It's thoughts on yaoi time again, ladies and gentlemen!

[seiberwing]

A gay man posts a secret on fandomsecrets about how he hates that yaoi fangirls fetishize his sexuality, and understandably the entire thing starts wanking faster than a submarine engineer who's gotten on the internet for the first time in a year and a half. I get into it here and here for the most part, but pretty much everyone's sharing their thoughts on the matter.

(Warning: Image heavy. For the dialup-gifted, the secret in question is here.)

My thoughts, highly distilled, are that traditional yaoi isn't fetishizing a sexuality so much as a specific ideal and dynamic, and anyone who thinks that real gay men act like that has a few more problems than the doujinshi on her hard drive. Any thoughts from the audience?

Comments

[bumblebee-1983.livejournal.com]

Sounds like gay dude has some personal issues he needs to work out. Yeesh!

[seiberwing.livejournal.com]

I tend to agree, but then again I'm not a gay guy -- it's at least a perspective worthy of consideration. Still, I don't think any other gay men in the thread shared his opinion on the subject.

[bumblebee-1983.livejournal.com]

I'm not either, but he seems a wee bit too touchy on the subject.

[revelininsanity.livejournal.com]

*groans* No, just... No.

Fuck this shit. I'll write what I want and I figure, as long as I'm not triggering anyone or inciting to harm, it's no one's business what kind of dynamic my characters have. Writing fan fiction and drawing yaoi comics are completely different things from generic lesbian porn(for one thing, no money was made, no were any real people hurt in the making of my porn), and for god's sake, there is such a thing as a back button, also, I am not obliged to rewrite everything in my life for teh poor manz.

Also, fandom!secrets pisses me off. It's like every troll with Paint goes and throws up all over it.

[seiberwing.livejournal.com]

F!S does provide occasional amusement, but there's always at least one guy per post who's got their pants on too tight.

I'd disagree about the money -- someone's gotta be paying the artists who put these on the market.

[revelininsanity.livejournal.com]

Oh, yeah, I'm a dipshit! :D Of course someone makes money off yaoi comics, and quite a bit from time to time*laughs at self*. Sorry, I was a little crabby there. I just meant fanfic.

[seiberwing.livejournal.com]

Haha, it's all right, that's probably also what the secretmaker meant. But profiting off porny art carries nowhere near the baggage that comes with live action porn.

[stace-s.livejournal.com]

I agree that most YAOI is pretty darn unrealistic and that there is no shortage of crazy annoying fangirls on the net (I don't go a day over at aarinfantasy without wanting to strangle someone) buuuut... as someone who was reading nifty.org for a couple of years before ever even HEARING about the term YAOI, who reads lots of gay interest novels written by both male and female authors, and has watched plenty of gay cinema I must say this: gay men do it to themselves too! ><

Seriously, most stories on nifty and most YAOI-fangirl writings are completely indistinguishable from one another! >< The only consistent differences I've noticed is that men come up with more colorful terms for semen than most girls do.

Besides, OP of 127 needs to stop being so butthurt about it. Lesbian porn and the idea that all girls will act bi/make out with their friend for male attention has done more harm to real people/invaded western culture than YAOI has or probably ever will... He wants to talk about a sexual prefrence becoming a fetish, you as a fellow bisexual girl must have experienced the negativity it can bring. It's hard to get lesbians to take a bi girl seriously and a lot of guys turn into "canwehaveathreesomepleasepleaseplzzzzzbuti'llneverintroduceyoutomymomma!" pervs the moment they find out.

[seiberwing.livejournal.com]

...there any particular reason you're capslocking the yaoi? Just curious.

I poked my nose into a pair of gay erotica books at an airport once. One had a plot that was about the level of a mediocre to not good slashfic, the other had porn that sounded more uncomfortable than sexy. Given what little I've seen of both bara and live-action gay porn, I'd say porn in general fetishizes the sexuality of whoever's having the sex at that particular point in time.

Yaoi also doesn't carry that stigma of "gay until the guy shows up", as you said. If females even make an appearance, they're either bit characters or there to encourage the blossoming gay love.

you as a fellow bisexual girl must have experienced the negativity it can bring

Not on a personal level, but then again I don't tend to hang out with the kind of people with that mindset in general. *is sheltered Seiber* I've heard plenty of stories, though.

[stace-s.livejournal.com]

Because it's an acronym. ;)

Given what little I've seen of both bara and live-action gay porn, I'd say porn in general fetishizes the sexuality of whoever's having the sex at that particular point in time.

QFT. There is quite a large range of gay porn, from bears to twinks, so obviously IRL gay men have a wide variety of tastes and fetishes themselves. So 127 should just get over it. 9_9 I like lesbian porn and I know it's ridiculous, doesn't stop it from being hot on occasion.

Not on a personal level, but then again I don't tend to hang out with the kind of people with that mindset in general. *is sheltered Seiber* I've heard plenty of stories, though.

That's good, and I hope you never do. =) I've never had an issue with my friends disliking me for my sexuality (though it's fun to freak them out with the flirting sometimes because I'm usually serious XD) but rather it's very difficult to get into a serious relationship with either a guy or a girl when because of your prefrence they feel they can't trust you. Oh well. XD

[seiberwing.livejournal.com]

I'm bi and I don't much care for lesbian porn, and then there's all the nonstraight women and men (and occasionally straight men) who go for yaoi. We are not in boxes!

With me it's mostly that I don't hang out with that many people in general, and the ones that I do never seem to be interested in me in That Way. Random guys usually don't get close enough to find out that I'm bi in the first place. How I got in with a load of friends cool with my sexuality to begin with in freaking Tennessee, I have no clue.

[wrongly-amused.livejournal.com]

I think lesbian women have had to deal with their sexuality being fetishized for straight men for the past, oh, forever, so I think he can GTFO it. 8D

[spotlight-noa.livejournal.com]

I find that most yaoi is kind of... mediocre. But that's if you're saying 'yaoi' in the Japanese cultural way, which is boys that look very much like girls, take on gender roles anyway (seme/uke), and generally are just... perfectly boring. If you get what I'm saying. It's not better than those romance novels that a lot of women read with Fabio and some virgin maiden and yeah...

What gets me, though, is that there's a fetish for... everything. XD Everyone had a fetish. Is it so shocking that some people would like seeing gay men bang?

[seiberwing.livejournal.com]

I was hoping to hear from a Y-bearer on this one. Yaoi as a genre's never held my interest to begin with, as I tend to prefer my pairings not to default to inequality without extenuating circumstances. Also because of the whole highly dubious consent issue, which is the same issue I have with romance novels.

Hurrah Rule 34.

[dunmurderin.livejournal.com]

Going by the secret and just the secret, I can see his point -- hell, I even agree with him to an extent, because I hate stereotypical lesbian porn for the same reason: it's outsiders trying to portray an aspect of my life and telling me that it's not FOR ME when I complain. Or worse, tell me that it's all in fun and I shouldn't be ruining their good time by wanting to be treated as something other than someone's kink.

Anyone who thinks that real gay men act like that has a few more problems than the doujinshi on her hard drive.

Yes, she does -- but chances are she's never going to be told that her beliefs are wrong either because she's spending her time surrounded by other fans who think the exact same way. So those beliefs will likely be reinforced and anybody who disagrees is just a meanie trying to harsh her squee because slash isn't *really* about gay guys. And she knows that because even scholarly articles try to do their damnest to divorce the idea of homosexuality out of slash.

And that division, that idea that slash isn't really about homosexuality is, to me, pretty damned heterosexist. I mean, slash *is* about homosexuality! It's about two people of the same sex having sex! You can't get any more homo than that! People can blather on all they want about how it's women taking control of their own sexuality and subverting texts and playing with power relationships (and I'll even agree because yeah, that's there too) but homosexuality *is* a part of slash.

Fandom has a tendency to want to pretend that we're some sort of magical Consequence Free Zone where what we do isn't important but yeah, sometimes what we do does have an impact outside of our pretendy funtime games and we should remember that.

[seiberwing.livejournal.com]

I think the difference, as stace_s pointed out earlier, is not that many girls do compared to the number of Western men who think that porn lesbians are like real lesbians. The societal effects are minimal at best, which means it's a lot easier to treat it as 'just fiction' than something that influences large amounts of frat boy culture.

It only fetishizes homosexuality as much as regular erotica fetishizes heterosexuality.

People can blather on all they want about how it's women taking control of their own sexuality and subverting texts and playing with power relationships (and I'll even agree because yeah, that's there too) but homosexuality *is* a part of slash.

The whole overanalysis of slash thing is just idiocy with a nice dollop of academic pretentiousness-- when you get right down to the porn of it, we slash because it's hot. Outside of porn I slash because of interesting character dynamics, the connotations of homosexuality in that setting, and also because my chosen fandoms rarely have female characters that hold my interest long enough for me to write about them.

[dunmurderin.livejournal.com]

I don't see where the number of people doing it matters, particularly since the secret in question was complaining about the objectification of gay men within fandom where the majority of slash writers are women.

What really annoys me the implication that this guy shouldn't object to something that clearly bothers him because according to those doing the offending it doesn't have enough of an impact to be a problem. When exactly is he allowed to be angry about this?

[seiberwing.livejournal.com]

Mmm, I would consider slash a far different thing from yaoi. A reasonable portion of slash doesn't fetish homosexuality, it fetishizes those two (three, four, whatever) characters having sex. Look at all the kink memes, for instance; clearly sexuality alone is not sufficient.

He's allowed to be angry any time he pleases; goodness knows I get angry over smaller things in fandom. I just don't think it's a worthy cause until it starts affecting the real world.

[dunmurderin.livejournal.com]

But the attitudes of those fans he's complaining about DO affect the real world because their attitudes don't magically shut off when they're away from the computer and they turn into people who understand that gay men AREN'T like that.

I've run into people who have asked me and my girlfriend which one of us is the man in the relationship -- I'm pretty sure at least once we were TOLD which one of us was the man. And that's by people who thought they were being funny and who reacted to being told they weren't with an attitude not too much dissimilar to the one you're showing, namely that there wasn't any sense making a big deal over something that wasn't important to them.

[seiberwing.livejournal.com]

Realistically, how many people are encouraged to think that by yaoi? The perception of there needing to be a man and a woman in any relationship regardless of gender comes more from Western heterosexist ideals.

[dunmurderin.livejournal.com]

Probably not a statistically significant amount -- which still doesn't change the fact that this guy doesn't deserve to have his offense dismissed as unimportant because you don't think it's a problem.

Clearly we can go no further with this.

[seiberwing.livejournal.com]

Fair enough, although I'm not sure it warrants an unfriending. The problem in this debate is that neither of us are gay men -- in the fandomsecrets post, there were gay men both for and against your position on the subject.

[happyyandere.livejournal.com]

Fictional gay is inaccurate but kinda hot.
*shrug*

Dude needs to calm down.

[cindy-73.livejournal.com]

From what I have learned in my life time is that if you don't like what you're reading just stop where you are and put it down or what your listening or watching to just stop it (if you can) and change it and/or walk away. Not everything is going to be your cup of tea and not everything you like is going to be other's cup of tea either. I admit I'm not a big fan of slash or yaoi but if its available to me it is my decision whether or not to read it, and no one is forcing me to either. But if a scene in a slash or yaoi fic or fan comic that I like I will read it and enjoy it for what it really is an entertaining read. Don't get me wrong I love my porn in various ways from my back issues of Playgirl, a few XXX rated movies my husband and I share and few books ranging from classic erotica to women's erotica to the good old fashioned sleazy XXX one handed novels for strait men that one will find at a porn shop. And that's not counting the fan fics I have on my comp. So to me this guy has a personal problem that he needs to come to grips with and reevaluate. So I say as long as it's not hurting anybody, it's not illegal an it's enjoyable then there is nothing wrong with it.

Oh as a side note to what sporlight_noa said about there being a fetish for everything, I remember watching an episode of Real Sex on HBO where someone said that one time he found a fetish site were the fetish were doorknobs! XD That still cracks me up.

[dunmurderin.livejournal.com]

Except that, speaking for myself, the portrayals of lesbians and/or bisexual women in a lot of porn DO hurt me. Maybe not in the physical sense of causing me injury, but it gets very damned old having to hear guys who think they are the first person to ask me and my girlfriend if they can watch us have sex or if they could join us in a threesome -- with the assumption that we would either a) concent or b) be flattered that a MAN wants us!

As far as that goes, I'm not a fan of "Big Beautiful Woman" fetishizing either because I don't WANT to be a goddamn fetish. I want to be seen as a goddamn human being and when you hear people endlessly going on and on about how they think lesibans or big women are soooo wonderful and it's pretty goddamn clear that they are only thinking of their fetishized ideal and not of real people? It gets old and tired and insulting.

But of course, if you complain about this sort of thing to the sorts of people who make these comments, you don't get an apology. Ohhh no, you get whined at about how they were only kidding and it's just a joke and gee, lighten up...because to them, they didn't do anything wrong and you're some squee-harshing bitch who wrecked their little fantasy life by being a real person.

I don't have to watch any of this porn -- and I don't -- but that doesn't stop it from affecting me. And this guy? May not read slash but that doesn't stop him from being affected by the attitudes of slash fans within fandom.

[cindy-73.livejournal.com]

All of it perfectly understandable and I agree with you. What I can't stand is people thinking that what they see on TV, in mags and the like is what real life is about. It isn't. I can't stand guys who want to see two women get it on just because they're lesbians and think if he is there watching that he can get in on the fun. Sorry it ain't going to happen. The those women won't let him because he's not their sexual preference and their style of lovemaking is totally different from what he is told by the mainstream porn industry that lesbians do in strait men's porn. Just because it's lesbian porn or bisexual porn for the strait man doesn't mean it's lesbian porn for the lesbian woman or the bisexual woman/man or gay man either.

And I'm all with you on the "BBW" thing as well. Just because I'm overweight doesn't mean I'm an easy lay or a virgin with no sexual experience or that just because my boobs are a 48HH doesn't mean that their fake and I had a boob job. If I had a boob job they would be a 48D!

The core of the problem is when people who have the fetish start to believe that who reality works. They forget and sometime never were taught the difference between reality and fantasy and that is when it becomes a problem. So to me people who can't tell the difference between fantasy sex and real sex have a huge problem and need to be taught a huge lesson. I admit I have my kinks and all, but I don't purposely thrust my fantasies on other people because I know if I did my squee bubble would burst worse than Chernobyl, but that is way I keep my kinks to myself and only leak them out to people I trust with simaler tastes per say. I try not to rub my sexual preferences and kinks into everyone's face because it will end up offending people (and if I offended you, I'm sorry. *Hugs*) and that's the last thing I want to do. Because it will cause debates like these.

[dunmurderin.livejournal.com]

Not offended, but it seems to me that this is what the secret in question was about -- the guy is annoyed that slash fans do this with gay men. Maybe not all slash fans (*I* sure as hell try not to) but enough do play to the stereotypes that I can understand why the guy is sick of seeing it. Because in fandom, it's not always a question of "Don't like, don't read" or simply avoiding what's bothering you because in some fandoms it is ever present.

[demonlass.livejournal.com]

I sorta get where he's coming from, but he really ain't driving right. I have a problem with a lot of slash (or yaoi, whatever) too for unrealism, shallowness and stereotypes, but THAT is the big hint not to take it seriously if you're even marginally sane. Most people don't take bodice rippers seriously either. Not underestimating humans' capability of causing harm to others with their stupid, I think that in the end, people who do believe it's real only set themselves up for disappointment.

And talking about stereotyping, I am everything but impressed by his comparision of top/bottom and male/female as if it's some kind of obvious given. Kinda clashes with the ideology behind his rant.

[seiberwing.livejournal.com]

I'll have it put on record that most of my females are definite "tops". Bit of a hint of female being bad there, which puts an ugly spin on it.

[faithinfire.livejournal.com]

I do admit, I feel guilty sometimes about my tendency to crane my neck to peek at the gay. Even RL gay, which will make me crane my neck like whoa especially in certain circumstances - witness my reaction when I found out that one of the guys from the Black Metal scene came out recently. It just sometimes feels like I'm being an asshole and projecting my kinks on other people's private lives.

Then I remember that the real reason why I find gay guys so fascinating is that if I had a choice (that didn't involve dangerous and invasive surgery that I'm pretty sure still wouldn't give me what I really want) I'd BE one. And then I feel less guilty, because I'm watching not because I want to interfere with or fetishize their lives, but because I am deeply envious. I wish I could join in something that I'm debarred from by accident of both birth and socialization, and I'm happy for (and jealous of) those people who can have it and who are glad to have it.

All of which says more about my issues than about your actual question, but... >.>

[seiberwing.livejournal.com]

I'll admit to feeling the guilt bit, but mostly because it involves me finding it default awesome when a character is gay as opposed to not (see my post on 'Allo 'Allo! for more on that). When Dumbledore "came out" I was ecstatic over an already cool character becoming cooler. Same for when two male characters are expressing sexual tension.

But I don't think that's really fetishizing a sexuality, unless both individuals are hot (in which case, it's just the hot). For me, it's more that it's being different in a good way, same as any show that manages to put a male and female protagonist together without the slightest hint of sexual tension or romantic attraction (or has them in a relationship from start to finish).