documenting the BL fan experience
My first experience had three steps I can recall: first I uncovered the Duo Maxwell/Heero Yui ship in online forums and Google image search, then my best friend bought a VHS copy of Maki Murakami’s Gravitation, and finally I purchased a manga titled FAKE by…
I like soft romance as well as hardcore smut. I would like to see more realistic and romantic portrayals of m|m genre, by that I don’t mean just hide the dark side or anything. It should reflect the story the author is trying to show. …
To put it as simply as I can: I experienced gender dysphoria when I was young in a society that heavily prioritized gender roles. As a result I rejected everything feminine, which included “fujoshi tendencies” aka yaoi shipping (yes, it was homophobia). As I grew up and especially after entering the Homestuck fandom, I started being open towards and liking mlm content, however I latched onto the anti-fujoshi crowd because it gave me the reason to both enjoy mlm content and feel like I’m not part of the female dominant BL fan spaces (yes, it was misogyny). Afterwards I learned more about BL, other identities in fandom and worked through my toxic masculinity problems. I also moved on from tumblr as a platform and started participating in other communities that I feel more welcoming to me and also help me be more open.
— 25, They/Them, Vietnam
I used to get very mad and confused at people who shipped enemies/rivals like Yugi/Kaiba when I was a kid (lol). I think I was in denial about liking it though. I liked seeing male characters together because I liked men. I feel like a…
I’m quite grateful for pirated stuff still because that’s how I access even more titles from my country, as opposed to published BL that are mostly US/Euro-centric in its distribution. I do subscribe to Futekiya, but find other publishers a bit too unaffordable at the…
I think most of the people that like BL that surround me are also part of the LGBTAQ+ community, and we are pretty chill about it. I just have two friends that are really involved with original BL stories. Most of my friends like reading fanfiction or fan comics of non-BL work. I really like shipping characters from non-BL sources, rather than reading BL.
— 27, She/Her, Chile
I guess being into BL was my way of exploring my sexuality for years without really noticing I was doing it. I had a very late “gay awakening” (at 21), which also helped me open up in terms of sexual acceptance, but it didn’t really…
The representation in BL is generally good. Most fictional media shouldn’t, to me, be held up as a golden standard for representation because I’ve found in my experience that leads to extremely toxic fandom interactions. Representation in BL isn’t going to be every single gay…
BL (and GL) has always been a safe space for me since I was young— a space to explore kink and sensuality, love and romance, gender, and relationships. Having friends in the BL community was a guarantee of acceptance and that was a huge comfort growing up.
— 28, She/They, USA
The same as my opinion on m|w representation in romance… it depends on who wrote it, the story, and the characters. Everything stands alone. Yes, the genre has tropes, but I don’t like to assign a “genre” caveat to what I consume and generalize an…
