Women and BL - insights for writing

I'm straight, and also asexual, so this is going to be a very specific experience I suppose. But I prefer to read gay romance because, in a roundabout sort of way, I feel like I can relate to it more than to straight romance. I don't have any firsthand experience with what is feels like for a woman to be sexually attracted to anyone, but I've dated enough guys to experience their side of things second-hand, so it sort of makes more sense to me than trying to read about a woman and her "urges" or whatever.

And yeah like a few other people said, I'm definitely in it for the romance and the fluffy feel-good feelings (I love Yuri on Ice so much!!), not really the sex part of things. And a lot of straight romance does sort of tend to demean women or put them in problematically-submissive roles that I don't care to read about. There's enough casual misogyny in the real world, I don't need to read a book or a comic full of it in my form of escapism.

Because... why not? Okay, I should make this clear, I don't usually read "gay romance" comics. I'm fine with them, but I prefer straight couple romance.
If we talk about more mature works, I don't see any real difference between straight and gay sex, and it's usually harder to find nicely drawn straight couple comic where a woman is something more than an unwilling piece of furniture that is here to be raped and impregnated. On average, BL has better drama, better artwork, better sex scenes and also no one gets pregnant (angrily pushes away the whole idea of mpreg).

Also, I wanted to add one more thought here:

I think by my inclinations and how I feel about the womanhood, I actually should be more enthusiastic about GL vs BL, but that market is so small, and the examples of big, excellent GL stories (like Yuri on Ice) are lacking in popular culture, so i just default to BL if it is not hetero.

Yes, I feel that it is wrong, but I guess as much as I pride myself on being outside the box in my consumption of literature, I am impacted by the society in that GL is not on the map.

It should be. Absolutely.

The only one I can pull off the top of my head is Korra, though I have high hopes for RWBY...

Edit: Also I feel like Korra didn't give enough Asami-Korra to really satisfy the romance there.

Edit: OMG DUH She Ra. Which was great.

Weeeelll I don't need to use my psych major to kind of explain why I personally think women are so into gay romance. I mean, let's face it, they're straight, so they already really like men, and if you put two hot guys together in a comic, I think a girl thinks to herself, "Oh wow, two hot guys in love? How can I go wrong?" XD Really, it's the same reason straight guys like lesbian porn (although in the case of BL, it tends to be much tamer than straight-up porn). Honestly, I'm not the best person to answer since I typically don't read BL, but that would be my best answer.

I personally like reading BL because I just tend to like the tropes in it a lot better, which may come from the fact that a lot of romance tropes in romance stories written by men heavily sexualize the woman over the man. It will probably be the other way around for stories written by female authors, but those romance tropes just never really stuck with me? I don't care about reading about a firecracker redhead girl who is so independent yet totally needs to be saved by a hot guy. Also don't care about the bland bookworm trope.

I can't be classified as cis or het, but back when I thought I was BL was my jam because it was something different from all the het shit in mainstream media. I was so sick of seeing the same thing over and over again, when my friend introduced me to yaoi I was like "Woah! You can do that?!", and got kind of obsessed with it for a few years. Also I was a hormonal teenager, and seeing two pretty boys going at it was Le Hot because double penis. Also also it was a nice space to explore sexuality and gross misogynistic tropes without feeling objectified as a (at the time) chick.

At least that's how I saw it as a kid. As a "fully realized adult" I just read BL from time to time now because some of it is more tolerable than het romance.

I might not be straight, but I'll answer in a view of a cis woman. I loved manga/anime when I was young, and I stumbled across BL in the form of a doujin (fanfic). I read BL manga, before I knew what is LGBT. I simply read it because it was "fun" and "unique" to see two men pining on each other. There was also a factor of "shoujo manga trash, yaoi manga great" mindset I had. Though, even then, I remember still pushing the heteronormativity in those BL's. The funny thing would be that I started understanding about (and later finding out my) sexuality because I read BL; because I thought "I definitely can't afford to be homophobic if I read gay romance." But, well, that's another story. Nowadays, though, I read BL mostly because I feel more comfortable reading gay romance over straight romance.

I'm straight and asexual and have been reading from teenage to adulthood. Damn, I'm old!

So, I'm gonna talk from my perspective only. Well, I first knew about bl through yaoi mangas and anime. And when, by chance, I entered this world, it was, well, damn exciting. lol It's like you just had a new cheesecake and you really liked it.
I'm one of those readers who likes to explore. That means from yaoi manga/animes, I started exploring more like Chinese ones, Korean, western, etc. And, different bl genres.

I see bl more from fictional POV. And I've certain preferences; one is I don't like reversible couples. I don't read straight romances or straight erotica because I find it boring and mainstream(and I'm not a fan of mainstream things). From a psychological pov, one of the reasons I think, I enjoy seeing a man dominating another man. * cough * It's a bit hard for me to explain. Also, my preferences for bl are...a bit different. I like to see authors breaking the boundaries. It's like many people like cheesecake but some prefer strawberry cheesecake, some blueberry etc.

(Ok I'm a bisexual guy so I probs won't give the best answer)
TBH I think a lot of it is because of fetishization. Not saying that all women who read BL are fetishizing mlm relationships (though there is a shit ton of that) but some women who prefer to read queer stories are surrounded by a lot of lesbian stories created for the male gaze, so then they see queer shit designed for them, and they appreciate it.
Not saying that I necessarily am comfortable with women reading BL stories, but I understand why they look at it.
But of course, there's always the women who just like the uwu smol gay boios! and I could never understand why people think that way.

I'll just say I'm straight (I do find women attractive, but not as often as men, and I am in a straight relationship). I'm not a huge romance reader in general, but I do read and write more occasional malexmale stuff (for my own (unpublished) writing it's about 50/50 split between straight or gay(both malexmale and femxfem), but for reading it's almost exclusively gay). There's a couple reasons for it.

The obvious one that other people have mentioned is that reading content that primarily engages with male characters means you have a soft guarantee to avoid misogynistic tropes and societal expectations placed on women. Some BL still makes sure to take a huge dump on women, but a lot of it actually doesn't (and sometimes the supporting female characters are actually interesting and fun in their own right, and they can just BE themselves since they're not in the story to make themselves attractive to these dudes).

The other reason is I just don't find the standard trappings of het romance attractive. I don't like aggressive men. I don't like men with handsome shovel jaws and 12-pack abs and a 10-year age difference and cooing offers to spoil his baby with his millionaire money and whatever other boring or borderline misogynistic/infantilizing things pass for marketable to straight women. Malexmale stuff tends to have a wider variety of male leads who have a broader emotional/character spectrum so while not all of it appeals to me, I know that there is stuff that does. Therefore, even though I know there is a sliver of het romance that would appeal to me (and I've seen and read it!), I usually just go for the malexmale stuff because it's a better guarantee of not wasting my time.

But, like... I don't read any of the BL stuff that's on tapas, for example. I think I'm subscribed to a couple sci-fi ones that have a gay undertone but they're not marketed as BL. Normally the BL label makes me skip over it immediately because I imagine the typical UWU GAY BOIS~ schlock. But if it's not BL and in the description I can see that it's leaning towards a romance, I'm much more likely to give something a try if the romance looks to be between two men (or two women, but that's more rare, and I will only read it if it's written by a woman).

I’m a bi woman who doesn’t consume BL because it seems like it fetishizes gay men the way straight men who watch lesbian porn do. it seems kind of exploitative with the only purpose being to feed straight fujoshis, imo

You're welcome and the best of luck with your story!

hi there!! i’m a little bit late on this but i thought my answer would still be helpful. i wouldn’t say i’m a straight woman rather bi, but i hope that doesn’t have an effect on my answer.

okay so first of all, i enjoy BLs because i live in a really conservative country, and seeing that mlm are presented as something let’s call it “beautiful” and normal always makes me happy. i know how hard it is for the people of lgbtq+ to come out here, so i’m always happy to see when lgbt isn’t presented as something disgusting and weird.

second of all (i think this is more important) when reading straight or lesbian manga i tend to put myself in the place of the woman in the relationship. now, that makes me think about how i would want the partner to treat her and makes me imagine myself in those situations. but when there are two man in the story, there’s no space for me to project my feelings onto the characters because they aren’t women, so it gives me the ability to enjoy the story and the plot more, rather then thinking about myself in those situations. and i’m usually much more satisfied with BL endings cause i don’t feel like i’m in the story, so i don’t have a certain way ending i expect, and i don’t have a certain way i expect my partner to treat me.

(BL also made me question my whole gender identity but that’s a whole another topic...)

i hope this was helpful and not too confusing!! have a nice day and take care! <3