hello!!! chinese-american here, you're right that chinese artists and creators often restrict themselves in order to not get censored. In china, media is heavily controlled by government, and LGBT subjects are very taboo as most of the nation's powerful leaders are old conservatives :( in fact, just a few months ago there was a crackdown on Weibo that attempted to remove all LGBT content, but due to mass protest, it didn't go through! that is to say, the environment towards LGBT in china is very harsh, so you should support these artists as much as possible! it's also good to be aware of how terrible the censorship/dictatorship in china is!
Thank you for your reply, many of us forget that this comic is not from a country that is cool with BL like Japan. I have seen Old Xian post some sexy images But they are not within the context of the comic itself and often, like the more current post of He Tien with a spiked collar on and no shirt, he is alone, no homosexual content there. I am sad that this country would censor LGBTQ content and artistic expression but I hope that some of the people that are clamoring for depictions of graphic content with these comics will consider the artist's situation and be a bit sensitive. We are lucky to have these comics at all, really.
I just watched a video from The Advocate about a Chinese lesbian's experience of being lesbian in China. It lead me to wonder if the reason that Here U Are and 19 Days are shounen ai and not yaoi is because they don't want their comics to be censored. Maybe it isn't entirely the artistic choice its about what they feel they need to make in order to keep making BL webcomics. Can anyone living in China or with knowledge of the situation there comment?