Yaoi! is a series we'll be running that will look at the various facets of gay manga and anime. It's a semi-serious series that will cover a broad range of topics and opinions. You're inclined to disagree of course- just don't go flaming the posts. Cogent arguments might even get you highlighted here! If you'd like to see anything specific, contact rainbownerdblog@gmail.com to provide a suggestion on a series or topic you'd like to see.
Yaoi is a very curious area of manga and anime that has an audience those outside of the Japanese comic world would not quite understand. For those unfamiliar with yaoi, it is a genre of manga or anime that is focused on male-male romance. The term "yaoi" is more of an acronym meaning, "Yama nashi, ochi nashi, imi nashi" (in English, "No Climax, No Resolution, No Meaning".) It's focused mainly on the scenes the readers want to see rather than focusing on forming a coherent story or set of characters. Think of a romantic comedy and you sort of get the gist of it. The scenes are light and airy with most of the conflict being easily resolved melodrama. Of course, the alternate meaning of yaoi, coined by its fans, is, "Yamete, oshiri ga itai" (in English, "Stop, my ass hurts.") Though both meanings are equally appropriate as the stories are often rather fluffy and light while also containing a fair amount of male-male sex. Many have debated the merits of the genre and whether or not it's worthwhile, but we're going to focus on it's audience this week. Who exactly is it? The topics of the series in this genre are that of male-male relationships so one would assume that gay males would be the target audience. Though as we're going to see, the yaoi genre is far more for women and how they express their sexual fantasies than it is for gay men.
Let's start by looking at the themes and various tropes in yaoi that are enough to make a gay man roll his eyes but a straight woman smile gleefully. In these series it is very common for at least one person in the relationship to claim that they are straight but with an undeniable love (or lust) for the other male in the story. Right here is where most gay men would stop and set down the graphic novel. A man is saying he's straight but he's in love with this one other man? Quite frankly, it does feel a bit cheap to someone who is actually gay. It's a cop out to have a character be straight and decide they'll be gay in this one instance because the other character has all the traits he'd want to have in a partner. We can debate the Kinsey Scale until we're blue in the face but even staunch supporters of it would likely agree that someone explicitly stating they will not identify as, at the very least, bisexual is a bit much. Though this is the exact reason why there's such an appeal to readers. The fact that this masculine guy is doing the taboo thing of dating a man is what titillates the reader. Matthew Thorn states, "One precondition for slash (and yaoi) fandom is an awareness of the existence of homosexuality, which nonetheless remains largely abstract. Firsthand familiarity with mundane, real-life homosexuality must inevitably dilute the thrill of slash, which is based to a great degree on a sense of taboo violation" (181). So we can easily see that if the character was explicitly gay, there'd be no drama there. The pursuit of the love interest would be just like any other that the reader could easily find in a straight love story. With this emotional conflict inside of a straight man for another man we get almost instant drama without needing to develop much more (the basis of yaoi again being "just the good parts"). Even though it isn't realistic and straddles the line of good taste, it's a good tool to create the melodrama of a romance story. Yet that creates a new problem in that this drama is mostly interpersonal rather than a way to convey homophobia. Some series, Sakende Yaruze’s Shout Out Loud! and Fumi Yoshinaga's The Moon and the Sandals for example, do focus on the problems of being gay in today's society as well as various forms of homophobia according to Dennis Ayers of AfterElton. For once, these series are able to tackle the issue of being gay instead of pretending that the characters contained within them are just straight men who like sex with this one particular man. In those cases we can see yaoi as a more realistic and still interesting genre because those stories are willing to actually appeal to gay men. However, even if we overlook the fact that most yaoi series don't bother to depict actual homosexuals, they still have the issue in that they create a false stereotype of gay relationships.
In most yaoi series there is an easily identifiable dichotomy in the relationships. The yaoi genre fully embraces the idea of the seme (top, dominant) and uke (bottom, submissive) dynamic in romantic relationships. The seme is almost always the straight man who is only gay for his one uke. He wears masculine clothing, he does his hair in a normal style, and he's often dominating and stern. These "tops" are the ones who pursue the uke like they would a woman. Though to create more of that melodrama, they also push away from the relationship because they're having feelings for another man and also because of the stereotypical "men can't have feelings" idea that permeates most media. If we look at the uke, we see a man who is a woman in almost everything but anatomy. He dresses in trendy ways, he has flouncy hair, and he often is the one gushing because of all of his overwhelming feelings for the seme. He'll run to make the seme chase him and he'll probably have issues accepting a straight man wanting to be with him but he often wants the uke as much as the uke wants him. The uke is also the one who plays the role of the "woman" during sex. If sex is shown (often highly censored), he is the one on the floor or making O-faces or giving coy looks to the seme to egg him on. Granted, many gay relationships do have a sort of top/bottom situation, it likely isn't so highly divided to the point that the bottom acts, dresses, and behaves as a woman would or that the top would automatically be gruff and distant. Most of the time a gay couple is just as boring as a straight couple. Their sex roles don't define who they are and while it can be fun to play as the seductive-yet-innocent uke or the domineering seme, it isn't what most gay men would say creates their relationship. This isn't exactly a fantasy most gay men have. I know for me, I wouldn't fantasize about a straight man wanting me because I annoyingly push for his love and attention while wearing frilly underwear and doing his laundry. Most of the seme/uke relationship is based in sex since the characters in the story are usually only at their most interesting when building sexual tension that leads to a few pages of bedroom antics. The romance portions are some light love affirmations and cat-and-mouse that ends in the bedroom to the point that the two could have just met on Gridnr and been done without any of the romance. So why do these series insist that the characters aren't gay and then create such a relationship based almost solely on gay sex and gay sex roles? To answer that we must look at what these two things mean to women.
While seemingly disjointed, the two aspects of yaoi we've seen are actually a part of a whole for women to satisfy sexual fantasies that they must otherwise suppress. It makes sense that the uke would be so exaggeratedly feminine if we think of him as a stand-in for the female reader. The seme, in some instances, can and does rapes the uke. In these cases it's again that feeling of taboo that drives the drama and heightens the sexuality. This man's-man is dominating the feminine-man, showing that he is the one in charge while also offering a very risque situation that many of the female, and likely some male, readers find fun. Of course, there's nothing wrong with rape fantasy but coupling that with the idea that the uke is actually a female stand-in, we see that the woman reader is going through a fantasy she may have via a "sort of gay" couple. Looking again to Matthew Thorn, he notes the feelings of sociologist Ueno Chizuko and essayist Fujimoto Yukari who state that the women reading scenes like this as well as those who enjoy this seme/uke relationship are able to enjoy sex and sexual fantasies outside of the bedroom and themselves. In a reserved country like Japan, or even a rather conservative one like America, this is actually a big deal. Women who dare to want more than just standard sex, or even sex at all, are not looked very highly upon. With yaoi, they can live out their fantasies via characters who are even more taboo and fictional. The seme, man, purses the uke, woman, and they engage in sexual acts that aren't standard and evoke that sexual thrill a woman probably can't get otherwise. In that sense one can see women as merely using gay men as a sexual fantasy. In a way it's true, but here in the west we see straight men using not-truly-gay women having intercourse with other women in porn all the time. That act is somewhat similar to how these women use yaoi. It's not real but it's sexually exciting for them while not exactly something that would turn on the type of person depicted. Real lesbians don't find fake lesbian porn made for straight men to be very thrilling much like gay men don't really find yaoi to be very exciting. If we take all of this into consideration we can easily tell that these stories about sort-of-gay men having a lot of sex and some basic romance are far more for women than they are for men.
Yaoi provides escapism and sexual fantasy for women who would otherwise be trapped in a boring cycle of plain sex. Even though the themes and characters are barely accurate to what gay men are actually like, we can look past that. While it seems like gay men would be the target audience for stories about gay men we have to realize that it isn't about them (or, us as it were.) It's about women who are otherwise sexually repressed with no other healthy outlet. Yaoi is a genre of comic that a woman can read as she pleases and enjoy in her own home. She can actually open up about her feelings on sex and sexuality that she would otherwise keep bottled up. Granted it isn't the same as actually experiencing those thrills for herself she can at least provide herself with a safe fantasy with fictional characters. As a gay man I may not be so thrilled to have an aspect of myself being used as such, but I think what's far more important than that is the fact that these otherwise repressed female fans get to have their escapism.
Cited Works and Further Reading:
Matthew Thorn's Girls and Women Getting Out of Hand: The Pleasure and Politics of Japan's Amateur Comics Community (http://matt-thorn.com/)
Dennis Ayer's "Yowie!: The Stateside Appeal of Boy-Meets-Boy YAOI Comics" (http://www.afterelton.com/)
M. J. Johnson's "A Brief History of Yaoi (http://www.sequentialtart.com/)
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