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!

[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.

[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.

[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?

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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... >.>