well said
While I do understand your point, I also get why that was said. As I've been reading BL and quite the variety of it since 2012, you can see a huge difference from the works back them compared to now.
Even from how we readers call these works such as 'Shounen ai' and 'Yaoi' you can see a line of diff. I search back then out of curiosity why there's two names when BL stands for Boys Love literally and translates to Shounen Ai in Japanese so where did 'Yaoi' came from. Apparently, it was mockery to Shounen Ai. It was a term to mock the so called 'homo porn'. Even today we differentiate Shounen Ai to be a light romance with not so much ecchi or explicit content (eg. only has light kisses and/or hugging) while Yaoi on a borderline perspective because of having expl. cont. between two men in love to just plain porn. I see comments on some works where people say 'why no Yaoi tag, it has sex' 'they should tag Shounen ai, the're was no sex'
Some readers are idealist while some realist. It's happening now that Same sex stories has realistic content and these themes are now more embraced that those in the same position can relate and many times can emotionally help but we gotta undestand that despite the acceptance there're still those who perceives same sex love as plain fantasy/fiction/idea/genre in literature, a sickness that needs to be cured and is rejected by a quantity of people (even tho they fucking read or watch it) to this day.
Nevertheless, this story was great.
The only thing I took issue with was the author saying how he didn't think BL and the life of a gay man would intersect because the target audience wanted different things. I think the idea of wanting acceptance for being who you are is a powerful theme and something that is universal despite someone's sexuality. And I think a lot of BL stories touch upon these struggles.
I enjoyed the story. The art was beautiful. I found his struggles with acceptance moving. Even if the cheating is true, I don't think it invalidates his experiences. He is after a real person and not everything can end as perfectly and tidily as a work of fiction.