Warning: There will be extended, non-graphic discussion of sexual topics.

Listen. This article topic is extremely out of the blue, and probably seems funny on first glance, but it has been on my mind for some time now. I just had to write it down and get it out there somehow.

Some quick definitions, for those who are uninitiated. (I know enough on related words and the intricacies of them to make a whole separate article on it, but that's for another day, I suppose.)

Yaoi: a term used to describe animanga focusing on male/male relationships. May also be used to describe male/male ships or fan content. Has a sexual connotation.

BL: stands for boy's love. A term used to describe media focusing on male/male relationships. May also be used to describe male/male ships or fan content. An umbrella term for sexual and non-sexual media.

Fujoshi: a female fan of yaoi content. "Fudanshi" is for a male fan of yaoi content, and "fujin" is a gender-neutral version of these terms.

Fetish: a form of desire where sexual gratification is linked to a particular thing or part of the body (other than sexual organs).

So, here's the thing. I'm a gay man. (I'm a bisexual man, actually, but people use 'gay' as an umbrella term anyway, so just roll with it.) And, who could've suspected it? I, a gay man, like content about gay men? Another thing about me is that I really like animation. And animation is, well... we'll just say "underutilized" here in the Americas. So I typically turn to anime for my gayboy fix. There's one huge problem with that, and that is the culture surrounding it. 'Yaoi', that is.

I prefer to refer to M/M romance content as BL, personally. But that's because 'yaoi', as a term, is so intertwined with and associated with the culture I am about to describe. Namely, fujoshi culture. Because fujoshi culture makes me crave the sweet, sweet release of death.

For those unfamiliar: fujoshi culture is... well, "fujoshi" means "rotten girl". People like to say it's a 'reclamation' of a misogynistic insult. To which I pose the question: why are you being called rotten? For condoning gay relationships. Which is the product of, say it with me, class: homophobia towards queer men. Additionally, if it was a misogynistic insult, then why on earth would the term for a male fan be "rotten boy"? And then, "rotten person"? The only thing consistent among these terms is the description of "rotten". And the only thing consistent among these types of people is them enjoying content about queer men. If a cishet ally is called a queer (as an insult) for supporting gay rights, I don't think that makes "queer" a term that targets cishet allies. That just doesn't make sense. That logic applies here. Furthermore, the term "yaoi" means "no point or meaning". Literally calling content about queer men pointless and meaningless. Well, except to get off to.

Because here's the thing about fujoshi culture: it's a fetish subculture. Dress it up whatever way you want, every aspect of it can be explained by that simple statement. "What's with the weird inability to find yaoi without noncon elements?" Because yaoi is already being viewed as 'extreme' fetish content, so other extreme fetishes naturally go along with it. "What's with the sentiment I see all the time in fujoshi culture of someone's 'sinful gay babies', or fujoshis being 'perverted'?" Well, homophobia, but also, because they're talking about their fetish. "What was up with that period of time where fujoshis would slap people cosplaying their favorite anime boys on the ass with a paddle that says 'yaoi'?" Because it's a fetish. It's their fetish. Yaoi is viewed as fetish content for cishet women, and the culture is shaped accordingly.

And, to be clear, I'm not like, against fetishes. Or even fetish subcultures or lifestyles! In fact, I love that sort of stuff. Stuff like leather and latex or whatever, those are neutral objects. Be a kinky freak! I only come into issues with people being extremely open about their kinks when it either involves nonconsensual bystanders, when the kink is defined by the harm it inflicts on its victims, or when it fetishizes a real, marginalized group of people. Especially when the fetish subculture actively affects that group of people in real life. And if you think fujoshi culture doesn't actively affect available BL content, you'd be wrong. As I just said, do you have any idea how hard it is to find BL without noncon? God help you if you want to find a BL without pornographic content, period. It makes me feel like a perverted voyeur, watching content that should represent me, because that's how it's intentionally framed; as if it's perverted, and 'rotten'.

If that's where my thoughts ended, it would be a lot simpler, but alas, they are not.

I hate to talk about this, because of how often it is used as a point against transmasculine people by transphobes online, but... unfortunately, the fujoshi-to-gay-transmasc pipeline is real. For a lot of people, fujoshi circles were the only place where they, as an egg, could express their desire for men, as a man, in a safe way. And, to be perfectly clear, that experience is not a bad one! Lots of trans people discover themselves through fetishes. The femboy-to-transfem pipeline is equally real, for similar reasons, and it is a culture which is often similarly fetishistic in nature. In any group of perceived cisgender heterosexual women, there is going to be a gay trans man who hasn't realized himself yet, and I fully embrace that fact. But it's because trans eggs and cisgender women are indistinguishable that I, unfortunately, hold some hesitancy in just hating fujoshis outright.

Another reason why I hold hesitancy in doing so is, to put it extremely bluntly: fujoshis make BL content. I mean, duh, right? That's their whole deal. But sometimes, it's actually good. Almost exclusively when queer fujoshis do it, mind you, but that's a nonzero population of fujoshis. (How queer fujoshis can stomach using that label when fujoshi culture treats queer people like sinful eye candy for perverts is beyond me, but good for them.) Queer fujoshis who aim to make respectful content about queer men... to be frank, I owe those fujoshi my life. Even (and to be real, especially) when it is pornographic, as it is such without that fetishy undertone. But, again, in any group of cishet women, there's gonna be someone who later realizes they're queer and goes onto write decent stuff about queer men.

But that subsection of queer fujoshi who aim to make actually respectful queer content (that, again, I owe my life to) is hardly ever represented in the overall fujoshi culture. It is fujoshi culture that effects the BL animanga being created, and it is fujoshi culture that treats queer men like fetish content.

I desperately long to be in the alternate universe where yaoi has a similar culture to yuri. "Yuri" means "lily", which is used to symbolize beauty and purity. The term for yuri fans (himejoshi, himedanshi, himejin), where the Japanese word for "rotten" is used for yaoi fans, instead uses the Japanese word for "princess". And, lastly, the culture revolving around yuri is very much that it is by queer women, and for queer women. Even when queer fujoshi write porn of queer men, they expect cishet women to read it. But when himejoshi write porn of queer women, they overwhelmingly expect other queer women to read it. It's a culture that is far more respectful towards queer women, and centers queer women far more than fujoshi culture does for queer men.

Alas. I am not in that alternate universe. I am in this one, where I have consumed literally every single piece of BL content that I can find without noncon in it, and, let me tell you: the amount there was a shockingly low amount. Despite that, I struggle to find any more.

I hope every cishet woman goes to hell before they die.