BL has been a genre characterized as being "by women for women", as most commercial BL and self-published BL are created by female artists. Historically, it was used to explore topics and ideas that may have been disallowed if done by female characters. So it was an act of liberation, so to speak. BL is popular nowadays, but there is still a bit of stigma attached to being a woman liking BL in some circles.

So to all my fellow fujoshis:
Why do you like BL?
What attracts you to the genre?
What would you say to critics who claim fujoshis are fetishizing mlm by enjoying BL - do you agree or disagree?

I'm very curious about this, especially the last question about fetishizing mlm, since I've seen arguments on social media about it.

________________
떡대수 supremacy

Greetings to a fellow BL lover 🙂

Putting my reasons and thoughts down is a bit difficult, hopefully they'll make sense to you 🤣

Probably the biggest reason why I like BL is because it is "balanced" - the men stnad on equal ground, are socially equal, have the same opportunities etc. And when it comes to their relationship, they have equal chance of ending up on top. Of course, there are series/pairings where one is "more" than the other (bulkier/stronger/more dominant/all of the above...), but even in those the at-first-glance-seme may end up being an uke (case in point: Wei Ying and Lan Zhan in Mo Dao Zu Shi). Not knowing beforehand who'll end up on top is refreshing, while with M/F pairings it's pretty much given. Which is why I probably like switchable pairings the best. 😁
The other reason why I like BL is because I HATE the so called "red library" ("romance novels"😉, where men often treat women like trash, are forceful, rape them or force them into a relationship/marriage, and the women have no say about any of it because they are socially "less". They make me frustrated and furious about how women were, and still are, treated (as a thing - to sell, to give to a man, to use, to f*ck and toss away, to serve as a housemaid...). Women, at least in my country, are still socially "less" than men, even if we try to claim that it isn't so - they have lower wages (a man and a woman doing the same job? woman will get paid less just because), are unwanted as employees, are less respected, and yet are pushed by society to higher obligations (marry, have kids, stay faithful). Unwed/unfaithful man? No problem, it's "normal". Unwed/unfaithful woman? Huge scandal, "there must be something wrong with her"... is how many people still see things. I also have a bit of bad experience, so M/F sex makes me sick and doesn't interest me. That is not to say I hate all M/F relationships, but M/F sex (written/seen)? Hell no.

As for the last question - I disagree. There is nothing wrong with fantasy, which is what BL is. Men have tons of traditional p*rn and fan service, so they should let us have our BL. 🙂 Generally speaking, both BL and fan service are fantasy/fiction and don't harm anyone. Don't like it? Don't watch/read. Fantasy only becomes a problem when someone tries to replicate it in real world - men thinking they can do whatever they want to women and such. I've never heard of a woman forcing two men to be together. 😃
What exactly is the problem of those critics? Do you remember an example or can you link one of the arguments?

Well, my reply turned into a bit of a rant mid-way, sorry about that... Hopefully it at least answered your questions.

What about you? What do you like about BL? 🙂
Also, aside from the questions you mentioned, I'm also curious about the age at which people first started to read BL and how old they're now.
I first stumbled upon BL when I was around 16. Now I'm nearly 30 and still enjoy it 🙂

Thanks for your reply!🙂

I agree, it's very difficult to sum up why I love BL, too. But I guess my story is that I started reading BL (and manga in general) in 2020 during the pandemic after watching anime. So I was 31. I believe the first anime I watched was The Titan's Bride and the Saezuru movie. Then Banana Fish, Hitorijime My Hero, and Super Lovers. I even watched all the old school BL anime like "Boku no Sexual Harassment" and "Papa to Kiss in the Dark". I was completely hooked by the time I finished watching Junjo Romantica and Sekaiichi Hatsukoi. JR was actually my first manga purchase. I'm not ashamed to admit that my first BLs were R18 doujins. I literally went through all of the pages in the yaoi section of a hentai website... because it was the first time I had ever seen that kind of thing. Some were funny and hot, some were weird, but all were interesting enough to get me into the genre. "Sakura Gari" and Harada's works were the first commercial BL I read.

I think one of the biggest draws for me was the way the characters seemed. As you touched on, I really like the equality of the relationships. One of the things that kinda annoyed me while I was watching (non BL) anime was how boy crazy and weak the female female characters were. In BL, there's the inherent equality because both are guys. As you mentioned, there're still a lot of tropes that illustrate BL is written by women - like size difference or uke effeminacy and seme masculinity or fixed sexual positions - but as a whole, I don't get that cringe feeling while I'm reading. I can just enjoy the romance. Perhaps it's because I'm American and women here have more freedom than Japanese women have, so it was hard to see such rigidity in regular manga.

But on the flip side, what is ironic, though, is I like the "female essence" that the male characters do have, just by virtue of women creating the stories. Like, the amount of introspection and mulling over things, the desire for communicating problems (of course we all know how much miscommunication happens in BL), and the craving for committed deep relationships. It was so nice to see men wanting the same things women want, even though these (awesome) guys are 2D. It's not to say men don't want these things but they are less likely to verbalize them or make them a priority? I sometimes feel like these creators are creating the perfect guy for us fujoshis (same is true obviously for MLs in shoujo/josei). I feel like a BL guy understands what women go through, haha. 😁 I also like it because I like seeing men being cute and vulnerable. I really like masculine, buff uke characters for that reason: even though they are often tough and manly looking, they are still designed with a softness and approachable-ness that appeals to more strong women like myself, haha. They'd be pampered and spoiled without shame! Lol

As for the issue of mlm fetishizing, of course I disagree. I agree with you, it's fantasy. Why can't we have a bunch of cute boys to look at?!😛 One of the criticisms is that BL often shows mlm relationships in a negative life because there's a lot of rape, dubcon, and/or abuse in BL and it's often normalized or sexualuzed. I think it's a valid criticism, because there is a lot of rape. But rape is shown in regular manga the same as it is in BL, so it's more of a cultural issue than a BL issue, imo. Another is that BL presents mlm love as rigid and fixed and is therefore inaccurate. I think this is legitimate, too, but I'd argue that it depends if the audience is really thinking gay men are the same as what they see in BL. Many times BL doesn't even mention orientation of the characters, so I wonder how much of the audience are making those connections to real world people. I know I don't, since BL characters still feel very "feminine" to me, even though they are men.

I just wonder why there's criticism at all considering so many gay male BL artists respect female BL creators and their work. There're even a few male artists who've written BL for women's BL magazines and publishers (e.g. DrawTwo, Haiki, Minamoto Kazuki, etc). If these men are okay with women liking and creating BL, then isn't it okay? They aren't calling their female fellow BL artists fetishists! All the attacks on fujoshi and BL are aimed at readers, never on the fujoshis who make BL. It's a bit of a curiosity why that's the case.

________________
떡대수 supremacy

Thank you for your view on this matter! I was curious about other people's reasons for reading/liking BL as well, but aside from us, no one seems to want to try to put their thoughts down...

I don't think there's anything wrong with R18 doujinshi. I personally like both BL manga (and anime) and doujinshi. I usually tend to go for manga when I want something new (new story, pairing, setting) and wholesome; and for doujinshi when I finish watching/reading non-BL anime/manga and want to see the male characters get it on 😁

Haha, I agree, if fantasy men were like this (introspective, caring, committed to a relationship...) in real life it'd be great. I'd definitely try to grab one for myself lol. Handsome strong men with hidden sofness or a cute weakness are fujoshi killers - at a glance they're lovable, but their softness is what really grabs your heart and makes you love them. I'm a sucker for this type of fantasy man as well 😀

Eh, if the critics' main problem with BL is rape, abuse and dubcon, then they should look at M/F media, then they'd find out that there's plenty of that in there as well. But yeah, I agree that there's a lot of it in BL. Then again, to those critics I'd repeat my point that it's fantasy only. If they're really against it, they'd have to ban it not only in M/M media, but M/F one as well. But they're hypocrites, so they'd only strive for the M/M part.
That leads me to a thought - I wonder if most of those critics are men (gay or not), who just dislike the way they're being portrayed (the same way I, a woman, dislike how women are sexualized in media), or if they're women who, I don't know, dislike same gender pairings in general?

There are both male and female authors of BL, the same way the readers are of both genders. So I think the critics' whole problem might not even be about BL or it's elements, but about having "something" to complain about. Because if there's something I've learned about in life, it's that people looove complaining, about anything and everything, especially anonymously on the internet. So don't trouble yourself with their criticism too much (but you probably know that already, seeing as you're my age) 🙂

Well, have a great day and enjoy your BL. I know I will 😁

I was looking for an article I read a little while ago but I can't seem to find it. Basically it said that BL was a way for women to enjoy romance & sexual content without feeling like they are supposed identify with 1 one the characters. I think that's true. I could never relate to the chaste, overly shy girls in shojo romance and seeing all the "perfect" Barbie doll-like women in mature manga just got tiring. If all the characters are men it becomes more fantasy.

Anyone that's complaining about women being into BL better be complaining about men being into GL.

Late to the party, but it looks like I’ve found my people.

For me, I think part of it was looking for role models. I got into manga in my formative years and after learning about the shoujo, shounen, etc, genres by demographics, I tried again and again to relate to shoujo protagonists with the thought that they were “written for me” despite me not enjoying the appearance, actions, or circumstances of the bulk of them at the time. I enjoyed the characters and behaviors and plot points in shounen much more, but still hated how female characters were portrayed there too. All helpless and annoying and only ever used to motivate others even if canonically they were revered for their competence (looking at you, Naruto…). I read a lot of Hwang Mi Ri and Han Yu Rang once I realized I had a better chance of finding strong female characters in manhwa than in manga. But in BL, they could be themselves without having their existence tied to a man. The women in BL could be sensible and funny and strong. Though they could be rare, too, I often thought it better for them to rarely show up as cool as they were than for female characters to be everywhere and always the same weak, ditzy archetype as in much of shoujo at the time.

While I like BL for the women, I also really appreciate the men. For the reasons you’ve all described, it’s nice seeing male characters be vulnerable and open and treat their romantic interests as real people instead of as innocent creatures that always need saving or bullying. It’s incredibly refreshing. Sure, there are some (read: many) titles that end up replicating M/F stereotypes with M/M characters, but even that is refreshing to me because it’s much less annoying to have a male character playing out feminine tropes than it is to have a female character stuck in the same boat as the past few centuries. Because even in these situations, it’s usually their romantic partner and maybe secondary ML friends who treat them that way while the rest of the world recognizes them as human beings able to take charge of their own lives without obsessing over romance. Their relationships feel more realistic since they have more freedom.

I do think some take fetishization too far, but the line for me is when fans project their feelings about 2D characters onto 3D human beings, like anyone who tries to seriously pair up their friends or idols. Like you said, fantasy’s only a problem when someone tries to replicate it IRL. Other than that, criticism of fujoshi or fudanshi just sounds like the BS of those who consider it their full-time job to hate on whatever teenage girls like. Not to say fu-ism is a fad or phase, but that it’s just another target for misogynists. There will always be people starting nonsense.

Plus, as a pervert, yaoi just makes more sense to me. Sure, I can appreciate the female figure (and have been conditioned as much), but I already have one of those so it’s not as interesting. The (2D) male figure on the other hand…I am looking respectfully. Not to mention it’s soooo much more exciting when both partners seem to be really enjoying themselves in intimate scenes. Consent is sexy, doubly so when made clear by obvious enjoyment. An overly restrained FL and gruff, dead silent ML are not it. Oftentimes I think abuse is thrown into romance stories as a tired but convenient plot point when writers just want to shake things up and force characters to act a certain way. It’s different when there’s an actual reason for it central to the plot and character development, but most times it’s just “let me show off X or Y” at the risk of traumatizing my dear character for life.

I don’t consider myself a “fujoshi” as that term brings about some negative stereotypes of fans of BL. I don’t think I’m that extreme.
Now, why do I like BL?
That’s a very good question, I don’t know if I have a clear reason for it. I was a senior in high school (17 at the time), when a girl in my art class brought a volume of the manga “Fake” and seeing two guys kissing was hot. After that, I started consuming BL, and now almost 20 years later I almost exclusively read only BL (webcomics, manga, novels (web or otherwise).
I admit, I find the eroticism of BL more palatable to me than straight smut. It may also be due to the fact that I’m asexual and detached from sex in general. So I don’t read smut to fantasize about stuff I want for myself. I just like the pretty pictures (or imagery in the case of novels). Art is in the eye of the beholder, but overall, the art in BLs (manga/manwha/manhua/webcomics in general) tends to be easy on the eyes, which I think just ups the appeal (at least for me). BL is usually a women for women genre (even though that is not to say that there aren’t male artists that have dipped their toes into BL or men that enjoy reading it) I’ve have read some stories that are labeled “Bara” which is supposed to be by gay authors for gay men and usually feature more masculine looking characters and I’ve enjoyed them (even though I’ll admit I prefer the “prettier” art of BL, and no, that doesn’t mean I’m talking about the very effeminate characters.).
And BL is evolving. Series I read in the beginning, now don’t really appeal to me anymore. In general some of the more annoying tropes are still there, but are at least being talked about and also, before stories were usually very black and white in terms of who’s who. The more petite characters would 99% of the time be the passive players, but now that is not always the case. Sometimes characters are of similar build, or the more delicate looking one ends up being on top, then there are the so-called “power bottoms” who even though are on the receiving end, are the ones in charge of the relationship.
I think ultimately, I prefer BL over other romances because to me they’re on a more even field. For example, in shojo, the girl is usually a walking bimbo with no redeeming qualities except maybe being super nice, and the Uber cool, collected, hottest guy ends up with her and I always ask myself “realistically what can they possibly have in common that he would fall for her?” Whereas in BL there are stupid characters as well but I feel like they are not the norm and usually the romances make sense. If they don’t make sense to me I won’t read, but usually they don’t make sense because one character was being a huge a-hole to the other not because one party is too dumb to live and somehow that’s what makes them endearing.
I don’t hate shojo, but most have horrible main female leads.
As for whether I think BL fetishizes gay men?
I think it depends on intent.
I don’t think there is anything inherently wrong with writing a love story even if it features 2 men and the one writing it is not gay or male. Love is love and it can be messy, dramatic, toxic, endearing, cute, everlasting, etc. no matter who’s involved.
When it may be considered fetishistic is when people ( the readers mostly) try to apply BL logic to the real world with real people.
I read BL for the fantasy of pretty people engaging in erotic situations and I don’t expect real people to fit those aesthetics. Heck, I’ve watched porn and I prefer hentai because I prefer the aesthetics of the drawings over a real body, but I also don’t expect a flesh and bone body to ever act like the way it can act in a drawing.
In short, to me BL is more enjoyable due to the art and the fact that there are more palatable characters than in other genres ( but there can be lemons everywhere).

I like to read about relationships and I like one volume stories. I think that if more shoujo, josei etc were one volume stories with well-written characters, I would read them just as much as BL. However, I feel most one volume stories of those genres are compilations of one-shots, which is not my style. That's pretty much it, to be honest. It is like a cycle: I want to read about a couple, a slice of life story etc > BL has those tropes in short stories > I found a story I like in a few minutes after going through some not so good ones > I guess it is worth going back to reading more BL, etc.

I don't know if I could be considered a fujoshi as I have no problem to read heterosexual and lesbian romances too because my reading preference depend on the genre (my favourites ones are fantasy, science fiction, historical and mystery) so there can be no romance at all in the plot and if there are love stories I worry more that they're well-written and abuse isn't romanticized than if the pairings are or M/F or M/M or F/F.
I didn't use to read many BLs because the titles I found at the time were all slice-of-life, a genre I find boring, and with problematic aspects , like dub-con, I hate and the ukes had a characterization based on negative gender stereotypes about femininity that my feminist soul can't stand. The only one BL series I read during high school I liked and still like is "Sakura-Gari" by Yuu Watase because it's a well-written historical psychological thriller and there isn't any form of romanticization of rape and abuse.
I have started to read more BLs only recently because I discovered Chinese fantasy and historical BL novels and fantasy BL manhwas, that I love because they belong to my favourite genres, they showed me fantasy tropes and settings based on cultural beliefs and legends different from Western ones, the protagonists are both badasses and a power couple and the stories have well-constructed plots, and the classic works of the BL genre like "Kaze to ki no uta" by Keiko Takemiya and "Marginal" by Moto Hagio, that I like as they're well-written and with powerful messages and they tend to be historical or fantasy or science fiction, alias the genres I like.
The people who criticize BL genre should look at how many problematic elements and how much misogyny are present in many heterosexual romances and porns and in the hentai genre and at the misogynistic and homophobic men who thinks that queer men should be beaten to death because they find them disgusting and that lesbians exist only to excite them and that said lesbians will end up to marry men at the end of the day because women can think only how to be good wives and to give men children in their logic.

Greetings!

I've said this elsewhere, but it bears repeating.

I like beautiful people having dramatic lives in unusual or exotic places, and WHO ARE NOT ME!

I have been reading MF romances since the '70s and MM since the '80s, then discovered the world of CKJ novels, manga, anime, et al, in the early 2000s with the widespread adoption of internet broadband making exposure to SO MUCH MORE possible.

I read age-restricted, adult, erotica and downright p*rn of all persuasions.

If you want to accuse me of fetishizing gay relationships because of my enjoyment of BL in all its iterations, then you MUST also accuse me of fetishizing straight relationships for my ENTIRE reading life!

I am reading fiction, romance fiction.
It is NOT authentic, true queer accounts of the current condition of the real world (though it CAN be.)
It is NOT important literary/general fiction or memoir (though it has been progressing more to have elements of this.)

Romance IS
A story whose focus is on the relationship of the main couple/throuple/N+
And
Has a Happy Ending (~Ever After or ~For Now)
That's it!

Straight and queer authors, and straight and queer readers, can create and enjoy whatever world they wish.

I won't look down on those who choose not to spend their time, attention, or money, on stories whose world they don't like.

But I REFUSE to apologize about enjoying something that is NOT REAL, that those people hold in contempt.

And for saying that BL has problematic tropes, have you read BG? Like EVER?!

I started way back when, when in books the heroine is forcefully coupled by the male lead, but she realizes it's because he LURVES her, so that's okay.

There are TONS of tropes and characters that I would run from, screaming, in real life!
And would not think it was okay if it happens with others, IN REAL LIFE!

Some of my backlist is horrifying, and yet I am practically celibate (aegosexual?) and hides under the bed the non-con TPE and 'vore fic!

Wait! I'm celibate? Asexual? Does that mean I'm not allowed to consume and enjoy BG stories?!

Beautiful people having dramatic lives in unusual or exotic places.

Let us ALL be!

________________
"No matter where you go, there you are."
Buckaroo Banzai

The more I age, the more I think this questions should always be "to those who exclusively or almost exclusively read BL, why?"

There are some people who ONLY read BL and are very enthusiastic about BL, but I don't think this describes most readers in this genre. In reality, I think the primary readership of BL read both het shoujo as well as BL. I think there is a ratio for a lot of people (60% BL/40% het shoujo, or vice versa), but when their tastes expand outside BL, it's kinda obvious that there is no clean-cut "why" to liking it beyond BL is just another avenue for telling a story (love story or otherwise) - it just happens to feature two men.

The appeal of two male leads is something I've thought about, too. Some other people here have already pointed out some, but here is what has crossed my mind and what I have seen others say through the years:

1) it's nice to read a story where a woman is not being portrayed with all the stereotypes seen in romances, whether it's for guilt-less enjoyment (because, let's face it, BLs also come with reinforcement of m/f style gender roles, usually with the uke/seme dynamic) or because it's just refreshing to see a man portrayed like this (the blushy BL style man isn't often seen in non-BL works, so if you like this style of guy and wanna see him a lot, you're gonna have to read more BL); and/or,

2) some women can be quite misogynistic and just not like woman characters - we often see in BLs that the woman is the "evil" one (sometimes OTT) and these stories are written by woman...for women...it's an odd phenomenon, but in the BL world -- you, the reader, are the only woman among all these men and this might be subconsciously appealing to some people (like a lack of competition? IDK); and/or,

3) related to the last point, reading manga is a voyeur experience - BL stories are often filled with just men, with lady characters off to the side or minimized or as the beloved friend or sister the main character relies on or as "fujoshi" themselves pushing the guys together. In the latter two cases, the voyeur aspect (via projection or seeing yourself as that character) is more apparent. A trope in BL that is a low-key but not uncommon is a man who loved his girlfriend or wife but she died and, of course, there is no other woman for the man (now that think about it, this falls in line a little with the last point and the note about competition, lol), but here is a heartwarming story about finding love where its with a dude; and/or,

4) some women (I focus on them as the primary readers of the genre) have an aversion to m/f sexual stuff for variety of personal reasons but they want to see sexual stuff (if they are straight, it makes sense they go to BL, which has men in it, vs yuri although some probably do read yuri)...BL provides a space for this; and/or,

5) related to the last point and the first point, when women are constantly seen as sexual objects in society (thinking about how BL originates in a country with strict gender roles but also that slash in the USA, starting with Star Trek in the 1960s, was pioneered by housewives in a time of less social freedoms for women), there is a pressure to be appealing to men. Traditional m/f stories get boring or oppressive because they just reiterate this message to some ( "me man, you woman" ), but in a BL story, there is a world opened but where men are the ones being objectified or being told they need to be sexually appealing...the inversion can be appealing to some, allowing them to engage in the romance in a more nuanced way than if they had to bring their real world resentments to it via a female lead - they can also project themselves on one of the male characters in a freer manner; and/or

6) Two guys kissing is kind of hot. This could be in general - like, if you're a person who is attracted to men, what is better than one dick? Two dicks! There is a reason why sex in BL is more akin to het sex than it is actual sex between two men as it would happen in real life, i.e., the "yaoi hole". It could also be some fetish or taboo thing, particularly in places where homosexuality is heavily, heavily stigmatized - the homophobic or/and straight seme trope is popular for a reason, I suppose (people love to see a "brute" - who is often homophobic and a chauvinistic, be revealed to just be repressed and gay...). Also some ladies just like looking at attractive men and character designs; and/or,

7) The summary appealed to them and they aren't homophobic or anything, so why not?

All that said, I am always been interested in the people who only read BL, tbh. My thoughts are these people probably fall into reasons (4) and (5) mostly.

Last edited by flowinmyboat at 6:14 pm, Feb 26 2024

________________
http://i.imgur.com/LxhWm.jpg (will reformat this some day…)

Just a thought to add...

My first BL was fujo-bait Black Butler/Kuroshitsuji in the early 2010's,
but my first Western MM?

A mimeographed 'zine passed around in the mid-70's that had Kirk/Spock and an intense case of Pon Farr!!

Followed by the paperbacks by "anonymous" on the top shelf (but accessible to ALL buyers!) in my Waldenbooks in the early 80's of gay men having fabulous lives and lusty s*x in places that were NOT Fire Island!

And I can assure you that THOSE novels were not written BY women FOR women; but as a bookseller then, I (and other women readers I saw) did buy them too!

________________
"No matter where you go, there you are."
Buckaroo Banzai