Not hating just thinking

have you ever considered that gay ppl can also be super into size difference / having more delicate features and aesthetics …. also not trying to be rude but i find that sometimes ppl focus so much on “heteronormativity” that you end up assuming and stereotyping so much it kind of goes back in terms of progressiveness. like why don’t you think a queer/gay person could write a story with a pretty/delicate guy ? at the end of the day they’re all men ? not all guys are built super tough/masculine ? like what on earth do you mean straight people who happen to have penises that’s such a ridiculous thing to say they’re both men, they are constantly referred to as men, jiwon faced backlash for being a MALE shaman……. god forbid a man is pretty yknow ………. idk i hate seeing pretty characters or cute height difference and then seeing 10000 billion comment under a bl manga about how it has straight people, when being pretty/having long hair/dressing femininely has never been exclusive to straight women and arguably is also a large part of gay culture. also i think it’s super counter productive to sit here and try to figure out the author’s sexuality when it’s never that straight forward and has absolutely nothing to do w the story. maybe they’re a lesbian who knows and just like to write bl. like who knows !!!!! why do we care !!!! it’s so stupid all we need to know is they create insanely good art and are rly good story tellers …. if you do prefer only masculine men in ur story that’s fine there’s like 192829292 of them in other bl stories (who funnily enough were probably also created by straight women !) , ik this got long and everyone’s going to tell me to shut up but i think ive seen so many variations of this comment and its just so dumb. i dont think pretty male characters are exclusive to the straight woman fantasy and i do think it’s kind of insulting, stereotyping and also generalising to say that

yes omg everytime i’m like damn they really got no clue we don’t usually like getting 3 fingers immediately slammed into us then fucked starfish style all within 1 minute ? i love uke and seme dynamics as much as the next person but reading as a fudanshi is not for the weak lol

I mean obviously, after all, bl/Yaoi in general is made by and for straight women

Thanks for your thoughts but I’m also gonna say this feels like a lot of projection and assumption pls don’t feel like I’m coming for you, but in all honesty your response feels a bit like “a hit dog will holler”

I think it’s fun and nice to just turn your brain off and read, but I also like to think critically about how people will happily consume content like this by applying heteronormative traits and behaviors to made up characters while also being deeply uncomfortable by queer people who don’t fall into those same moulds

I think trying to chalk it up to “yeah queer men like size differences” and “yeah queer men can be pretty” does nothing but distracts from & serves as a disservice to queer men by not pointing out how straight women often fetishize them in art and entertainment

You can enjoy stuff and still be critical of it! I’m not saying the artists or writers are horrible homophobes or awful people, I’m just pointing out and musing about how heteronormativity shows up even in so called queer stories. That’s the fun thing about nuance, it’s multifaceted! But idk this may be too much for mangago lol

LMAO starfish style sent me but yes omg you get it! Like you’re telling me you’re rawdogging it with nothing but sweat and cum?? Bby that’s not real life lol

I completely agree with you that it’s absolutely important to be critical of the media you consume - it’s just that in this particular instance i feel it’s kind of surface level and superficial to immediately equate size difference/having a dainty mc and the likeness with heteronormativity ? when they explicitly state that mc is a man. like i dont get what’s heteronormative about that ? like this just reads like a typical cliche romance to me and maybe because romances were historically dominated by societal norms (straight people) you might automatically assume that it’s heteronormative - i just think it sucks that we would have to be constrained by “not making mc too pretty or too dainty” or “not making ml too buff” or whatever just bc this is a bl yknow ? idk it feels like there’s more of a checklist of things not to do when it comes to BL/GL and it’s more likely to get critiques of fetishism etc for just normal characters that reflect characteristics in the real world … it feels othering i guess ? heteronormativity is also a pretty vague word that i just don’t think fits the context of most criticisms in bl media - the word applies for the real word where society normalises straight people and others queer people. but this is a bl manga with men

Also regarding the unrealistic sex i feel like that’s a veeeeeeery common occurrence in any romance media including ones with women … many writers aren’t going to go into the details of prep bc ofc it breaks the immersion a bit and they just wanna write the fun stuff ig but even in het stories the sex is always so unrealistic and they never discuss the actual prep that goes into it properly … idk…. i just don’t think this is exclusive to bl but ya ik no one will agree with me but this is the hill i stand on ig lmfao

Okay, so when I say heteronormativity, I mean the idea that heterosexuality and its performance of gender roles and perpetuating the idea that people only fit into two rigid, opposite categories male or female, feminine and masculine, boy and girl. Now, I don’t think that every BL does this, like I can definitely think of a few manhwa’s that stray away from this dynamic, like Red String Fate and Banana Scandal. Buuuuut I can also recognize that quite a few do.

They give one male character traits outside of aesthetics that align them closely with society’s understand of women and femininity. For example, no body hair anywhere, frames that are drastically different from more masculine presenting characters and lean more traditionally feminine, etc. It’s like, men created to make straight people more comfortable by assigning them features and traits that align with traditional general roles and heteronormativity. Like I hope this makes sense, but a lot of manhwa aligns with the “who’s the guy who’s the girl” idea that’s projected onto queer relationships.

I totally get what you mean and 100% agree that queer men can show up in many different forms, they can be pretty, they can be society’s perception of feminine, they can be small and slender, and all of these things and still be a man. They can be in relationships that may present to the world as feminine and masculine and still be queer men. They can show up as whoever and are still valid! I just think that a lot of authors—who are straight women—fall into the trap of projecting traditional gender roles and traits onto characters, and I just find it interesting!

Idk how to explain it, and I hope I’m making sense, but I’m just conscious of the fact that there are people who obsess over BL but the moment a real queer man shows up and he’s not presenting in a way that’s aligns with how society think they should , or they’re in a relationship that doesn’t fit the heteronormative ideal (like two fat men together, a short dude with a beard with a tall more feminine presenting man) their acceptance of two men together is suddenly a little shaky.

Like I’m probably raining on the BL parade, (and I’m not trying to I swearrrr ) but I just like to think about stuff like this! Not even in regards to this story, but just in general! This story just made me think about it, and it’s something I was curious if other people thought about or considered

(Again, probably way too deep for mangago and that’s my bad, imma keep it in my brain )

i think it is a really interesting conversation to be had about media but in all honesty i feel like this is more an overarching critique regarding east asian media in particular, even outside of bl it’s incredibly rare to find main characters (both men and women) portrayed with body hair, different sizes of bodies or different skin tones. there probably is a niche of bl where it’s likely straight women projecting but i do think there would need to be more evidence to show that majority bl with size difference/feminine men are self insert stories, in fact id argue that there’s more of a trend of more masculine men being in relationships with each other in more modern day bl (as you said, red string quest, pizza delivery man, 3rd ending) and one could argue that people are now fetishising masculine/large/well built men. i guess what im trying to say is that it feel like a Huge generalisation to say majority feminine presenting male characters are likely to be a self insert by a straight women and that a lot of the time, it just depends? like from this story, jiwon to me doesn’t feel like a self insert whatsoever. he’s very driven and has his own personality and thoughts/emotions, he just is also realllyyyy pretty. it could even be that the author is into/attracted to pretty men rather than inserting themselves into that archetype. I think a lot of my frustration with this critique also falls into the inevitable gender stereotypes that come with it - like why does pretty man = women? women aren’t all pretty, dainty, hairless, skinny etc so how do dainty men automatically become a reflection of women? i think that’s the most frustrating part, i just don’t see anything in these men that’s exclusively a characteristic of women, or even commonly! so if they aren’t reflections of women, how do they reflect straight relationships? i actually find it refreshing that it’s the men (both feminine and masculine) portrayed as nurturing/gentle etc instead of women, as it’s not an accepted norm in media typically. but yeah, thanks for taking my response seriously though i feel like most people here just get mad if i don’t agree with them

wait like last response to this but I really feel this lol i wish there were a bit more queer men who write/create bl stories because as a kid it was a little disheartening realizing that my love/relationships weren’t going to be treated the same as the gay couple in my novels who were accepted by everyone or could fight back against hatred fr!! although it’s perfectly fine to write bl stories as a straight lady, it’s hard to replicate the same emotions that us gay men have grown to experience when you haven’t had to deal with them yourself yk