So I might not be the best person to give the answer since I'm lesbian and therefore cannot imagine myself as the role of the uke in the manga, but here we go:
I think the whole concept of there being a permanent bottom and top in yaoi greately relates to shoujo manga where (most of the time) the girl is very feminine and the guy is this 'perfect' character who comes to their rescue. I think this idea might have transitioned onto yaoi as well as shounen ai which is why more and more of this genre is starting to remind us of shoujo. Also, about the uke looking feminine and the seme looking masculine probably links to shoujo manga as I described but also links to sereotypes where we see the more masculine person as dominent and vice versa. I'm not sure if this answered your question but I tried xD
Hi! Very good analysis. Would just like to say that in the real world a lot of gay people actually do have their preference. I have a couple of gay friends, and a couple of them actually cannot be the other, or at least have tried and didn't really like it lol but I do agree it becomes problematic when people seem to feel like a certain character cannot switch and must be either an uke or a seme. I can't really answer the question because I have never been the type to feel so strongly about those things (who's supposed to be the uke/seme or such lol)
i think one question that's good to answer along with this is why a lot of women like to read yaoi instead of other types of mangas, myself included lol
Dont feel bad at all!!! I get this question many times and this is just th standard society has on people in general. We categorize ourselves into either a dominant or recessive role in a relationship, either becoming top or bottom, tachi or neko, seme or uke. Just remember that Japan is not a queer friendly country and thus authors are still bent on their beliefs that each relationship must have an instigator or a push and pull. However MANY AUTHORS break that mold and we get those awesome sub genres of masculine ukes and shorter semes.We arent genetalizing them as one or the other, but we set them as a "type" to which role in the relationship they fit best. For example; AOT the biggest ship ERENXLEVI and LEVIXEREN. both have prominence in the fandom, and they are tied neck in neck when it comes to which role they play, however its decisive as to which parts of their personalities, environments, friends, norms the author is using to forward the plot and make the romance aspects appeal to the audience best. So generally, all yaoi have the potential to be seke or switch but many authors choose to side "smaller or meeker" as the typical role or "personality" of the lesser aggressive partner.
Some people are turned off by thr fact that a seme looking guy will be the uke, or the lolicon bishounen is the seme, but for most of us, we are just generally surprised because its not the "usual". It comes down to basic plot. See yaoi follows the same steps as a rom com script. Boy meets boy, boy knows boy, conflict, sadness, realization of love, confession, bing bang boom. Happy ending. So when we get those out of the box scripts, its new and interesting, but there will always be criticism on what it should have been. Some like it some hate it and thats why authors like to write about alpha semes and androdynous ukes. Its what works most of the time.
Very well that some people have types or favorite sub genres like chilhood friend or incest. At the end of the day many of us become fujoshi's because we want to see love between two guys. Some may have reservations on what their preferences are, but thats just taste.
There are a plethora of non comfomative yaoi out there that caters to audiences such as yourself. Its there. Maybe hard to find, but its there. I hope this answers a little bit of your question!!!
Omg, did you just imply that being on the receiving end means that guy is being castrated? #triggered haha jk xD
I wonder if I'm in the section of BL readers your post was aimed at... I personally think that the seme/uke thing makes it easier to talk about this genre, as generalizations normally do. E.g. I find it hard to remember characters' names but I for sure will remember their "role", as well as how they interact with each other, and it'll probably be similar for others.
And I LOVE it when there's sth unexpected/rare, such as a strong uke, seme that's very much about consent, reversible couple, healthy relationships...
As things are often not as they seem to be (and where would be the fun in it if they were), I'd probably believe it and enjoy it very much (=・ω・=)
Reading the others' replies, I'd like to also point out that maybe it's just in yaoi wherein ukes have to be "weak" or more feminine than the seme stuff like that (i hope you get what i mean, but like the yaoi stereotypes of what a uke or a seme is supposed to be). I actually think that my reading of yaoi has influenced me a lot lol. I have a friend who's a bottom, but he, if he was in a yaoi manga lmao, acts like a seme. I'm pretty sure we talked about it before, but for some reason, I always believed he was a top and was really surprised when he told me a story about a sexual encounter and he was the receiver (he was shocked too that I forgot he was a bottom even though he's told me countless times). Also, now that we're talking about this I'm reflecting on my actions lmao cause sometimes I'd tell my boyfriend "you're such an 'uke'" in a joking manner, and I think that says a lot of how yaoi mangas have shaped the way I think about tops and bottoms and now I feel like I have to change the way I think about things because we're the ones doing the imposing on how tops or bottoms should be lol (I would also like to mention this video of Troye Sivan https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9U9aTwsH3DE and there's this tweet "... but he's already a bottom" and he was like "not true, but whatever") but of course I'm not gay so I can't really say if they themselves also do this associating of being a bottom to being more feminine and more "submissive" BUT YES I would just like to say thank you because this really made me think about my own actions and my own biases
Hmm, in my honest, humble and a candid opinion. It is not about being "heternomative" (I've googled this bec this is the first time I've encountered this word), it is about how a man wanted to be held as a woman. I am a girl, with gay friends and they're the ones who taught me all about anal sex (with a very graphic description actually) and based on what I understood, there are different kinds of gay relationships,
With that in mind, I think like how every Yaoi, shounen ai or BL mangas differ but wih similarities, there are also a different kinds of men to men relationship. It is not really about who is the man, or the other one is feminine, or whatnot, but it is how the author tells us the story of what happened to them.
And sex is an added bonus.. a fan service (づ￣ ³￣)づ
Don't get me wrong, I know that there are some mangas/manhwas who are focused on sex only, but generally FOR ME, Yaoi stories taught me that we're not so different in terms of love.
You feel hurt when you get hurt
You cry when your partner dumped you
Everyone can be cheated on
Every one of us has hurt someone,
It doesn't matter what the gender is or who is the alphamale or who's better.
I hope I conveyed my thoughts cleary. (▰˘◡˘▰)
You bring up good points. But I think we need to remember that most of "mainstream yaoi" (excluding most bara etc) is written and drawn by women and for women, and that obviously influences the outcome. Women (in a relationship with men) in our current society just don't have a "top" option, at the very least sexually (pegging isn't exactly a feasible option in the majority of couples, and I don't think it's the same anyway). So to empathize we need a character in whose shoes we could actually put ourselves (i.e. the uke), especially when reading erotica. I do think yaoi has unfortunately come to rely on the same old cliche tropes, although there are artists who come up with original ideas and more realistic outlooks about relationships between two men.
Also there is the whole trouble of traditional (strict) gender roles and homophobia in Japan Korea and China, how society treats women and femininity or anyone non-heteronormative, etc. Yaoi isn't created in a vacuum, those artists are influenced by their upbringing.
I'm a bottom.
This is a sincere question, not meant to judge or offend anyone but I really need to understand this about the most or average Yaoi readers:
-- I know that we are mostly women and also mostly very young (in average) so I'm guessing this is the defining factor but I want to be sure by reading sincere and unguarded answers to this question:
Why there MUST be an uke and a seme? Why every gay pairing gets assigned to be a bottom or a top in such a rigid way? Is this a way to fantasize a make the gay pair heteronormative and have a girl/woman back in the universe? Or is a way to create a fantasy of a alpha male that will come and take us ( and the uke replaces our fantasy ) and since it would be a bit embarrassing to root for such a stereotypical plot in hetero stories, we use the yaoi ones under the disguise of 'rooting' for gay love ( while in fact in need to make one of them an eunuch or girl that will behave as a girl being fucked).
Anyway, I am curious because I see most readers really take the 'uke' and 'seme' roles seriously to the point of fighting or saying like a pair or character would be ruined if they were one or another. I'm just trying to understand why this castration of one of the male character is so essential to yaoi readers ( or they won't be able to enjoy the story).
Do you feel like that at some level this means that you can't really accept a relationship between two men unless they perform a heternormative form? ( meaning one man MUST be a woman). I keep thinking about the subtle homophobia that this idea implies... and it could be that deep down, being incapable of enjoying or accepting a BL story without one of the guys being exclusively assigned to a man-women dynamic is a hidden homophobia. But on the other side this could be just a matter of women creating fantasies of submission and love stories where they place themselves as the uke and that's why it's impossible for them to let go of the idea.
So, if you are to give a very candid and unguarded answer to this, imagine some of the stories that have a pair where the author didn't create an overly girly 'uke' ( because sometimes they do and it's impossible not to automatically assume this position) but you still, consciously need to know or see the pair as uke/bottom. Would you enjoy or believe the story if the roles were reversed or if they were a versatile couple? Why not?