driving force, so the NSFW scenes will disappear to basically nada or short moments then fade to black. Not because they aren't having sex, but because it isn't important to show. So... I imagine many readers won't like that. They'll either not read at all because there's NSFW and they'll never get to the rest of the story or they'll start reading and like the NSFW and then be disappointed when it goes away. >.<

Sorry this was so long... I always tell myself I won't get wrapped up in these BL and sex-in-novels discussions and I end up here anyway.

TL;DR - I never write for an audience. I get a character or story in my head and I write it down. Sometimes it fits a genre, sometimes it doesn't. If I get readers, great, if they like it, even better, but if not... Oh well. Write what you want, the way you want. It's your story and your characters and you know best what they need.

In most BL I've read it usually leads up to that. I think it just works as a peak to a narrative, especially if the BL is apart of the slice of life genre.
Sometimes authors make that the beginning scene to draw reader interest, or maybe the relationship starts in an unconventional way, but in the end it's about the characters being loved by each other.
I don't know that it's necessary, but it does draw on the ol'noggin a bit to think around that. it's also what I'm thinking about too as I build my story. =)

Although I do write BL with explicit scenes, this is just personal preference. I can think of so many BL stories that I love that have no explicit scenes at all!

What I love most about a BL story (or any romance story for that matter) is watching a relationship between two characters grow. In fact, I always enjoy moments like their first kiss, or even smaller, cute moments such as a cuddle or a heart to heart conversation.

The explicit scenes, in my opinion, can be the cherry on top of a story. But not everyone needs or cares about the cherries!

Personally, explicit scenes are not needed to write really good BL so don't feel pressured to write one if you don't want to. What matters most is that you enjoy the story that you create!

Best of luck with writing your story!

It's been said many times already, but just to reiterate: write what you want to write. If you don't want to write NSFW stuff, no one's forcing you to. Maybe it'll turn away some people who are looking for something more explicit, but there are plenty of other comics/novels for them to read. There's lots of folks who prefer a more low-key romance, so I say go with your gut on this one.

i would say it can be done clean , not all love stories have to end up NSFW, but in all this is your project so you do as you do, as an example my comic has anthro characters and most of the time anthro characters are in sex stories, yet mine has none of that its all action

That's shonen-ai...and that's awesome too. Write what you're comfortable with. It's your story.