Here's the truth, even if people don't want to admit it to themselves here.
Many people here view bottoming as an act of emasculation or feminization. Something done *to* the bottom. The bottom has his masculinity stripped from him when he gets fucked. But that's not an issue because for most of these kinds of readers, the bottom is functionally a reader-insert for their sexual fantasies and since they are women, they are not tied to the bottom's masculinity (see "Top Privilege" and why generally, seme based actors in queer media get more following than uke based actors).
If their preffered seme bottoms, then their sexual fantasy is tarnished. Their ideal macho dom man is "turned into a woman" - he is "feminized". And these readers CANNOT have that for their sexual fantasy. Because they can never accept queerness that transcends their heteronormative ideas of sex and relationships. To them, and for them, queerness is a medium of fulfilling their sexual fantasies by projecting heteronormative roles onto two men. That's all queerness is to them. There exists no equal relationship between two guys. Its between one guy (the "man" and object of fantasy), and the other guy (the "woman" and reader-insert). If you've watched her asian dramas, you will instantly see where every Yaoi/BL trope comes from and what moulds the demands the readers have for yaoi dynamics.
Anyways, that's my woke essay.
i’m woke enough for this
Thank you for putting this into words I was just ranting to my friend about this because I couldn't figure out why them switching would be a problem
Yep. the bottom is a reader insert for these readers and it shows not just with sex but also with how they judge his character overall. It's not only heteronormative and queer-reductive but also very misogynistic. Kinda ironic when most of them are women/girls themselves
Oh I'd argue almost all homophobia in itself stems from misogyny, hence why I didn't mention it. Homophobia in general is a condemnation of the idea that a man could "take the woman's role".
We in society so denigrate the postion of women, that a man taking any position even resembling that, is worthy of shame and disgust.
Valid
especially considering being verse is extremely common in real life relationships. i went to school for wgss so the comments on this site are fr a case study
LMAO and its also extremely common to have preferences and not everyone likes a dick up their ass
Thank god most bl authors have fixed positions for their characters
It isn't extremely common. The percentage of queer folk who have *never* been penetrated is close to none - compare that to manhwa stats lmao.
Close to a majority label themselves as verse at anywhere from 32% at the lowest ends (where there is a lot of non-exclusive categorization) to 47%. In contrast, exclusive tops and bottoms are only around 4-8% each, with preferences ranging from 18% to 23%.
And note, that's *preference* data, meaning even though they have a preference, they aren't exclusive. That fraction is EXTREMELY fringe. Yet it makes up 99% of all manga/manhua.
Its ok to admit you have nothing backing you love.
I really hope they actually switch. I think the bigger guy bottoming would be really cool. Especially since he is someone who has had trouble recieving love from his past.
I think him bottoming would be a perfect physical expression of the love that Ho has for him. This is absolutely the perfect couple to switch imo.
That, and the fact that they've teased it so much already. I hate switch-baiting so much lol. I've never understood the "I don't want them to switch" thing even when the top is small and the bottom is big (aka an unconventional pairing). If you don't like it, just skip the chapter.
I feel for many people, having their preferred top bottom even once "tarnishes" them in some way. Tarnishes their masculinity or tarnishes their "dom aura". I wish we didn't ascribe to such standard slightly misogynistic het slop and impose it onto queer couples but here we are.
My favorite rebuttal to this is people pointing out how *some* gay couples have strict roles, overlooking how the plurality of couples and queer men switch/are vers, in complete contrast to how 99% of all manga/manhwa/manhua/danmei has fixed roles. Even these real couples who have strict roles will still switch things up atleast once just for the experience, which is a matter for apparent comedy to even being up in most yaoi/BL media (see BJ Alex where the uke wanting to top is turned into a joke).
Just a shame we are still so rigid with all the roles. I'd say its homophobia, but y'all aren't ready for that discussion without calling me the friend that's too woke.
Many gay men irl have preferences and hate bottoming yall wanting to act woke so bad and ending but embarrassing yourselves
You must have a humiliation or ownership fetish cause dear god do you keep getting it thread after thread.
Sorry that the facts disagree with you numerically mama. Most queer men are vers, including those who have preferences, with *exclusive* tops and bottoms being under 10% in most cases.
I always find it really funny how authors just think its somewhat normal to bleed during anal sex. Unless you are being r*ped or *insanely* underprepped (like broomhandle dick meets hole the diameter of a hair), this is not an issue. Men don't have hymens in their ass.
If someone did bleed from anal, especially as much as we see on those sheets, I'd be scandalized from the non-reaction by the top. That's a doctor's visit in the waiting lmao.
Yeeeeah I hate how common it is to see blood in manhwa, like it's just something that happens frequently enough to not be a big deal. If there's blood on the sheets you are doing something VERY wrong and if I were in ML's place I'd be horrified.
See authors, it's really easy to write a piece of shit seme that's arrogant and toxic, yet still at his core, a likeable character who you want to see redeemed and enjoy reading when they get their comeuppance.
There are so many authors who want to write uke torture porn that they don't think of the kind of character they've moulded their semes into, such that any redemption arc that doesn't involve them being completely broken down and deconstructed as a human being for like a 100 chapters feels unsatisfying.
Characters like Yeonghan and Taejoo from Low Tide in the Twilight are absolutely awful to their respective partners (Taejoo obviously far more so), but the authors cared enough to properly characterize them such that you can see even early on that they possess true potential to grow as characters in ways that most semes are never properly characterized as.
Yes, this is me hating on Jinx in another comment section and y'all can't stop me lmao.
I mean you're comparing two different types of storytelling. I haven't read Jinx because I didn't like the first couple of episodes, but it's one of the most popular BL web toons out there. There is a large audience for simple characters. Complexity isn't easily digestible for everyone and you have to have that quality for a story of every medium to be successful. It's why mainstream shounen is way more successful than more complex and critically acclaimed anime series.
But so is the other example I provided with Low Tide in Twilight. That manhwa was insanely popular too and Taejoo is arguably even worse than Jaekyung from Jinx in many ways.
It's not a matter of narrative or character complexity to me, it's just a matter of deft characterization. Its building your seme out with the understanding that even if he is a piece of shit now, you still have to show what traits make him attractive to the uke (and hence the audience), and what traits he possesses that indicates his future capacity for being an actual viable partner for the particular uke.
And unfortunately, a lot of authors just aren't good at that kind of characterization since they usually lose themselves missing the forest for the trees, or in this case, too lost in building out uke torture porn to actually realize that the seme needs to be redeemable by the end.
I can't be the only one who wants Jaekyung to truly suffer lmao? I don't feel like he has truly faced any consequences for all the shit he did.
I pray Dan isn't a lawnchair, but then again, the uke from BJ Alex folded like a picnic table. Mind you, Dan STILL doesn't know about the whole "I non-consenually displayed you during sex to my rival while you were blindfolded"-bit.
So, after rape, sexual harrassment, verbal and physical abuse, mental anguish and distress, isolating you from your friends, being controlling, etc., THIS is what prompts a crash-out?
Is it truly THAT unbelievable that rapist McGee here wouldn't steal a ring and an envelope? Really??
Sigh. The carpentry of an artist would put Jesus of Nazareth out of work cause DEAR LORD do they know how to make a folding lawn-chair!
Do we think the author will ever bring up the whole scene where Jaekyung exposes Dan to the other guy while they were having sex unbeknownst to Dan?
Well, considering it's this author, I suppose at most, it'll get some retroactive justification on how Dan has a voyeurism/public humiliation kink or something and Jaekyung just somehow divined that from his magic seme powers.
I like how dumbasses here equivocate between both their trespasses.
Like apparently Sejin doing corporate espionage is EQUALLY as bad as RAPE. Be fucking fr rn lmao.
i’m so sick of seeing comments saying things like “they both did bad things” as if it’s some kind of eye for an eye situation. as if sejin wasn’t literally driven to suicide. that’s a life for an eye.
It's more like a life for a minor scratch
I just realised that this is the same author that did Tattooed Love. Oh I'm completely getting switch-baited with no delivery lmao.
I know a lot of authors are very much trad-joshis and the others are terrified of reader backlash from even the implication since tradjoshis often terrorize authors when things don't go exactly how they want with their sexual fantasies, but I don't even need switching in the main story. You can relegate it to the side stories. See "Raise Me!" and the incredible vers/seke scenes in its extras where the seme gets fucked to an inch of his life by the uke and they decide to be a permanent switch couple.