|
Yaoi fandom refers to readers of yaoi (also called ''Boys' Love'', ''BL''), a genre of male-male romance narratives aimed at those who participate in communal activities organized around yaoi, such as attending conventions, maintaining or posting to fansites, creating fanfiction or fanart, etc. Most fans are teenage girls or young women. In the mid-1990s, estimates of the size of the Japanese yaoi fandom were at 100,000-500,000 people, but in 2008, despite increased knowledge of the genre among the general public, readership remains limited. In Japan, female fans are called ''fujoshi'', a pun which denotes their way of seeing homosexual relationships in media as being "rotten". English-language fan translations of ''From Eroica with Love'' circulated through the slash fiction community in the 1980s, forging a link between slash fiction fandom and Yaoi fandom. Yaoi fans have been characters in manga aimed at both female otaku and larger audiences (such as the seinen manga ''Fujoshi Rumi''), and in a TV series. At least one butler cafe has opened with a schoolboy theme in order to appeal to the Boy's Love aesthetic. In one study on visual kei, 37% of Japanese fan respondents reported having "yaoi or sexual fantasies" about the visual kei stars.〔Hashimoto, Miyuki (Visual Kei Otaku Identity—An Intercultural Analysis ) Intercultural Communication Studies XVI: 1 2007 pp.87–99〕 ==Demographics== Most yaoi fans are either teenage girls or young women. The female readership in Thailand is estimated at 80%,〔Keenapan, Nattha (Japanese "boy-love" comics a hit among Thais ) ''Japan Today'' 2001〕 and the membership of Yaoi-Con, a yaoi convention in San Francisco, is 85% female.〔 It is usually assumed that all female fans are heterosexual, but in Japan there is a presence of lesbian manga authors〔 and lesbian, bisexual or questioning female readers.〔Welker, James. (2006) Beautiful, Borrowed, and Bent: "Boys' Love" as Girls' Love in Shôjo Manga ''Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society'' vol. 31, no. 3 〕 Recent online surveys of English-speaking readers of yaoi indicate that 50-60% of female readers self-identify as heterosexual.〔 〕〔 It has been suggested that Western fans may be more diverse in their sexual orientation than Japanese fans and that Western fans are "more likely to link" BL ("Boy's Love") to supporting gay rights.〔Pagliassotti, Dru (November 2008) ('Reading Boys' Love in the West' ) Particip@tions Volume 5, Issue 2 Special Edition〕 Although the genre is marketed at women and girls, gay,〔〔McLelland, Mark. (Why are Japanese Girls' Comics full of Boys Bonking? ) ''Refractory: A Journal of Entertainment Media'' Vol.10, 2006/2007〕 bisexual,〔〔Yoo, Seunghyun (2002) (Online discussions on Yaoi: Gay relationships, sexual violence, and female fantasy )〕 and even heterosexual males〔 〕 also form part of the readership. In one library-based survey of U.S. yaoi fans, about one quarter of respondents were male;〔 〕 online surveys of Anglophone readers place this percentage at about 10%.〔〔 Lunsing suggests that younger Japanese gay men who are offended by gay men's magazines' "pornographic" content may prefer to read yaoi instead. That is not to say that the majority of homosexual men are fans of the genre, as some are put off by the feminine art style or unrealistic depictions of homosexual life and instead seek "Gei comi" (Gay comics), manga written by and for homosexual men,〔Lunsing, Wim. (Yaoi Ronsō: Discussing Depictions of Male Homosexuality in Japanese Girls' Comics, Gay Comics and Gay Pornography ) ''Intersections: Gender, History and Culture in the Asian Context'' Issue 12, January 2006 Accessed 12 August 2008.〕 as gei comi is perceived to be more realistic.〔Wilson, Brent; Toku, Masami. ("Boys' Love," Yaoi, and Art Education: Issues of Power and Pedagogy ) 2003〕 Lunsing notes that some of the narrative annoyances that homosexual men express about yaoi manga, such as rape, misogyny, and an absence of a Western-style gay identity, are also present in gei comi.〔 Some male manga artists have produced yaoi works, using their successes in yaoi to then go on to publish gei comi.〔 Authors of BL present themselves as "fellow fans" by using dust jacket notes and postscripts to chat to the readers "as if they were her girlfriends" and talk about the creative process in making the manga, and what she discovered she liked about the story she wrote. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Yaoi fandom」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|