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“Me Thinks the Lady Doth Protest Too Much” is my commentary on the demonization of romanticized rape in fiction and the potential hypocrisy of the reader in the closet. Just very recently I participated in a thread where a fellow reader was complaining about the offensiveness of the vitriol directed at yaoi stories with romanticized rape and the readers that like it, and after going through the barrage of negative comments in this manga’s forum, of which some have gotten really ugly, I have to say that my perspective has somewhat shifted and I can better appreciate her/his viewpoint. All of this negativity brings to mind C. Wright Mill’s “Sociological Imagination” about how people live trapped in their own bubbles without understanding history, themselves and the world around them.

It seems that a lot of readers confidently opine on “rape” in yaoi but most of those comments show a lack of understanding of the yaoi genre itself, and to a great extent of even themselves and the reasons why they enjoy Yaoi to begin with. There seems to be a huge misunderstanding in the yaoi community in how rape is depicted and how, depending on the context, is supposed to be interpreted. Rape in Yaoi is situational as it may be presented in the context of either“real life rape” or “romanticized rape” with varying quality of execution. The romanticized rape trope demands suspension of disbelief and disassociation with real life morality. It is not prescriptive of rape or condoning rape, because Yaoi NEVER condones real life rape, it is simply a trope in the romance genre that caters to a universal female fantasy of being seduced (preferably forcefully) and sexually dominated by their target alpha male. The reader is not supposed to apply real life morality to this trope, because it has nothing to do with reality and everything to do with a sexual fantasy.

Modern sensibility towards real life rape within misogynistic cultures compels us to demonize the rape trope in fiction, becoming a sort of “intellectual” imperative to be critical of it (even if we enjoy the trope), irrespective of actual intellectual depth; something that very unfortunately has shamed women that enjoy the romance genre into the closet by contemporary society for fear of being branded with the scarlet letter as “internalized misogynists”. However, I would argue there is no shame in the trope because it is fiction, nothing but an individual preference like anything else that bears no relevance on one’s moral or intellectual constitution. I understand that the concern of real life rape is a very serious issue and a lot of people have difficulty separating that from the stories they read, but nevertheless it must be done. Mature, sophisticated or creative readers have no problem making this distinction, separating reality from fiction, understanding that even though real life may reflect on fiction, it is not the responsibility of fiction to conform to real life, otherwise, it wouldn’t serve as an effective form of human escapism.

Comments such as “I do not like rape” in yaoi or romance genre forums can be interpreted as not only misguided and self-serving, but derogatory indeed, because it is implying that there are yaoi readers that “like” or “condone” rape, when it is accurate to say that NO yaoi reader (or mentally healthy readers in general) likes or condones rape; only rapists like and condone rape; therefore, such comments are indeed redundant because *emphasis on word* NOBODY likes rape. However, there are a multitude of readers that do enjoy romanticized rape in fiction, which is why is still widely used across genres. We don’t think of those that enjoy slash in horror as “internalized mass murderers” do we? Or that someone is condoning “gruesome murder” for liking the tropes in slash; logically, liking romanticized rape in fiction does not mean condoning rape in real life, again, because one has absolutely nothing to do with the other.

My reference to Shakespeare’s “Methink the Lady Doth Protest Too Much” underlines some of those judgmental readers that emphatically demonize both the trope and those that openly enjoy it; those readers that time after time continue to erroneously apply morality to stories framed with romanticized rape, even though they are not supposed to, because again, it is a trope with pre-established rules that demand suspension of disbelief and real life morality; but specifically, it emphasizes the potential hypocrisy at play, the fact that the same readers (some of whom are vitriolic) that continue to disparage the trope, that despite their judgmental attitude and continued expressions of disapproval, they still continue to read Yaoi stories with romanticized rape in them; an indication that far from hating the common yaoi trope as they emphatically profess, they actually like it. Otherwise, it is illogical for them to continue to read the same type of stories or authors that are known to use the trope if they actually hate it so much; after all, there are multiples ways of knowing what a story is about before engaging with it, whether by checking the tags on the manga or by browsing the comments from other readers; Case in point, people disparaging this story as “rape crap” when it’s clearly tagged with Sadahiro Mika as one of its authors/contributors, a mangaka known for consistently using rape (in both contexts) in her stories. Since romanticized rape is such a fundamental prevalent aspect of Yaoi, it would better serve such readers to stick to shounen-ai or authors that rarely use the trope, read the tags and comments, but contrary to such common sense, those readers continue to gravitate towards stories with romanticized rape. Again, if indeed they hate it so much, why continue reading it? After spending so much time in the forums, one starts to recognize fellow users, with those hiding behind the veil of Anonymous making it more difficult to ascertain.

And I suspect those that are more on the vitriolic side are the ones that enjoy romanticized rape the most, and their belligerence arises from their dissonance between liking the trope and societal pressure, or pressure to make themselves look “intellectual” or even conscientious, when their very action of applying morality to something that it’s not supposed to be, shows their lack of knowledge on the subject, that they in fact don’t understand the Yaoi genre, its origin and the different tropes that construct it or worst, that they don’t even understand themselves. Romanticized rape in fiction holds absolutely no moral value, it does not convey any type of prescriptive morality, it has nothing to do with moral fiber or intellectual depth, as its only purpose is to cater to the female fantasy of sexual submission, and nothing more.