a gay man telling you how yaoi is bad. again.
ive been seeing a lot of discussion about this which is great but from what i can tell it's once again mostly women being projected into the conversation by other women.
the point is that if youre not mlm/nblm your opinion is not final say and your voice should not be the loudest. fictional media has influenced public perception on issues and topics for YEARS and that is irrefutable. fetishization of gay men has been happening before it was even more societally accepted to be a gay man.
the portrayal of gay men is so fucking skewed in works of yaoi and bl. for generations gay men have been viewed as predatory, rapists, unnatural, feminine and dangerous. ALL of which are stereotypes reflected in these works. this puts us in danger and invalidates us.
the 'feminine bottom' trope which pushes the stereotype that there has to be a 'woman' in an mlm relationship.
the 'student+teacher' trope which pushes the stereotype about us being predators.
the 'extremely young man+way older man' trope which also pushes us being predators, not to mention larger age gaps tend to have unhealthy power dynamics.
the 'rapists and their victims fall in love' trope which i cant even begin describe how insanely unhealthy that is and how insanely popular it is.
these are just to name a few which affect REAL people. REAL gay men.
ive seen countless occasions and conversations where women and girls whos views on gay relationships have been so warped that they think its ok to be invasive, to ship real men, to ask questions about private matters without any indication that its ok to do so. not to mention seeing all of this fucked up gay 'representation' can warp the minds of young gay boys the same way it does to young girls. this will often make them hate themselves more, it will normalise toxic relationships for them which can put them in dangerous situations.
bl 'made for women by other women' is in general unhealthy because a woman (even if she is lgbt+) CANNOT give representation to gay men and cannot do their stories justice because shes never experienced it. the only times it would be acceptable is if she talked to actual gay men for their experiences.
we're not asking you to stop writing or reading bl because thats unrealistic but we are asking you to listen to us. listen when we tell you that a trope is bad and should be stopped, stop interacting and giving positive feedback which pushes dangerous stereotypes about us. stop as a woman only interacting with gay media. educate yourself on what its like being a gay man so you can at least recognise toxicity and bad representation. stop ignoring us and misconstruing what we're talking about and what we're asking from you.
