I do believe that yaoi can have tendencies to fetishize gay men- some yaois more than others, but I don’t think it’s any more fetishized/sexualized than straight relationships. I think it’s when people get ahead of themselves and start to ship and bother real people that it becomes a problem. If they push their ship onto real people(Bothering two people who don’t show any signs they are in a relationship), then that’s the actual fetishization of gay men; I don’t think enjoying yaoi necessarily means that you fetishize them. Some yaoi actually portray realistic relationships, while others are just porn. There’s nothing wrong with porn- there’s straight and lesbian porn so I don’t see how yaoi fetishizes it more than the others. As long as you keep fiction away from real life, I don’t think It’s “disgusting” to like reading yaoi.
When the argument that yaoi fetishizes gay men comes up, it’s often by a person who’s never read a yaoi manga(a good one at least) so I’m curious to see others’ opinions on this. Do you think yaoi fetishizes gay men? If you are a gay man yourself, does it bother you that women read and sometimes get off to yaoi manga?
