the role of yaoi/anime bL in the “gay” tif (specifically tumblr/twt) community

submitted by gencritcurious from self.GenderCritical

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[–]RevengeOfTheCis 51 insightful - 2 fun51 insightful - 1 fun52 insightful - 2 fun -  (13 children)

Hello, fellow geek! I have been in fandom communities longer than you have been alive, and your perceptions are 100% CORRECT.

This phenomenon has been brewing in fandom for years. The first TIF I ever met was exactly the type you describe: obsessed with yaoi to the point of it being a lifestyle, and she claimed to be a gay man but she only dated other TIFs.

Just as you said, being attracted to the men in yaoi is not the same as being attracted to or being a real man. 99% of those stories are written by women and 99% of that art is drawn by women, those fictional characters' personalities are all created by women, they are literally romantic fantasies created by the imagination of women. It isn't gay men those girls are attracted to, it's the imagination of women. As you said, they're lesbians with extra steps!

One thing that is a bit different in my experience than yours is you said you've seen TIFs hide their love of yaoi so they aren't exposed as women. I have actually seen the opposite! In my experience, young girls come out as TIFs so they are ALLOWED to like yaoi. If they say they like yaoi as girls, they are accused of being fetishizers, sick perverted fujoshi, etc., but if they say they like yaoi but they are TIFs, then suddenly it's ok because they're also "gay men" so they can't be accused of fetishizing gay men. Basically identifying as a TIF works as armor to protect themselves from bullying by the fiction police.

Anyway, I greatly enjoyed your post and I am very impressed you've observed all this at such a young age. It took me years longer than you, lol!

[–]gencritcurious[S] 21 insightful - 2 fun21 insightful - 1 fun22 insightful - 2 fun -  (10 children)

its crazy to hear that this is a common experience! I would say the reason for the tifs i interacted with hiding their fetish the was that being a fujoshi was seen as the ultimate cancellable crime, and any association with that was deemed wrong... so hiding it was basically a distancing tactic. And because everyone only talked about it in dms/private, it was seen as something that no one did. I also think that there was definitely an air of “well its ok if i do this in private because im a REAL gay man and i cant ~fetishize~ myself”, but basically all of them were doing it simultaneously, even if no one would point out the elephant in the room

[–]RevengeOfTheCis 19 insightful - 7 fun19 insightful - 6 fun20 insightful - 7 fun -  (9 children)

OHHH, I see! So even TIFs aren't allowed to read yaoi anymore because it was written by a fujoshi and they're guilty by association? But the TIFs are allowed to create their own original yaoi fiction/art, since they are "gay men" and not fujoshi? (As long as they don't call it "yaoi" and they're sure to tag it "Fujoshi DON'T INTERACT" lol?)

[–]gencritcurious[S] 21 insightful - 6 fun21 insightful - 5 fun22 insightful - 6 fun -  (1 child)

yup, basically! a lot of the fanart would be boys making out and stuff, but as long as theres a good ole “fujoshi dni” tag on there, theyre good to go!

[–]Anna_Nym 4 insightful - 2 fun4 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 2 fun -  (6 children)

I used to be in fandom a long time ago, and this is making me feel old. I am scared to Google. What is a "fujoshi"?

[–]Nona_Biba 6 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 0 fun7 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

a woman who likes anime or manga that is "boys love"

[–]RevengeOfTheCis 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

It's just the word for a girl who likes yaoi/anime BL. Like how fans of anime are called "otaku".

[–]Anna_Nym 8 insightful - 1 fun8 insightful - 0 fun9 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

So is saying "fujoshi don't interact" basically saying that only self-identified gay men are supposed to read/respond to the fiction/art?

This is all so strange to me because back in my days of fandom, slashfic was known to be predominantly by and for straight women. (Femslash was much less popular in all fandoms, and generally seemed to have predominantly lesbian fans. Which makes sense.)

But it was also common to think of straight women's slashfic as a healing tool for exactly the reasons described elsewhere in this thread. No one was stigmatized for it and really, no one could be stigmatized for it because the amount of actual gay men involved in slashfic was negligible.

[–]RevengeOfTheCis 8 insightful - 2 fun8 insightful - 1 fun9 insightful - 2 fun -  (2 children)

Yes, you are exactly correct. "Fujoshi don't interact" is basically a "no girls allowed" sign used by OTHER girls (who "identify" as boys).

And yes, back in my day, everyone knew slash fic was generally by and for women, too. This change to only allow TIFs (and "cis" gay or bi people, but NO straight people) to enjoy slash fiction has only happened within the last 5 years or so.

It has gotten so bad that I have heard of young girls pretending to be TIFs online just to not be bullied out of fandoms.

[–]Anna_Nym 7 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 0 fun8 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

This is so sad. :(

[–]RevengeOfTheCis 10 insightful - 1 fun10 insightful - 0 fun11 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

It IS sad, and making it worse is how these TIFs claim that enjoying the most vanilla gay romance story somehow "fetishizes" gay men, and yet they have no IDEA what horribly disgusting content TIMs look at with other men. And what's hilarious is those TIMs stay in the male spaces where they all jerk off to pedo loli lesbian hentai together and none of the transbian TIMs say SHIT to all the men they're jerking off with. Hell, if anything, they're paying them money to commission even more vile content. While the TIFs are cyberbullying other girls for drawings of characters KISSING. It's ridiculous and insane.

[–][deleted] 12 insightful - 8 fun12 insightful - 7 fun13 insightful - 8 fun -  (0 children)

the fiction police

How did we get to this point when something like that exists?

Maybe we should start 'Fujoshi PRIDE'...

[–]tea4two 14 insightful - 1 fun14 insightful - 0 fun15 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I wanted to second your post. I was also active in fandom spaces since before OP was born and it was indeed already a thing.

The girls affected were of two kinds: lesbians who were struggling with their identity and straight girls who had very little romantic/sexual experience. In both case, their transitions were coping mechanisms inspired by the allure of fiction which featured two fully fledged human beings (men) in passionate relationships, that could be sexual outside of social expectations (the policing of female sexuality).

Most of these girls found "gay male" relationships with other girls, some even producing "gay male" porn of themselves (It went pretty far). On the bright side, years later, they all seem to have accepted their womanhood, although a few have facial hair and teenage boy voices to show for it.

I blame this on the fact that those derivative works (fanfiction) pulled from a sexist tradition and culture. When male characters are (relatively) fully resolved and complex human beings who exist outside of their relationships to female characters and female characters... are not... it's really hard for consumers of the fiction to identify with female characters or to even see being female as desirable.

Moreover, for young people interested about sex and looking for porn, the options were in general (1) degrading objectifying porn created for men, (2) prudish barely suggested heterosexual sex behind sparkles and flowers or (3) gay male porn written by women showcasing idealized relationships and hot sex.

No wonder so many girls thought they needed to opt out of womanhood.

I think what needs to happen is a breakdown of "man" as the universal experience that women are asked to identify with and the writing of interesting female characters. This lack is exemplified by the number of "fem" fanfiction, where male characters are being made female because female fans of a source material don't have access to actual interesting female characters to write about.

Normally I'd just say we need to do better, but, unfortunately, in the context of anime, it's a particularly complex issue as it's not only caused by our own Western neuroses about womanhood but also by the effects of Japanese patriarchal culture.