The whole thing is that they aren’t Japanese terms. They’re Japanese words weebs understand and use wrong. The Japanese term for anything about mlm is boys love or bl. English speaking fans translated it to shounen ai since they know one word for boy and one word for ai. However it is not a term Japanese people use, they just say it in English lol. Saying shounen and shoujo ai is the way Japanese people basically also label shota and loli stuff. But of course there is the counter argument that these terms do in fact exist and are relevant in western Dan culture because they do have a universal meaning and understanding amongst non-Japanese fans. Words and language evolve so I’m not gonna tell people what to do. But it’s important to know it’s NOT a Japanese thing and if you go saying it to Japanese people or in Japanese spaces/communities you are saying something COMPLETELY different.
idk why the people in this comment section are so determined to cling onto these antiquated japanese words that hold pedophilic origins when even japanese people don’t like using those terms anymore... and it harms the communities in question. like it isn’t that hard to just call it bl/gl?