documenting the BL fan experience
While many fans may not know there is not a difference really between “shounen ai”, yaoi, or BL, numerous sites with translated scanlations categorize them that way. Even though we may know about the history of the BL industry and how some subgenres varied under…
My first experience with a “boy x boy” pairing was Kunzite and Zoisite in Sailor Moon. I started watching Sailor Moon (the DiC/USA network version) in 1996, and became obsessed with it. The internet was very young at this point, and the “World Wide Web”…
I’ve lost connection with local fandom years ago. My only reference is when I table at local cons, and I interact a bit with the attendees. What I noticed, though, is that the BL public is way younger than when I got into BL. I was 15 years old when I watched Loveless and I was one of the youngest. But recently I’ve met girls as young as 10 years old, accompanied by their parents, asking for TodoDeku stickers, for example. That absolutely didn’t happen in my time (hahaha). Even the concept of parents being in cons was alien back then. As for what this generation consumes or acts like, I suppose it’s quite globalized thanks to social media. They’re up to date with the newest releases and have a lot of access to BL original content and fan-content.
— 28, She/They, Argentina
I may be Latin American but BL is quite accurate to what my life is. So I think they’re pretty good, even the ones written by “supposedly cishet women”. (I don’t like assuming, hence the quotes.) — 22, He/Him, Venezuela
I was watching prince of tennis and I used to come across a lot of m/m fanwork, and the first pair I ever liked was the Silver Pair (Choutarou/Shishido). Some explit work was too much for me as I was young at the time. And…
It has become easier to find the specific content you want, however there are still quite a few barriers (language, cultural, economical, etc.) that still make it hard for others to discover.
I believe we shouldn’t pirate BL (and any media, especially foreign media, in general). There is also the factor that many BL are made by small authors/companies compared to a multi-billion corporation, so to pirate it is still in somewhat poor taste.
However, there is still the issue that BL is still locked behind multiple barriers and is still extremely difficult to find/consume for people. For example: People who live in countries/environments where consuming BL work is illegal or can put you in harms way so purchasing it can be going into dangerous waters in of itself.
— 18, She/They, Barbados
BL, I liked everything I found to be honest. I discovered a lot from it, especially that people could love other people of their own gender. Ironically (or not), it made me discover GL and with GL I discovered my own sexuality. I’m more comfortable…
I was never a fan of romance but in high school decided to give popular shojo anime a chance, which gave me more disappointment than anything. At that time BL was as popular as ever so I tried one day reading a random BL manga…
I think French BL fandom is pretty chill still, thankfully. I have seen anti-adjacent takes from some folks who are younger than me but we have a lot of well-established institutions that defend and promote BL especially through an LGBT/queer lens. We have a convention which was called Yaoicon but is now understood to be mostly an LGBT con. We also have publishers specifically making sure that big BL titles get translated and released here.
— 27, He/Him, France
I was certainly open to explore my sexuality, as from my exposure to BL. Liking same sex isn’t bad, contrary to what Indonesian society taught me as a child. Interactions with fandom also helped me to navigate my boundaries, what am I comfortable with, what…
