Agreed. While I do appreciate some tropes such as smaller, cute ukes, I don't get upset when something goes unexpectedly. In fact, I don't always expect anything (unless primed for it by the mangaka). I don't understand why other fujoshi get so worked up about who tops and bottoms.
yeah lol it's just bizarre to me. i'm sure i'm gonna rustle ppl's jimmies but i feel like lots of BL fangirls do some weird projecting... and hate their own gender. it's sad.
and obviously there are some awesome BL fangirls! but it's always the crazies who are the loudest, so it kind of feeds into why they have a negative reputation.
Sorry, wanted to give a big thumbs up, but my big thumb was clumsy and hit thumbs down. I agree with every word you wrote. My brother - 6'4"/250# - is an exclusive bottom... His lover - 5'9"/195# is an exclusive top. There are no guidelines or molds to fit into in real life. In defense of the mangaka who write yaoi, the stereotypes help their target audience - hetero females - relate to the characters. Most Japanese women know few gay Japanese men and would be lost by reading about relationships from a gay perspective. Nanao Bohra has more "realistic" characters than a lot of other mangaka. You may like her works.
As a fan of "fun in the backyard", I agree... bottoms deserve way more credit for being strong. That shit hurts... no pun intended.
i like naono bohra too, i think denki was one of the first BL manga I read actually! shes good, except i find fantasy manga a bit tough to get thru so I havent tackled those stories of hers yet.
yep i know a lot of couples like ur brother and his s/o. and i'm not saying that heteronormative gender roles are nonexistent in the LGBT community - u'll see more twinks who bottom and more bears who top - but they're certainly not as widespread as yaoi manga would have ppl think.
i get so conflicted about BL sometimes. I've read some really great stories and know lots of female allies/bi girls who are awesome BL fans. But it feels like some BL fangirls want to project themselves onto the "ukes"... which would be fine if the standard seme being mega-aggressive, controlling, and violent and the standard uke being a wilting flower. Oh and any female competition being an evil witch. I realize that yaoi caters to women though so maybe its not my place to talk, but is this really the type of relationship BL fans want? Is this really how they see other women? Sorry for this D- thesis lol
omg Kanye i can't believe you read yaoi !!!
Joking aside, I totally agree with you. Fujoshis are being really weirdly obsessed with this uke/seme thing and frankly I often find it worrying and sad to see that they are projecting themselves as the weaker one because they're being entered.
I agree. Naono Bohra is my favorite and the reason I can enjoy many other types of mangas that are the typical stereotype. Open minds people! ٩(๑❛ᴗ❛๑)۶
I agree. Naono Bohra is my favorite and the reason I can enjoy many other types of mangas that are the typical stereotype. Open minds people! ٩(๑❛ᴗ❛๑)۶ Lol!
Nothing else to say except I agree with you 100%.
I only started reading BL manga recently and it's like a whole new world for me. kind of distressing tbh.
*are not. And sorry I didn't mean to do that twice.
It IS a weird phenomenon; it's similar to the overdone formulaic shoujo-Mary-Sue-surrounded-by-all-male-hot-harem--it's this weird fantasy that does not reflect current culture--it's almost an eggaration of a trope concept where there are certain odd rules (like in all genres) that we don't question, but also draws us to yaoi and BL characters and plots that break those rules. I personally love unexpected or interchangeable roles that push the standard "rules" or "boundaries" in BL or even Josei/shoujo/etc genres. It's both refreshing in that there is a degree of realism along with the fantasy and fiction. <3
Lol *exaggeration
Honestly, I think the age of the reader has a lot to do with it. There are some scary young girls reading yaoi, some of which have never even had sex.
As a bisexual female, I agree with you on many things. Many people looked at my partner and I as if I were the one being pushed down (I'm super tiny and rather feminine-looking whereas my partner was the stereotypical "dyke"), which was not the case at all. *buffs nails on shirt* Joking aside, she deliberately made herself that way because she was having identity issues. Eventually she relaxed and even embraced her femininity. I didn't really care either way. Another thing I agree on is yeah, anal hurts, and I don't have the added bene of a prostate. Total bummer.
As for why I read yaoi, well, it's less annoying than shoujo and josei because the women are generally weak and annoying characters, and I like smut. Also, men treat each other differently than with a woman. Things are just a little more raw verbally and physically. This is much better represented in m/m erotica novels. I write erotica (typically paranormal romance cause I like my smut freaky), and for a couple of years, I wrote on a writer's board with a gay man in the BDSM scene. We wrote some pretty awesome m/m pieces and our characters were almost always switches. Domination was a major theme across the pieces because that was the medium we wrote in, but newsflash ladies!! Someone can top from the bottom. It's a real thing. Case in point: Saezuru Tori wa Habatakanai. Yashiro is my absolute favorite slutty uke, and he tops from the bottom except with Doumeki. Doumeki just throws him off his game and it's a beautiful thing to see. Both men are obviously men, I mean, c'mon, they're proper yakuza. Nothing fluffy happening there. There are a few other yaoi I've run across where this is the case, and I absolutely love them. I also really enjoy the switches, like the ones in Mukizu ja Irarenee (excellent managaka btw). I do have to sit on my hands when reading people's comments on those though.
And for this comic, dunno why people didn't see it coming. His girl toy was riding on top. Right from the start he was a bottom because he clearly likes handing over the reins. His personality just added to it.
Anyways, it has everything to do with personality, wants, needs, likes, and dislikes, than appearance in reality. Sorry so long; I just felt the need to add to the rant. ╮(￣▽￣)╭
no it's cool, i like hearing what other people, especially queer people, have to say about BL and yaoi.
i don't know, i'm reading some josei and shoujo that i really like, although women are obviously represented poorly in a lot of shoujo/josei. and i'm not sure yaoi does much better in terms of avoiding weak and annoying "feminine" characters in BL relationships (the ukes, more or less). plus, i think women are generally treated like shit in yaoi, which makes me uncomfortable. but maybe i've just read the wrong things, who knows. i will have to check out mukizu. more switches are always nice :)
i do take issue with your second-to-last paragraph because that's the kind of stereotyping i was railing against - that bottoming ~= giving up control - but i agree that the author probably had that kind of thing in mind, at least.
and i love yoneda kou. yashiro is one of the best crafted characters i've read in a long time. i like that a lot of her bottom characters are smart, tough and cunning. i'd like to see that more.
Hmm. I don't think it's stereotyping at all. Comics still tend to follow much of what you'll find in literature. In this case, it was foreshadowing. Stereotyping would be me saying that the kouhai should be the bottom because he's shorter and less of a jerk. Perhaps it's the way I worded it, but he prefers others doing the work. Maybe I should have just called him lazy instead lol
fair enough!
Considering we do live in a heteronormative society and Yaoi is typically made by females, I'm genuinely not surprised by the whole gender roles stereotypes that some of the readers seem to expect. Im not saying it's a good thing- it's just how society is. Personally I'm a Yaoi fangirl( and a lesbian) and to be honest my favourite thing ever is when the cute tiny guy ends up being the top. I definitely agree on how certain female readers project themselves as being the uke to play out their fantasies. Eh personally I just don't bother reading much of the comments anymore - the less I know, the better ahaha.
Me too. I also like it when the seme is the cute little guy, or when they reverse the roles. I have actually dropped reading some mangas after a couple of pages, when the characters are too stereotypical, and the mangaka is portraying a gay relationship as a stereotypical hetero relationship..
Everything that's been said already is so spot on.
Nine times out of ten when starting a new manga, I already know who's going to bottom/top. Generally it doesn't bother me, but it does get wearily predictable that so many authors seem so beholden to certain gender norms. Are you shorter/feminine/meeker? Well, you're probably screwed. Literally. Which wouldn't be so much of a problem if readers weren't then so baffled or put off when a couple's dynamic didn't play into their expectations. It doesn't really help either that a lot of Japanese publishers intentionally stray away from works that don't feature a stereotypically-identifiable pairing, precisely so that they don't alienate their readers. (I recall reading several omakes to the effect of, 'I wanted X to top, but my editor said no.' Which is unfortunate -- and really only seems to fuel the "panic" that you'll occasionally see in comment sections like these.)
I do think it has a lot to do with age, which Silencia mentioned, as well as a very particular target demographic that BL publishers generally cater to. (And on that note, I'm off to read Mukizu ja Irarenee because role reversal. (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧)
maybe its just cuz im a bisexual guy who both pitches and catches, but why do ppl care SO much about who is shoving their dick into whose hole lol? whether u're a "seme" or "uke" has nothing to do with your personality, appearance or anything else about u. and i think it's silly to equate "topping" with dominance, because that would mean a guy is automatically dominant in almost any heterosexual relationship with a girl, which isn't true.
like it's fine if ppl have a preference (we all do) but it weirds me out when ppl are so adamant about who MUST top who - and i see this a lot with BL fans. it's partly why a lot of fujoshi types make me uncomfortable. they transcribe their heteronormative stereotypes onto queer couples without trying to understand anything about LGBT culture.
and a final note... aren't bottoms really the strong ones? cuz lemme tell u, taking a dick up the butt really fucking hurts lmao. paintingnails.emoji.