A. The Acronym. Yaoi stands for “Yama nashi, Ochi nashi, Imi nashi” [no peak, no climax, no meaning].
B. Description. Strictly speaking, it is a subgenre of BL or Boys’ Love (an umbrella term for all works showcasing male-male relationships made by females for female consumption) which is an extension of the shoujo [girls’] and josei [ladies’] categories.
C. Etymology
1. The term yaoi was first coined in 1979 from the doujinshi [fan comic] “Rappori Yaoi Tokushuu Gou” [Rappori: Special Yaoi Issue].
2. The term originally pertained to a genre that consists only of sex scenes and/or little romantic plot.
3. Contemporary meanings, inside and outside Japan
a. Yaoi and BL. Today, the term is commonly used to refer to all BL material. Yaoi and BL are used interchangeably outside Japan, but in Japan, BL is used because of the negative connotations of the word yaoi in its more limited meaning.
b. Shounen ai. Boys’ Love directly translates to shounen ai, a term used outside Japan to denote yaoi works that have no sex scenes. In Japan, shounen-ai is a (now obsolete) term used to refer to love stories involving pubescent or pre-pubescent boys.
A. Manga. The most popularly known form of yaoi is the manga (similar but not synonymous to the Western comic). Scanlations (scanning and translation) of various manga are currently distributed to the non-Japanese speaking audience through the Internet.
B. Anime. Many manga titles have been made into animations or anime, the popular term for Japanese animations. Unlike regular anime series, yaoi are made into OVA (Original Video Animations), which are shorter and are not shown with mainstream anime. Similar to the purpose of scanlations, these OVA are subtitled and distributed through the Internet.
C. Doujinshi. A form of manga is the popular doujinshi, fan-made manga that uses characters from existing manga or anime.
A. First appearance. The concept of male-male relationships first appeared in Genji Monogatari, the first novel in the history of the world, authored by Lady Murasaki of the Heian Period.
B. Nanshoku [male eroticism or passion] is the earliest, longest-known and most public expression of male-male affection. It was considered as a Do or “Way (of life)”, and pederastic love was considered “pure” and “true.” It was depicted in different forms of art and literature.
1. Nanshoku in Buddhist monasteries. To learn the way to becoming a fully-pledged Buddhist monk, an acolyte must subscribe himself to a master, and in exchange for tuition he must offer himself to his superior, body and soul.
2. Nanshoku in the Samurai culture. The strong relationship between a Samurai and his page was regarded as a heroic virtue, and carried cultural prestige.
3. Challeges to nanshoku. At the time when Christianity entered Japan, Francis Xavier was determined to abolish the tradition of nanshoku -”Sodomy” - deeming worse than the acts of pigs. “Homosexuality” was introduced and was also pathologized when German psychosexual theories entered Japan. Still, the tradition lived on, specifically in the Satsuma area.
4. Contemporary nanshoku
a. In the military. Satsuma’s tradition eventually influenced the military, navy and armed forces. Military prowess was linked to male-male sexuality.b. In arts and popular culture. Today, male eroticism is still a prevalent theme in pop culture and in the arts, specifically the theatre (ie. noh and kabuki).
A. Yaoi ronsou [yaoi controversy]. In 1992, gay activist Sato Masaki attacked the booming yaoi subculture for the harm of his human rights as a gay man and for the skewed portrayal of men in yaoi. The women supporters gave the first insight to why women enjoy reading and creating yaoi stories – it was the problem of women regarding their sexuality in a patriarchal societal context.
B. Gay and Yaoi. Gay manga are made by males, and yaoi manga are created by females for a dominantly female audience.
1. Gay life. Yaoi does not intend to portray the lived realities of gay men, because the characters are not “gay” as having a gay identity, and the context of yaoi is purely fantastic.
2. Bishounen and androgyny. Most of the characters in yaoi manga are beautiful, androgynous young men. This is tied to the Japanese idea of androgyny as the “ideal gender,” which is not connected with homosexuality. It connects the female reader to the character, projecting the female into the story. The characters of yaoi do not represent gay men, or even real men.
C. The patriarch. Women have always been isolated from the world of men in Japan, and the woman was just tied to a utilitarian purpose of household and childbirth. The gender equality Japanese women desire is projected into yaoi manga, and so is the heavy influence of the patriarchal system: the basic structure of yaoi entails a dominant seme [attacker] and the counterpart uke [receiver].
A. “Gay”: identity vs. performative act. In the West, being “gay” is necessarily having a gay identity, in contrast to the Japanese, who associate homosexuality with acts that express same-sex desire, like hobbies and play, while not necessarily having to identify oneself as a gay person.
B. Homosexuality in popular culture. Yaoi manga is an immense industry in Japan, considered as a “culture industry.” In addition to regular availability, comic markets are held annually to facilitate distribution and circulation of manga and doujinshi from different publishers and circles; while slash fiction, the Western counterpart of doujinshi (in prose form), have never been taken up commercially.
C. On sexuality and sexual values. The exposure of homosexuality (and homosexual pornography) in Japanese popular culture and mass media would be inconceivable in Anglo-American societies where homosexuality is a big moral and social issue, and desire is not viewed and accepted openly. While the Western context of sexuality is in terms of “right” and “wrong”, the Japanese treat it as a hobby or play, and act that is separate from a person’s identity.
A. Internet. The yaoi subculture is growing and spreading fast through the Internet. This development is being warily accepted by the legislative West, because of the frequently sexual nature of Japanese works in general. Child pornography is one rising concern and source of more disparity of East and West.
B. Yaoi Con. In the US, the Yaoi Con is being held annually for the past few years. It is a convention where yaoi fans can meet and do activities in relation to their common interest – yaoi. Critiques say that the continuance of this yearly meet is proof of yaoi’s growing fandom in the West.
C. Western “yaoi”. As a growing number of Western fans create their own stories and make their own yaoi characters, a number of publishers have risen and started to disseminate yaoi manga – translated Japanese or original – to the Western fans. But though they call their work yaoi, there are still fundamental differences and hit-and-misses to the original nature of Japanese yaoi manga, attributed to East being the East and the West just being the West and the big cultural differences in between.
