Yaoi
Why would women want to watch and read about the relationship between gay men? Probably the same reason men like to read and watch lesbians-the fact that no matter what gender, watching or reading about two beautiful people are much better than one. Cathy Camper argues in her article, “Yaoi 101: Girls Love "Boys' Love” that, “Yaoi is the sexier stuff, an acronym for ‘yama nashi, ochi nashi, imi nashi,’ or ‘no climax, no point, no meaning’”.However, Yaoi isn’t just about the sexual situations that are within the story but the emotional circumstances the men go through. They can be persecuted for their love, ridiculed, lose their jobs, distanced from their families, etc. These stories not only have an erotic appeal but also an emotional one that makes the audience want to keep reading.
This is an intriguing concept though, especially for the empowerment of women that has been seemingly increasing for the last few decades. Women are so drawn to Yaoi that they don’t even notice that the characters within it barely reflect women’s tendencies. In fact, women are rarely, if ever, seen in Yaoi. When they are, they only play minor roles and the readers usually forget about them if they are not mentioned too often within the story. Camper also notes that, “almost all manga include "girly-girl" notes from the female creators to their fans, apologizing for mistakes and agonizing over deadlines, and then providing authors' astrological signs and blood types (which the Japanese believe indicate personality types, like astrological signs).” This is quite ironic considering the fact that there are hardly any “girly” notions within Yaoi. However, when flipping through one, there are a lot of notes from the author which characterize her as a true Yaoi Otaku. She may sometimes talk about how she loves one character, the development of a certain scene, or even how hard it was for her to come up with the story. Though this might add the little femininity that the story was lacking, most of the time, the reader just ignores it and instead just goes right back to the story.
For women who have been trying to make an impact on society and change the way men stereotype them, these authors aren’t sticking to that goal. On the contrary, when writing these Yaoi, they seem to always put their women character’s in the background just for filler for their pages and the snippets of the author’s voice within the “girly-girl”notes is like the stereotype that “women should be seen and not heard”. Though they are voicing their opinions on the story they have written, those notes usually go unseen or “unheard” just for the fact that it adds nothing of value to the story.
This is an intriguing concept though, especially for the empowerment of women that has been seemingly increasing for the last few decades. Women are so drawn to Yaoi that they don’t even notice that the characters within it barely reflect women’s tendencies. In fact, women are rarely, if ever, seen in Yaoi. When they are, they only play minor roles and the readers usually forget about them if they are not mentioned too often within the story. Camper also notes that, “almost all manga include "girly-girl" notes from the female creators to their fans, apologizing for mistakes and agonizing over deadlines, and then providing authors' astrological signs and blood types (which the Japanese believe indicate personality types, like astrological signs).” This is quite ironic considering the fact that there are hardly any “girly” notions within Yaoi. However, when flipping through one, there are a lot of notes from the author which characterize her as a true Yaoi Otaku. She may sometimes talk about how she loves one character, the development of a certain scene, or even how hard it was for her to come up with the story. Though this might add the little femininity that the story was lacking, most of the time, the reader just ignores it and instead just goes right back to the story.
For women who have been trying to make an impact on society and change the way men stereotype them, these authors aren’t sticking to that goal. On the contrary, when writing these Yaoi, they seem to always put their women character’s in the background just for filler for their pages and the snippets of the author’s voice within the “girly-girl”notes is like the stereotype that “women should be seen and not heard”. Though they are voicing their opinions on the story they have written, those notes usually go unseen or “unheard” just for the fact that it adds nothing of value to the story.