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

[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.