hot take: the reason a lot of women read BL (which by the way, is the demographic that the genre is mostly aimed at) is for a couple of reasons. one being, it depicts men erotically, and women who like men...would obviously like that. And two, women will be able to read freely without having to see themselves depicted as sexual objects, because very often women in heterosexual romance mangas (and in literally any form of media) are poorly (if at all) fleshed out characters. this is also largely because women in media are written to cater to the male gaze. the patriarchy affects women in every aspect of their lives. A lot of disputes I have seen against women BL readers have been along the lines of "women are objectifying gay men". the only answer I have to that is, yes its possible, but that is not the result of the existence of the genre. its simply just delusional person that reads BL.
hot take: the reason a lot of women read BL (which by the way, is the demographic that the genre is mostly aimed at) is for a couple of reasons. one being, it depicts men erotically, and women who like men...would obviously like that. And two, women will be able to read freely without having to see themselves depicted as sexual objects, because very often women in heterosexual romance mangas (and in literally any form of media) are poorly (if at all) fleshed out characters. this is also largely because women in media are written to cater to the male gaze. the patriarchy affects women in every aspect of their lives.
A lot of disputes I have seen against women BL readers have been along the lines of "women are objectifying gay men". the only answer I have to that is, yes its possible, but that is not the result of the existence of the genre. its simply just delusional person that reads BL.