alt title(s): Les Yay
Than explain our guy love, that's all it is/
guy love he's mine I'm his/
there's nothing gay about it in our eyes./
It's guy love, between two guys.
Homoeroticism, yay!
Any same-gender relationship that appears to be more than "
just good friends." Primarily used for male/male relationships,
partly because male intimate friendships tend to be more tabooed in conservative cultures and partly because
it's more attractive to the kind of people who write fanfic.
Alternately, those moments of plot, dialogue, acting, etc., that draw attention to possible homoerotic
Subtext in that relationship. Thank you,
Dr. Freud.
A great deal—perhaps the majority—of Ho Yay is just wishful thinking. It is essentially a truism of fandom that any homosocial behavior, from
Air Hugging to
Faux Yay to actual homosexual relations, frees the characters who did it to
be slashed together by someone in some corner of the Internet. This holds for characters without canon orientations and even for those specifically
stated by their creators to be straight.
This should not come as a surprise to those aware of the "textual poaching" nature of fandom. Fandom/fanfiction uses several tropes of its own—some of which are fairly well grounded in the actual closeting/coming out experience, some of which are confined to fiction—to justify
altering canon sexual orientations or interpolating where none are specified. If it's not wishful thinking and the
Ho Yay fans are lucky,
Ho Yay can lead to a
Relationship Text Upgrade.
The female/female equivalent is often referred to as
Les Yay. In the related trope called
Foe Yay, even
rivals or
mortal enemies can get this treatment by fans and writers alike, especially if they have
a more friendly past together, or one is
inordinately obsessed with the other. In
Fan Fic, this is the direct cause of many a
Slash Fic.
In another sub-trope called Bro Yay, even brothers can get the
Ho Yay treatment. Popular pairings include Sam/Dean (
Supernatural) and Peter/Nathan (
Heroes). Hell, even
Frasier/Niles have their own fanbase. A sub-
sub-trope of this is
Twincest.
When the
Ho Yay has definitive appeal to an LGBT fan base, it is called
Fan Yay. Yet another subtrope is
No Yay, where you find yourself
seeing sexual tension where you
really don't want to.
The closest equivalents in
anime and other Asian pop culture are
Yaoi Guys and
Schoolgirl Lesbians.
See also
Heterosexual Life Partners,
Lovely Angels,
Romantic Two Girl Friendship and
The Not Love Interest.
Examples:
