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everythingWasBees
Jan 9, 2013




irrational bees is who im thinking of

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Cuntellectual
Aug 6, 2010

Endorph posted:

look i dont think you're coming from a bad place or anything but

1) 'You have to accept that this stuff is made for Japanese women who are often in toxic relationships with men who display misogynistic behaviors.' what???? a lot of the women who like bl are lesbians and even the ones who aren't are usually using bl to explore their own sexuality, they aren't just accepting it blandly as common fact. the point of having stuff like that isn't 'wow, this is what normal romantic relationships are like!' it's because they're attracted to the idea of a taboo, passionate relationship.

2) you're really overselling the amount of times this stuff actually comes up in BL, especially more recently made stuff, as well as how its possible to handle it well or handle it poorly.

3) 'the intended audience is so is accustomed to a culture of men raping women, that men raping other men seems logical.' this is just straightup racist lol. japanese women, they see rape as logical! thats how misogynistic japan is!

4) 'gays'

5) there are gay men who are into this stuff too, the topic's way more nuanced then you're giving it credit for.

6) again, love stage is based off a manga from a decade ago by an author who's been working in the genre for twenty, a lot of more modern stuff is pretty far beyond those tropes. they obviously still crop up but I wouldn't take them as representative as all mainstream bl or anything. 'all this rape' is a pretty strong mischaracterization.

Mostly lesbians? Where did you hear that? I'm not saying you're wrong or anything, I just have only ever noticed gay dudes or straight women (or bisexuals).

At any rate, I do think the whole "oh s/he's going to say no a few times to play hard to get" thing is pretty common in anime/manga. Not that it isn't in western media, but I think both straight and gay manga still use the idea uncomfortably commonly. That being said, it might just be a case where it sticks out in my head a lot more when I notice it than the other times when it's played better, idk.

Kinda interesting how the stereotype, true or not, is that "yuri is pure, yaoi is rapey" though. Yuri seems to have the stereotype ring true more often than not (I mean I wouldn't read trash like ntr trap if there were more better options I knew about), though that seems to be changing a bit.

I don't really know much about yaoi though, I'm not really into it. (well there's that one subgenre where one guy is crossdressing but i assume that's really problematic for other reasons. :v:)


Endorph posted:

A) you literally do
B) should have been this way from the thought imo.

i m o that's a bad way to go about things, either seriously or as a joke, but whatever.

Cuntellectual fucked around with this message at 05:52 on Jan 30, 2020

everythingWasBees
Jan 9, 2013




everything burrito CAN post but that's a special exception granted to her as our visiting professor

Toalpaz
Mar 20, 2012

Peace through overwhelming determination

an actual dog posted:

catboys are dangerous!!!

Thuryl
Mar 14, 2007

My postillion has been struck by lightning.

Cuntellectual posted:

Mostly lesbians? Where did you hear that? I'm not saying you're wrong or anything, I just have only ever noticed gay dudes or straight women (or bisexuals).

Endorph never said "mostly", she said there's a lot of lesbians who are into BL, which is true and a recognized phenomenon. Akiko Morishima even mentioned it in a short autobiographical comic about going to a lesbian otaku meetup:

Cuntellectual
Aug 6, 2010

Thuryl posted:

Endorph never said "mostly", she said there's a lot of lesbians who are into BL, which is true and a recognized phenomenon. Akiko Morishima even mentioned it in a short autobiographical comic about going to a lesbian otaku meetup:



Oh, I have no idea why I read that as "mostly" lol.

I'm just bad at reading.

Watermelon Daiquiri
Jul 10, 2010
I TRIED TO BAIT THE TXPOL THREAD WITH THE WORLD'S WORST POSSIBLE TAKE AND ALL I GOT WAS THIS STUPID AVATAR.

Snooze Cruise posted:

don't speak to this poster, they are a pooh bear after the honey

1, what the hell is this supposed to mean

and

2, oh yeah, i vaguely remember irrational bees. I honestly don't remember if they were trans, but I do have them associated with the trans threads.

Everything Burrito
Jun 2, 2011

I Failed At Anime 2022
ty bees

BL is working within broad romance-genre tropes in general, there is nothing in BL that you won't also find in het romance. That's not to say they're all great, just that it is in no way a bl-exclusive thing.

Also the notion that BL is written by (straight) women for (straight) women is super outdated and inaccurate. Fun fact, one of the most notoriously trope-ridden BL manga of all time was written by a man.

Regarding who is reading & writing BL, I'll quote rottenboysclub, which is a blog I've linked below

quote:

4.) According to various surveys, about 50% of fujoshi and female BL mangaka identify as something other than cis or het. Famous well-known fujoshi such as Kabi Nagata and Akiko Mizoguchi are lesbians. In addition, according to gay mangaka Gengoroh Tagame, a lot of fujoshi and BL mangaka may appear as cis het women on paper, but in actuality are closeted lesbians, bisexuals, trans men, x-gender, and even some who were writing under a pen-name and later turned out to be cis gay MEN. [source]

5.) Speaking of men, for one survey in the US of BL readership, a quarter of respondents were male, and for another, depending on the volume in question, male readership was anywhere from 15-20%, all the way up to 50%. More conservative estimates put male readership around 10%. Also, here’s a small list of male BL artists and geicomi artists who work on BL anthologies / BL Magazines. Keep in mind that these are just a few that are public about their gender, and a lot of other male BL authors are closeted and will not disclose that information.

Anyway here's some reading material about BL:
Brief history of what "fujoshi" means and other info; btw this guy's blog has a ton of info on it
https://twitter.com/dionysiaca/status/1118496051135225856?s=20 (there's a bunch of other stuff in this twitter thread)
Really cool interview with Gengoroh Tagame
https://twitter.com/_queerioes/status/1165822595700338694?s=20
Another blog with a bunch of info on a variety of topics including BL & fandom discourse

Everything Burrito fucked around with this message at 06:21 on Jan 30, 2020

Snooze Cruise
Feb 16, 2013

hey look,
a post

Watermelon Daiquiri posted:

1, what the hell is this supposed to mean

winnie the pooh is a bear who eats honey, honey is made by bees

everythingWasBees
Jan 9, 2013




Snooze Cruise posted:

winnie the pooh is a bear who eats honey, honey is made by bees

you didn't have the honey bit originally and it was incredibly confusing

Endorph
Jul 22, 2009

Thuryl posted:

Endorph never said "mostly", she said there's a lot of lesbians who are into BL, which is true and a recognized phenomenon. Akiko Morishima even mentioned it in a short autobiographical comic about going to a lesbian otaku meetup:



and also love stage, the manga being discussed, is by a lesbian couple.

they have an amazing manga about a world where butch4butch couples are punished by law.

I Am Fowl
Mar 8, 2008

nononononono
Please explain the bees.

Toalpaz
Mar 20, 2012

Peace through overwhelming determination

Mr. Fowl posted:

Please explain the bees.

when a man really loves a woman................................

Endorph
Jul 22, 2009

Toalpaz posted:

when a man really loves a woman................................
*loud booing*

Craptacular!
Jul 9, 2001

Fuck the DH

Endorph posted:

look i dont think you're coming from a bad place or anything but

Well thanks, but I'll tell you the place I'm coming from: I get sick of the amount of rape in this genre of anime, and it's why I'm largely done with it. I feel like the best queer stuff I find is in manga, which is why even though I'm not into the bara subgenre I find stuff like My Brother's Husband (about a western bear-type meeting his husband's Japanese family) a bit easier to deal with. I've asked around why there's so much rape in yaoi, but I've mostly asked women, and the answer I get most often is along the lines of "consider how women view the male-dominated society in Japan." Which is to say nobody actually draws lines between the points, but men do still have a lot of privilege in Japan. Gay men less so.

My point was that I'm not schooled well in the politics of the culture war, it's caused changes me a lot but Love Stage is the kind of thing I still both find entertaining but could easily see some people being offended by due to the gender and assault tropes.


I suppose I'll put this out there and deal with the flames: I use yaoi for MxM stuff that isn't in my estimation fit for the more masculine/bear-friendly bara label. I am not going to adopt the term BL publicly, because I believe that well was poisoned in the west by pedophiles. Gay relationships in anime is a niche thing, but Jon Stewart proved that you can make a NAMBLA joke and millions of people will know what it is you're talking about. Trying to talk the mainstream out of their worst fear knee-jerk reaction is bad for queer acceptance as a whole.

So it's using the wrong words in that it obstructs creating a common shared lingo with the Japanese fandom, but I do it deliberately. It's better than handing the homophobic right a new disinformation campaign.

Craptacular! fucked around with this message at 11:36 on Jan 30, 2020

Endorph
Jul 22, 2009

Craptacular! posted:

Well thanks, but I'll tell you the place I'm coming from: I get sick of the amount of rape in this genre of anime, and it's why I'm largely done with it. I feel like the best queer stuff I find is in manga, which is why even though I'm not into the bara subgenre I find stuff like My Brother's Husband (about a western bear-type meeting his husband's Japanese family) a bit easier to deal with. I've asked around why there's so much rape in yaoi, but I've mostly asked women, and the answer I get most often is along the lines of "consider how women view the male-dominated society in Japan." Which is to say nobody actually draws lines between the points, but men do still have a lot of privilege in Japan. Gay men less so.
I think you vastly, vastly misunderstood what those women were trying to say.


Craptacular! posted:

Trying to talk the mainstream out of their worst fear knee-jerk reaction is bad for queer acceptance as a whole.
'queer acceptance' is a poison pill forced on you by the straights. The moment you're modifying your behavior in any way out of fear of the homophobic right, they've literally already won. The act of modifying your behavior and language out of line of what you would naturally do is in itself disinformation.

Endorph fucked around with this message at 11:57 on Jan 30, 2020

Craptacular!
Jul 9, 2001

Fuck the DH

Endorph posted:

'queer acceptance' is a poison pill forced on you by the straights. The moment you're modifying your behavior in any way out of fear of the homophobic right, they've literally already won.

Well, opening myself up to further attack AND signal boosting for pedoscum is a double whammy to me.

Endorph
Jul 22, 2009
calling it 'signal boosting for pedoscum' is pretty rough, dude.

Archer666
Dec 27, 2008

Craptacular! posted:

Well thanks, but I'll tell you the place I'm coming from: I get sick of the amount of rape in this genre of anime, and it's why I'm largely done with it. I feel like the best queer stuff I find is in manga, which is why even though I'm not into the bara subgenre I find stuff like My Brother's Husband (about a western bear-type meeting his husband's Japanese family) a bit easier to deal with. I've asked around why there's so much rape in yaoi, but I've mostly asked women, and the answer I get most often is along the lines of "consider how women view the male-dominated society in Japan." Which is to say nobody actually draws lines between the points, but men do still have a lot of privilege in Japan. Gay men less so.

Out of curiousity. Did you ask Japanese women this?

everythingWasBees
Jan 9, 2013




Craptacular! posted:

Well, opening myself up to further attack AND signal boosting for pedoscum is a double whammy to me.

what

dogsicle
Oct 23, 2012

i feel like there's room to discuss a personal hangup with genre terms that isn't just immediately jumping to pedophiles in response to a completely innocuous post that just happens to use the term in question, which is widely accepted in the community where it is actually relevant (jon stewart, lol, and normies be damned). though obviously crap is aware of the disconnect since they see fit to highlight it for whatever reason, i guess it can be a knee-jerk reaction to start things off in a combative/defensive position but it seems a pretty bad way to go about discussion. call me the tone police now

personally i've seen BL as both an easy shorthand and something that sheds the impenetrability and negative implications (plotless sex) of yaoi as a term in the west.

Craptacular!
Jul 9, 2001

Fuck the DH
I wasn’t trying to advocate anyone else to take action, I was just explaining why I personally don’t feel comfortable with the term. I was mostly curious if anyone else shares my discomfort or if I’m alone, as I don’t know many people with anything more than passing knowledge of the subject. It’s a genuine gripe from an isolated person with little gay support network, and not an attempt to agitate or troll.

Ultimately I disagree with the “who cares what the straights think” take because my family and many of my friends are straight. To try to “take back” terminology that has the deck so thoroughly stacked against it in this country’s culture, by people homophobes have tried to smear us with, is not a fight that I personally believe in. But that’s just me.

Craptacular! fucked around with this message at 14:48 on Jan 30, 2020

Pollyanna
Mar 5, 2005

Milk's on them.


everythingWasBees posted:

allies are banned from this thread now im sorry i don't make the rules

yay

Pollyanna
Mar 5, 2005

Milk's on them.


this is like the closest thread I can post this in but i was in Japan last year and somehow ended up in a standing bar where a bunch of salary people were at (sup Stringent). and since I’m noticeably trans, the topic of my voice came up, and they were like wow your voice is deep for a lady and I’m like :I haha yeah that’s...that is a thing ain’t it

and it got a little awkward

but then we got to talking about Boston and poo poo so we got over it

I had a good time regardless but it does seem like Japan is a little behind on trans stuff.

Pollyanna fucked around with this message at 15:52 on Jan 30, 2020

Pollyanna
Mar 5, 2005

Milk's on them.


that said I’m not surprised - I doubt a bunch of boomers and gen xers are gonna know what the gently caress

kinda just wanted to vent cause I felt awful about it

Pollyanna
Mar 5, 2005

Milk's on them.


also craptacular is an idiot and I have them on ignore for a reason

Libra
Jan 5, 2011

Last time I was in Japan there was a big meetup for non-binary and lesbian folks nearby and it was chill.
While bureaucracy and laws are still garbage for lgbt people in Japan, I think most people's ignorance of trans and gay issues is a more innocent lack of knowledge as opposed to the "burn in hell" stuff you'll encounter elsewhere.

If I remember correctly, approval of homosexuality is statistically higher in Japan than in America, with an extremely noticeable generational gap. I'm pretty sure it's the old people who suck, and they're in charge.
Hopefully when they die out things will get really gay.

Watermelon Daiquiri
Jul 10, 2010
I TRIED TO BAIT THE TXPOL THREAD WITH THE WORLD'S WORST POSSIBLE TAKE AND ALL I GOT WAS THIS STUPID AVATAR.

Snooze Cruise posted:

winnie the pooh is a bear who eats honey, honey is made by bees

Oh fwew. I was getting a honeypot connotation and thinking what the hell lol.







So would you say craptacular is.... craptacular?

And I have a friend who is just finishing up one of those 'teach english in japan gigs' and she says that there is a -ton- of same sex lap sitting as opposed to boy-girl :shrug:

Archer666
Dec 27, 2008

Libra posted:

Last time I was in Japan there was a big meetup for non-binary and lesbian folks nearby and it was chill.
While bureaucracy and laws are still garbage for lgbt people in Japan, I think most people's ignorance of trans and gay issues is a more innocent lack of knowledge as opposed to the "burn in hell" stuff you'll encounter elsewhere.

That's my take too. When I was with some older Japanese guys at a bar and casually mentioned I was gay, they just kept asking me questions about dick sizes in my country vs Japan, when did I realize it etc. I think Japanese people are just really curious about foreigners, especially ones that aren't just endlessly going on about anime.

Arianya
Nov 3, 2009

Boy this thread went places when page 5 hit

Anyway read Magical Trans/MagiTora

Everything Burrito
Jun 2, 2011

I Failed At Anime 2022
.

Everything Burrito fucked around with this message at 17:12 on Feb 29, 2020

ZiegeDame
Aug 21, 2005

YUKIMURAAAA!

Arianya posted:

Boy this thread went places when page 5 hit

Anyway read Magical Trans/MagiTora

Endorph
Jul 22, 2009

Archer666 posted:

That's my take too. When I was with some older Japanese guys at a bar and casually mentioned I was gay, they just kept asking me questions about dick sizes in my country vs Japan, when did I realize it etc. I think Japanese people are just really curious about foreigners, especially ones that aren't just endlessly going on about anime.
yeah if you're just chill and showing an earnest effort to engage with stuff a lot of people will talk your ear off if you let them. it can be fun tho, i got to meet an older bi lady with a very complicated take on sailor moon.

Libra posted:

If I remember correctly, approval of homosexuality is statistically higher in Japan than in America, with an extremely noticeable generational gap. I'm pretty sure it's the old people who suck, and they're in charge.
Hopefully when they die out things will get really gay.
Not higher than in America, but higher than it was in America at the time gay marriage passed. I think something like 57% of Japanese people approve of gay marriage, or at least a marriage equivalent that has the same legal benefits.

Ibram Gaunt
Jul 22, 2009

GorfZaplen posted:

Jealousy by Scarlet Beriko

Archer666
Dec 27, 2008
Also speaking of Love Stage. There's going to be a live action movie of it. Instead of casting Izumi as a girl or making his actor super girly looking, it's just a regular guy. (also they got Daigo to play the anime version of himself)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4-6xJsZ-YI

everythingWasBees
Jan 9, 2013




Archer666 posted:

Instead of casting Izumi as a girl or making his actor super girly looking, it's just a regular guy.

Bit disappointed tbh, I wish he were a bit girlier looking.

Kagaya Homoraisan
Aug 28, 2019

You say, run away
Instead, you get scared
For the way that I feel
Drops out into all this disorder
im downloading akanesasu shoujo

Pollyanna
Mar 5, 2005

Milk's on them.


what’s it about

everythingWasBees
Jan 9, 2013




Pollyanna posted:

what’s it about

it's good and gay and just go into it blind
i like synopsis but i can't explain poo poo
it's 12 episodes and each episode is stronger than the one before it

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Pollyanna
Mar 5, 2005

Milk's on them.


Ok

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