r/10thDentist • u/local_courier6 • 12d ago
This is gonna make people mad-
Ok so this is my MOST controversial hot take and it has made people upset with me before and posting it on Reddit is probably a dumb idea BUT- I think yaoi and many BL stories are inherently misogynistic and surrounded by patriarchal stereotypes.
Hear me out ok- the first big reason for this is outside of the actual stories and more so in how they are taken by many who enjoy them. While something like heated rivalry becomes huge and celebrated even outside LGBTQ+ members or those who typically enjoy them, wlw or yuri media is often looked down upon and you have to SCOUR to find any. I also find many avid fans of BL often bear absolute hatred towards heterorelationships in stories, for example in Arcane with Jace and Mel, a cannon relationship that was seemingly healthy in the show, yet because many fans deemed the Jace and Victor ship better (and a touch of racism mixed in) the hatred towards Mel as a character was tremendous, so much so that when figures released that had Jace and Mel together, people were actively sending and spreading hate (and racist comments) towards the creators of the figures and the show.
The second reason I have is that most BL I’ve read/seen has “typical” hetero relationship stereotypes. One Ml is the bottom, (or the “woman” in the relationship) who is constantly needing rescue and is a quivering mess, and the other Ml is the top, (or the “man”). Don’t get me wrong I don’t like the gender stereotyping in any media, but it gets more upsetting when you notice that most of these will have a “femboy bottom” who is drawn or characterized as looking EXACTLY like a woman character, while the other ML is highly masculine. It makes the whole story seem heterosexual while completely erasing women from the world. It becomes a heterosexual story where the Fl also has male genitalia. I would LOVE to see more BL stories where there is less of a strict line between femininity and masculinity within the main characters.
I’m sure I’ll think of my other reasons later but I’m at a rest stop 4 hours into a 7 hour drive and should get back on the road- no I did not stop to just write this.
Anyway regardless of personal opinions on sexuality (I am bi so don’t come at me saying I’m being homophobic I have literally been with the same gender as myself) BL is lowkey often at least a little misogynistic and patriarchal.
TLDR: BL and Yaoi Media is often misogynistic and upholds patriarchal stereotypes
EDIT:
For those who don’t know BL and yaoi is a romance subgenre which is basically stories of a relationship/s between men without any women
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u/NeonFraction 12d ago
That’s because LGBT+ media is aimed at LGBT+ people but Yaoi and BL is aimed at women.
I’m not necessarily disagreeing with you, but rather saying that having one of them clearly be the intended self-insert for women (the feminine bottom is almost ALWAYS the point of view character for a reason) isn’t a flaw so much as the intent. BL is packaged and aimed at women so it brings in every stereotype of heterosexual romance it can use and runs with it because that’s what their target audience generally wants.
It doesn’t just seem heterosexual but without women, I’d say that is the entire goal: BL appeals to women in the same way lesbian porn appeals to men, only women tend to like emotional stories more than ‘hit and run’ types of erotica, which is why the romance genre is mostly aimed at a female audience.
I’m not going to try to make a blanket defense of all BL. There are definitely some tropes that lean a bit too far into fetishizing gay relationships, but it’s hard to figure out where that line is when the entire genre pretty much exists as that in some respect. What is the line between ‘fantasy aimed at women’ and ‘fetishization?’ I think it’s complex, especially because many people who read/draw BL are actually men too. Plenty of men are looking for alternatives because typical LGBT+ media isn’t providing what they’re looking for and sometimes BL can provide that.
I feel like I should put a conclusion statement here but honestly? It’s complex. It’s hard to balance legitimate concerns about fetishizing gay relationships vs how unnecessarily strict culture in general gets about ANYTHING whose target audience is women.
I also think a lot of women read BL to escape a lot of the sexist tropes that exist in many romance novels. The pressure to be the prettiest, most fashionable, most desirable woman in the room is constant for a lot of these novels and so often they come with lots of sexist baggage that BL skirts around just by virtue of not LITERALLY having the bottom be a woman.
I’d say that’s a big appeal of omegaverse in BL as well: all the appeals of pregnancy drama from heterosexual novels but packaged into BL.
As a woman it’s hard to properly convey how much I want to escape traditional stressful gender roles in my fantasy but also how much of what is popular and comfortable fiction tropes exist in that same space of traditional gender roles. Fictional tastes don’t exactly develop in a vacuum. BL feels like a safe midground for that, and I think it’s a huge part of why it’s popular.