You said exactly what I’ve been saying and thinking. It’s a BDSM faux pas to bring personal feelings into domming. It’s just something you should never do. Him forgetting to give him a safe action is pissing me off too because how was he meant to do the action with no hands or legs? The only way to do is it to have a clicker or a button in his hand and if he needs to use the safeword, he clicks it 3 times in a row. He knows MC has no real experience and should be teaching him but from beginning to end, there’s been no lessons. It started off fine but ever since they started dating, he’s gotten so manipulative and controlling and straight up abusive (because this is abuse! Emotional and sexual abuse!) and it’s just not worth reading anymore. I hope author learns from their mistakes and actually consults the BDSM community next time they attempt to write a BDSM book because this was on par with 50 shades of grey in how badly BDSM is being portrayed. 50 shades may have taught the actors everything about the props but they never once actually learned proper safety and care. I’m sick of BDSM books being like this.
I completely agree with you, so much. I think you can bring a scenario like that into play IF you decide to do it as a role play, both parties consent, and you explain exactly what will happen. The author is becoming everything they criticized at first, and it’s even more annoying cause you think the story is safe and suddenly it becomes a toxic slop. I can’t count how many times I’ve read BL and all of a sudden middle/end of a story had rape. I rather it being toxic from the start cause then I know to avoid it. What’s the point of giving a safe word if you manipulate your sub into whatever you want to do? And did the author completly forget they even have a safe word? I’m also sick of BDSM and yaoi overall being like this.
Ironically, one of my favorite BDSM portrayals was in BJ Alex that has a super toxic main couple (typical yaoi nonsense), but a very consensual side couple with far more extreme kinks than the main one. It’s funny how they managed to make those extreme ones the only consensual ones.
Honestly, even in 50 shades of grey this was addressed When Grey used his jealousy in a play and Anastasia safe worded. Like…
As someone who is a survivor of SA and BDSM SA, this turnaround is horrific. The fact it was never disclosed to us (the readers) and we have to get bait and switched like this is disgusting. As much as I love yaoi and most of the yaoi community, the authors love for all things cheating and SA is disgraceful. Bj Alex and aporia are some of the best BDSM portrayals I’ve ever seen in BDSM yaoi. I’ve tried so many out and those two are ones I keep going back to. I hope they make one with BJ MD and have it just be a BDSM book because that would be the best of the best!
Yes but they portrayed him as a “dom” and a “sadist” but the sadism he has is NOT BDSM sadism. He was sexually abused and is very twisted inside. He wanted the pain of women (because he was hurt as a kid) and that isn’t a BDSM thing, that’s a trauma thing. They tried to play it all off as if the BDSM community is all just sexually abused loners who are psychopaths waiting to hurt people and the BDSM community was up in arms about it. We spoke out about how damaging that kind of messaging is and how BDSM is nothing like that. They did eventually apologise for misrepresenting the BDSM community but I don’t think many people paid attention to it. That’s what I mean. Not about Christian grey as a character but as a novel and movie as a whole.
First of all, I am so sorry you went through that. I had a friend who also had the same unfortunate experiences. I hope whoever did that to you is rotting in prison and you’re healing.
Second, this is kind of the reason why I hate majority of yaoi and majority of the yaoi community From my experience majority of readers defend SA in yaoi like it’s their lifeline, and majority of yaoi has SA in some way or form. Like, it’s pretty much fetish content for people who fetishize gay men (not ALL and not EVERYONE, but a lot). And I totally agree about BJ MD. Side couple was so much better than the main couple. I like Bj Alex main couple for the angst, but I do not like or ship them together. MLs behavior wasn’t shown as good, but it was quite brushed off (SA parts).
Oh, I didn’t mean that it was a good portrayal of BDSM I think it’s a pretty shit movie series and it always felt off to me, I’m just saying that even a series that bad drew a line with this specific issue that this manhwa that is supposedly safe, cannot
This sums up perfectly what i was thinking since the second season started. At the beginning of S2 it seemed like they never properly talked it out and the weird misunderstandings came either from miscommunication or no desire to WANT to understand the other part... And now with the last few chapters esp. the last two I felt really uneasy. "Talk to me" the ML says, while the ML is gagged and completely tied up. There was no talking through what is going to happen and thats especially terrifying when blindfolded. The MC being scared also highlighted the fact that he has no way to signal his safeword/sign that he wants to stop and the chapter ending in him wanting to continue because he feels like he hasnt been punished enough??? Out of my perspective there was never a reason to go THIS far into the punishment.
(And about your comment with the majority of the yaoi Community defending SA - oh my lord or whatever entity in the sky and hell - i've dropped a Story sometime ago where i just had to air out my disappointment in people not seeing the SA that was clearly happening in that story - there was someone commenting to my post that they totally agree with me but also kinda defending it, because that couple grows and the story ends good and that they like each other so the SA is no big deal, like huuhhh?? Smth smth like SA/dubcon used "as a piece of fantastical fiction" makes it fine)
I totally agree with you and you have no idea how many times whenever I voiced out my disappointment about SA people defended it trying to paint it as consensual or “hot”. I am VERY careful with any mature manhwa I read. GL and straight manhwas have the exact same issues, in BDSM themes or vanilla ones. Some stories I straight up have to ignore minor SA, cause there’s like 1 out of a 100 stories that is fully consensual. “My sunny days” is my haven
Our* Sunny days
I was similarly disappointed with manhwa Kings Maker that also started off as criticizing sexual violence and then started incorporating common BL SA themes (dub-con at best) and when I voiced my disappointment in this, especially taking into consideration how this series started off, people attacked me so hard on how the “uke” can stand up for himself and regardless of countless “stop”, “I can’t” in the middle of “sex” etc., he “wanted it”. And I’m sure I don’t have to explain how harmful the whole “he secretly wanted it even tho he refused loudly” narrative is.
Since we seem to be on the same page here, i'd love to recommend the video essay "Jinx: The Romanticization of violence and how it gets away with it". Its 30 minutes and i felt so seen and heard through that and how the creator perfectly summarizes the stigma and the community handling it with quotes like "its just fiction".
I'd love to read GL but i never dipped into that genre so i don't know if i'd find smth good to read. I also have some reasons to always find myself back at BL. I have read some straight storys too but aside from very few exceptions i just don't like it in general - no matter if bdsm or vanilla. Its either weird proportions or the depiction of intimicy being faaaaaar off of how i experience it. I can name three straight storys i enjoyed, the rest i ever touched was either dropped but i vaguely remember the story/setting or i flat out dropped it and forgot about it - which could turn out to come and haunt me if i ever try to read straight storys again (since i have an excel sheet documenting everything i've read), but i highly doubt that.
And sure, i could read the cutesy, fluffy, no R-rated, romance stuff, but i am an adult and i'd like to read storys about adults, that act like adults. Most of the cute stuff i've read or even own physical copys from are from my time in school as a teenager ... And looking back i can't say for certain that i learned healthy behaviour from Vampire Knight or Kaichou wa Maid-Sama XD
This started as a healthy and consensual BDSm story, that actually addressed the problematic behaviors that can happen in BDSM. Now tho? This is becoming increasingly toxic with ML bringing their personal issues into it. I like the kinks of this chapter, but I genuinely skipped the whole thing cause it made me so uncomfortable. Also, why was nothing discussed on how the safe word will work when MC is tied up and gagged? Did author completely forget they have a safe word at all? This story had so much potential, but I might just drop this. I’m so fed up with the ML. He’s giving a “nice guy”, will start off as being the safe one and within the relationship turn into the exact thing u tried to avoid. Just my own personal opinion.