Why I’m anti-anti-fujoshi: aka I’d like to lose some more followers, please.
If you’ve been following a long time, you might recall my experience with extreme anti-fujoshis. I realized they could randomly attack and harass anyone, such as a gay man, accuse them of “fetishizing” gay men, repeatedly misgender them to do so, and see nothing wrong in retrospect. I have NEVER seen a yaoi fan who was this homophobic. I’m also not the only one this has happened to.
they openly admit this has nothing to do with your conduct or the content of any m/m. because of who they are, straight women can’t like or ship m/m: no matter what, it’s “fetishizing” in some vague, abstract way. what are they against?
a fujoshi is a yaoi fangirl, but that actually means any straight woman who likes any male/male ship, including if they’re not a straight woman.
this manifests in an insane level of intolerance towards even non-sexual depictions of m/m, like two chibi guys holding hands. they go back 10 months to find one single non-sexual picture. I’m not the only one.
there is NOWHERE near this level of derangement for yuri, and imo the disproportionate hatred towards yaoi fans is obviously because of misogyny.
when straight men do it, they don’t even dogwhistle: series with lots of male characters to be attracted to are “cancerous,” every part of the fandom who ships m/m is the problem, etc. They are also the only group who benefits. 5 years ago on tumblr this was the obvious view: it’s the hatred, mockery, and stigmatization of everything liked by women and girls and female sexuality. even good natured jokes about yaoi fans could be controversial. If a girl said she didn’t like m/m, people might demand to know why. trends change.
it’s more than “liking what you like” versus having restraint. in the name of opposing genuinely “problematic” content, the most extreme “anti-fujoshis” promote radical intolerance to m/m affection. it feeds on a deep undercurrent of misogyny, and in a radfem context takes on transphobic meanings as well.