“By labeling themselves ‘fujoshi,’ BL fans prevent others from sticking a different label on them. With this subversive term, they voluntarily cut themselves off from the demands of the world of men, with ‘rotten’ making it clear that they are no longer fit for male consumption” (Kawano). By establishing themselves as abject, they take away the authority from others to label them. Furthermore, through BL they are able to claim autonomy in a male-dominated society through their consumption and enjoyment of the genre. (Tatang, 2021)

One of the earliest approaches taken by researchers was to focus on the idiosyncrasies and deviance of women who like male-male romance works, rather than to consider a connection with the participating fans’ own sexuality. Long before outsider researchers began to study “why these women like these things,” though, fujoshi had themselves already repeatedly considered that same question. … although establishing themselves as deviant beings called fujoshi allows fans to craft an identity that sets them apart from others, it also affords outsiders a means of justifying their repression. (Suzuki, 2013)

Honestly, I’m uncomfortable when westerners try to have takes about how East Asian media “feminises gay men” because they often take western masculine ideals as the standard for what “real men” are like, which often ends up in unintended insinuations that Asian men aren’t “real men.” When people question “why are the men all pale and hairless and slender” it ignores the fact that men in straight Chinese shows are ALSO pale, hairless, and slender because that’s what beauty standards for men are like in the country that the show was produced in.

In a fandom server, I was once talking fashion headcanons with another Chinese person, and someone interjected to call us out on “feminising gay men because REAL men don’t dress like THAT”—THAT meaning pastel colours and oversized sweaters. I had to inform them that men DO dress like “THAT” in East Asia. It’s part of the East Asian fashion trend. Look at K-pop and C-pop idols. Look how they dress. Look at their builds, their faces, and the way they present, because they represent dominant male beauty ideals in Asia. And those beauty ideals trickle down into the way REAL men in East Asia, everyday non-celebrity men, dress and style themselves.

So when westerners take these traits that are incongruent with western ideals of hypermasculinity and say “REAL men don’t look like that,” they end up insinuating that East Asian men aren’t real men, which is all kinds of uncomfortable. Does that mean that there isn’t A SINGLE PIECE OF EAST ASIAN MEDIA that presents a hyperfeminized bottom? That’s definitely not the case, but my point is that westerners should exercise some caution before wading into the matter. That goes not just for insinuating that CREATORS of East Asian media are feminising gay men. It also goes for insinuating that FANDOMS surrounding East Asian media are feminizing gay men.

— @asideoftrashpl1 on Twitter

Since the time when the word “Boys Love” started to be used—and just as shōjo manga itself started to evolve and grow—it seems to me, looking back from my distanced position, that the discriminatory atmosphere of the past has begun to disappear as the love between two men is beginning to be written more sympathetically [by contemporary BL authors].

Supporters of the former yaoi culture seemed to possess a guilty conscious, thinking to themselves “why is that whilst I am a woman, I like yaoi?” They always seemed to have prepared desperate excuses for their preferences, such as “it’s beautiful, so it’s okay” or “it’s forbidden, so it’s okay.” However, as times have changed, the number of people who say “I like BL and there’s nothing wrong with that” has greatly increased. Personally, I think it’s fine if we think of “liking BL (BL-zuki)” as just another form of sexuality.

By the way, “self-reception (jiko jūyō)” is one of the big themes to be found within my work, basically speaking, I write happy endings for those characters who have accepted their personal sexuality and bad endings for those characters who don’t (he laughs). The more the number of people who perceive their sexuality to be “liking BL” increases, the more open BL culture will become and that can only be a positive development to my mind.

— Gengoroh Tagame, prominent gay manga author in Japan (Esmralda, 2014)

What we actually found out was… depending on what volume was in question, fully up to 50% of our reader engagement was male. On average, it’s about 15 to 20%, and that to me was really startling, because I would not have anticipated that at all.

— Leyla Aker, senior vice president of publishing at VIZ Media (Aoki, 2015)

Sometimes BL creators—and I’m speaking just from personal acquaintance with some of these creators—may be biologically female or identify on the page as heterosexual women, but sometimes they’re actually lesbian or transgender.

— Gengoroh Tagame (Aoki, 2015)

Some readers have told me they enjoy the stories because they present an idealized masculine world. Some speak of despising femininity, and even of wishing they had been born male, rather than female. For most such women, yaoi and boys’ love allow them to indulge in the fantasy of loving a man as a man, or, to rephrase it, as an equal, free of predefined gender expectations. In [his] book Yaoi genron (1998) [やおい幻論：「やおい」から見えたもの], Sakakibara Shihomi, [him]self a popular yaoi-style novelist, describes [him]self as a gay man in a woman’s body (a “female-to-male gay” transsexual). [He] suggests that this condition may be quite common among fans of this genre and may in fact be the reason for its existence. (Thorn, 2004)

Even though more than twenty years have passed, I still like yaoi (there was a time when I seriously worried that I had begun to think that I was a man because I had been reading too much yaoi—ha ha)

— excerpt from a Japanese trans man (McLelland et al., 2007)

Yaoi has an extensive readership among girls questioning their sexuality and among lesbian women in Japan. Feminist commentators such as Ueno Chizuko have noted that “These beautiful boys are ‘the idealized self-image’ of girls, and they are neither male nor female. They belong to a ‘third sex.'” Hence Mizoguchi concludes that the characters are “meant to act as agents for the readers of these stories;” in other words, they are “the alter egos of young women.” It is the indeterminate nature of these fantasy characters that makes them amenable to diverse appropriations by women with a range of sexual orientations. To this extent, then, yaoi characters cannot be understood as “children” nor should they necessarily be read as “male” or even “homosexual;” they represent instead a third gender that has little to do with the activities of actual male homosexuals or depictions of real children. Nagaike stresses the “multiple, shifting, and synchronic process of identification experienced by female readers during the act of reading yaoi manga.” The process of identification involved in the production and consumption of yaoi is thus obviously very complex, differs according to the sexual orientation of the reader, and different factors. (McLelland, 2006)

It took me a really long time to realize that I am butch, non-binary, and that I love butch. I actually realized this when I was 5 years old, but I sealed this myself. I didn’t see anyone else around me who was like me, and I didn’t see anyone else in comics or anime.

Yuri (GL) has been around for a long time, but I never felt it was about me when I read it. So to tell the truth, I still rarely read it. I do read them for study. Rather, I felt that BL and gay comics were closer to me.

— Natsuo Mutsumi (@720gou) on Twitter

BL can be seen as more of a feminist phenomenon than an expression of real-world gay male identity—but that’s not to discount the genre’s importance to gay men. (Ishii et al., 2014, p. 32)

Sato even claims that by reading well-written “girls” comics” that depicted homosexual male characters, he had overcome the sense of guilt for being a homosexual that many gay men seemed to internalize. He writes, “To me, the misfortune does not lie in the fact that I can only love men. Rather, my misfortune lies in the fact that being a man loving a man is not accepted by the society. In other words, it is the sense of being ‘excluded’ that brings me the sense of misfortune. My despair about this sense is deep, but still, I never came to hate my desire itself. This is all thanks to the ‘girls’ comics.” (Mizoguchi)

“The reason that male fans of BL in South Korea are basically invisible is that machismo and patriarchy are so influential in this society. Machismo and patriarchy in Korea will never accept male homosexuality, and many Korean males are still very homophobic. Even though there are lots of male fans of various subcultures (e.g., anime and manga), I don’t think these men could ever accept male homosexuality.”

— “Hyunwoo”

“Many countries have begun to become involved in the representation of queer relationships through the BL (Boy Love) industry. Do you believe this brings more of a positive representation to queer relationships?”

The genre has evolved so much in the last two decades. When I started consuming BL back in late 1990’s, BL was only starting to gain popularity or even recognition from the public. There was not much critical discourse around BL and, as far as I recall, many BL mangas were just a bunch of sexual imagery. I loved BL novels, though. Now, critical discourses have since shaped the current state of the genre, where discussions are very active on issues like (mis)representation, romanticization, and who get’s to write about whom. I think BL is the most vigorously contested genre among all, perhaps because of misogynous ideas about women writing about men, and now is the forefront of debates over representation. With the development of BL as a literary genre, we now have a huge number of good BL mangas, novels, and animes, and I do think that the more BL the world is exposed to, the better people will understand nuanced complexities of what it means to be in a same-sex male-male relationship.

“Do you think the BL industry has enabled for consumers to romanticise toxic and abusive queer relationships?”

Representation does not happen in a vacuum. I think we, the general public, had different, quite outdated notions of what counts as toxic or abusive relationships, say, 10, 20, 30 years ago. As social awareness grew after the Internet, especially in the past social media era, we have very quickly updated our ideas about power dynamics of relationships. Representation always falls behind but keeps following people’s ideas. And BL, I think, is the most responsive to such social and cultural updates. Heterosexual pornography (including manga, anime, etc.), I think, is the least responsive.

“Do you think romanticising queer relationships are harmful towards LGBTQIA+ individuals?”

LGBTQA+ individuals do romanticize queer relationships, so I guess I have nothing against romanticizing haha. But on a more serious note, I think the word “romanticize” needs to be firmly defined in order for romanticization to be problematized. And while that’s a very important discussion to have, I do think that any of the problems associated with representation such as romanticization, eroticization, under-sexualization, etc. etc. will become completely harmless when we eradicate real-life dangers and life difficulties of queer individuals and their communities, because, then, we can just laugh about misrepresentation and “weird” ways of consumption.

“In your own opinion, do you think those who romanticise queer relationships are feeding into the harmful representation of the LGBTQIA+ community?”

Again, I think it’s important that we define terms like “romanticize” and “harmful.” For example, gay and bisexual men, alongside straight men, lesbian women, etc., grow up in this homophobic society just the same. They grow up internalizing homophobic ideas. And we all know that sometimes, we desire what we ought not to desire, or at least we can say that our desires are constantly informed by society and cultures that surround us. So, for instance, if we someday successfully eradicate homophobia and the taboo associated with it, gay and bisexual men and their desires will never be the same. Some gay and bisexual men, I’d say, might not find gay sex as attractive or sexy as they do today because for them, their desires were the result of romanticization of prohibition. So, singling out BL consumers, for example, to blame for romanticizing male-male relationships and thus creating harms, in my opinion, is very, very off. We as existences are all creation of society and creators of society, no matter our genders or sexualities. Of course, however, critiquing a specific TV series, movie, manga, anime, etc. is important work.

“What do you think can be done to bring more positive representations of healthy queer relationships in the media?”

I think that it is when people see not only “healthy” queer relationships but also “unhealthy” queer relationships and do not feel the urge to attribute whatever they find bad, disgusting, atrocious, etc. to queerness, that we can finally say that queer relationships have fully entered the general public’s cultural consciousness as part of human diversity. I don’t think that white-washing queer representation to make it look good and respectable is the only path we must take. It is precisely for that reason that I see hope in BL where the nuances and complexities of male-male relationships are most depicted. And I hope there will be more creators producing content in similar ways about lesbian relationships, trans-cis relationships, trans-trans relationships, queerplatonic relationships, aromantic relationships, queer friendships, and queer communities.

— interview with Masaki Seto (2021)

Throughout interviews, Junho, Yoichi, Haruma, and Shōtaro argued that the depictions of masculinity in geikomi were “extreme” (kageki) and further understood this extremeness as highly desirable. This was an opinion shared by other young gay men I met during fieldwork: they viewed geikomi positively (even if they did not necessarily consume it) because it conformed to their preconceived notion that desirable gay masculinity is both “hard” and “violent.” (Baudinette)

It is unsurprising that a number of the young gay men with whom I conversed in Ni-chōme’s bars possessed a particularly negative attitude toward BL since they saw it as an example of the young women’s popular culture that had cursed contemporary Japan with soft masculinity. Whereas regular BL consumers, such as fans like Haruma and Shōtarō, were willing to accept BL as a form of gay media because of their affective attachment to the genre, young gay men who admitted during interviews that they did not engage with BL tended to dismiss it as inauthentic given its status as young women’s media. Of particular concern to these men was their belief that BL reinforced Japanese society’s tendency to view same-sex attracted men as effeminate. One young man explained to me that “BL is a nonsense created from prejudice read by silly school girls.”

… Young gay men seemed to be unconsciously drawing upon a common sentiment that emerged in Japan after the collapse of the bubble economy and the subsequent neo-liberalization of society that criticizes the supposed feminization of contemporary Japanese culture.

… For many of the men with whom I spoke, Japanese masculinity was becoming soft; they saw an increasing focus away from hard masculinity since such gendered performances were supposedly no longer popular among young women. That is … viewed as a curse that was somehow weakening or diluting contemporary Japanese masculinity. Most of my interlocutors viewed the bishōnen’s rise in Japan negatively and positioned Ni-chōme as an important space of resistance where hard masculinity remained prominent and respected. (Baudinette, 2021)

“The characters in BL are an object of affection by both the author and the readers. One part of being a BL author is imagining ‘how would a same-sex couple deal with not being able to have children? Would they come out to the people around them?’, and so on. The author must imagine how they could live happily within Japanese society by imagining themselves in the character’s situation. The result of this are works that depict the characters in a world without discrimination and where gay people can live happily.” (Harada, 2016b)

Some women also linked readership of BL comics and novels with their generation’s more or less liberal attitudes toward male homosexuality, either citing BL as a catalyst for the liberalization of their thinking or, vice versa, citing generational change as the reason they are relatively receptive to homosexual-themed materials in the first place. (Martin, 2012)

In the yaoi ronsō women who depicted and looked at men having sex with men were criticised for discriminating against gay men. However, compared to gay manga drawn by gay men for gay men, BL manga cannot be said to be more abusive. In both gay and BL manga, the men depicted are not necessarily gay as in having a gay identity. Thus, the reason why BL manga were criticised by a gay man cannot only lie in their depictions of gay men since, in that case, gay manga should equally have been the focus of critique. Satō feels uneasy about women watching what he regards as depictions of gay men—he wants such depictions to have limited access. He wants depictions of homosexuality to remain in a closet, viewed only by an inner circle of gay men. However, limiting the audience to those who regard themselves as gay men inevitably limits the opportunities for young and possibly isolated gay men to find gay characters with whom to identify, which is a reason why it can be seen as fortunate that BL manga are popular and easily available. (Lunsing, 2006)

BL is political. He noted that BL was initially not meant to be used politically; it has been created as a means of liberating women from the confines of restrictive patriarchal norms by allowing them some control over their gender and sexuality. Regardless of the intention in its creation, there have been several BL-inspired political movements. Professor Welker quoted prominent BL scholar Akiko Mizoguchi, who argues that “BL is a progressive force for good.” (Welker)

“Above all, it’s a matter of whether they have consideration or not.” … The insensitive type … worship the idea of “lofty, pure love” and try to force this ideal upon real gay men. The second are the considerate type who care about not harming real gay people with their fantasies.

… “Among older generations, there are many who react negatively to BL, calling it ‘feminine’ and going so far as to deem it abnormal. On the other hand, there are readers of the younger generation called ‘fudanshi gei‘ (lit. gay rotten men) … Now, there are a lot of high quality works.

… “I like manga, so I read BL regularly … The stories were heart-wrenching and I could sympathize with them. Now, there are a lot of high quality manga, and the differences between BL and young adult manga seem to be disappearing … In order for these characters (whom the author and readers identify with) to live happily, there is a desire for the characters to be depicted in a way that overcomes the hate and prejudice towards homosexuality (that exists in real life). So even though BL is just romantic entertainment, the signs of society’s evolving attitude towards homosexuality is being reflected in the stories.”

— interview with gay Japanese men (Harada, 2016a; Harada, 2016b)

Journalist Sugiura Yumiko repeatedly assures her readers that fujoshi, the “rotten girls” who create and consume BL manga, are not poorly groomed antisocial misfits. “The majority of fujoshi,” Sugiura writes, “are adult women. They live in the real world, where things like ‘true love’ don’t exist. These women fall in love and get married in the real world, where society necessitates compromise. When they get tired, they take a break in a fantasy world, and then they go back to reality.” According to Sugiura, although fujoshi occasionally immerse themselves in fantasy, or delusion (mōsō), they are far from delusional (mōsōteki); for them, the world of BL is a break from reality (genjitsu), not the sort of separate reality (riariti) that attractive shōjo characters provide for male fans of the anime and manga media mix. (Hemmann, 2020)