Yaoi

[Solstis]

I know I've done this before, sssh!

Yaoi is nothing but fetishism. I've never met a man that represented, reflected, or respected anything that yaoi has produced.

It is a complete form of objectification, unlike most of the other things I complain about, such as Orientalism, which is half-dead and floats around the Western psyche like a bloated specter.

Why believe in something that you must know, fundamentally, is a construct? Fag hags are one thing, yaoi fan-girls are another. From what I've seen, cruising forums and websites, it is not the physical acts of sex that the girls are interested in, but the emotional context of the relationships (if we pretend that emotions and sex are separate entities). Yaoi is an instrument of power, though fictional, that allows some semblance of control over men by creating castes (semme and uke) and standards that apply to both.

Yaoi is then an act of castrating the homosexual man. By removing the idea (in the minds of the consumers of yaoi) that gay men can be sexual in a way other than yaoi depicts, a suppression of the already suppressed occurs. Yaoi is not a celebration of gay male sexuality, but a twisted perversion of it.

Yes, I did figure out what I was writing as I wrote it.

(oh man, I'm a step or two from becoming a militant feminist again)

[Sayara]

Isn't this concept simular to that of peoples fascination to fetishes? Thats what im getting out of this..

[Solstis]

Isn't this concept simular to that of peoples fascination to fetishes? Thats what im getting out of this..

Someone can have a fetish, for example, involving socks, which has no element of a power-relation. Someone fantasizing about socks isn't falsely representing or objectifying anyone. With Yaoi, there's a that element of power. That's my point.

All relationships boil-down to power-plays (what? you didn't feed the cat? oh, mister, what about the dishes? oh, you just had to bring that up, blahblahblah), and yaoi involves a constructed one.

[beatrixkiddo]

I dislike the yaoi ideal. I prefer muscular men, but hey; that's just me.

[Blitzkommando]

Couldn't any form of porn be considered a type of objectification in some form or another? Any with a story generally goes into some sort of objectifying those involved. Afterall, most times unless you get into a 'story-oriented' pornographic novel/movie it's going to be simply objectifying sex. They all do that in a way, making it seem less special and more just something to do because it feels good. I know I had a point in there somewhere but I think I lost it between the lack of sleep and lack of wanting to go much further into this.

[Sord]

Frankly, I've never known someone to be that specific on what "yaoi" is. 90% of the girls I know would just say "gay hentai with pretty boys" or some such. I've only heard of one person who ever mention "semme" and "uke" and they merely described it as being dominant and the other not, in the same sense of the idea most men are dominent over women in marriage (maybe not as much in the US, but especially so in other countries.) You're the only person I know who's ever brought this up as a serious in-depth meaning, and I used to hang out with the animu nerds of all groups (including a couple yaoi fangirls.)

Though I suppose if the girls are serious enough to be posting about it, those particular ones might go more in-depth on it than just "gay hentai."

[beatrixkiddo]

Solstis is referring to the yaoi community, which is a bunch of 15-year-old girls writing stories about how Zell and Seifer actually love each other despite being total enemies in the canon storyline, and this somehow leads to passionate girly-man sex wherein is it revealed that Zell is a total submissive and Seifer a power-hungry dominant.

No really, it works like that :disapprove:

[Nitro Vordex]

I know I've done this before, sssh!

Yaoi is nothing but fetishism. I've never met a man that represented, reflected, or respected anything that yaoi has produced.

It is a complete form of objectification, unlike most of the other things I complain about, such as Orientalism, which is half-dead and floats around the Western psyche like a bloated specter.

Why believe in something that you must know, fundamentally, is a construct? Fag hags are one thing, yaoi fan-girls are another. From what I've seen, cruising forums and websites, it is not the physical acts of sex that the girls are interested in, but the emotional context of the relationships (if we pretend that emotions and sex are separate entities). Yaoi is an instrument of power, though fictional, that allows some semblance of control over men by creating castes (semme and uke) and standards that apply to both.

Yaoi is then an act of castrating the homosexual man. By removing the idea (in the minds of the consumers of yaoi) that gay men can be sexual in a way other than yaoi depicts, a suppression of the already suppressed occurs. Yaoi is not a celebration of gay male sexuality, but a twisted perversion of it.

Yes, I did figure out what I was writing as I wrote it.

(oh man, I'm a step or two from becoming a militant feminist again)

So, to summerize, this is actually worse than what society has labeled homosexuals?

[beatrixkiddo]

More like, this is the sort of thing that leads to society's narrow-minded stereotype of homosexuals.

[ABDUR101]

Putting alot of femmy homosexuals with a lisp who 'live large in the homosexual lifestyle' doesn't help either. If I turn on a show and the homosexuals offend me then thats definitely saying something.

What ever happened to the John Wayne-type homosexual? So hard to come by.

[Broodstar1337]

Putting alot of femmy homosexuals with a lisp who 'live large in the homosexual lifestyle' doesn't help either. If I turn on a show and the homosexuals offend me then thats definitely saying something.

What ever happened to the John Wayne-type homosexual? So hard to come by.

Wait, John Wayne was gay?

[Shadowpawn]

Wait, John Wayne was gay?

John Wayne, himself, wasn't gay. However given the fact that people associate homosexual with the image of a cowboy and that the fact that John Wayne primarily played cowboys he would the anti-thesis of today's stereotype of a homosexual male.

Basically ADBUR was going for a corny joke.

[Solstis]

Couldn't any form of porn be considered a type of objectification in some form or another? Any with a story generally goes into some sort of objectifying those involved. Afterall, most times unless you get into a 'story-oriented' pornographic novel/movie it's going to be simply objectifying sex. They all do that in a way, making it seem less special and more just something to do because it feels good. I know I had a point in there somewhere but I think I lost it between the lack of sleep and lack of wanting to go much further into this.

Pretty much any sort of porn involves some sort of objectification (some worse than others). Just trying to expand the definition.

[Kylie]

If that's what people are into, and it's not illegal and doesn't hurt anybody, then I'm not bothered by it. :-? It may depict the wrong thing of gay men, but since when does porn or hentai in general accurately represent... anyone? Of course, I say this without ever seeing Yaoi in my life, but I still stand by my point based on what I've heard and what's been said in this thread. Anyway, I don't think being misrepresented by something like this is much to get upset over.

[Seority]

If that's what people are into, and it's not illegal and doesn't hurt anybody, then I'm not bothered by it. :-? It may depict the wrong thing of gay men, but since when does porn or hentai in general accurately represent... anyone? Of course, I say this without ever seeing Yaoi in my life, but I still stand by my point based on what I've heard and what's been said in this thread. Anyway, I don't think being misrepresented by something like this is much to get upset over.

Agreed!
Post count +1! d^_^

I guess when it comes to sexual terms there has to be a dominant and recessive. Even though, in real life, if two men are dominant in their life style, they probably arnt gay, they would both try to be the same in bed, unless one's living a lie.

[Solstis]

Agreed!
Post count +1! d^_^

I guess when it comes to sexual terms there has to be a dominant and recessive. Even though, in real life, if two men are dominant in their life style, they probably arnt gay, they would both try to be the same in bed, unless one's living a lie.

The roles can change from moment to moment, there doesn't have to be a set sex role of dominant or recessive. A fair number of men do prefer one over to the other, to the point of outburst when asked, which probably has something to do with image issues. My discussion with yaoi involved image issues, or images thrust upon others, which all are (by necessity) interrelated.

I also have not met any girl that has discussed yaoi in person, but I think it's more of a down-low, internet thing.

The problem may be, referencing what beatrixkiddo pointed out, that the screaming 15 year old girls might believe it, especially if its all they "know" of gay men.

[Kylie]

It can't be worse than the picture they already have of gay men. :-P

[Seority]

I know it could change, but there still is the dominant and the recessive. Both can't be the same thing at once.

My view of Yaoi as a person who's never seen it before is this. Two guys, and sex. The men are always good looking, and one tends to have a more femalistic nature. If it's ever a story of two warlords or something falling in love and having sex, it's only a fan-reality of people. Oddly enough, I know quite a few guys who acctually enjoy yaoi and are straight. Then again, there's a little bi in all of us right? lol.
Yaoi, just like yuri, henti, porn, and even anime itself is all just a fantasy world with characters that revolove around it. Rarely do any of them portray real life meanings and stereotypes.
So those 15 year old yaoi freaks are freaks for that fantasy world, and don't really know/understand the real life around gay people. Same goes for any young child who watches lots of cartoons. They come down from the clouds eventually, but we all start there.

[Solstis]

I know it could change, but there still is the dominant and the recessive. Same goes for any young child who watches lots of cartoons. They come down from the clouds eventually, but we all start there.

I don't think that is true at all. Just fancier, newer, more complicated clouds.

We all have our own clouds, but yaoi is a troubling one to start with.

[Sord]

The only problem I have with Yaoi fan girls is the moment I tell them I don't give a care if they look at yaoi, they'll immediatly dog me with questions asking if I'm gay this or gay that, or what I think of this one guy. I'm not gay, I'm just tolerant. I don't give a shit what people do, so long as they aren't forcing it on me or hurting people in the process. Then they'll spout stupid nonsense like "Oh but if you tolerate it there must be a part of you that likes it!" No, there isn't, it's the same thing as freaking food. I hate seafood, but I'm not going to give a damn if someone else wants to eat it. For this reason, most yaoi fangirls I've come across seem to be bubbly idiots caught in HEY CUTE GUY, HOPE HE'S GAY type shit. I don't go around asking every girl I think looks good if she's bi or lesbian, be polite and extend the same damn courtesy.

[Iduno]

what I hate is yaoi fan art, google a character to make a sig and...

...

Arrrggghhhh DO NOT WANT!

[Kent]

Yaoi is nothing but fetishism.

So... You're saying effeminate gay men are inanimate objects?:-?

[Nitro Vordex]

Fetishism isn't limited to inanimate objects. (As far as I know)

See: foot fetish.

[Kylie]

Yeah, a fetish can be anything.

"Whatever floats your boat" applies here.

[Solstis]

So... You're saying effeminate gay men are inanimate objects?:-?

You know better.

[Kent]

Fetishism isn't limited to inanimate objects. (As far as I know)

See: foot fetish.

Yeah, a fetish can be anything.

"Whatever floats your boat" applies here.

Technically, fetishism is applying some sort of power or sexual attraction to some form of inanimate object, whereas partialism is applying it to a specific body part (but only of a living being - dead things would count as fetishism).

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/73/The_More_You_Know.jpg

[Kylie]

Hmm...


fet·ish·ism –noun 1.belief in or use of fetishes. 2.Psychiatry. the compulsive use of some object, or part of the body, as a stimulus in the course of attaining sexual gratification, as a shoe, a lock of hair, or underclothes. 3.blind devotion: a fetishism of sacrifice to one's children.
fet·ish –noun 1.an object regarded with awe as being the embodiment or habitation of a potent spirit or as having magical potency. 2.any object, idea, etc., eliciting unquestioning reverence, respect, or devotion: to make a fetish of high grades. 3.Psychology. any object or nongenital part of the body that causes a habitual erotic response or fixation.Sounds to me like body parts, ideas, and etc. are included as fetishes. Neither entry says it's has to be inanimate, and even if it does technically, who cares? People have foot fetishes, midget fetishes, and even effeminate gay men fetishes. That doesn't make them objects. Objects of gratification, maybe, but what isn't these days?

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/73/The_More_You_Know.jpg
Yeah, I used your picture. What you gonna do about it? :wacko:

[zandra117]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQmq5fjTG4o

Someone had to post it XD

[Solstis]

Fetishism may imply an abnormal attraction to any sort of object. I said that Yaoi objectifies gay men. It isn't that hard to piece together that if gay men are treated as objects, the word fetishism applies.

And, yes, in a sense, I did mean inanimate objects, since the actual aspect of the person or group objectified is meaningless to the objectifier.

[Nitro Vordex]

http://acandidworld.files.wordpress.com/2008/05/objection_zoom.jpg

Oops, wrong term. :wacko:

[Kylie]

Yeah, I know what you mean, and I apologize for getting a bit off topic. But, anyway, I can relate to being objectified due to a stereotype of your race, gender, or orientation; so I do empathize with you on that. Most of it is harmless fantasy though.

[Weeaboolits]

Pornography is true to life? I'd best be careful if ever I order pizza then.

[beatrixkiddo]

*arrives at Ronin's house clad in nothing but a pizza box*

[Nitro Vordex]

Now I'm sorry I checked this thread. :disapprove:

[Kion]

i don't have anything actual to write. just;

http://www.vgcats.com/comics/images/041213.jpg

[unicorn]

I think yaoi is great and I'm a homo.

[Loboo]

I'm not gay but i used to makeout with guys at parties when drunk. Anyway I find Yaoi to be boring, i need some buff guys like me to rub up against, thats why i masterbate in front of mirror 5 times a day.

[Ketchup345]

Locked by request.