Our Archon picked a good one it seems and this is an open conversation so "Let's Get Nuts" as this is all about sexual orientation/the content we consume so we are on point.
I am one of these guys who none pay an attention to as i barely talk at social gatherings and despise gossip. I just sit down in a corner with a handheld or book in hand and people who are affiliated with me feel save to talk about anything in my vicinity so i overhear some of the craziest crap about people i know well. Some (women) event to come to me with their problems as i give out that gay best friend vibe or whatever as i for example knew information regarding some of my superiors in the military that could have got them fired or divorced but this is when i truly started to buy into the whole bay boys are popular thing hardcore amongst a vocal subsection of women.

The homophobia there was also beyond measurement (i have enough crazy stories in me to write a book) which brings me to my personal space point and being afraid to look "outside" the norm. Look in the photo thread to marvel at my glorious long hair and i have zero problem talking to people (or being hardcore opinionated) about nearly anything so let´s just say that people question my sexuality like crazy. Especial as i am knowledgeable about all sorts of crazy fields that go outside the acceptable "male zone". I am currently reading Sailor Moon for one (6/10?) and have our volumes on my desk at work for all to see as i have only seen the anime as child. This get´s me some questioning looks but none more when read the hilarious "controversial" section (read it!) of wiki´s "grindr" article at normal voice volume for a friend when we went to officially certify or English skillZ last week. The surrounding younglings in the waiting room stared daggers down my souls. It was kind for amazing! Back to manga:
What also bugs me is that Bara manga are of such low quality as they are targeted at gay man and aren´t porn by default. Or that female targeted and yuri (they do exist) are so rare.
What pisses me off though is that most media forms just blends away if gay rape (or even sex) is shown (but it is at least treated as violence like it should be) BUT then keeps the camera on a focus if it is heterosexual rape as they know EXACTLY that they won´t loose fans with the heterosexual variety. Just look at what good old master of disaster Wolf Guy - Ookami no Monshou did! The male rape is short and violent but the heterosexual one is 150 pages of pr0n and ends with her getting into it cuz drugs. I just tagged it with Mind Break/Netorare so feel free to vote on them and realy need to get my hands on the seinen manga from the 70s one day to see how it compares.
One of the more popular complain about Shamo (besides that is starts to suck after 10+ volumes) is that if actually showed the prison rape scene in full but trust me you would not read any such complains if he was a woman and don´t get me started on the shit i have read about hardcore seinen like Berserk, Gantz (not the best example) and so on. Ah japan/internet never change is say.

This is my conclusion reading RL relationships based on my life experience:
Some men want to bang sluts and marry the girl next door when their biological clock starts ticking (just like in hentai which are power fantasy so that checks out) but some women want to tame man-sluts and domesticate then which can´t and won´t work. If you don´t trust me then look at popularity chars of fictional characters (or popular "stars"). Char beats Amuro, Batman beats Superman, Ironman beats Captain America (THE Avenger!) and...
Movie Bond is a canonical rapist btw. as the 60s were a fascinating time for the entertainment field.

So about the history of marriage: SCIENTIFICALLY ACCURATE ™: FLINTSTONES
http://youtube.com/watch?v=8WLrM8wx6Bk - What a chanel!
This is a good crash course but to elaborate. Our direct ancestor did not only "fuck around for life" as stated but women had as many sex partners as possible when they were ovulating (or whatever) and they assumed that the child got the hair form that dude, and the eyes from that one and so on. Nothing is more amazing then reading a book on history!

Before i go to see where this comment will lead me: Check out the Walking Dead comic regardless of your gender or sexual orientation unless you can´t stand hard-R content. It´s the second best comic (after Berserk) i have read and i have tried out 10000s of series over the last 20 years. (calstineIt´s thread alone got me to look at 100+ series in one week.)
WD excels in feminism, LGBT themes, race relations (i am half black), non soup opera love stories, psychological depth and portrait of sexual violence like barely anything i have ever seen. I won more important awards then i have fingers, sells liek crazy and the tv show (7,5/10) does not measure up in the least. The in canon adventure games thou do. The letters section is a must too as it regularly features the most negative or insane comment possible.
Edit: Showtime´s awardwinning "Masters of Sex" is a good show about the real life sex researches Masters and Johnson and has interesting things to say about relationships and what bad science studies can lead to (besides good drama).

Last edited by residentgrigo at 11:03 am, Mar 15 2015

________________
I also read EU/US comics and am a librarian.
Manga-Masters, My ANN-Lists + Imdb

One huge reason for anti-BL is that it goes so completely against the grain, whereas GL is just taking normal stuff a little further.
What do I mean? Well, think about it, straight women are very friendly and (nonsexually) intimate with each other, while straight men are very much not. Just look at how they greet each other; Straight women think nothing of greeting eachother with a hearty embrace, while straight men typically greet each other with a punch on the arm & would almost never consider embracing each other unless they were brothers or something.
Ask yourself this: When you see 2 women on the street holding hands, is your first assumption that they're lesbians or just friends? What about when you see 2 guys holding hands? Typically women holding hands in public are merely friends (assuming they're not doing something more, like kissing of course), but nobody sees men holding hands and thinks anything other than "they must be gay".

I'd say it has more to do with avoiding injury, rather than experiencing pleasure.

Why? How are we different, evolutionarily speaking, compared to any other animal?

First of all, what do you mean by "psychologically superior", and secondly: What is the "this" that has mostly disappeared or been suppressed?

Why? What so wrong about it? I would be very wrong, in real life, but... it's fiction.
I'm no fan of it myself, but I see nothing wrong in liking fiction/fantasies about it.
Also, it is well established that a quite common sexual fantasy, among women, is scenarios where they are raped ...yet the same women would be horrified, at the though of actually being raped.
(other, perfectly normal and natural sexual fantasies that women can have, are about raping others ...and men can have rape fantasies too, either as victim or perpetrators)

Please learn to differentiate between fantasy and reality.
Are you also disgusted by fiction that contains murder? If not, then you clearly have a double standard.

Of course not. We are not either one extreme or the other. There is plenty of middle ground (and there is nothing stopping people from actually belonging to both extremes).
Most importantly: We are all individuals. Averages and trends are informative, but they don't indicate that everyone is exactly in line with them.

I'm most certainly not.
Also, please note that feudal Japan had plenty of perfectly accepted homosexuality, outside of the samurai/monk "system".
Please note:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexuality_in_Japan#Ancient_Ja pan

As to ancient Greece... There were adult gay relationships, though it was shameful to be the "receiver" (so that person was going against social conventions). A problem that would not be applicable to lesbian relations.

Nope.
That had nothing to do with it, at all.
It was all about the older partner guiding the younger, teaching them (philosophy, buddhism or warfare, respectively). The intimate relationship was all about the bond between them. Not about anything that may happen later (other than said bond continuing to have an effect, that is)


There have always, in all places, been "camp-followers" (i.e. prostitues around armies). They may not always have been seen as all that good, but... people have always, turned a blind eye to it, if not outright accepted it.
Also, that doesn't explain the Greeks, or the monks

I've not heard of records of it, but...
History was generally written by (and for) men.
Men who did not neccesarily bother too much, about women's desires.

As to ancient Greece, however... there is plenty of evidence of Greek women, being in sexual and/or romantic relationships.
You do realise that the word "Lesbian" is actually the term for someone/something that is from the island of Lesbos, right?

I can't for the life of me, see why.
On a related note: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9sTOzE_20Ck#t=1m58s
Also, it is well known that men holding hands, disappeared due to fear of being perceived as homosexual.
For example, IIRC, in Britain you'd have men holding hands, all over the place. Then comes the well publicized trial of Oscar Wilde, for his homosexuality, and suddenly no men are holding hands any more.

I, quite seriously, doubt that.
It should be noted, BTW, that people (regardless of gender) hug and even kiss (on the cheek) when greeting (and during farewells), in plenty of societies.

I know so.
Anyone who has taken a look at how homosexuals were percieved, historically, will know that even the notion that homosexuals behaved in a different way, wasn't a common one ...and what made you seem gay, has changed, as has the things that made you seems manly/unmanly.

In that case, it is, I think.
Personally I find pink shirts/ties to be unmanly, but aside from that, I'd not bat an eye.

Indeed.
Even if two girls kiss (on the mouth), that could just be to friends, fooling about (though I suspect it might be a bit of a latent lesbian tendency, subtly showing itself).
Well, I guess full out making out, would be a sign. (a bit of touching a boob or arse, on the other hand, could still be just fooling about among friends ..depending on how and how much)

Last edited by zarlan at 7:35 am, Mar 16 2015

Why would it being targeted at gay men and it not being porn by default, make it low quality? Or do you mean that it's a shame that they are of such low quality, because, as they are targeted at gay men and it not being porn by default, they could be so much better?

I don't quite get what you're saying. Yuri is mainly made by, and for, women.
This is a well established fact.

I rather suspected that.

I object to the "females chose big dicks" bit.
Women don't seem to care much about length.
Men do, however. As such, your length could effect your status, among other men.
...and women do like men who are higher in the social hierarchy.
I find that to be a much more likely explanation, as to why we have penises that are waaay longer than any other primate, or how long they need to be.

On a similar note:
We are the only primate, where the female's have boobs (in other primates the female breasts' aren't that different to the male's, except when they lactate ...because you don't actually need any more than that, for producing or giving milk. Even a A-cup boobs are way bigger than they need to be). Some people like to claim that the notion that boobs are sexual, is a social construct. This is clearly nonsense, not only because all humans (even the women, as I believe I've been able to demonstrate), regardless of society, see boobs as sexual ...but, more importantly, because we wouldn't have evolved boobs, if they weren't sexual. They exist, because they are sexual. It it rather preposterous to try to claim that Sexual Selection isn't sexual.

Depending on the society or social group, neither do straight men.
It has been a very common form of greeting, historically.
In parts of Europe, the Middle East and some other places, it still is.

Again, that depends on where ...and it has been extremely common (more common than not), historically.

Looking deep into myself, I realize that I have only two options that I can pick from. I'm heterosexual and decided to vote for boy/girl romance. Yet, I don't mind reading the odd same-sex romance every so often even if the leads share my gender, because there's still an interesting story to follow, usually.

This thing is getting more interesting by the minute! "And Here We Go":
The average Bara manga is not well written when compared western gay comiX (i read and watch straight out everything) and the wiki article on Bara is so factually wrong that i don´t even want to start. Here is a quote: "Bara is mostly a Japanese phenomenon" .
I know the history of international comics fore wards and back and Germany especially has a proud tradition with http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralf_K%C3%B6nig.
Sorry LGBT manga but you can´t compare in the writing department to the ones form the US and Europe if taken as a whole. Improve and go for a wider (or frankly more literate) audience that is not interested in naive teenage dreams where men are interchangeable with women or p0rn and so on then i will read more of you past chapter one. Promised!

A lot of yuri is targeted at women yes but yuri targeted at lesbian women like let´s say "Mist Magazine" is quite rare (and sadly cheesy). There is also way more shonen-ai then shoujo-ai out there. I would say 4 time the amount. Just walk in to a bookstore and you will be surprised if you start counting like i did one month ago when i had to wait for my train. Or check the numbers here. None of this should be but before i have the entire yuri/yaoi community throwing stone at me i will state that calling such reader a "rotten women" is wrong and good "ai" manga do exist i will admit. I have written a glowing 8,5/10 review for Honey & Honey which even features a chapter on why it can´t really be adapted to anything in japan. At least it won an award which i then had to put into the description box. The box is made for such things dear community so don´t sleep on awards or remove them!
I am not even willing to throw hentai under the buss completely as my profile will tell you.

Bond the rapist: Goldfinger - James Bond & Pussy Galore Barn Scene HD
http://youtube.com/watch?v=1pUXH1Bye88
http://io9.com/5086230/5-things-i-learned-about-women-from-the-j ames-bond-books
http://whatculture.com/film/5-sleaziest-seductions-james-bond-film s.php/1
So how does the clip compare to Straw Dogs (1971) and the very first version of Lupin was even worse. Trust me.

About the history of lesbian sexuality. It isn´t THAT well charted (especially in japan) . I blame the patriarchal system for that (and of course Obama) and Sappho was bisexual. I'm Just Saiyan this to see what happens. See what i mean with random knowledge?
About the female response to lesbian porn in the study. Maybe they can just get into the head space of the women involved better. I know heterosexual men btw. who are incapable of watching hetero porn and look at the lesbian variety only as it has no troubling dick involved. I am pretty sure that this can also explain why nearly everyone on the web who watches porn knows the word "futanari" to a point. A chick and a dick for the price of one and no pesky men to muck it up and make you rage with penis envy.
Not confusing at all . Well done Nipon! You solved porn.
Ok i think that i have damned myself enough for today. Good night internet and stay classy as the new WD episode and more amc goodness are waiting and my food is getting cold.

Last edited by residentgrigo at 11:37 am, Mar 16 2015

________________
I also read EU/US comics and am a librarian.
Manga-Masters, My ANN-Lists + Imdb

Hasn't this question been asked enough times before? It's getting boring.

Last edited by amy_levi at 12:15 pm, Mar 17 2015

i prefer the feminine form weather it has a penis on it or not doesn't matter.

what i mean is when i read anything where romance is a key part, the relationship problems can be fixed with simple talking or asking shit.

at least when its a gay relationship you have that extra level of they may not be the same way, opposed to when you look at a straight one where they just dont talk...

i also have a strong preference to yuri romance opposed to yoai if only for the tone that usually follows. i mean sure not every yuri comes with real romance and some are worse than ntr i have read with no warnings... but its usually more enjoyable a read than yoai in story and art (yoai usually having that godawful shoujo style but only the worst aspects of it) ...

I'm pan and like reading good stories. I note that isn't an option.

You could've just asked "Are you a tumblr SJW?"

- Yes #2-10

- No #1

- No, I'm from /b/ #11

and I wager you'd get similar results.



________________

This is definitely an interesting way of looking at it, I like that. "Oh no, I'm scared of things going against the grain!"...that does sound like something a wuss would say (and what an apt adjective to describe BL-hating str8 m8s?)

RE: yuri being "more acceptable"
These aforementioned people don't find it natural or normal either, they're just gross fetishists.

I was pleasantly surprised to see asexuality as an option. Kudos to whoever made the poll.

Last time I checked, there were issues with the articles on both yuri and hentai, as well.
Especially due to a particular idiot (amongst other things, he liked to use sources, to claim the opposite of what the source was actually saying...). I need to get back to editing there, one of these days.
Wikipedia is generally pretty reliable, for the most part ...but some articles can be rather problematic.

Bara is, by definition, Japanese media, depicting gay relations, made for Japanese gay men.

How that could be conceived to be anything other than a mostly "a Japanese phenomenon", I do not understand. Why someone would feel the need to bother to mention it, in the article, however, is also rather baffling. Thus it's a rather strange and poorly worded way to express the message of that sentence, which was that it isn't that widely translated, and/or spread, outside of Japan.
(the full sentence being: "Bara is mostly a Japanese phenomenon, with limited western exposure through manga scanlations and online homoerotic art communities")

Ralf König is not Japanese, he does not live in Japan, nor are his comics published in Japan.
Thus what he does, is not Bara, BL or yaoi.
Gay media, yes, but not Japanese gay media. Thus it cannot be Bara.
Not in the "Western" senses of the words, in any case.

Here, the English word (a loanword from Japanese, that also exists in many other languages) "manga" means comics from Japan. In Japanese, 漫画 [Mаnga] is simply their word for comic. You cannot refer to a Batman or Donald Duck comic, as "manga", in English ...though in Japanese, you would be correct to call them 漫画 ...or コミック [komikku].
It's like how katana, in Japanese, simply refers to any one edged blade (a scalpel, kitchen knife, scissors, glaves, sabres, zanbatou...), but is used in "the West" to refer to a specific type of short, curved, single edged Japanese sword with a two handed grip.

Well, that's a good point ...though I'd have thought that they'd be a bit more in tune with lesbianism, compared to male homosexuality due to a) Being women themselves and b) arguably having lesbian-ish tendencies or unknowingly being a little Bi.
Admittedly, that still leaves plenty of space for ignorance, though ...but much better than with BL/Yaoi, I'd assume.

What do you mean, when you say it "can´t really be adapted to anything in japan."?
What are you referring to with the word "it", "anything" ...and indeed "adapted"?
I'd say that the fact that it's based on real lesbian people, rather helps, in how good it is.
(...also, I took a quick peek at page for it, and I saw it had the tag "Female to Male". WTF does that even mean? It makes no sense. Female to Male, what?)

Though speaking of award winning...
What's your opinion of Aoi Hana. It's won awards, and is made by the same mangaka who has made the oft praised Hourou Musuko (Wandering Son), that is seen as a great work, looking at transsexualism.
I'd be curious of your opinion ...and I'd love to know the opinions of some rather literally knowledgeable lesbians/transsexuals on them.

Yeah, that's pretty much what I said.

She wrote extensively on woman-woman relations ...and had plenty of it.
Whether or not she also had attractions towards men, doesn't seem particularly relevant.

Well that could be an argument (and, indeed, is a common one, among sexologists, it seems) for the depictions of sex, and maybe even masturbation
...but the depictions of just a naked person?
They got more turned on by looking at a naked woman, than a naked man. Why would they react at all, to a naked woman, if they are perfectly straight? (men didn't really react to the naked person, of their non-preferred sex. Well, slightly more than to nothing, but...)

Personally, I avoid futanari, like the plague. It's feels... wrong.
Not saying that there's anything wrong with intersexual/hermaphroditic people, just...
I don't particularly want to see them naked, much less see porn with them ...and I doubt that I am particularly alone, in that opinion.
I rather suspect that it's something that people either love or hate.

...and as to how futanari is presented, in manga...
It's generally not as realistic intersexual/hermaphroditic people, but simply as women with a dick ...which is rather problematic, I'd say.

Ralf König does more then "gay comic" and he is know on a national level. Just look at the languages present! Or how about Alison Bechdel? Yep the "Bechdel test" lady does (very good) comics. Here there are no pseudonyms' and you can meet them which is the direct opposite of way too many (Miura!) japanese writes of all demographics but especially if they go outside the norm. More people one can get to know on some level would be good all around in the manga scene and boy oh boy do i hate demographiX .
None would call Strangers in Paradise a yuri comic for one, Sandman had a dozen of non heterosexual characters and none cared....

Wiki reads as gay men comics for gay men were invented in japan but they are nothing more them an alternative comic in the japanese language.You can forget the editing of the LGBT anime/manga wiki article´s son as i got a memo from an "editor" once who tracked me down by IP when i added a few anime series with strong yuri elements (that the yuri community hates) on that respective list and gave out that genre. I even linked my sources! Well done with keeping that information flow going dear Big Bother wiki and some articles are truly more equal then other. The gay games character list is a mess too but they can keep their nonsense as the respective wikia´s (FF for one) got it right. These i will gladly edit.

Somewhat better tags could have been chosen here but they are not wrong as Honey & Honey features trans sexuality and gender operations themes and such characters. A+ there and a conversation later in vol. 2 goes over how the manga is the definition of mass market unfriendly. The author certainly proved herself right as even the follow ups have no translations. Surprise?

I am not going to call SHIMURA Takako´s writing bad as i am not an idiot but i find it a bit stilted. Too much Johnny Drama baby!
Better new ones are: Sasameki Koto (simple at it´s core but that lesbian romance is good), Acid Town (could use less rape), Bokura no Hentai (slightly heavy handed), Golondrina (very alternative/European), Ohana Holoholo (stretches 3 vol. into 6 and everyone can figure out the end) are all imperfect but i preferred them to her´s or YAMAJI Ebine ´s writing. How do i say it. These manga had more to say and were less on the nose but these 2 are viewed as THE voice in the filed. Look i have zero problems with them being adapted/read/known but new themes would be nice as an artist does not repeat him(her)self!
I do scan release lists like a hawk btw. and my comic pull list is a day derailing crime as i am more of living category function then man at this point.
Thank god i can read half of that at work .

What japan should repeat is content is like the GLAD winning http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batwoman (Semi protected!).
The lead is thrown out of the army because she is unwilling to lie about her sexuality (that back story soon won´t work and a ret-con will set the comic scene aflame so what to ?) and there are some daring unobjectifying sex scenes for a 15+ comic in it (and hardcore violence too) BUT her sexuality is just part of her. Kate is also Jewish, a cousin, a crime fighter, an aristocrat and... If you take the "ai"/romance aspect out of the book the narrative will still stand but take that out of the average gay manga and what do you have left?
Make them a characters first, then gay and only then part of a romance. No Uke/Seme crap! So like Dallas Buyers Club or Midnight Cowboy as these narratives will last time but will your favorite "ai" manga?

Or even better a lead like her: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renee_Montoya
(Not protected cuZ no "Bat" in the title)
She is perfect in my eyes and another GLAD winner for DC. Rene (good on Gotham but her "lover" sucks) is a hard boiled alcoholic, broken and a though as nails private detective. She and the other/old Question have a connection to Rorschach from Watchmen so think him but not asexual. Cool right? The Question is the male macho archetype with an out of control craving form women but with breast.
Holy shit did she sleep around (also with Kate) and villains even exploited her sexuality. Her hero´s journey was dark and expect NONE of that in the future DC movie universe. To thank is Greg Rucka who re-made these 2 into what they are now as he is an award winning crime writer of "real" books. This is what i want form manga! Urasawa just do a hard boiled Yaoi next. I would read it (and maybe a 1/10 of his audience).
See you can write gender neutral but cast a female Ghost Buster´s flick and the internet melts so that you then have to do a second "male movie" to make it up before even a script exist.

I just want capable people telling capable stories that go outside of the 9 to 5 norm and don´t just fill a space in an anthology magazine. True 9/10+ writing come form such corners and not specialty writing. The American ones sold well and got on the news a bit but NO more powerfully lesbian or bi women anymore DC (or even Marvel) as we have reached the saturation point and then some. Diversity needs to be diverse and it´s even a calculated stunt now. Just how Catwoman is now a bit bi (for an arc or 2) . Yes let´s NOT care that her title isn´t moving copies as the rotating writers are all bleh. Just go for a headline and see if i care. At least it is better then when they made her a dominatrix is the 80s (expect none of that in a movies and thank god!).
The has also been a strong rumor that we can´t have male gay leads in a Gotham book and none such leads do show up i will admit. I want my queer Robin like yesterday (it would be No.6 or No.50+ as we have reached a saturation point here too) but like i said: Character first and then...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midnighter is getting his own book so they finally see reason i hope. Yep that is gay Not-Batman together with Not-Superman and they were part of another (actually more then 2) universe once.This i want!
An Antihero who can break heads and suck cock. I deliberately chose Superhero books as listing alternative fiction would be way too easy and not many of you would expect that once can read such tales from spinner rack at a train station. Now you do and don´t lower your demand in the quality department and switch the country of origin.

Before anyone starts starts listing me all the (borderline-H) girls with guns nonsense with bi/gay leads i would like to point out that the women i just went over are 100% NOT sexualized. Showing me such a skin mag (Young Champion Retsu=vomit) that does not even have the decency to be honest about it´s intent is way worse then putting me to sleep . Enough nonsense form me and i am now good on writing option pieces on alternative manga. I also just noticed that mistress UMINO Chica does Yaoi.
To the fapmobile? NOT. Please don´t be crap. Please.

Edit: These were fine too: Cherish / Kinou Nani Tabeta? See i can be fair if i want and even gave "Realistic Homosexual Relationship/s" to the first.

Last edited by residentgrigo at 3:35 pm, Mar 19 2015

________________
I also read EU/US comics and am a librarian.
Manga-Masters, My ANN-Lists + Imdb