I had some free time so I came up with some guideline just now that I believe is the MINIMUM of what manga/manhwa/manhua authors and illustrators should adhere to:
1. Only explicitly show consensual sexual acts.
2. R*pe/sexual assault is not the only storyline you have to use. Telling the story of survivors/victims of sexual assault is extremely important, but the abundance of r*pe/sexual assault/sexual harassment in BL and yaoi mangas make it seem like writers only know to rely on that (especially in omegaverse stories!)
3. Don’t use r*pe as a random plot device - actually have the character/s have some kind of growth from it - and although in real-life, not every r*pist/assaulter gets punished, some do, so let's have more r*pists get punished for their crimes in these stories.
4. If the r*pe/sexual assault is important to the story, don’t explicitly show the r*pe scene - the author can simply say it happened and not explicitly show the penetration. Explicitly showing that type of scene is very triggering to people. I think having the characters say what happened to them to a counselor rather than showing would a pacifying scene instead of a r*pe scene.
5. If a character does end up getting r*ped/sexually assaulted, show them traumatized, and show them getting help/therapy/counseling afterward!!! Normalize getting treatment after a traumatic experience.
6. Don’t have the victim forgive the rapist after the r*pist says “sorry”.
7. Stop making characters say “no” during sex when they actually mean “yes” - if a character says “no” during sex but the other character/s don’t stop, that's normalizing r*pe culture - impressionable people who read these mangas might not understand when their real-life partner is actually saying “stop” and they'll perceive it as "I can keep going". If a character is saying “no”, the other character should immediately stop and get off. Similar to this, let's stop having characters say "I won't be able to control myself if we keep going" during a sex scene. This is r*pey!!
8. Have BOTH characters explicitly and vocally give their consent BEFORE engaging in any kind of sexual activity.
9. Stop normalizing taking advantage of a drunk character or a sleeping/unconscious! If they aren’t cognitively aware, they CANNOT give consent, even if it’s their partner doing something to them!
10. Put trigger warnings in mangas. Not every manga I have read had them, and I'm really disgusted from seeing a "surprise" r*pe scene. Also authors should leave crisis phone lines or websites for help for readers at the end of that chapter.
If you made it this far, thanks for reading! I really do want to hear your opinions on this. Is there anything you would add? Do you think this is too much? If you do think this is too much, I really want to hear why.
