Ok I'm going to be honest with you. Gay men are NOT the targetted demographic for yaoi, they are targetted and marketed solely to straight women. I know its wrong, but thats how the industry is! The elaborate plots, the attractive androgynous men in bl, all of it is made that way to appeal ONLY to a straight female audience, it does NOT appeal to gay men at all. Bara is however is something that is marketed and targetted solely to a gay audience. Which is why many cis women do not like Bara at all. You should check out some works from Gengoroh tagame, Gai mizuki. These are wonderful, incredibly talented gay men who write solely FOR gay men. Their works are incredible and you should definitely check them out!
Theres no problem with them reading it as long as they don't project it onto people irl. I mean as a brown lesbian, the number of times I've received dms from horny cis men who wanted compromising pictures of both me and my partner, and wanted to "join in on the action" is incredible, and almost always makes me feel dirty asf about myself. But you know misrepresentation is so common that you just have to live with it. Bl is just late to this party of misrepresentation/fetishization imo. And the only people who gate keep are also angry cis women for some reason lmao
Is it just me or are people getting saltier on here