~~ the yaoi fangirl never sleeps!

[reenka]

You know, I think I wouldn't be reading all these random comics if... uh, they weren't comics-- if there weren't pictures with the words. I wouldn't necessarily watch these many live action movies, either, because that seems draining more than entertaining (as I know from past zombification experiences), though I'd watch it as anime shorts. I think my quality control in what I read goes way, way down when pictures are involved for some reason (and I do think there's a real explanation for this phenomenon, btw.)

Somehow, the pictures make the experience more immediate and universal at the same time... so instead of concentrating on the art and craft of the words the way I do with stories, I can let go and just focus on their meanings. I mean, the story is important and keeps my long-term interest, but... man, the pretty pictures keep me mesmerized for hours. It's not just the boob-tube anymore.

It's also starting to become clear that more than 50% of the mangas about High School boys are about longtime friends (from childhood!) who're just now admitting their feelings for each other. Now, this is one of those Happy Buttons of mine which will always get a positive reaction (actually, it was that button which got me into S/R), but... oh man, I'm starting to feel manipulated or something, going for the formula every time.

It doesn't help that all these stories about childhood love are starting to feel incestuous-- like, if you've known someone for that long, and are that close... on the one hand, how dense do you have to be not to know you like them 'that way'? And if you do know, what does that say about how close you are if you keep that kind of secret from the other person? And on top of all that, aren't friends that old basically family, anyway? It's not that familiarity has to breed contempt, but doesn't it at least breed complacency? (Which just goes to show you that you can always start to sour on an idea once you've been exposed enough to it.)
~~

I always knew that yaoi & slash have warped my brain, but... man, it hasn't warped it the way nerve.com says. Omg, that's... pretty offensive, actually. And meh, just figures that they've got a quote from Tricia of the Juxtapose Fantasy website (ooh, the only members-only 'yaoi' site on the net-- wtf?? 'yaoi'??!) Man, I don't even know where to start with this. Apparently, "Women read these stories because they make them feel sexual in a way that hetero romances don't." ...Right. Soon they'll be going on about penis envy and the modern woman.


I mean, okay, nerve is an erotica website so of course the focus would be on the sexual aspect, but... 'American yaoi'??! It just really... bothers me for some reason, though obviously yaoi is about sex, but shounen-ai isn't and since when is 'yaoi' a Western genre? The hell? Okay, so they haven't done their research or whatever, but man, the people they got the quotes from. "Women enjoy it because they don't have to worry about anything being done to women," says Linda Williams, director of Film Studies at UC-Berkeley and editor of the book Porn Studies. (........)

I was having such a happy buzz before this, too. First of all, while I was walking along oh-so-innocently in the Student Union, there were two boys lounging on a sofa together. And by 'lounging' I mean cuddling, because omg, one of them had their head tucked into the crook of the other's neck, and I was like, omg *MELT!!1* At first I wasn't sure it was another boy, so I actually did the really lame thing and did a double-take on my way back. And they were still sprawled practically on top of each other, except not quite. I dunno what I wanted to do... probably any of the options going through my fevered brain were rather inappropriate and offensive, no matter how 'innocuous' I could almost convince myself I was. So yes.

And then I was passing a row of arcade games, and the two cute guys were like, punching each other in Street Fighter and I totally switched modes from happy-love-love to OMG DO IT DO IT NOW. So okay, was I making these video-game characters and the two actual boys into sex objects made purely for my entertainment? Well, if so, it's not just boys-- I'd do the same for any two attractive characters kicking each other's asses, though the whole thing blurs when I find real boys in ambiguously homoerotic situations charming, I guess.

Though of course I'm allowed to find straight couples charming (I think...?) because 'awww, young love', but somehow it's objectifying and wrong if it's two boys...? At least, I think they'd feel more weird about it. And okay, I admit that a straight couple is more likely to make me feel down 'cause I don't have a SO at the moment than melty 'cause they're so cute together. So being an outsider allows me to let go of my insecurities in this rather than feeling self-conscious, too.

See, the thing I keep thinking is... on the one hand, all the in-fandom theorizing about how slash or yaoi 'works' in fangirls' minds may be flawed because of the distortion of viewing at close range.... But the people from the outside don't seem to 'get it' or gain any objectivity either. This is probably mostly hobbled by it being rather difficult to fully rationalize emotions or instinctual responses in general, and both fannishness and sexual/emotional kink fall into that category. You could only say, 'well, these people feel like this' and 'those people feel like that', so if you interview the 'wrong people', so to speak, you could easily come up with some really offensive reasons to read/write slash, apparently. Then again, you always have to be careful about inadvertently asking stupid people questions in any case. But that's just me being grumpy.
~~

P.S. I love it when they have someone say 'sankyuu' in manga (or anime, I'm not picky). It's a special joy in life. Yes, it doesn't take much with me, clearly.

Comments

[go-back-chief.livejournal.com]

like, if you've known someone for that long, and are that close... on the one hand, how dense do you have to be not to know you like them 'that way'? And if you do know, what does that say about how close you are if you keep that kind of secret from the other person? And on top of all that, aren't friends that old basically family, anyway? It's not that familiarity has to breed contempt, but doesn't it at least breed complacency?

Heh. Unlike you, I usually despise the "close friends from childhood who falls in love once they become of age"-cliche, and you've just pretty much summed up why. It just doesn't seem realistic to me. You can, of course, have "known" someone from childhood, and not fall in love with them until way later, but the question is how well you know them. Like for instance, there may be this person you have been acquainted with for years, but you just never really thought about them (or knew them very well), and then suddenly something happens; he/she does/says something that makes you go "wow" and start to look at them in a whole new way, thus falling in love (it doesn't even have to be something they've done, they can just come back after summer break looking exceedingly hot! ;-)). I know for a fact this can happen. But the idea gets weird (to me) if it's someone you know almost as well as a sibling, because what could they possibly do to surprise you? (Even "getting hot" couldn't really be one of those factors, considering it takes a little time for that physical change to occur, and if you see them everyday, you don't notice the difference as much as you would have otherwise.) What I could also buy, is if the person(s) who profess their love have been in love almost since the time they met (children do, sometimes, fall in love, hard as it might be for adults to grasp that concept), but not really felt ready to do anything about it, or whatever, until the story starts. Though, as you said, that would be quite a secret to keep from the other person, and really, what are the odds of both persons have gone around and hidden feeling like that from the other for that long?

The alternative, which seems to be the step most of these kind of stories take, tends to be that the two bosom-buddies haven't really felt "that way" for one another, until they suddenly, conveniantly, are of appropriate age. Then they fall in love. And it's very hard for me to belive it, unless the author does an exceptionally good job of showing me how that could be plausible nevertheless. Studies have shown that people who grow up together (and by "growing up" I mean really close, here, like in the same house-hold, or equivalently) don't usually fall in love/get attracted to one another, which seems to be nature's way of taking precautions for inbreeding. Of course, there may always be exceptions, but... if you believe Hollywood movies/TV shows/romance novels (and apparently Manga ;-)), this would be one of the most common ways to fall in love.

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

Well, my actual favored storyline with this is the whole phenomenon of childhood love-- that's what drew me into my first S/R fic, anyway. So like, they could get all hormonal and OMG YOU ARE HOT together after sleeping innocently in the same bed, blah-blah-blah. So the whole 'we've known each other forever and yet...' storyline -seems- close enough to that at first glance, doesn't it? But the more they push it at me, the more I see the holes in it.

I mean, I think the reason it's so popular -is- the 'I've always loved you' angle (just platonically) and then you come of age and get hormonal and that's what jumpstarts the relationship as such. It just... in the end, it has to be a careful transition from innocence to experience, otherwise-- if one person gets left behind-- the whole castle of cards falls down. Like, for instance, I love this one manga-ka-- her stories are very gritty and -real- and she really seems to write about -boys-, not effeminized at all-- and as much as I love her boy-discovers-he's-in-love-with-his-decade-senior-foster-brother story... it freaks me a bit 'cause the implication is the 'brother' had feelings for awhile too (just how long isn't made clear), and y'know, he's 14 years older, actually, so he pretty much changed the younger one's diapers. And... ugh. There has to be corresponding growth or it just doesn't work... even though it does, 'cause I've really enjoyed this manga o_0

I guess the 'conveniently appropriate age' thing makes sense when the two are the same age, since people -do- change with adolescence, in terms of how they love, I think. Though it's best if the relationship wasn't... I dunno, a certain kind of close, I guess? I feel it's most believable if there was always tension, always a sort of... energy between the two. Or something ^^;

[go-back-chief.livejournal.com]

I feel it's most believable if there was always tension, always a sort of... energy between the two.

Yes, that might work for me. Might. ;-) It's just most movies that have this sort of storyline, tend to show the two kids meeting when they are six, or something (and become foster siblings or whatever ;-)), and we just see them meeting and smiling to each other, implicating that they is no hostility, and thus they will probably get along, and then flash forward ten years or so, and have them laughing around in the hills, or whatever, implicating that they've gotten really close, and then the story of them falling, or realising they're in love begins, and I just feel that it's not realistic at all, and quite a bit squicky at that. It might have been different if I had seen that there was always tension, but I don't think any filmmaker would do that, because it would mean including tension between children which is quite a bit taboo. It's easier to do that in a book, I suppose, because we don't actually see anyone...

[yourpoison.livejournal.com]

Uh... well... I didn't mean like... sexual tension, I just meant a slight antagonism or tendency to upset each other or misunderstand each other. Kids do get along smoother with some kids than others ;) Ahahahah, laughing in the hills :D That is pretty squicky... I meant just that the advent of adolescence would turn the already-present volatility between two people into something sexual, that's all :>

[go-back-chief.livejournal.com]

Yeah, well tendency to upset or misunderstand one another is something most people have if tey're crushing on each other. ;-)