Why Do Women Love BL? Discuss Your Reasons

Yes, but wet hair = fever usually needs a + cold in the formula. The coldest it ever gets in Bangkok is about 22C. The record cold is 10 degrees, which is still not very cold.

And that doesn't explain how someone can get a fever by being hit with a basketball. I suppose it could have been dipped in COVID or something.

 Maggi64:

 But women like BL's for different reasons.  My post was to figure out what those reasons were.  Some like BL's because it's free of the baggage of female characters.   Others, such as myself, relate the uke vis-a-vis the sexual position.  However, I do not relate at all vis-a-vis the weak personality.

I suppose I was thinking whether the aim was to simply find a list of reasons or also further extrapolate from the list different types of viewer groups.

 Maggi64:

Yep, that's where it started in Japan in the 1970's.  And it was defined as being a genre created by women, marketed to women, and consumed by women.  But the question is:  why?  Why do women like BL so much? 

Personally from my own researching, which was more directed towards the history of BL, I concluded that it is indeed multiple reasons. And it also depends on the type of BL, because some women prefer more ''toxic/dark'' and other women prefer more ''wholesome/light'', though there's others who just love it all. It might be interesting to look at the difference in preference within the BL fandom itself but I will keep it to the main topic. 

So I think it's important to mention that the initial growth of interest in BL happened in a highly patriarchal society which is Japan. More than an exploration into gender, having only male characters allowed for ''safe'' roleplays that were just not possible with the traditional male-female dynamic. It allows a female reader to enjoy the story in whatever way they want, whether they want to feel part of the story or just as a safe observer is up to them. While in traditional romance stories the role for a girl character was set, this was a new type of freedom. 

Of course since that time (70s Japan) a lot of things changed for women but at the same time a lot of traditional ideas and structures remain. So of course the popularity of BL hasn't disappeared and rather spread to other countries like China, Thailand and Korea. That's not to say that the essence of ''BL'' hasn't also independently emerged in the West in the form of slash-fiction, coincidentally in the same decade of the 70s. Not really too much of a coincidence I suppose considering the theme of these decades around the world was exploration of sexuality, for a lot of women literary works were a safer way to do this. 

Now for modern times we (as BL fans) are living in a really interesting time. With BL hitting more mainstream than ever before while at first it was just a niche-hobby by fanfic-writers (West) or doujinshi-creators (Japan). So I think due to this the interest in BL fans will increase, but underlying causes for why BL came into existence by women (coping with or escaping an unequal world into fantasy) are unlikely to be addressed fully, so I guess we are in for the long-run in terms of BL popularity. 

What draws in the modern female BL fan post-70s? I think the reasons you mentioned are good ones, it's probably an interest in exploring a type of ''safe'' fantasy world in terms of relationships. Now of course these ''safe'' fantasies can be quite violent too sometimes, so it's more about the female audience feeling safe to do the exploring of relations on their terms. All in all, it's an interesting genre that keeps evolving to cater to different fans. 

So I just read through everything and I think there's a major distinction being left out of the discussion and that's because all BLs are being lumped together in this, that distinction is place of origin.

Thai BL series primarily focus on the hoards of young female willing to shell out massive amounts of money for fan meets, merch, etc. It's like in the 80's-90's when whole cartoon series were made just to sell toys (think He-man, Transformers, etc.) it wasn't the quality that matter it was how well it could sell their products. In the case of Thai BLs series the actors are the product just as much as their merch, etc. and the series is their commercial. Granted there are some exceptions to this like "180 Degree Longitude Passes Through Us".

Korean/Japanese/Taiwan series are much more primarily focused on either normalizing same-sex relationships or the zany goofy comedy ones like "ChocoMilkShake" where they just wanted to give the audience a good emotional journey and/or escapism.

Pinoy series are a mixed bag of stereotypical gay misrepresentation done as making it a pill easier to swallow, actually trying to show same-sex relationships in a somewhat normal manner, or somewhere in the middle.

Vietnamese BLs are just trying like hell to break the taboo and get the conversation started at all. You have production companies like O2 and RL studios that are trying like hell to even produce their series and try to find something that hits with the audience enough to get donations enough to do their next project. I think if they didn't have all of the hurdles to jump through, their series would align more with the Korean/Japanese/Taiwan series in just trying to normalize same-sex relationships.

I think it's important to look at this aspect of the discussion as well because it does mark a shift in what draws people to BL series. The BL industry as a whole is definitely still holding on to a lot of the traditional Y stereotypes, but we've also seen a shift in that over the recent years that are drawing in more male audience, writers, directors.

So it's not just what draws people into BL in general, but also the place of origin that matters as well.

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Two unrelated points to the rest of my post:

1) Rapid body temperature shifts can cause a low grade fever, which can then be exaggerated causing a condition more alike heat sickness. So yeah fever reducer and cold patches are a very real thing at times, along with a cold shower / cold cloth. That said it's WAY WAY WAY over done in BLs to make "magic moments".

2) Condoms and Lube are still a pretty taboo thing in places, especially when those involved are considered "too young (even though legal age) to have sex. Combine that with the societal stigma of gay sex and it does tend to lead to the whole "use what you got" thing. Even with the highest quality lube and not being overly aggressive, etc. things can still go wrong and lead to tearing, etc. which can range from mildly discomforting to excruciatingly painful. There have been cases of severe bleeding, etc. that have required hospitalization, surgery, medication, etc. and for some people it can cause an excessive amount of swelling even if everything does go right. Again like the fever/sickness thing, it is way way way overdone in BL.

That was a terrific and concisely drawn list of differences among the BL's place of origin. Thank you!  As for Th-BLs, I watched some  when I first discovered this genre 2 years ago, but within a matter of months ceased watching all Th-BL's.  I read up on them and discovered that they mass produce 100 a year, which is two BL's a week off the factory assembly line. They are also the only country to stuff their shows with product placement. Most surprising of all, BLs are so profitable that they among Thailand's top Gross National Products. Japan exports cars, while Thailand exports BL's.  Alas, the comparison stops there because Japanese cars  are quite good while Th-BL's suck.  

I find that J-BL's are the best, with K-BL's giving them a run for their money.  Taiwan seems to be imitating Thailand with an overreliance on cliches such as the old Slip-and-Catch (SAC), while I never see SACs in J-BL's. At any rate, T-BL's have gotten worse lately (though I am enjoying Stay By My Side right now).

I don't care for the low budget Pinoy BL's which tend to have weak stories and, as you said, facile gay stereotypes.  But I will occasionally watch a V-BL and give them credit for venturing into the field.   I'm amused by V-BL's because 90% of them star that actor who was in Nation's Brother.   I don't know his name and can't find it on MDL cuz it does not include Vietnamese content.   There are a couple of decent V-BL's but the only truly remarkable V-BL is "Follow My Sunshine."  That had very high production values for a V-BL.  If any of you haven't seen it, I highly recommend it. 

I'm really liking Stay By My Side.   And yes, The History Series was terrific, and so was We Best Love. In fact, for a while I regarded T-BL's as #1 in the industry, but nothing very good came out in the past 2 years.  The T-BL's sunk while K-BL's rose.

As for Th-BL's, I regard ITSAY as a different category than other Thais because the production company was different (and no product placement!). But that studio  is now defunct and GMMTV has taken over, so it's all dreck.  

And thank you for that Vietnamese actor's name!  I like him too. It's just that it cracks me up how he's in every V-BL.  I have heard he's really gay. Do you know?  It would make sense given how committed he is to this industry,

Okay so in the last post I mostly focused on the historical circumstances that allowed the creation of BL as a genre, one of those factors being I think undeniably the patriarchal situation of society but that does not really mean of course that women always watch BL for reasons related to that nowadays. 

In a sense the slight improvements for women within the patriarchy, by which I mean the allowing of a space for women to express themselves without persecution, is what started all these fan-creations in the 70s. But I do think that patriarchal societies and their inequality are increasing the need for expression for women through fiction, so for me it will always be one of the factors for BLs existence but not necessarily a reason women would have to consume it. That will depend on the individual. 

If we wanna look more closely and find more rudimentary reasons for watching BL I think we can still look back to that history of BL and slash-fiction though as independently forming of interests in countries where women were allowed that space for expression. 

So what were the first occurances of BL within these main countries of Japan (start of BL) and America (start of slash-fiction)? 

For Japan there's a really interesting development process regarding BL, we will have to look at the more problematic Shounen-Ai genre of the 70s first. Yes this is a distinct genre from modern BLs within Japan even though we may use the terms interchangeably in the West. A very rough summarization (so don't @ me about the decades not being exact) of Japanese BL development for those unaware: Shounen-Ai (70s), JUNE magazine (80s), Yaoi (90s), BL (2000s). 

Shounen-Ai was taking into consideration certain Japanese literature genre (tanbi) influences and creating stories initially that were meant to portray a sort of tragic love-story imbued with beauty. Fun fact but Tanbi literature was inspired by Western literature movements so that's one of the reasons why all the characters in early Shounen-Ai are from the (fictional) West. But I personally think Shounen-Ai is not really a great way to actually show what the female fans grew to love, since it's an extinct genre that merely influenced what was to come. 

I personally think the true start that departed from the initial set-up for BL was fans shipping characters and creating doujinshi for other female fans. Now if we look at which early stories were picked for this by fans we will find stuff like: Captain Tsubasa, Saint Seiya, Gundam series. Which all have something in common in that they are series with large male casts with moments of tension but also often (perceived) complex bonds between male characters.

 This is where we can jump over to American slash-fictions origins. The first major one being Startrek with male characters Spock and Kirk but also lesser known Magnum Force and Starsky & Hutch. I think even in later slash-favorites like Hannibal and Supernatural there are usual very rudementary dynamics that are popular like bromance or sorta-enemy-sorta-friend type bonds.  I think its also important to mention that straight couples (way later) also has their role in shipping culture with for example X-files. 

Now why is it important to focus on these early fan-obsessions of fujoshi/BL-fans/slash-fans? I think the worlds that are portrayed in these fictional stories do always form an escape from daily life through their ships based on official stories. I believe psychologist Lynn Zubernis went into this explaining it as ''Shipping is about exploring our own identity. We're all going around looking for depictions of our own romantic, sexual and emotional fantasies.'' When there's characters who fits certain descriptions we look for in romantic partners, we use another character we can identify with to ship them with, as a safe way of experimenting with desire (this explains the emergence of uke-seme in yaoi). Now why specifically only men for some women (BL fans)? I think as Maggi64 stated this differs for each woman but the basics are that its a safe exploration of relations between human beings without the worries of the real world or sometimes with different worries than women would usually experience in our world with hetero relations. And I do think even in todays BL, whether a couple is ''shippeable'' and has interesting tensions still highly influences BL popularity. It's not JUST male x male scenes and we'll love it, there needs to be thought put into the development of the romantic story and characters.