Male-male marriage was selected because our online Sinophone and Anglophone BL fandom surveys indicate this to be the most popular story element of the nine options we provided. To increase comparability, we analysed Harry Potter fan fiction in which the characters Harry and Draco are married. The aim of this study is to compare Sinophone and Anglophone fan fiction consisting of female-oriented male-male romance: danmei and slash, respectively. This talk provides an introduction to Boys’ Love/yaoi manga and presents some observations from my own research on the genre in Anglophone regions and that of my PhD student – Yao Zhao – in Sinophone regions. Translated Boys’ Love manga is available and increasingly popular outside Japan. However, the genre does invite readings that explore ‘queer’ female identities. Indeed, in the main, Boys’ Love appears to offer traditional, romantic narratives with conservative social values. That is not to say, though, that Boys’ Love texts are overtly political or, even, progressive. From a feminist perspective, this, seemingly derogatory, label appears an attempt to stigmatise fujoshi resistance to hetero-normative masculinity. Dedicated female fans of Boys’ Love/yaoi are termed ‘fujoshi’, which translates literally as ‘rotten girls’. Boys’ Love ranges in narrative complexity from multi-volume, emotionally intense love stories to short, ‘mood’ pieces. ‘Boys’ Love’ (aka ‘yaoi’) is a genre of manga portraying romantic and sexual relationships between young men and is targeted at, and largely consumed by, young women. However, there is manga for virtually every niche interest. Different kinds of manga, in terms of story-line, drawing style, and character type, are targeted to markets segmented by age and gender. Manga, a style of comic, is central to contemporary Japanese visual culture and has become a global phenomenon with translated editions consumed in their millions worldwide. We offer important insights into a global erotic entertainment by-and-for women which is influencing the mainstream but under increasing legislative scrutiny. Finally, we provide novel evidence that a broad demographic of young people in the greater China area is familiar with BL as a casual interest in contrast to Anglophone regions where it is more of a niche pass-time. We provide greater detail than ever before and demonstrate engagement with BL by young straight men and questioning of sexual identity by female fans, at least in the Anglophone West. We confirm that the engaged Anglophone demographic includes more men, people with a wider range of sexual orientations, lower proportion of heterosexual identification, and a wider and older age range. Data were analysed from our online Boys’ Love (BL) fandom survey: one version in English and an almost identical version in Chinese. Our study constitutes the largest such data set in each region (Anglophone N = 1707 Chinese N = 1498). Our aim is to compare comprehensive data on the engaged demographics of female-oriented male-male erotica in Anglophone regions and that of the greater China area.
In conclusion, although materials often perpetuate a heteronormative ideology, avid fans demonstrate a relatively progressive social outlook and engagement in socially-challenging danmei-related activities and we speculate that even casual engagement with danmei may encouraged young people to think critically about the complexities of human sexuality. Statistical comparisons provide evidence: of consistency between self-reported fan behaviour and fandom intensity: that avid fans are more likely to report nonhegemonic sexual orientations and to be more ‘Progressive’ than causal fans the ‘Progressive’ report greater concern with copyright and legal issues while engaging with a wider range of sexual materials than do the ‘Traditional’ and fans from Hong Kong are more likely to report nonhegemonic sexual orientations and to be ‘Progressive’ than those from Mainland China. We ask three novel research questions: Are there differences between (a) ‘casual’ and ‘avid’ danmei fans? (b) danmei fans by social outlook in the sexual sphere (‘Traditional’, ‘Progressive’)?, and (c) danmei fans from Mainland China and from Hong Kong? Questions were selected from our 43-question online BL fandom survey in Chinese and the largest data set of its kind (N=1498). Our aim is to provide robust information on the demographic in Mainland China and Hong Kong who engage with female-oriented male-male erotica (a.k.a., danmei or Boys’ Love ). Yaoi/BL Fandom Survey (only takes 10 mins to complete):
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