Allow me to explain, in some detail, as a gay man, how exactly yaoi is a harmful genre for the gay male community.
Allow me to clarify somethings beforehand. One; “yaoi” and “shounen-ai” will be adressed as different topics. “Boys Love” is in reference to both of them. Two; no, “yaoi” is not a japanese synonym for “gay” if someone wonders (yaoi is actually an acronym for “yama nashi, ochi nashi, imi nashi” which translates as “no peak, no fall, no meaning”). Third, “fujoshi” will be used as a term to adress hardcore, diehard and mostly stereotypical fans of the Boys Love genre, while more subtle and regular fans of the genre will be referred to as “Boys Love fans.” And, also, while I’m gonna write in a generalistic manner, under no circumstances everything I say applies to every single piece of Boys Love ever created.
So let’s get started; There are various reasons why Boys Love in general is a harmful genre towards the gay male community:
1) You’re creating a genre about a minority, meant for the enjoyment of some group other than said minority.
The Boys Love genre in general is made for the enjoyment of (mostly straight) women, and this is clear because the actual of male/male romance dedicated to gay men is completely separated of the Boys Love genre (for those curious, the actual gay romance genre is called “bara”). The Boys Love genre is about taking stories about two men in love, and making them enjoyable for women.
Analogical (but, of course, not equal) to this situation, is how the lesbian porn currently existing, is not for the enjoyment of lesbian women (I’ve had conversations, and watched a couple of videos made by lesbians, about how lesbian porn results actually painful to watch, but those experiences may not be that universal). Lesbian porn is made for straight men to jack off to their fetishistic views of gay women. The same way men start viewing lesbians as their object of entertainment, women, through Boys Love, start viewing gay men as their object of entertainment.
This can be seen a lot in some sections of the fujoshi community; fujoshis will talk among their group of friends how they saw these two gay dudes holding hands and kissing and it reminded them of their yaoi fanfics and it was “so cute kyaaa >w<”. And also, fujoshis that have two male friends, fujoshis that have a boyfriend with a good guy friend, or, god forbid, a fujoshi with a bisexual boyfriend, tend to mash together the men close to them, looking for more “yaoi” content in their real lives.
Notice how this is not exactly supportive, as in “It’s good to see gay romances remaining strong against homophobia,” rather, it’s how you’d discuss the cute perks of a fictional couple that’s made for your enjoyment.
That’s the keypoint; fujoshis, through the consumption of yaoi, start viewing gay men as something to look at from afar, enjoy, and then share with your friends. We are not Ken Dolls that fujoshis can force to make out because they got bored of their Barbie; we are real men, with emotions, and feelings, and who just want to love and to be loved. Our stories should not become something for women to enjoy.
2) On the same note, the community that the Boys Love genre has created has a big sense of entitlement.
There are Boys Love fans and fujoshis, who will consume from the fluffiest Haikyuu!! manga they can find, to the most PWP fanfics in AO3. Ain’t nothing bad with that; always remember that your sexuality is yours and it’s your deal whatever you do with it. But when they have the nerve to be homophobic too, there’s where the problem starts.
See, the big problem is that, no matter how much homosexual media you consume, you are not automatically an ally of LGBT+ people; you can still have internalized homophobia, you can still have some bigoted attitudes, and heck, you can even outright say that homosexual people disgust you as long as they’re not in fiction.
But there are people among this community who think that, by enjoying homosexual content, they are automatically LGBT+ allies, and tend to refuse to give it a thought to any callout they may get. It’s like when gay men started giving their reasons why they thought Boys Love was a harmful genre; fujoshis wouldn’t listen, acting as if they had an opinion on what is harmful to the gay male community (yes, you can believe me or not, but there are people who say “as a [whatever sexuality] woman, I don’t think that yaoi is harmful to the gay community, so I’m going to continue to consume it as much as you want. Live and let live”).
Here’s the deal; fujoshis are not allowing us to live. They look at us as more media to consume and ship. We are, for them, some new characters for their fanfiction. We are not. We can call fujoshis out on their homophobia, and they don’t have an opinion on what is harmful to the gay male community, because they are, after all, women (because that’s the target audience of Boys Love).
3) Now, on the note of the very genre, it depicts a really unrealistic and harmful view of gay men
Do you know the term “seme”? Do you know what makes a good “uke”? Have you ever heard of what a “suke/seke” is? If you answered to any of these “yes,” then you know the kind of stereotypes that yaoi forces gay men into.
Now, disclaimer, I am completely aware that these terms are actual japanese slang for “active,” “passive,” and “versatile” respectively. Yes, I am aware that these terms are actually used in Japan, and no, I’m not saying that they are inherently bad or that they should not be used anymore. What I am saying is that, among the Boys Love community, these terms have becomen a set of harmful stereotypes to tag gay men.
Let’s review the two main concerning ones:
- Seme: The active one in the relationship. They are the ones to take the wheel in the relationship, guiding it where they like the most; they confess first, they kiss first, they iniciate the relationship, sex, living together; the seme is the one taking the decisions for the couple. Also the most mature in most aspects (especially romantically, since there’s a trend of making the seme a bisexual, womanizer man). Usually tops, but can vary depending on the type of seme and which type of uke they’re paired with. Most traditionally masculine in the couple. Examples are Usami Akihiko from Junjou Romantica, Alberto from Iroku Irokoi Romantan and Chiga Yasuhiro from Seitokai ni Chuukoku.
- Uke: The passive one in the relationship. They are usually taken around by their seme in all aspects of relationships, because they lack maturity in some life aspects to have better ideas themselves, or because the uke lacks the means to oppose the seme (physically inferior so they’d lose a fight, dependant finantially, or even, the uke is a sex slave bought by the seme (and no I am not exaggerating)). Mostly depicted as virgins who have never been in a relationship due to lack of interest, or their bad luck with the opposite sex. Examples are Ayase Yukiya from Okane Ga Nai, Taki Reizen from Hyakujitsu no Bara or Yoshino Chiaki from Sekaiichi Hatsukoi).
If you don’t realize the problem here, it’s the fact that Boys Love (yaoi especially) resolves a lot around a really unhealthy power imbalance in the relationship. And let me repeat one of my first points; No, this is not a rule that applies to every single yaoi in existence (after all, sukes are a thing too), but it’s a thing that you can see in a lot of yaoi media, and what’s worse, it’s still quite prominent among the most popular yaoi mangas and animes there are out there. Has any Boys Love fan went through their liking of the genre without hearing about Junjou Romantica and Sekaiichi Hatsukoi? Well, let me tell you, those mangas are full of this unhealthy dynamic.
And that’s not the end of it; the seme and uke stereotypes have becomen so deeply ingrained among the fujoshi community, that they’ll have actual discussions about how certain characters are semes or ukes, to further put in practice this fetishistic and unhealthy view of gay men they have. Do you want some good ol’ discourse? Just build a time machine, go back to 2014 and make a post in the Free! tag that says “Tachibana Makoto is an uke!” I guarantee you, you’ll get anon hate, detailed explanations about how you’re wrong and actual death threats in minutes.
So, back to the original point, the seme and uke stereotypes are bad. They’re fetishistic and unhealthy views of gay men, and, while the terms themselves are japanese and not inherently wrong, it’s time that the western fujoshis stop using the seme and uke tags.
4) Boys Love likes to alienate homosexual relationships as something weird, wrong, and that’s the charm of it
It’s such a big cliché that people that despise yaoi (such as myself) have turned it into a meme; how there HAS to be a scene in every Boys Love manga about how “but this is not right! we are two guys!”
Allow me to ellaborate: Is the depiction of homophobia (be it from outside or internalized homophobia) inherently wrong in media? Not at all. It’s real, crude, and many gay men are haunted by it, especially the very moment we start realizing that we may actually like men. To make a gay character that goes through an arc of “What’s wrong with me? This cannot possibly be that I’m in love with a guy,” ending with them realizing that they are, indeed, in love with a guy, that’s not harmful at all (but, as a sidenote, it’s not a story for women to tell, because it’s about a gay guy realizing he’s gay, so it should stop either way).
But, and this is a big but, is the constant depiction of internalized homophobia, to the point where it’s almost a joke, wrong in media? Yes. Yes it is, because there is nothing inherently wrong with being gay, but the fact that they keep saying “it’s wrong! it shouldn’t be this way!” so many times is hurtful. It actually hurts to see so many characters thinking that loving a man, as a man, is wrong or weird.
And the worst part of it, is how it has translated to the fujoshi community. Did you see that original post? That’s an example of it; fujoshis, through the constant reminder that gay relationships are alien to the “normal” part of society, they gush and freak out about the idea of their parents finding out their “sinful” fanfiction, their “dirty” fanart of two men in love.
It’s time to stop guys; no part of a gay relationship is weird, wrong, alien, sinful or dirty (and no, not even the sexual parts of the relationship, because sex is not dirty or sinful either). Gay relationships are just that; gay relationships. Some gay men want to fall in love, some gay men want to have sex, some gay men just want live cozily in a small appartment with a puppy and a mug of hot chocolate. We are not weird, wrong, alien, sinful or dirty in any way, and it’s time that Boys Love and fujoshis stop calling us that. The religious homophobes do a good enough job at that.
5) And, finally, Boys Love makes jealousy seem cute, abuse as romantic, rape as enjoyable and gay men as depraved
Remember when we all agreed that Fifty Shades of Grey was just a big sack of paper that takes abuse and rape, and disguises it as a romantic novel? Boys Love does this too, and in so many ways that tumblr has realized that there is, indeed, something wrong with Boys Love.
I’m gonna put examples of how some of these work; in Junjou Romantica, Usami is a professional writer that creates erotic scenes based on his own sexual experiences and fantasies with Misaki, even though Misaki has outright told him how it’s a violation of his privacy and just really disrespectful in general to publish stuff erotic stuff based on him. Usami discredits his feelings and keeps on doing so, with the excuse that he’s putting a disclaimer of “No one in this novel is a real person, and any relation to reality is pure coincidence.” The fact that Usami discredits Misaki’s feelings the few times he expresses them is abusive, but it’s depicted as a comedic quirk Usami has.
As an example of rape being depicted as enjoyable, there’s Koisuru Boukun. Morinaga Tetsuhiro acidentally drugs his upperclassman and crush, Tatsumi Souchi (who is a homophobic guy, so I’ll bring up the point of, stop writing down the “a homophobic man is just a repressed homosexual” prompt, to romanticize our abusers is super hurtful), with a sex drug in a wine bottle as they drank together. Tatsumi doesn’t really mind (as he can deal with it himself later), until Morinaga starts making sexual advances on him, eventually both of them having sex despite Tatsumi never ever agreeing on the sex (I don’t remember very well, but I think that, in fact, he refused to have sex with Morinaga). But this, despite being a rape scene, was depicted as a sexy, erotic and enjoyable sex scene that fujoshis could call “surprise sex.”
And let’s not get started on how predatory, possessive and just overall unhealthy some Boys Love mangas get. Again, this is not all of them, but it’s a constant and repetitive theme that circulates among them, and it’s time that it stops. Authors are, under all circumstances, allowed to add drama to their romances, but not at the price of it becoming unhealthy. Especially when it comes to gay men. We’ve been depicted as sex machines, lacking humanity and who just lived for our own pleasure, and we are none of those. Why not making a manga of the daily occurences of a married gay couple and their first steps on parenthood? Belive me, people will read it if it’s promoted well enough.
With all this, I can say, without a drop of doubt in my system, that Boys Love, Yaoi and Fujoshis are harmful to the gay community.
It’s a genre that transforms gay men into women’s entertainment.
It creates an entitled community that’s proven itself unwilling to change its bad ways.
It sets up an unhealthy power imbalance and character stereotypes that are harmful to real life gay men.
At the same time it takes advantage of gay men, it allienates them, calling them sinful, dirty and weird.
And it depicts unhealthy parts in relationships, such as jealousy, stalkery, abuse and rape) as romantic, when they’re not.
Now, with all of this, I want to repeat one of my first points because I want to make it as clear as possible: Not all Boys Love is as unhealthy as this. In fact, I want to bring up attention to a really enjoyable and realistic depiction of gay teenagers in love; a healthy romance with its ups and downs, but always learning more and more about how to deal with their own issues and making their relationship actually enjoyable for both of them:
Of course, it’s not perfect (it has miscommunication problems and sometimes not everything is perfectly consensual), but it goes along the playful and clumsy parts of being a teenager in love. You are gonna make mistakes, you’re gonna overthink stuff, but when you learn to communicate and trust your partner, the relationship goes on better than ever.
And also, a highlight of this movie is how it has this specific one scene where everything aims to a “this is gonna go as any yaoi you’ve seen” but yEEET NOPE THAT GUY IS A CREEP AND WE NEED TO RUN AND MAYBE HAVE A TALK OF OUR FEELINGS AND LET’S HUG I LOVE YOU.
This is the kind of media that should fill the Boys Love genre; not creepy and unhealthy dynamics with lots of problems but with the power of sex everything is fixed, but some more normal, quirky and fun romances. Boys Love, as it is, is quite harmful, but if more things like this come out under the tag of Shonen Ai (or maybe even shifting the Yaoi’s very first conception), it could become the thing that the LGBT+ community longs so much for.
