My thoughts on yaoi (and yuri really)

[tephra]

In this post in crimsonevening (members only, sorry) remote_45 asked how we all got into yaoi and why we like it. Whenever this topic comes up I end up thinking "I really should sit down and write out my thoughts on the subject" so here it goes.

Let's start with the easy question, how I got into yaoi. The story starts about fourteen years ago went I was in college and discovered USENET. Specifically I discovered the groups alt.sex and alt.sex.stories. Believe it or not, back then these groups were spam and troll free areas. And being horny but not particularly interested in having a relationship (not to mention the fact I was at a women's college and had not yet figured out that I like women too) I spent perhaps a bit too much time in those groups.

Anyway, one of my favorite authors from those groups was Elf Sternberg. Elf has the dubious honor of introducing me not only to the mechanics of male homosexual sex, but to BDSM and a host of other interesting things. Go forth and read the really well written smut.

I just realized that I could lay the blame for both my furriness and my interest in yaoi at the feet of one man... cool. ;)

From there I probably found fanfiction. I honestly don't remember what fandoms I was following back then, probably X-Files, Star Trek: The Next Generation, and the X-Men cartoon. I drifted away from everything but furry (and Elf's Journal Entries) for a bit, getting sucked into FurryMUCK and some messy personal relationships. Eventually I got back into fanfiction for Harry Potter and various anime fandoms, most notably for this topic, Yu Yu Hakusho.

Kurama/Hiei was probably the gateway into yaoi manga. It was only about a year ago but I already forget how I actually got my hands on yaoi in manga form. I have a tendency to immerse myself in new interests until I glut myself and forget when I wasn't into the subject. So somewhere in there was shounen-ai anime music videos, Gravitation, and Yaoi Daily. Then I met toshirodragon and discovered that we actually have more in common than just liking pretty mansex. I think she's stuck with me since we have four communities we run together now. ^^;

Now for the hard question, why I like yaoi.

I'll start with the totally superficial answer: sex scenes with twice the pretty men. I can count on the fingers of one hand how many really beautiful men I've met in person and I never got to see any of them have sex with each other. I happen to also enjoy yuri and the same goes there, except I have met more beautiful women.

As for slightly deeper reasons, well the stories I enjoy best are just that, stories. It wouldn't matter to me in most cases if they couples involved were male/male, male/female, or female/female. The sex and gender of the couples isn't that important to me, their personalities and the stories of their relationships are. There are some stories that would not work with a heterosexual couple of course, but they probably would work with a lesbian couple so the gender still does not matter to me.

That said, there is something extra with yaoi and it's tied firmly to my cultural upbringing. It probably wouldn't apply, or not apply as strongly, to people that weren't raised in the United States in the mid-70s to mid-90s. It probably doesn't apply as completely to regions of the US outside of New England for that matter. When and where I grew up men just didn't (and don't) show much affection toward each other, not as friends, not even as brothers (unless very close in age), nor as fathers and sons. As a result of that the depiction of casual affection between men in media of any sort hits all kinds of "awww" and "squee" buttons for me. Yaoi, needless to say, has an unfair advantage when it comes to generating warm and fuzzy feelings of affection in me.

Now, as you can probably tell from how much I've written so far, I tend to analyze things to death. So of course I've read a few articles and theses about why women like yaoi. I've seen a few of the concepts mentioned in the comments of the original post, particularly in kalin_nestar's comment. In essays that specifically talk about why yaoi is popular in Japan they focus on the status of women, the relative lack of birth control options, the societal pressure to marry and have children, and on the inherent inequality of male/female relationships.

I'm sure all of those a valid reasons but they never felt all that accurate in application to me. I am, and always have been, too aggressive, opinionated, and resistant to behaving "like a lady." I'm not immune to societal conditioning of course, but the older I get the less effect it has. I don't even bother to expend emotional energy to fight it any more, I just give it the metaphorical finger. Since I, myself, don't put up with being less than equal in a relationship, and long ago beat it into the heads of family members that there will be no children from me, there's no real draw to the "fantasy" of an equal relationship. My relationships are equal, or they're over. Which shoots all of the deep psychological theories that I've read about for why I might like yaoi in the foot.

Likewise, the "thrill of the forbidden" doesn't seem to be a factor for me either. While I've been firmly on the side of "scandalous" on many topics, my reasons for being there have nothing to do with being scandalous. Yes, if it pisses off someone I already don't like I'll be disgustingly self-satisfied, but I wouldn't take a stance on any subject just to piss someone off. Frankly whether or not I like yaoi is no one's business but my own and unless the topic comes up I'm not all that likely to share the fact. Most people don't discuss their taste in porn in casual conversation. Most of my friends know anyway because they're cool like that. :)

I am, ultimately, left with "because I like it" as my "reason" for enjoying yaoi. It's rather unsatisfying as an answer but then why shouldn't it be enough? No asks me to justify my taste in music with psychology so why both to justify my taste in romances and erotica? :)

Crossposted to crimsonevening of course.