AllAboutMen

Zarathustra May 22, 2018 4:42 pm

A Yaoi story with both lovers looking and acting like men? Bless the author.

Responses
    Mandarine May 23, 2018 8:42 am

    Don't know about you but most men I've met in my life aren't half as buff as that... But I guess maybe you live in a body building community, or you've never met a man outside of an eighties action movie ╮( ̄▽ ̄)╭
    Also not sure if smashing somebody's face in is acting like a man or simply having issues... "acting like a man" doesn't mean anything btw, plenty of ladies out there are more ballsy than most real men.
    Seriously this comment is getting old, nowadays chibi ukes, except in shota and shota is terrible, aren't that much a thing anymore... In the era of Zariya Ranmaru and Scarlett Beriko (and other porny authors that like muscles even more) you're really commenting in bad faith.

    This comment is as stupid as saying "only feminine and hot skinny gals like Charlize Thereon (or any other typical Hollywood actress) are real women"... Whatever.

    Zarathustra May 23, 2018 2:16 pm
    Don't know about you but most men I've met in my life aren't half as buff as that... But I guess maybe you live in a body building community, or you've never met a man outside of an eighties action movie ╮(�... @Mandarine

    I'm not sure why you came swing at me like this but calm down your tits.
    First of all, if you want to attack what someone said, try not to judge the meaning behind without asking ---politely if possible --- if it had the meaning you took for it.
    I fully understand what you are saying because I am reading a story where there is a ship war because one of the characters --- the uke who got the guy is portrayed in a more delicate manner while the other character is portrayed playing sports and being aggressive. The readers who favor the second guy argue that they are tired of ukes are girly and prefer the other more masculine.... (be noted that I too am tired of the trope that an uke has to resemble a girl in form and behavior and that's where my comment here came from) but the curious thing about that story is that the more 'masculine' character ( a straight homophobe guy) can't admit his mistakes and dwell in self pity, claiming himself victim of the other guy. Plus, he allows himself to play lackey to a female character. He is childish, immature and weak in personality. The other ( gay) is indeed more girly like but despite being the victim of abuse of the other guy, gone through family rejection and other things, he doesn't dwell in self pity, he is not bitter and he doesn't hold grudge. In other words, I argued that what makes a man a man is not his physical or playing sports but his ability to own his shit. So, please, before you judge me based on a short topic, come talk to me first and understand the full context of my comment.
    Now back to my comment for this specific story. My problem is not how men are defined in real life -- I fully agree with your statements about real men in real life.
    My beef is about how ukes in Yaoi are portrayed with female stereotyped characteristics. You are so worried in correct my 'stereotype' of men but my comment is also a critic of what this stereotype is because I almost never find a seme that is the delicate, blushing part or an uke that is masculine. Do you? Yaoi authors do reinforce the idea that a gay man who takes up in the ass cannot be the one smashing a face or looking masculine. They need to shorter, weaker, dependents of their 'seme' , the alpha male. They basically emulates a stereotype of how a girl looks like in a relationship.
    My comment wasn't so much to say that a man is only a man if he looks masculine and acts masculine but to compliment an author who --- against the stereotype of ukes in Yaoi -- creates an uke that can be masculine and not yet another 'chick with dick'.
    If you can't see how Yaoi ukes reinforces the idea that a masculine man would never be the uke and only a girlie one would, I can't really discuss my point with you. Go on believing that I am the one propagating a stereotype when my whole point was exactly the opposite.
    I won't return the rudeness and call your comment stupid but if you want to keep engaging with me about stereotypes, please lower your tone with me and keep the same level of civility. Thank you anyway for having the time to reply to my topic instead of only thumbing down.

    SanSan May 23, 2018 2:32 pm
    Don't know about you but most men I've met in my life aren't half as buff as that... But I guess maybe you live in a body building community, or you've never met a man outside of an eighties action movie ╮(�... @Mandarine

    I don't know but I think his/her comment was about Yaoi stereotype of portraying the seme/uke pair as a version of macho/girl pair.
    Not sure which Yaoi stories you have been reading but if you didn't notice the veiled idea that 'real men' don't bottom or that men that don't look like men can't be the top, then I suspect you can't catch the sarcasm of the topic.

    - A May 23, 2018 3:13 pm

    There's a whole lot of that in bara mangas, you should try it if you haven't yet ;)

    Zarathustra May 23, 2018 3:41 pm
    There's a whole lot of that in bara mangas, you should try it if you haven't yet ;) - A

    I do know Bara but just like Yaoi, it is another genre stuck in its own form of gay male stereotype. Correct if I'm wrong but Bara is focused on gay porn, not about love stories and the stereotype there is that all gay men are muscled guys that have orgies and porn sex.
    My comment was a dig about how typical Yaoi ukes are by default a character that stands in for a girl --- almost never masculine and if they are, they are in a way that are less masculine that the guy who is the seme. And by contrast, how typical Yaoi semes are not allowed to show to be the most vulnerable.
    In short, typical yaoi couples have the seme/uke emulating a man/girl because the idea that a man having a dick up his ass and remaining a man is something that doesn't compute for both authors and readers. We have come a long way dropping this stereotype in real life but Yaoi remains firm on this old trope ... so much so that finding an yaoi where ukes are masculine like this one is still rare. Even more rare if the seme is the one with more feminine traits.
    I long to see ukes who don't stand in for girls in Yaoi or even semes that are not stuck in the alpha male mold. Bara doesn't fill in because it's not about relationships but porn and another stereotyped version of it.

    Irene January 8, 2025 6:18 am

    There are so many BL out there with masculine bottoms nowadays. I understand the gist but your comment does come off a little weird, toxic masculine-ish. There is no correct or incorrect way of being a man.