I just thought I'd love to hear some rants or experiences that people have had on yaoi lol, like how you felt while reading a bl or why you got into it in the first place :>

Because I wanted more.
I started with an anime with bromance, then I thought it wouldn't hurt to try shounen ai so read them, and that was it for me, I then tried yaoi and never stopped... Never will lol

My "rant" would be that life will continue after I'm gone and some awesome mangas will be written that I'll never read... But I'll enjoy whatever I can read for now.

P.s: you should have started by mentioning your side of your story instead of just asking... I also think you can find similar posts about this topic here in the forum...
Just saying (:

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"It's so warm that, Before the snow has a chance to stick, He melts it for me."

Predisposed because my first ’ship was Kirk/Spock in the ‘70s.

Read physical MM with difficulty before the great high speed internet explosion expanded ease of discovery and consumption.

Anime/manga exposure in the early 2010s with the great “Fujo-bait” of Black Butler/Kuroshitsuji.

With actual YAOI following this, seeing the stories going from almost hentai (multiple short stories in one tome) to actually shoujo/shounen/josei/seinen in scope and variety.

While the genesis of this story subject and style in the ‘70s due to then-current cultural, historical, and political realities (Showa 24, etc.) are well explained on other threads in forums here and on NovelUpdates and Reddit;
the realization that this is as much of as a genre as BG romance/drama/adventure/fantasy;
and the growing acceptance of true authentic queer stories written by queer authors for queers readers today does not (and should not) negate the appeal of ANY of these stories written by presumed CisHet authors for presumed CisHet readers, and really, are you in the heads and the bedrooms of every author and reader?!
And even so, to be limited to writing and reading stories by and for “people ONLY like me” makes the world and small sterile place.

Pardon the off-tangent rant. 🙂

Anyway…
I’m a sucker for Bishounen, and the more the merrier!
Here’s to beautiful people having dramatic and exciting experiences in unusual or exotic places- that are NOT ME!

Cheers!

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

I read BL stories because I don't care if a story has romance and if said romance is heterosexual or homosexual; I care only that the characters and their romance are well-written and well-developed.
I have to admit I started to read more BL series only recently as I found BL chinese novels and BL manhwas that have plots I find interesting and that belong to my favourite genres (fantasy, historical, mystery and science fiction), like "Mo dao zu shi" and "Tian guan ci fu" by Mo Xiang Tong Xiu, "Thousand autumns" by Meng Xi Shi, "Dinghai fusheng lu" and "Tianbao fuyao lu" by Fei Tian Ye Xiang and "ENNEAD" by Mojito, and I managed to find good editions of classic mangas of this genre, like "Kaze to ki no uta" by Keiko Takemiya and "Marginal" by Moto Hagio (that, coincidentally, belong to my favourite genres too), and excellent historical and fantasy western novels that have a homosexual romance as their main one, like "The Persian boy" by Mary Renault and "The heritage of Hastur" and "Sharra's exile" by Marion Zimmer Bradley. Indeed, the only BL stories I read when I was a teen were "Sakuragari" by Yuu Watase, because it's an awesome historical psychological thriller where rape and abuse aren't romanticized, and CLAMP's works, as they fit my favourite genres, they have an awesome artwork and they have interesting female characters that aren't the damsels in distress or the love rival usually present in BL works (that my feminist soul can't stand).

Last edited by Sharaz-de at 3:21 am, Mar 12 2024

Not really much of a story - I'm obsessed over any/every manga/anime series I can get my hands on. I'm extremely queer myself, so that's a contributing factor to my love for yaoi. Although the queer representation isn't good majority of the time, I'm reading for the sexy, toxic drama of it all anyway. I'm a grown-ass adult now, so any life lessons regarding sexuality/love have been learned.

I love queer stories - I want to read more, make more, and want it be as common as any other form of entertainment.

Yeah, I get that lol

As for my side of the story, I suppose my love for yaoi was born from simple curiosity. I started with cute webtoons and moved my way to more explicit manhwas and mangas. I continue to read yaoi because, well, I find comfort in the idea of romance between two individuals in a way I can't when it comes to straight romance or yuri.

I've stopped reading manhwas and read mangas exclusively now, partly because I've found most manhwas to be quite dramatic and overall messed up or void of a plot that can truly convey 'love' between the characters, its always either too extreme or just not enough. Other than that, the stories are often dragged out to 50-100 chapters. Like, I'm fine with reading long stories but the amount of drama is just hard to go through lol. I'm not saying mangas are any different, but from my 6 years of experience, I've found more manga than manhwa that are less dramatic and more convincingly portray 'love'.

I really hate how common rape is in yaoi though, so I avoid that kind of stuff at all costs. I'm also not great with stories that revolve around just sex. I like in-depth plots where the characters are good people, at least for the most part, and properly communicate- basically, non-toxic yaoi

I've also found it really hard to find people that share the same veiws as me, so I don't have many fujo-friends lol. It's nice to read others experiences though, regardless of what they're into :>