/report!: yaoi, yaoi everywhere

[rageprufrock]

Come one, come all (no, seriously), /reporters! After several geologic eras of my incubating whatever disease killed Gwyneth Paltrow in Contagion, we're finally back to Sunday evening posting! This week mklutz and I are joined by Lianne Sentar of Sleep Is For The Weak to talk about yaoi, boys love, some of its history, some of its many questionable and delightful facets, to give the curious or the nostalgic recommendations, and then we spend some time advocating mklutz's future career in audio porn.

(Fair warning to listeners, as a natural result of the subject matter, we talk quite a bit about dubious consent and nonconsensual sex.)

Right-click here to download or click here to stream online to listen. And, as always, you can subscribe to our RSS feed here.



• Read Bukiyou na Silent here. (NC-17)

• Read Haru wo Daite Ita online here or here. (Exuberantly NC-17; attempted non-con later in the series.)

• Buy Wild Rock here.

• To purchase FAKE, go here, to buy Eerie Queerie, click this, pick up Antique Bakery here.

• mklutz's manga-ka of choice is Naono Bohra.

• To check out manga-ka Toko Kawai, click here. Specific titles of Toko Kawai: Cut (dark but satisfying); Cafe Latte Rhapsody (super sweet); In the Walnut (amazingly classy)

• Check out Tyrant Falls in Love here and Little Butterfly (by same mangaka as Tyrant and Bukiyou na Silent, super sweet) here.

• Approach Maiden Rose with caution here.

• For those ready to try Japanese Drama CDs, here's the SUPER BEST OMG English-language sharing forum and community for BL drama CDs.

And! Last but definitely note least: to look into these Tokyo Demons shenanigans, click here.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Forget transphobia, I found this passage obnoxiously femiphobic. I'm always annoyed by the idea that men cannot be feminine unless they are transgendered, or that failing to conform to early-20th-century stereotypes of masculinity makes a male character into a woman, but it's particularly obnoxious in the context of BL, a genre which exists in large part specifically to explore male gender non-conformity. Boys' Love has been about gender and male femininity since the very beginnings of the genre (which has roots far earlier than the Year 24 Group - look up Mari Mori and Taruho Inagaki), and I think your reading of the feminine male as a "cipher" for the female reader to identify with is completely off (although depressingly common). BL manga stereotypically portray the uke, the feminine male, as the object of the reader's gaze and an object of desire; he can also be a source of identification, should you care to do so, but it's not a requirement.

The Youka Nitta series about voice actors discussed around 56:00 is probably The Sound of my Voice; one volume was printed in English many years ago, but it's also now available digitally from Animate/Libre in Kindle format (which you can also read on your computer, if you don't have a Kindle).

[liannesentar.livejournal.com]

I strongly believe that the feminine male becoming "cipher" for the female readership is a strong undercurrent in a lot of yaoi, whether intentional or not, but that's definitely not the case with all titles and is only one interpretation of many. Even though the podcast was 90 minutes (and we cut out an entire hour of the original discussion to boot), I could only look at yaoi from one or two angles, so I picked the more common interpretations that I think hold a lot of truth. Part of promoting yaoi as an outlet for the Female Gaze is to emphasize that yaoi isn't trying to sell a specific idea to a specific subset of people, but is a huge genre leveled at female readers who enjoy and interpret titles in many ways, something they can do because of the broad spectrum of stories that fall under the umbrella of Boy's Love. But I think BL's ability to tell a romantic story that, with female characters, would be complicated and/or made DEPRESSING with the heavy sexual baggage necessary to make any story realistic for a female audience living in a sexist society (and both Japan and the West are quite sexist), is one of the reasons that BL will always remain popular with many, many women. I think a lot of women, including myself and Pru/MK, "crossover" from shoujo to Boy's Love because they love romantic hijinks and angst but can't take terrible female characters and shit like Hot Gimmick anymore. That doesn't mean we're not enjoying BL for a lot of other reasons, too, but I think that's a strong force, and for many people, probably an unconscious one. Gravitation, one of the best-selling BL of all time, clearly presented the traditional shoujo romance formula (with a little spice, ala the music industry) with a boy taking the place of the female lead. Shuichi is, essentially, a relatable female heroine with a dick.

However, you make a really important point--the uke becoming the object of desire for the female audience. This is something I find more prevalent in actual bedroom scenes than in the broader story narrative. Once the porn music starts, absolutely the female readership is supposed to enjoy watching that uke lead squirm over sheets and scream out his passion. Uke characters are center-stage, hyper-sexualized, and clearly pander to the Female Gaze--and since uke are more feminine than the seme and don't subscribe to more traditional masculine characteristics, the bedroom scenes are a time when female readers can most clearly watch, enjoy, and get turned on by a masculinity very different from what we see in mainstream media. This is something we barely talked about, because we didn't go into the sex scene dynamics of yaoi much at all (outside of drama CDs as a medium).

But in the actual "story" bits of BL, although there's a strong undercurrent of sexualized voyeurism throughout, the uke characters take the lead 90% of the time, are supposed to be sympathetic to the female reader, and find themselves in the role of the traditional shoujo heroine (being pursued by an alpha male, dealing with sexual pressure, trying to balance being a "receiver" in a bedroom with actual power dynamics in the relationship OUTSIDE the bedroom), etc. I think that's a good argument for uke working as female cipher, at least in part, in quite a few BL. And even in those voyeuristic bedroom scenes, the running internal narrative, usually through the head of the uke, has a lot in common with traditional shoujo sex scenes where the heroine is going through the same thing and the reader is more obviously supposed to feel pleasure THROUGH that heroine.

...but it's particularly obnoxious in the context of BL, a genre which exists in large part specifically to explore male gender non-conformity.

Yes, but I think shoujo and josei in Japan also have a decent tradition of exploring male gender non-conformity. Female Gaze in Japan is known for its sexual politics, skewing of gender roles (older than but more obviously since Rose of Versailles (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rose_of_Versailles)), and its greater tendency to see gender and sexuality as non-binaries. Plenty of shoujo men are more effeminate (http://spiritworldfiles.com/sims/skins/kyou_yuki002.jpg) than what early-20th-century masculinity dictates, or at the very least are subjected to "submission to the camera" poses (http://www.iconcloset.com/mvh/images/zero-sheets.jpg) that would terrify mainstream media and its idea of male power. BL is just one more genre that explores those things, albeit more frequently and more deeply than shoujo and josei. But I think BL exists, and succeeds, for far more reasons than that--including providing an analagous framework for telling traditional shoujo stories that have the added bonus of lots of pretty cock.

[(Anonymous)]

This is long. I apologize. I'm not good at being concise.

"I think a lot of women, including myself and Pru/MK, "crossover" from shoujo to Boy's Love because they love romantic hijinks and angst but can't take terrible female characters and shit like Hot Gimmick anymore. [...] Shuichi is, essentially, a relatable female heroine with a dick."

I think you are really underestimating the importance of identification/desire flexibility to the dynamics of BL; the opportunity, on the one hand, to identify with the "masculine" half of the relationship, and on the other, to admire and desire a traditionally "feminine" male.

For the first, melodramatic abusive shoujo like Hot Gimmick mainly offers the female reader the chance to identify with (or second-guess) the female lead, and experience (or critique) her suffering. Melodramatic abusive BL like Gravitation (or, for more extreme examples, Okane Ga Nai or Maiden Rose) offers the same possibility, if the reader prefers to identify with the uke, but also allows the reader to identify with the seme, and thereby take the active, dominant, desiring role of the seducer/molester/rescuer who has and asserts power over the (desirable male) uke, which is a role that shoujo (and in fact most heterosexual narratives) rarely if ever provide. I believe that this is one of BL's biggest attractions for female readers, and so do some of the academics who study BL; for example, see this synopsis (http://www.quora.com/Yaoi/What-makes-the-yaoi-genre-appealing-to-women) of Japanese scholar Akiko Mizoguchi's thoughts. Excerpt of the most relevant passage:

According to Akiko-san's research, many women who enjoy BL, identify with the seme, the pursuer. And when the seme takes the uke sexually, they can feel as it they are putting it to their male partners. (To be blunt and rather crude.) BL gives control of the relationship to the woman, something they often don't have in real life.

I am predisposed to put a good deal of weight behind Ms Akiko's opinion, because she is herself a BL fan, and, unlike many scholars who have published on BL, has read a great deal of BL manga and is active in fan culture. Furthermore, it agrees well with what I've found in discussion with other BL-reading women; there are women who identify preferentially with the uke, but there are an equal number of women who identify preferentially with the seme, or who switch around depending on mood or story.

(However, for the record, I don't agree with point 2 of the synopsis. Lesbian subtext may be removed from the narrative but is rife in fan practice.)

For the second, why would the fact that Souichi (or any uke) is "relatable" make him less valid as a romantic object? One of the main function of BL, in my view, is to present male characters who have desirable "feminine" traits (gentleness, domesticity, emotionality), who therefore have more "feminine" relationship styles and are more understandable and more relatable than stereotypically masculine characters; I think that one of the draws here is the idea that such "feminine" men would be more desirable as partners (for women) than stereotypically masculine (rough, undomestic, uncommunicative) men.

"But in the actual "story" bits of BL, although there's a strong undercurrent of sexualized voyeurism throughout, the uke characters take the lead 90% of the time, are supposed to be sympathetic to the female reader, and find themselves in the role of the traditional shoujo heroine (being pursued by an alpha male, dealing with sexual pressure, trying to balance being a "receiver" in a bedroom with actual power dynamics in the relationship OUTSIDE the bedroom), etc. I think that's a good argument for uke working as female cipher, at least in part, in quite a few BL. And even in those voyeuristic bedroom scenes, the running internal narrative, usually through the head of the uke, has a lot in common with traditional shoujo sex scenes where the heroine is going through the same thing and the reader is more obviously supposed to feel pleasure THROUGH that heroine."

I don't find that a compelling argument against the idea that the uke functions as much an object of desire as a source of identification. For comparison, take men's ero (porn) manga: the POV character is much more likely to be female then male, and there is typically much greater emphasis on her interiority and sensations in the sex scenes than those of the male characters. I don't think that the point of this is to allow the male reader to identify with the female character; it's to give him more face time with the person he's paying to see, to prove that she enjoys what's happening to her (even if the action is designed solely to get the male reader off), and to give him preferential exposure to the experiences and subjectivity that he doesn't already have (again, even if that experience and subjectivity is designed solely to get him off).

I think BL works similarly: the seme is typically a type that you could just as well put in a shoujo manga, it's the uke, the passive receptive male, who is unique to BL. He's the person that you come to BL to see, and whether or not you the reader personally desire him, the genre revolves around making his subjectivity convincing, of selling us on the idea that there are (or could be) men who have to deal with the issues that women have to deal with, who respond "femininely" to those issues, who think like women and can be understood by women, who are passive and receptive and enjoy being so (even if it takes some convincing to get there).

You're entirely right that smutty shoujo (and ladies' comics, and most Western romance novels, and in fact almost all heterosexual erotica for women) works by identification ("look at this hot girl, you could be her"); I think that this is another big draw that BL has for female readers, the chance to experience sexuality through objectification ("look at this hot guy, you could do him"). Which of course raises the question of why het-smut for women doesn't do this; it seems a quite obvious move, I really don't know why it is so rare.

"Yes, but I think shoujo and josei in Japan also have a decent tradition of exploring male gender non-conformity."

I read a metric buttload of shoujo, so I'm well aware of this (and it's one of the things that draws me to manga). But even so, even if the male love interest in a shoujo manga isn't conforming to early-21th-century stereotypes of masculinity, he's still usually in the "male" narrative role and the female character is in the "female" role. 99% of the time, if the story has a seducer, a rescuer, a protector, a strong capable person the other can rely on, it'll be the hero; and if there's a chaste refuser, a damsel in distress, a helpless person who needs a strong (if willowy), dependable chest to lean on in times of stress, it'll be the heroine. There are a few series that play around with aspects of gender-role-reversal, like Otomen (which is awesome) and Ai Ore (which is terrible, so far), but to date no-one's gone all the way and given us a heterosexual story where the male lead takes a decisively feminine role and the female lead a decisively masculine one, both narratively and sexually. I'd gladly pay to read that if anyone would woman up and write it. :)

[liannesentar.livejournal.com]

I agree with all of your points. I also don't think our opinions are mutually exclusive--I absolutely think an uke can be both relatable AND the object of desire. Did I imply that they couldn't? Regular shoujo is being overwhelmed with male leads these days, an extension of the "moe" voyeurism taking over shounen and seinen: I always call the phenomenon in shoujo "manga for girls about hot guys doin' stuff." The first one I was aware of was Weiss Kreuz about 15 years ago, which also coincided with the surging popularity of Minekura's Saiyuki. Since then, shoujo has filled with male heroes with the POV whom the audience is supposed to sympathize with AND want to fuck. Look at pretty much every manga running in Zero Sum.

And yes, even though the uke is given the "shoujo heroine" role more frequently than the seme is, the female reader, not identifying immediately with either partner in a BL because she doesn't share her gender with either, can absolutely (and rather easily) choose to relate more to the seme if she chooses. I think that argument was actually spelled out in a Fumi Yoshinaga series (maybe Flower of Life?), proving what a prevalent argument that is and what a smart manga-ka SHE is. Two of the series I recommended, The Tyrants Falls in Love and Maiden Rose, both give the lead narrative to the seme (and in the case of Tyrant, you are quite obviously supposed to identify more with the seme, because the Tyrant is a psycho). Okane ga Nai is another good example, although that series is so master-slave fetishy I hesitate to group it in with more mainstream BL, even if it is a big seller. I think BL has gotten really interesting in the last 10-15 years, and "uke as female cipher" isn't as common as it used to be because BL stories have more layers of meaning and are finally addressing (pretty regularly) issues that relate directly to the characters, including homosexuality in a heteronormative world. Unfortunately, in the podcast, we barely got to talk about trends in BL after the 90s. We kinda skipped from 90s BL to whatever we felt like recommending. I would've loved to talk about Fumi Yoshinaga, Yugi Yamada, Yoneda Kou, and to a lesser extent, Shiuko Kano, who are all modern trend-setters selling a distinctly modern type of BL that has very little in common with traditional shoujo. And Saki Aida's crime novels! And Setona Mizushiro's shoujo and BL, which could be the topic of an entire podcast of their own. In short, even though I think Shungiku Nakamura, who's been DESTROYING the BL competition for a few years, is a more old-fashioned mangaka who falls back on "uke as female cipher" in a lot of ways, most (good) BL these days have little to do with shoujo and thus aren't obviously having an uke stand in for a female heroine.

Also: Kichiku Megane. KICHIKU MEGANE (http://maggie-danger.livejournal.com/1007.html). Taking the choice of power play to the extreme on both ends. We almost talked about that game, but alas, no time.

I'm ALSO bad at being concise, so I'm going to go in the other direction and oversimplify here: I think every perspective you brought up is valid, I've heard of them before and I've never disagreed with them, I don't think they invalidate my earlier arguments, and I hope I didn't ever imply that BL can only be interpreted one way. In fact, I've been trying to say since the beginning that the "uke as female cipher" is just one of many interpretations of BL, and the reason BL succeeds is because there are MANY different ways it's received by its female audience.

Your arguments are strong and you've done your homework. Also, I agree: Otomen is awesome and Ai Ore is awful. Mayu Shinjo was in a particularly bad place when she wrote Ai Ore, which is a shame, because I was really looking forward to her gender-role-reversal after her long history of TERRIFYING ALPHA MALES. I would also pay money to see a true heterosexual gender-role-reversal. You know who's not terrible at that? Yuki Yoshihara. Her josei is definitely not full role reversal, but she has a taste for sexually aggressive women and adorable, befuddled men, which is a nice change of pace. Too bad her only title in English, "Butterflies, Flowers," doesn't follow that formula. But you might like this one, which is available in scanlation: http://www.mangafox.com/manga/haa_haa/

Also: Kimi wa Petto had some genuine gender-role-reversal in it. That manga was majorly flawed, but I still really enjoyed seeing a dominant woman having a "male pet" in a situation that somehow wasn't creepy.

[(Anonymous)]

Kimi wa Petto / Tramps Like Us is fabulous, I really wish someone would bring it back into print so I could recommend it more readily (which will never happen, since it wasn't a strong seller even the first time around).

"most (good) BL these days have little to do with shoujo"

I dunno about that, there's still lots and *lots* of fluffy BL where the uke is super-girly (or they're both super-girly, even) and the story is shoujo-tastic, and I think the shoujo-ish fluff can be just as good as the more serious stuff, with the understanding that it's doing different things. I do think the US market tends to reject the fluffy stuff, because there's not enough sex or the boys are too femme or the story is too slight or whatever the excuse of the day is, but the Japanese pubs are still pumping out plenty of stories which go "guy A likes guy B and guy B likes him back and then they hold hands and blush and it's gratuitously adorable, with extra sparkles". (Recent examples: Cafe Latte Rhapsody, Warning! Whispers of Love, Seven Days [for the beautifully written but excruciatingly slow version].) I personally am perfectly happy about this, because I like that kind of book just fine.