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

submitted by gencritcurious from self.GenderCritical

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[–]gencritcurious[S] 21 insightful - 2 fun21 insightful - 1 fun22 insightful - 2 fun -  (7 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 -  (6 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?)

[–]Anna_Nym 4 insightful - 2 fun4 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 2 fun -  (5 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"?

[–]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.