Yaoi: what to avoid

I've done forays into Yuri Genre work, and I've enjoyed them. I'd like to try my hand at yaoi, although I'm not a Yaoi Fangirl, and don't like most yaoi works (needs...realism...). I'm thinking of writing it in a historical context (like I've done with my yuri), specifically of Medieval Japan. I know a lot from research about the male-male relationships of the time, the dynamics, and the thought processes behind the practices, etc. etc. So I'm relatively confident that I can get that part.

For writing yaoi, though, with the intent to slash (my own) characters at some point, what should I avoid doing? In terms of writing the relationship, avoiding stereotypes, and writing the Lemons? Really, anything you can think of that makes for good yaoi, and what I should watch out for.

Thanks!

I have jpegs that have this entire guide on anal sex.

With that in mind, not all guys have anal sex, and not all guys have stimulatable prostates.

The main thing you should avoid: Rape Is Love. It's surprisingly common and mind-bogglingly stupid.

In fact, try to work beyond the standard bounds of Seme/Uke.

Oh look, a yaoi work thread? KILLITWITHFIRE!!!!!!

Just try to make the couple realistic, what do they like about each other and other stuff.

Also, if you are doing a historical project, keep tabs of the local culture's stigmas against homosexuality at the relevant timeframe. You can't really have, for instance, two Medieval Catholic monks getting comfortable with each other and not feel a shred of sin afterwards.

@Mr. AHR: Actually, I think you sent me that already. It was very helpful; thank you!

@Five X; Oh, definitely avoiding that trope! Can't stand it... I was thinking about how I'd do that, actually - Seme/Uke is really, really... overused. I'll take a look at the Boys Love notes-page-thing.

@d Roy: That was my initial reaction to the idea. Mmmhmm, exactly. Now to start building the characters past their (very) bare skeletons... More tips, bitte?

@Argeus the Paladin: Right; I've done that, and I can quote it (not right now, when I've got the book in front of me). I understand what you're saying, though, and it's very important. The attitude seems to be acceptance and even encouragement of such relationships (...a la the Seme/uke dynamic, often). Modern Japan...erm, not so much.

edited 7th Sep '11 7:54:22 AM by punkreader

The entire genre.

Wouldn't go quite as far as the tacgnol, but yeah, the conventions of this genre are fraught with bad things.

Avoid Rape Is Love and the other "positive" rape tropes. Also, avoid the idea that a relationship needs to have one dominant and one submissive partner (unless they're actually practicing BDSM). Yes, I hate seme / uke. Make them equals, unless depicting an unequal relationship is your intention. Basically, same things apply as when writing yuri. Respect your characters, don't make them gay stereotypes or simpering victims, don't treat their sexual orientation in a voyeuristic way.

Unless you're writing straight-up (heh) porn, have the partners do and think about other things than shagging or making out. I'd love to see a yaoi story that's about two guys who happen to have a relationship while on a quest/fighting a war/solving a mystery/whatever. Still, if you want to do a pure romance story, go for it.

Kind of a minor point, but unless you're working with a minimalistic cast, have female characters in your story as well as male ones. Not having them be there just to be evil hags who try to steal the affection of the gay male characters goes without saying.

Also, I'd like to see yaoi where the guys are over age 25 and/or not traditionally good-looking. But all that's up to you.

Oh. Right. Also, not all yaoi is bishie. You have stuff like Bara and Big Beautiful Man and other such things.

I think the question is if you're actually writing yaoi.

Who are you referring to? if my post, I am referring to the fact that yaoi tends to be stereotypically all skinny feminine men, when there are lots of other underused archetypes that rarely mix.

edited 7th Sep '11 12:10:12 PM by MrAHR

I was talking to the OP.

I would argue that yaoi is actually a fetish porn genre (much like moe, only moe isn't pornographic) and the type of people who read it want to read particular things that are already very common in the genre. If you're catering to the same audience, you can expand the genre a bit, sure, but I think subverting everything would turn away a significant amount of that audience (unless you bait them with yaoi and keep them there on the story's own merit, which is possible, but difficult, and arguably dishonest).

If you're planning on subverting everything that makes yaoi yaoi, then I do not think I would call it yaoi. Alternatively, you could deconstruct yaoi. That might be fun.

edited 7th Sep '11 12:29:02 PM by OhSoIntoCats

Why is yaoi being defined as anything beyond "Japanese gay romance/erotica"? Conventions can (and often should) change. The Rape Is Love and seme/uke problems are commonly raised objections, even by fans and otherwise-would-be-fans of the genre; surely the solution is to write yaoi that doesn't include those elements, rather than writing off the whole thing.

This.

It strikes me that yaoi has been suffering from similar problems as straight Romance Novels. (From what I've heard; I don't have a lot of experience with either genre). Romance novels have received lots of flak for creepy and insulting gender roles (the male is predatory and aggressive, the female is a Damsel in Distress) and treating rape or at least dubious consent as something normal and romantic. Still, as far as I'm aware, writers have taken this criticism to heart, and there's now a tendency towards writing more equal and healthy relationships. I don't see why yaoi shouldn't be able to do the same.

edited 9th Sep '11 1:54:21 AM by DoktorvonEurotrash

To all: I certainly do plan on either avoiding entirely or subverting those troubling Tropes. I appreciate your advice and input, and those things are exactly why I don't like most yaoi.

I agree with jewelleddragon completely: those things can and should change. That's what I want to do. (It's what I've tried to do with my yuri, and people seem to like it. I don't try to fetishize it [much], and I have tried to eliminate the Yuri Genre tropes I saw in the relationship. In short, it's really only yuri in that it's two women in a sexual and romantic relationship...I think.)

edited 9th Sep '11 7:52:09 AM by punkreader

jewelleddragon said: "Why is yaoi being defined as anything beyond "Japanese gay romance/erotica"?"

Well, in fact, it is more specific: BL is a genre, with a defined audience and a set of tropes, of which "gay romance" is required but not sufficient. There's lots of ways of writing a gay relationship without having it be BL (all of bara, for instance).

For one thing, I think the seme/uke relationship, or more specifically, the presence of an uke, is definitional to BL; the uke can be the dominant partner, he can be aggressive, he can be sexually demanding, but he still has to have a certain type of female-associated sexiness ("come and get me" rather than "I'll sweep you off your feet") and be passive/receptive, because that's what drives the core fantasy for the genre. BL runs on presenting male gender-nonconformity as a driver of romantic and sexual desirability, and the uke's seductive passive/receptive-ness is the maximally-nonconforming, and thus maximally-desirable, male trait.

To the OP: if you are writing about a male-male relationship in medieval Japan (as yaoi or not), and you are planning to cast it as an egalitarian, longstanding sexual/romantic relationship between two adult males, you will need to think about explaining how the characters see the relationship and how they deal with the social reaction to it. Pre-Meji Japan was quite open about homosexuality, but it was only accepted in the context of either a rigidly-defined pederastic relationship (in which the bottom was a boy or youth; or at least still in the social category of a youth, before his coming-of-age ceremony) or an equally rigidly defined gender-role relationship (in which the bottom was a crossdressed actor and/or prostitute). Adult, gender-normative men were not supposed to bottom, nor were other men supposed to be attracted to them. The best single-volume source is Pflugfelder's Cartographies of Desire, although Leupp's Male Colors has many nice quotes from period poetry, novels, etc. on male-male romance and desire.

I think there tends to be a bit of a definition-blurring going on in which the term "yaoi" is used by some to mean only a specific subgenre of M/M fiction (lebrel's definition above, which is accurate), but it's used by others as shorthand for pretty much any M/M fiction.

Interesting how the same pattern repeats about the acceptability of male/male sexuality in so many historical cultures, isn't it? That japanese example could almost word-for-word describe the Greek rules too, for instance: bottoming by an adult man is not considered compatible with the role of a Man in society.

@ post no. 7: Oooooooooooooooh.

I don't really have anything to add to this discussion, but I agree that Rape Is Love is... mind-boggling. Just imagine the implications for a het couple. Same goes for "non-con": A rape by any other name. I was astonished to learn what that little gem meant.

May I just add that it's fascinating just how differently Yaoi is treated on this site compared to some others...? If you posted something like post seven on, say, Livejournal, they would bury you under homophobic namecalling.

edited 19th Sep '11 10:13:10 PM by BearyScary

... am I bad for liking het non-con?

Eh, I don't really treat any of this stuff as inherently wrong or offensive, it's fantasy. I get what mean about some of the more... energetic fans. Blegh.

That said, I think there are wrong ways to handle some of the more risque/controversial tropes... I don't feel coherent enough to put my thoughts on that in this post at the moment, blargh.

edited 19th Sep '11 10:20:23 PM by Merlo

Heh, no. TBH, I try not to get too uptight about this fantasy stuff either... ^^'

I would say refer to ancient Greek society (as far as I know) where homoeroticism was very widely accepted.

Some of the problems of the genre arguably exist because they've referred to that; the Greeks were somewhat poor at this "informed consent" thing.

Oh. Well, shit.

@lebrel: That's what I'm planning to do, yes. No BL here - it annoys the hell out of me, really. And, while I like non-con as a fantasy (among two men, two women, or a man and woman), it's only in fantasy. I'd never condone it in real life, as I can tell no one here does.

I've done quite a bit of research into that, as well as...erm, some of the mechanics. And the social dynamic is something I want to explore, although this time in regards to two men, instead of two women (which I think I've done pretty well at, to toot my own horn a bit). In part because the social expectations for men and women were so very different, I want to try my hand at the other end of the spectrum.

Granted, my female-female relationship involves a noblewoman and a social-outcast of a prostitute, blackmail, the debt/obligation concept, messing with account books, bribing servants, and sadomasochism, as well as some psychological needs that each women fulfills for the other. So, while it's something I've developed beyond fanservice, it's not entirely traditional (I've had an incredibly hard time finding any information on female-female relationships in my chosen time period, and I've had to infer and extrapolate a whole lot). I had to take liberties with it to make it plausible, and I'm not sure how much readers will accept.

With men, on the other hand, lack of information is definitely not a problem. It's sorting out what's true and relevant versus the Internet's terrifying mass of crapola. I may start an entirely different story with the male-male relationship; same time period, but without the fanfiction element...

Thanks for the recommendations! I'll see if I can find those. I'm also reading the Kingmaker, Kingbreaker series, which, while it's not "male romance," the relationship between the two male characters is very well written (to the point where other characters think that Asher and Gar are together, to their chagrin). The two men are very close, and care about each other a great deal, but (sadly) they're not a couple. I won't write slash of the two or anything, I'm just using them as an example.

@Morven: I think you're right. Thanks for clarifying!

As to the Greeks not big on consent thing, yeah...that about sums it up with them. The Spartan male's method of "dating?" Attack your chosen on the street; she's supposed to defend herself to show him that she's strong. Sex happens later, but its consent is (from what I've seen and read)...questionable.