Yaoi Category - 187 pages
Yuri Category - 19 pages

Similarly with Shounen Ai and Shoujo Ai - 73 vs 18

On forums, number of threads is similarly much greater for BL.

So I ask a question: Why? No matter how I look at it, women being more emotional makes them a much better material for romance and, considering that men have higher libido than women, also better for erotic works.

Furthermore, despite their popularity, BL seemingly doesn't produce anything too original - pretty much everything follows the seme/uke pattern and even then it rarely explores relationships other than sempai/kouhai.

In my view, BL is just so much less interesting than GL or ordinary romance. Although it's a rather meaningless number, looking at my wish lists (I have muuuuuuch more on my wish lists than I have ever read because I like having choice when picking next manga to read), I have 24 vs 5 (GL vs BL) manga that interest me although it might be influenced by fact that I'm a straight male.

So why? I can't really think of anything that could explain the disparity.

yaoi is so popular and there are so many mediocre stories that are the same crap. But, if you dig around, there are some really good quality BL stories, like how there are good quality GL stories you like. The only reason yaoi is so popular is because it has just grown from the large number of females in the manga business. I'm surprised there are not many GL....

Girls love focuses more on the emotional aspect of a homosexual relationship while boys love focuses a bit more on the sexual aspect of a homosexual relationship. The sexual aspect is what attracts and excites readers. I mean in gl, they don't really have the utensil needed to fully complete what one would normally qualify as sex. It's also kind of like a cycle, because there are so little gl stories readers don't read them as much. Since there's a larger variety of bl to choose from, readers tend to read bl more and because more people read bl, more bl is produced while not much of gl are produced.

The primary demographic for yaoi / BL is straight women. The primary demographic for hentai / ecchi is straight men. So I'm left wondering who yuri / GL is aimed at. I don't think that the primary demographic is men, because it's less about the sexual aspects of the relationship, and more about the romance. My conclusion is that yuri is for gay women, and they just aren't as large a demographic as the others.

My theory is that BL has a horde of girls behind it. Screaming, obsessive, obnoxious, fangirls. Since that type of girl voices their opinion on max and buys whatever exploits their interests, those that cash in will receive their money. That's also what causes me to think a lot of BL rides on the cliche since the cliche is what those girls never seem to tire of. If they do, they grow up and the next legion of squealing girls moves in. GL has cliches too man, the most obvious one is the freaking all-girls-school, the paradise of femininity that apparently is the only place a girl will have feelings for a girl which she uses as a substitute for a boy.

And don't think you're alone man, yuri has a lot of fans behind it - this one included - we just tend to be quieter.

As far as demographics are concerned...70% of subscribers to Yuri Hime are female, so that's the majority. Yuri Hime branched off into Wildrose, which was aimed at men and was just yuri sex. It flopped. So yuri is read by more women, that shouldn't be a surprise, girls just love homo-lovin. BL is read by straight men, a majority of straight women, gay women (I've heard some lesbians like BL more than GL), gay men, and all in between. GL is read by straight men, straight women, gay women, gay men (I was actually surprised to hear a gay man gush that he adores yuri) , and all in between.

To be honest a few years back GL magazines and collaborations were sparse, now they pop up and are even released regularly. I got into GL late, recently really, and have actually seen attention to it grow in the short time I've been here. The diversity can only grow from here. No use hating on it's male counterpart when GL is seeing it's own growth.

Hasn't there been threads like this before?

Anyways the reason can be a great mix of factors, but GL is there and it will continue on.

I don't find either is more interesting than the other. Both have cliches, with BL cliches being more unrealistic and existing in almost all of the titles (in manga). But that's because there are not as many yuri/shoujo-ai manga titles.
Yuri cliches are more prevalent in anime (ecchi, moe, fan service, whatever) because male otaku enjoy them. I would say 90% of the anime nowadays are made for male otaku while manga have more varied demographics.
BL is created for fangirls who are exactly after the BL tropes/stereotypes and living in their own world of escapist fantasy as caozhi pointed out. I am sure they disagree with you. They find BL more interesting than GL and straight romance that's why they created a lot of such manga.

You are a straight man. Of course you find GL more interesting. You are just the opposite of the BL fan women.
Most straight men don't even read yaoi/shouen-ai.
I would suggest you stay away from BL instead of complaining.
You are obviously not the target audience and I see little meaning of reading them.
So enjoy your yuri tropes and the (just as) escapist fantasy instead.

Last edited by coffee_11 at 6:35 am, Jul 25 2012

Yaoi has a larger fan demographic. It's really that simple. Compare it to the number of pages in shoujo. Same reason that when you go to a shoe store, you can find a womens 8 no problem, but a 12 is hard to come by. Supply and demand. The more popular the type of manga, the more a publisher allows to be sold.

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i disagree with this, because it kind of depends on what you define sex as. But I do think you make a good point that many people may find gay sex to be more interesting/exciting that lesbian sex. And for me, I consider the sex the main point of a yaoi or yuri story.

I find romance much more enjoyable to read and watch. Romance can contain drama, comedy, mystery and much, much more, while sex is just sex, nothing more or less.

Shoujo Ai/Shounen Ai are in this regard a really good romance material imo, because they allow introduction of many themes that would be hard if not impossible to fit nicely into an ordinary story - angst, struggling with accepting oneself, characters fighting and resolving the feeling of guilt for being who they are, etc.

Sex might be a good culminating point in romance, but if they just start fu*king for no real reason then it's not much different from pantyshots in a stupid ecchi or a beach episode in a harem. It might be somewhat arousing, but it's not art that a good story should be.

Maybe it's just me because I need relatively much time to grow fond of the characters and become immersed in the story, but I find sex without romance empty.

As for why I believe Shoujo Ai is better than Shounen Ai, it's because men want to dominate and I simply can't find a (figuratively speaking) one sided relationship like that romantic. That said, the only Shoujo Ai story that I truly loved so far was Girl Friends. (which I btw recommend to everyone regardless of preferences)

I'm gonna stick with my idea on the whole thing. Relationships and/or sex with lesbians and/or bisexual females are shown openly in just about every medium, while gay men and/or bisexual males are safely hidden away behind the name of yaoi/BL. Hence, there's not a bunch of yuri/GL because you can find it just about anywhere you look. Yes? No?

I also agree with the whole question of toward whom GL is aimed....

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Mind eraser, no chaser

Blame teenage girls and their messed up sexual desires. As caz said, maybe yuri fans are just quieter, or more...refined, so there's much less bad manga allowed or something

Yeah, because we all know how teenage boys never think about sex and have absolutely no weird ideas regarding it.

No no, blame teenage boys for all the bad ecchi.

I'm with Twelveunitsshy on this one. Supposedly het hentai is full of yuri. As a straight female who only looks at hentai for malexfemale, it's very annoying just how much femalexfemale sex abounds in that stuff. I've only run across a few hentai that sprung surprise malexmale sex to go with the het and yuri stuff, and that was just anime. When it comes to manga, I avoid hentai because I know anything aimed at het males will likely have yuri in there somewhere.

On the other hand, the only place to find yaoi is in clearly labeled yaoi manga (and djs). The het male fans don't want it anywhere near their hentai, so it has its own little corner and is only marketted to fans willing to shop in that corner. If that corner happens to be rather large and crowded, it's only a result of yaoi being isolated and condensed so much. Yuri doesn't need its own corner because it's welcome in anything targetted at het males, which is the majority of anime and manga.

As for the soft stuff, I think yaoi fans tend to be fine with shoujo ai. Most of the ones I know were Sailor Moon fans early on, solely because of the GL bits and hints. Shoujo series are full of hints to open the minds of female fans, which is what leads most of them to BL or GL or both. As for which the fans end up preferring...I think it depends on what they're looking for. Male relationships tend to have stronger characters, power struggles, males put into positions of powerlessness (which women have historically occupied both in reality and fiction), and for the sappy people - men who not only have emotions, but who can sometimes voice and act on them (talk about fiction).

Speaking as a heterosexual female, I take it for granted that females can be emotional. Two girls falling in love isn't anything special because we usually have little trouble admitting how much we care about our best friends. Remove the sex from yuri to make it "GirlLove" and all you have are the typical BFF type relationships most girls experience quite a few times during their lives. Been there, done that. It might be interesting to guys or to lesbians who haven't come out yet, but to het females it's pretty bland. I'm not a fan of hardcore yuri, but I do need some sexual tension in order to see any point in a girlxgirl relationship. The soft stuff is just Cardcaptor Sakura to me. Yeah, they're cute and all, but I'm not going to shell out money to read it unless they throw some chemistry in there to spice it up. The problem with that is...the moment you spice it up, you have yuri instead of GL and then it gets lost amid the hentai stuff.

To answer you question I'd say it's because many males would rather read hentai than yuri. Also most females choose yaoi over yuri because there is a wide range of yaoi to choose from and for whatever reason we are attracted to it. I think it might be because yaois usually have a lot of sex but they also have atleast a little emotional background. Personally, I've tried reading yuri but it just doesn't do it for me at all. I honestly just don't find females attractive in a sexual way. As for shoujo-ai, I can't seem to get into it and I find it rather dull because again, femalexfemale relationships don't interest me. I'd say that most females just don't connect with yuri or shoujo-ai and most males would much rather fap to hentai than yuri.
Oh, yaoi =/= hentai. I have read malexmale hentai and it is just lacking when compared to yaoi.

Last edited by neonkitty at 12:00 am, Jul 17 2012