documenting the BL fan experience
The only ship wars were like “Naruto is married to Hinata, how can you ship him with Sasuke, that is cheating!!1!1” but ship wars were strictly between groups that preferred X ship over Y ship. Omegaverse was something exciting and scary, not grounds for trans…
Queer content was not freely available in Brazil (it’s a very… complicated culture) so the internet (blogs and MSN groups and twitter and tumblr) was the only way I could find any of it, nowadays there’s a lot more queer content there, and here in…
I liked all of BL! The porn, the romance, etc. Only thing I didn’t really like was the yaoi hands but I got past it.
— 24, He/Him, Canada
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
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…
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 without any high expectations at all, and surprisingly enough I actually liked it. Since then I got hooked, as most of the time BL provides romance that’s really good and satisfying. Where I live is an extra homophobic place, which is why fans are divided into two groups: one consumes and loves BL totally but are against real life gays, and the other group just chills liking BL as well as supporting LGBT people.
— 22, She/Her, Egypt
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…
I am very grateful to the internet for exposing me to BL. I would be a different person without the exposure and I enjoy reading the wonderful stories. — 18, He/They, Jamaica
I feel BL is extremely diverse, there is no one linear way of how representation is/can be showcased in that medium and this applies to all queer media in general. Once again, at first glance it can be seen as “iffy” representation, but it’s just a need of expanding your genre taste. Not every queer story needs to hold the burden of being good/bad representation.
— 18, She/They, Barbados
I feel like officially published BL is better since it supports translators and artists. But on the other hand, it’s really hard to find/get them here in Latin America, especially in Venezuela, since we can’t even buy stuff on the Internet. — 22, He/Him, Venezuela
