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 -  (1 child)

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!

[–]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.