Regarding BL games...

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Re: Regarding BL games...

#16 Post by afu »

cloudyssky wrote:
shahab96 wrote:ok...i know this is stupid but what does BL stand for? :?
Don't worry, I had to google it too. It stands for "boy love".
No -what are you two talking about? Its "bacon and lettuce"!



its obvious Im sure, but Im kidding! :lol:
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Re: Regarding BL games...

#17 Post by shahab96 »

lol!!!! I cant believe i didn't think of that.
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Re: Regarding BL games...

#18 Post by Aka-kami »

Glad to see that mostly everyone's open minded about it. I'm not really gonna make a game just yet, just had an idea since I've been refining an old story of mine (I still have to decide whether or not I would turn it into a VN or webcomic). Just became curious and all since, well, it's a BL story. More on the shonen-ai side actually.

Most of you guys who want a high quality story might not find this all that well, high quality. Non the less it isn't all that straight forward since it takes a long period of time before the main coupling actually become anything beyond friends. There isn't any intimacy in it.... Or is there? *shot*

Either way, thanks for the input. I'm just gonna plan away and decide what to do with the story later.
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Re: Regarding BL games...

#19 Post by LinWest »

The more intimacy, the better. >3
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Re: Regarding BL games...

#20 Post by Sheru-chan »

I may be weird but i love BL. Since i love adventuring, a BL relationship seems to be adventurous(but i like the uke girlish and wimpy though...cuz somehow, i can't stand the two men who were both manly then....gay?? if its girlish, i stil end up thinking its a normal BXG but much better)
i actually watches out for the yaoi releases of manga than the GXBs.
But of course, i'm still an oh-so-big fan for Otome Games ^^

My point is, at least there are some like me who were willing to play BL
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Re: Regarding BL games...

#21 Post by LinWest »

BL/Yaoi tends to be less threatening to girls, especially younger ones who aren't quiet comfortable with their own sexuality or if they're hung up on seeing other girls in sexual situations. They get sick of seeing other girls sexualized, so they feel more comfortable with seeing two boys, since male are allowed to exercise their sexuality without repercussion... (even if homosexuality is frowned upon). If you ever look at 18+ yaoi you may note some instances where visual cues that would seem be more interesting to female gentalia than male. There also is particularly emphasis on generally female erogenous areas/actions. Considering this isn't the Hentai section, i'll leave it at that.

In Japan same thing. Yaoi is so appealing because girls intuitively feel it is a more equal relationship since girls tend to be socially pressured into traditional role, when they might prefer a sexual relationship or an intimate lover who is also a friend. In America, personally, I have noticed among friends and people and other classmates in college, girls that come from religious or strict homes that already like anime, are drawn to BL.

It's something to keep in mind. More girls are open to BL and yaoi than you think, its just a matter of presenting it in a way that's appealing to girls.

Anyway, even if lemmasoft isn't crazy about boys love, there's still devart, y!gallery, aarinfantasy forum, and maybe gaia. There's definitely an audience for it.
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Re: Regarding BL games...

#22 Post by Evangeline »

BL/Yaoi tends to be less threatening to girls, especially younger ones who aren't quiet comfortable with their own sexuality or if they're hung up on seeing other girls in sexual situations.
You know what, I'm sick of this double standard. If girls like yaoi, there's something wrong with them. But if boys like yuri, that's completely fine and normal and understandable? It's because this world is still dominated by the patriarchal system, that the male perspective on sexuality is seen as the norm, and anything that deviates from that is seen as negative or dysfunctional or not normal.

There was another thread here that asked about adding a yuri option to their game, and the response was generally more positive and supportive compared to this thread. The fact that yuri appeals to males more than to females was never brought up or questioned; the fact that yuri is popular with boys is accepted without question while in a thread about BL it seems there is a need to explain "why on earth would anyone like something like this" is evidence of a male-centric perspective on this forum (which is shared by most of the rest of the world, of course).

In any case, I think it's clear the demographics on this forum is clear - it seems to me that there are probably slightly more males hanging out here than females. But that doesn't mean that you won't have an audience for BL games, because as you can see there ARE fans who who like BL.

To clarify, LinWest, I'm not saying that your reasoning as to why girls like BL is invalid or necessarily wrong; it's the fact you had to explain it, and the way you worded it that makes it seem that something is wrong with you or that you are somehow psychologically inadequate or immature if you are a girl who likes BL, that reveals your androcentric bias that, to be fair, is shared by most of us who've grown up in a patriarchal culture.

I agree with some of the points you make and I want to expand on some of them. There IS a noticeable difference between yaoi hentai and straight/yuri hentai. Typical yaoi hentai in general tends to focus on the romance and relationship aspect, and is much more likely to portray the arousal of both partners during intercourse, while typical straight hentai tends to be much more visceral - it dwells more on the mechanics of sex and features of the female body that men find arousing - also, female reactions to male partner's actions tend to be over-the-top, exaggerated, and extremely audible, while the male partner's pleasure is usually downplayed (hence a subgenre of hentai where the storytelling is done entirely in first person - there is no male main character, only a penis attached to a body that is deliberately vague so that the reader can submerge himself completely in the story and imagining that he is the one having sex with the character(s) in the story). There is usually much, much greater detail around the genital areas in straight hentai compared to yaoi hentai. This is due to the fact that men typically get aroused through visual cues. Of course this is not true in all cases, but there seems to me to be a general trend in that direction.

Also, you argue that girls are drawn to BL because they feel "it is a more equal relationship since girls tend to be socially pressured into traditional role, when they might prefer a sexual relationship or an intimate lover who is also a friend". The argument you're making here is basically this: (1) the "traditional role" of females is to be non-sexual (or at least at first - which is why so many straight hentai have the girl being all embarrassed at their own arousal or pleasure while being extremely sexual at the same time - evolutionarily it makes sense for males to find "virtuous" females to be attractive because they are less likely to have sex with other men), and (2) a traditional relationship between a man and a woman is an unequal one, and an unequal relationship cannot include friendship.

BL overcomes these problems by allowing the female reader to identify with a male character - the uke, feminine and submissive, but by virtue of his maleness, is allowed to be equals, and thus friends, with the male love interest, and also to be sexual. People who don't like girly ukes are missing the point - the point of BL is not to accurately portray gay men in real life - BL is targeted firmly towards the female demographic, and girly ukes are there for the female audience to identify with.

So, LimWest, instead of phrasing it as "girls who are uncomfortable with their sexuality" or "girls who have repressed, strict, or religious families", which makes it seem like there's something wrong with the girls themselves, you should phrase your argument as this:

Because of a society that is dominated by male perspectives, many girls have internalized the androcentric notion that they cannot be sexual, and that male-female relationships are conventionally involve an unequal distribution of power (which is, sadly, still true in many places, and definitely in Japan). And therefore, girls who have a longing for equality, or to be in a relationship of equals, can only fulfill that longing through identifying with a male character (the uke in BL).

And yet the uke is still girly and submissive and feminine and weak because girls have internalized the idea that THAT is what girls are like, and that THAT is what they are like, and THAT is what they should be like. And so if the uke is not all these things, he cannot be recognized as female and thus prevents the female readers from identifying with him. And that is why there is a seme-uke dynamic - it's simply a conventional, patriarchal heterosexual relationship with the sting of inequality taken off by the fact that the "female" in the relationship is actually a man.

If you've been paying attention, you'll notice that slash, the Western equivalent of yaoi, does not usually have the seme-uke dynamic. It's because Japan has a much more traditional, patriarchal, inflexible view of male-female relationships compared to the West, which has relatively more gender equality (you can thank the feminist movement for that). Gender roles are much more sharply delineated. The workplace is still seen are largely male, and females are STILL seen as mostly responsible for caregiving in families and so on. Women are expected to leave their jobs when they get married/pregnant. There is relatively little freedom for them in terms of what they can do with their lives and relationships. Hence the "kawaii" culture - the culture of Japanese girls deliberately dressing and behaving in infantile ways has been seen by at least one scholar as an expression of the desire to never grow up to avoid integrating into a society where the ideal lifestyle is to be a model wife and mother for the rest of your life.

And so, even their fantasies of equal relationships reveal how they've internalized those patriarchal ideals - the female substitute uke is male, so at least he stands a chance to be in an equal relationship with the seme, but at the same time he possesses the characteristics that females think they inherently possess because that is what Japanese society tells them - weakness, girlishness - it's a fantasy of how females, weak and girlish and inadequate as they are (as society has led them to believe), can nevertheless gain power and be in equal relationships with men.

Western society has more gender equality and fluidity of gender roles (again, thank the feminist movement) and hence there is much less of the seme-uke dynamic in their BL (slash). And the fact that you've noticed girls from strict or religious families being drawn to BL (with its seme-uke relationships) might be because their families, to put it crudely, have raised them in a way that is closer to the way that Japanese girls are raised - to believe in traditional, sexist views of gender roles and male-female relationships. So, instead of saying that they come from strict or religious families, you should just say that they come from sexist families, since that's the main factor involved here.

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Re: Regarding BL games...

#23 Post by linkdragon0 »

I am a guy and have no problems with BL, as a fan of Gravitation, Legal Drug, Hetalia (admit it, yaoi undertones are there, if not blatantly displayed.)

Also, three words...

Wall of Text.
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Re: Regarding BL games...

#24 Post by Chansel »

Wall of Text.
Amen to that.

Now, on topic:
I personally don't care much for BL. Can't really explain it much further than that I just prefer reading about straight/lesbian couples because I can identify more with one (or both) of the characters. Because no matter how 'uke' (yeah, I learned a new word!) a guy is, it's still a guy in my eyes *shrugs*
But I know for a fact that there's a huge, and I mean really HUGE market for BL stories and games. So if you want to make a BL game, by all means, make it :)
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Re: Regarding BL games...

#25 Post by MaiMai »

Chansel wrote: I personally don't care much for BL. Can't really explain it much further than that I just prefer reading about straight/lesbian couples because I can identify more with one (or both) of the characters. Because no matter how 'uke' (yeah, I learned a new word!) a guy is, it's still a guy in my eyes *shrugs*
But I know for a fact that there's a huge, and I mean really HUGE market for BL stories and games. So if you want to make a BL game, by all means, make it :)
I don't care much for yuri either, but I think I specifically don't care for BL since I rather have a guy for myself rather than reading about two guys in a relationship with each other. I'm such a villainous female :(
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Re: Regarding BL games...

#26 Post by Wintermoon »

Evangeline wrote:You know what, I'm sick of this double standard. If girls like yaoi, there's something wrong with them. But if boys like yuri, that's completely fine and normal and understandable? It's because this world is still dominated by the patriarchal system, that the male perspective on sexuality is seen as the norm, and anything that deviates from that is seen as negative or dysfunctional or not normal.

There was another thread here that asked about adding a yuri option to their game, and the response was generally more positive and supportive compared to this thread. The fact that yuri appeals to males more than to females was never brought up or questioned; the fact that yuri is popular with boys is accepted without question while in a thread about BL it seems there is a need to explain "why on earth would anyone like something like this" is evidence of a male-centric perspective on this forum (which is shared by most of the rest of the world, of course).
And I'm sick of this "double standard" accusation being thrown around anytime there isn't a perfect symmetry between the genders, and how it's always interpreted as the oppression of women by men and never the other way around. (Now there's a double standard for you!)

I voiced my support of yuri in that other thread without voicing my support for BL in this thread for one simple reason: as a heterosexual male, I have no personal interest in BL. Sorry if that makes me a hypocrite in your eyes.

I think there's a very common stereotype that all men are dirty perverts while women are above all that. All porn, especially lesbian porn, is seen as the misogynistic exploitation of women by men. Even non-sexual yuri is seen as exploitation. Male-on-male porn breaks that stereotype, especially when it's viewed by women. In the eyes of the pseudo-feminist puritanical anti-porn brigade, women who enjoy it are therefore traitors to their gender who lower themselves to the level of men.

And that is why women who enjoy BL are seen as weird while men who enjoy yuri are seen as normal.

(Also, the idea that yuri is for men and yaoi is for women is in itself offensive. It's like pretending that real homosexuals don't exist, even while exploiting homosexuality for a heterosexual audience. WTF?)

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Re: Regarding BL games...

#27 Post by Ren »

I don't think the feminist movement did only good things, but that's another story entirely.

Personally, While I disagree with quite some points Evangeline made, I also agree with others, and I find it wasn't so polite to comment on the length of the post like that: this isn't 4chan, you can read long posts, every once in a while.
As an aside, I always found it irritating how some people in here sometimes sounded quite condescending towards those who read or watch BL stuff myself. To be honest, I found so many Yuri stories to be so mediocre and very few (possibly only one, Utena, which wasn't actually a 'Yuri' anime) decent ones, that I got put off the genre entirely.

On the topic: I've read my fair bit of Yaoi and BL, mostly Takashima Kazusa's works, because I'm shallow and I like the art style more than a lot of shoujos'. - for quite a while it seemed to me that BL mangas tended to have a better and more solid art style, which then started showing up in otome games and shoujos as well.

As redundant as it sounds: as long as the story is good, the protagonists can be trisexual, for all I care, that's my answer. I wouldn't like a BL story just for the sake of being BL, most likely, though.

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Re: Regarding BL games...

#28 Post by sake-bento »

While BL doesn't personally interest me, I actually do take issue with yaoi, because I believe that it objectifies homosexual men in the same way that most fanservice anime objectifies women. That's not cool with me, especially since I have a lot of homosexual friends.

That aside, just because I personally don't care for BL doesn't mean you shouldn't write the story. The world would be really dull if people only wrote things that I'm interested in.

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Re: Regarding BL games...

#29 Post by Evangeline »

I always found it irritating how some people in here sometimes sounded quite condescending towards those who read or watch BL stuff
This.

And I'm sick of this "double standard" accusation being thrown around anytime there isn't a perfect symmetry between the genders, and how it's always interpreted as the oppression of women by men and never the other way around. (Now there's a double standard for you!)

I voiced my support of yuri in that other thread without voicing my support for BL in this thread for one simple reason: as a heterosexual male, I have no personal interest in BL. Sorry if that makes me a hypocrite in your eyes.

I think there's a very common stereotype that all men are dirty perverts while women are above all that. All porn, especially lesbian porn, is seen as the misogynistic exploitation of women by men. Even non-sexual yuri is seen as exploitation. Male-on-male porn breaks that stereotype, especially when it's viewed by women. In the eyes of the pseudo-feminist puritanical anti-porn brigade, women who enjoy it are therefore traitors to their gender who lower themselves to the level of men.

And that is why women who enjoy BL are seen as weird while men who enjoy yuri are seen as normal.

(Also, the idea that yuri is for men and yaoi is for women is in itself offensive. It's like pretending that real homosexuals don't exist, even while exploiting homosexuality for a heterosexual audience. WTF?)
First of all, I will address your last point. Now, you're conflating yaoi with the portrayal of homosexuality in fiction in general. I think that people of all genders and all sexual orientations can read and enjoy both yaoi and yuri regardless (I personally enjoy reading both yaoi and yuri and het - for me it all depends on how well the relationship is written), but the general trend is that females like yaoi and males like yuri (of course, yuri has a lot more girl fans than yaoi has boy fans since due to the nature of our society yuri seems to be slightly more acceptable). Let me clarify here what I mean by "yaoi" - a subgenre of fiction in Japanese anime/manga where there is a distinct seme/uke dynamic where the uke is highly feminized. Those are stories that, in all other respects, follow typical heterosexual romance tropes, only with boys. It is not meant to be a realistic depiction of homosexuals in real life.

On the other extreme, there are genres like this (warning: NSFW) and gay porn that are tailored for a gay audience. Not to say that gay audiences can't enjoy heterosexual romance stories or heterosexual porn or GL or BL or anything like that (in the same way that straight audiences can enjoy watching homosexual romances and gay porn as well), but the point is, those are very different genres with very different character archetypes and dynamics, and with very different target demographics. I think that the yaoi genre, in itself, might be offensive to real gay men because of the portrayal of the stereotypically feminine, weak uke (typically - not all yaoi stories are like that - it's just a general trend that is not always true). And the yuri genre might be offensive to real lesbians because it does not address the true hardships and homophobia that homosexuals have to face in real life (same goes for yaoi, which typically ignores or glosses over the fact that homosexuality is not considered socially acceptable).
I voiced my support of yuri in that other thread without voicing my support for BL in this thread for one simple reason: as a heterosexual male, I have no personal interest in BL. Sorry if that makes me a hypocrite in your eyes.
I don't think that makes you a hypocrite at all. In fact I think it's reasonable that heterosexual males would have no interest in BL (though of course there nothing wrong with you if you do, the same way there's nothing wrong with heterosexual females liking GL). It's when females are seen as weird for liking BL and not GL, while it's completely normal for males to like GL and have no interest in BL whatsoever, that I think there is a double standard in place, and that is what I'm criticizing. Please don't take it personally; you seem really defensive and really, you don't need to be. It's not your fault that the world is like this, that the (typically) heterosexual male perspective (liking GL, have no interest in BL) is seen as the norm while the (typically) heterosexual female perspective (liking BL, have no interest in GL) is seen as weird. It's the legacy of a long history of patriarchal human societies where the male perspective is the norm. I don't think that individual men are responsible for perpetuating this double standard; it is simply something that has emerged naturally from the way our society is constructed. Everyone has the right to voice their own likes and dislikes; what I see as contemptible is when some females are looked down upon for their likes and dislikes simply because those deviate from the (typical) masculine perspective. Again, my complaint can probably be summed up in the following sentence:
I always found it irritating how some people in here sometimes sounded quite condescending towards those who read or watch BL stuff


But there's not the same attitude towards boys and girls who read or watch GL stuff. I don't think this is a result of men deliberately trying to oppress women. I think that everyone is being oppressed by an androcentric worldview; both people who are condescending towards those who read BL and think they weird, and those who are the victims of such contempt.
And I'm sick of this "double standard" accusation being thrown around anytime there isn't a perfect symmetry between the genders, and how it's always interpreted as the oppression of women by men and never the other way around. (Now there's a double standard for you!)
I certainly don't think that the absence of perfect symmetry between the genders necessarily means that there is a double standard in place. But in this case, there is, as I have argued above.
I think there's a very common stereotype that all men are dirty perverts while women are above all that. All porn, especially lesbian porn, is seen as the misogynistic exploitation of women by men. Even non-sexual yuri is seen as exploitation. Male-on-male porn breaks that stereotype, especially when it's viewed by women. In the eyes of the pseudo-feminist puritanical anti-porn brigade, women who enjoy it are therefore traitors to their gender who lower themselves to the level of men.

And that is why women who enjoy BL are seen as weird while men who enjoy yuri are seen as normal.
But if your argument is correct, that only explains why the "pseudo-feminist puritanical anti-porn brigade" think women who enjoy BL is weird. What about all the other people? What about the people who are posting here? I don't think I see any puritanical pseudo-feminists running around here.

As for the porn argument, I think that both genders tend to fantasize about sex in slightly different ways, and the way we get our sexual entertainment reflects that. You're probably aware of the argument that romance novels are just porn for women. Apparently women get turned on more by words and involved relationships and men get turned on more by visuals and are more amenable to the idea of casual sex (there are experiments that support this). So there is this view of romance novels as shallow and silly and the view of het/lesbian porn as equally shallow and dirty. I don't really think there's a double standard involved here, and as long as it involves consenting adults, I don't think that the porn industry can be seen as exploitative of women, more than any other area of work out there.
In the eyes of the pseudo-feminist puritanical anti-porn brigade, women who enjoy it are therefore traitors to their gender who lower themselves to the level of men.
I... really don't understand this reasoning. I don't know of any feminist writers who espouse this view. And in any case, it seems to me that girls who like yaoi in general don't enjoy watching real gay porn. (I enjoy it personally - sometimes - but I don't think that I'm representative of most yaoi fans in this case.) And most heterosexual men (yourself as an example) probably don't enjoy watching gay porn either. So... how are women who watch gay porn lowered to the level of (heterosexual) men who don't, as a rule, enjoy gay porn...?
While BL doesn't personally interest me, I actually do take issue with yaoi, because I believe that it objectifies homosexual men in the same way that most fanservice anime objectifies women. That's not cool with me, especially since I have a lot of homosexual friends.
@sake-bento: In the same way that porn objectifies women? If it's for simple sexual release, I don't see what's wrong with that. I mean, if you have the urge to fap, and you need something to fap to, why not? I say.

But let's take fanservice as an example and see how objectification works.

Example: Mahou Sensei Negima. Lots and lots and lots of over-the-top fanservice. Objectification of women? If you read on past the first couple volumes, you'll see that the the depth of characterization and character development of the numerous female characters are actually extremely good, especially compared to other manga, fanservice-y or no. In that sense, I don't think that you can say that Negima, even though it has fanservice, is objectifying women.

In the same way, I think that whether or not BL objectifies men depends on the particular work. For me, if the characterization and storyline is good enough, and the men are portrayed as three-dimensional individuals, I don't think that objectification is the case.

Then again, I'll be honest: If I need an emotional fap, I'll read fluff no matter how objectified the characters are; if I need a physical fap, I'll watch porn even though it objectifies all the participants involved, male or female. I'm not saying objectification is a good thing; I'm just saying that just like it's understandable for men to watch porn because of their physical desires (not saying that all men do that, of course), it's understandable for women to read romance novels/BL/slash because of their emotional desires (not saying that all women do that, of course). We need to treat porn-watching men or slash-reading women as normal all the same.

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Re: Regarding BL games...

#30 Post by Jake »

Evangeline wrote: The fact that yuri appeals to males more than to females was never brought up or questioned; the fact that yuri is popular with boys is accepted without question while in a thread about BL it seems there is a need to explain "why on earth would anyone like something like this" is evidence of a male-centric perspective on this forum (which is shared by most of the rest of the world, of course).
. . . Alternatively, it could also be that the perceived need to explain "why on earth would anyone like something like this" is all in the prejudices and imaginations of the person perceiving the need. I didn't see anybody in this thread saying anything of the sort or even implying anything of the sort. There's a question at the beginning of the thread as to how well it would go down, and ... that's the person thinking about making a BL game worrying pre-emptively that the community might dislike them for it. That doesn't reflect how this community has a "male-centric perspective", it reflects how the person making the first post thinks there might be a "male-centric perspective".

To be honest, the only men I ever remember seen asking why on earth anyone would like yaoi/boys'-love/whatever have been the typical hormonal laddish male teenagers. And sure, you can expect such things from hormonal laddish male teenagers - they're dicks - and you can expect most straight female teens to find the male obsession with lesbians disgusting, as well, but it seems to me that seeing hormonal laddish male teenagers everywhere is a problem in the eye of the beholder.



I'm not particularly interested in BL. I'm also a man, so I don't think that's unusual. I don't see any reason why other people shouldn't enjoy it, though, what the hell?
(I also kind of take issue with the notion that it 'objectifies homosexual relationships' and therefore is bad. I mean, does straight porn - as wildly unrelated to actual sex as it often is - objectify straight relationships? Probably, but I see no reason to care. Anyone informing themselves about normal relationships solely through porn is getting it so wrong already that nothing they 'learn' is going to make much difference.)
Evangeline wrote:
I always found it irritating how some people in here sometimes sounded quite condescending towards those who read or watch BL stuff
This.

...

But if your argument is correct, that only explains why the "pseudo-feminist puritanical anti-porn brigade" think women who enjoy BL is weird. What about all the other people? What about the people who are posting here?
You're presuming that when Ren said that thing that you agreed with, she definitely wasn't talking about women posting here? Where are the men denouncing BL on this forum, anyway, I don't remember seeing them? Mostly I just remember people saying "it's not my thing", which - as you say yourself - is pretty much normal for a heterosexual male and not necessarily prejudiced.

That said, speaking of agreeing with Ren:
Ren wrote: I find it wasn't so polite to comment on the length of the post like that: this isn't 4chan, you can read long posts, every once in a while.
If your attention span is so low that you can't read through a few paragraphs, you belong on Twitter, not a discussion forum. On the other hand, if you're going to complain that people write impenetrable, unreadable prose full of unexplained jargon and oblique references then just say so, that's a valid complaint, don't hide behind a generic "it's too long" moan.


(And on the subject of feminism, I also find the implication that the feminist movement is solely responsible for western gender equality somewhat insulting. I get the impression that most hardcore feminists seem to want more than equality, they want revenge for centuries of suffering that they didn't personally have to put up with. But that's a completely different argument.)
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