on the difference between 'gen' and 'non-yaoi'

[edenfalling]

I have noticed that some reviews for "The Way of the Apartment Manager" praise the story for not being yaoi. This is interesting to me, because I don't get corresponding reviews praising it for not being het or yuri. I do get reviews saying that it's nice to have a genfic, but that's not the same as singling out yaoi.

(I can understand why nobody comments on it not being yuri -- yuri/femslash is simply nowhere near as common as het or yaoi/slash. I'm not sure what that says about fanfiction readers and writers, but I'm sure it says something. I'd like to find more yuri -- heck, I'd like yuri epics -- but I don't really expect it. *here Liz pauses to shoo away plot bunnies*)

Anyway, this specific attention paid to yaoi makes me slightly uneasy, since I personally have no problems with slash. I have written slash. I've also written het and femslash. Yes, I tend to lean toward gen, and "Apartment Manager" was conceived as a plot- and character-driven genfic, but you'll notice that Naga and Kafunnokaze's little 'thing' crept in toward the end. And I deliberately threw in a few subtextual hints that could be taken as Kakashi/Iruka, as well as Kakashi's pass at Yukiko; I like Kakashi ambiguous, and I think he would probably flirt with people of both genders if he thought it would keep them off balance (and particularly if he thought there was no chance of the flirtation actually going anywhere).

So if relationships pop up in the sequel -- be they yaoi, yuri, or het -- what will the reaction be?

And if my story gets described as a 'non-yaoi' epic, do I really want that? Because it's equally a 'non-yuri' epic and a 'non-het' epic. I don't mind it being described as a 'gen' epic, because it is, but gen means more than just 'non-yaoi.'

This worries me on occasion, and it makes me wonder if my writing is subtly sending messages that homosexuality is wrong or abnormal.

(We will ignore for the moment the school of thought that says yaoi/slash isn't really homosexual but is instead the female equivalent of heterosexual men watching lesbian porn. I think there's some truth to that, but it's not immediately relevant to the topic.)

Or is it just that yaoi is becoming prevalent in various fandoms? Well, honestly, is it? I don't know -- I've never paid much attention to the percentages of various story types beyond noting that yeah, a significant percentage of anything is going to be dreck. (Sturgeon's Law: resistance is futile, mwahahaha!) I suppose I could see people thinking that there's something slightly skewed about homosexuality being much more common in fanfiction than in real life, so to speak, but then again, nobody says you have to read yaoi if you don't like it. And you can't exactly make authors write what you want them to write, so making yaoi writers stop posting stories wouldn't increase the number of het and gen fics on the net.

Eh. It's all very confusing, and I never get much of anywhere when I think about it. I'm just left with a vague sense of unease.

Comments

[lukita.livejournal.com]

I think I can somewhat answer you on this, first from what I've seen there are two main groups of people writing fics; guys and girls in the Naruto fandom. I think it's mostly because there's an equal number of male and female fans in the fandom, so the battle line is drawn between people who likes yaoi and those who don't, rants about this here (http://www.livejournal.com/users/thesocpuppet/14303.html). Or maybe it's just the guys drawing the battle line since I'm sure the girls doesn't care at all.

So it's not your writing that's making people think that way, most of them just saw that you're a girl and therefore must be writing BL. Of course if I'm the one getting the "I'm so happy this story isn't yaoi," I'll add the subtext just to spite them.

[edenfalling]

...If it's a story with a female main character, who's an OC to boot, why would anyone think it would focus on two male characters in a relationship? You'd expect them to think it would be about Yukiko falling in love with Kakashi or something like that.

Eh. People are weird. Another review comment I occasionally get is "I'm so glad Yukiko isn't a Mary-Sue," but I don't get people saying "I'm so glad Yukiko isn't running off to have wild passionate sex with Kakashi." In fact, I've actually had a couple people say she should get together with Kakashi, which is totally weird for me since I cannot see them in any sort of romantic relationship at all.

And oddly enough, nobody has commented on Naga one way or the other. This amuses me, since she's the one who has more Mary-Sue 'characteristics' -- you know, troubled past, family relationship with an important character, special powers, funky-colored eyes, etcetera -- and she acquired a small romantic plotline. :-)

But anyway, I hadn't realized that there were so many male writers/readers in the Naruto fandom; Harry Potter is very definitely female-dominated. And I guess that could make a difference... but y'know, there are girls/women who don't like slash either. It's not everyone's cup of tea.

[annearchy.livejournal.com]

(We will ignore for the moment the school of thought that says yaoi/slash isn't really homosexual but is instead the female equivalent of heterosexual men watching lesbian porn. I think there's some truth to that, but it's not immediately relevant to the topic.)

THere was a lot of discussion about slash at The Witching Hour. I didn't attend any of the slash panels, since I read slash only sporadically and I write het (though who knows, I might venture into slash sometime if I found a pairing that really resonated with me). I did attend one excellent panel on Heterosexuality in a Male/Male Slash-Dominated Fandom (meaning HP) and it was interesting to hear a room with 95% women (basically the overall gender distribution at TWH) talking about why they write slash, and how so much HP slash has gravitated toward your description of yaoi.

BTW I hope I don't come across as anti-slash. It just doesn't float my boat. I just prefer to read (and write) about men and women doing it :D

[edenfalling]

HP is a slash-dominated fandom? Since when? I totally missed that happening.

I write slash, when I do, for the same reason I write any pairing: I think the characters would be interesting together, and I want to see how the relationship would or wouldn't work. Or, sometimes, because the pairing would produce interesting dynamics in their relationships with other characters, or because I want to see how the relationship would affect the plot. The sex is secondary. And to be perfectly honest, I have no preference among male/female, male/male, female/female, and various threesomes having sex. I just ask that the characterization be done properly so it isn't just random bodies.

You don't come across as anti-slash at all. :-)

[valles-uf.livejournal.com]

The prevelance thing - well, yes. I think it is.

*shrugs* Maybe it's just that the fact that my personal reaction to the stuff tends to be a sort of mix between "Er..." "Meh." and "...isn't that a bit unsanitary?" makes it more noticable, but, yeah, in Naruto-land, at least, I think the yaoi is making up like 50% or better of the total fanfics.

Which is rather, mm, -off-, given that the closest thing to a justification for that sort of a relationship between -any- of the characters is, literally, a -joke-.

So, what does all -that- mean?

*casts about, trying to remember what his point was*

I'd bet money - which I -never- do, I'm practically the anti-Tsunade, except for the not-winning part - that those reviews that you've noticed were written by guys. And, as a rule, we're raised to be actively -uncomfortable- with the idea of homosexual attractions between men, no matter what our moral position on the matter may be.

It makes -me- uncomfortable, which honestly does make me feel kind of unclean, and I know I didn't pick it up from my parents.

That doesn't prevent enjoying the non-crap portions of either half of the fandom - Side Effects as a case in point - but it does mean that the rest feels like it's dragging Freddy Kreuger gloves across the chalkboard of my soul.

At which point, a new, well-executed fic that lacks even that tiny, niggling 'er...' that refuses to be chased out of the back of my mind is genuinely a breath of fresh air.

I very much doubt that -any- of the guys who were writing those comments were reading an anti-homosexual subtext into the story - or even that they'd have agreed with it if there were such a message. It's likely just a purely emotional reaction that's amplified by the fact that the fic in question genuinely does rock. ^_^

Are there fandoms where yaoi is not just noticable (view Naruto, or even GW), but universal? Well, yes. Of course. But the vast majority of them are also places where, 1, the canon supports that premise (Gravitation, et al.), and 2, I don't have to worry about stumbling over/wading through all this uninteresting-and-slightly-disturbing stuff to find what I'm looking for.

I mean, it's not like I'm asking them to read a Kannazuki no Miko fic, is it?

Meh. This -is- confusing.

So if relationships pop up in the sequel -- be they yaoi, yuri, or het -- what will the reaction be?

On this, however, I -can- offer some advice - the same advice I've gotten from my father on several other subjects:

Fuck 'em if they can't take a joke.

Put another way, in your place, anybody who'd care more about who's sleeping with who than the quality of the plot or charictarisation isn't somebody who's opinion I'd be caring about -anyway-. Write what you like - anybody that leaves (bitches) isn't worth keeping (listening to).

Ja, -n

[edenfalling]

Interesting. I hadn't really thought about that common male gut reaction of "But I'm not gay!" I know I don't have a comparable squick reaction to girl/girl stories and pictures, but how much of that is a cultural blind eye turned toward physical/emotional closeness between female friends and how much of it my own vague bisexuality, I couldn't say.

Hmm. Then again, I do remember being utterly freaked out by the fact that I kept gender-switching when I first started dreaming about sex, and that I found myself checking out girls as well as guys. So perhaps yuri would make girls and women uncomfortable if it began 'taking over the fandom.' Too bad we can't do a case study!

[luriko-ysabeth.livejournal.com]

Which is rather, mm, -off-, given that the closest thing to a justification for that sort of a relationship between -any- of the characters is, literally, a -joke-.

But it isn't.

The kiss thing was a joke. It was silly. It's on about the level of the part in Yuu Yuu Hakusho where Yuusuke is running around trying to get somebody to give him the Ki-Breath of Life and Kuwabara is going "WHAT was that stomach-turning dream I just had?"

The closest thing to a justification for that sort of relationship between any of the characters is the quality of the homosocial bonds.

Er. That might be specialized vocabulary.

But if the relationship that takes up half of Character A's time or the relationship that pushed Character A into growing and changing were the relationship between Character A and his best friend or best enemy, people will justly see it as more important than a relationship with J. Random Girl.

And if people see Relationship X as more important than Possibly-Romantic Relationship Y, there will be a tendency for writers to make Relationship X romantic and have both needs covered at one place, like going to the supermarket instead of the butcher's and the baker's and the grocer's.

If Relationship X is between a guy and a girl, this tendency will be greatly exacerbated, unless they're closely related. And even then, somebody will write it.

If Relationship X is between two guys... the best friends dynamic doesn't get written as developing-into-romantic as often.

However, guys tend to be more competitive in less-major affairs than women. I don't know whether this is genetic or a socially encouraged nurturing thing, and it doesn't really matter, because the effect I'm going for is that guys are much, much more likely to have a best enemy than girls are; a guy will have a stupid jerk arrogant snot with whom he will stand back-to-back when attacked by an outsider, and a girl will have someone who's a little.. um... but with whom she will stand back-to-back, etc. or will have a stupid arrogant bitch who will be Killed Painfully and/or Thrown to the Wolves when they attack.

This means that best-enemy tensions are fascinating to people who don't have one, and that it's very, very easy (especially when one doesn't have that knee-jerk "Ew, gay!" reaction) to interpret it as Unresolved Sexual Tension that neither party may fully appreciate because they're too busy striking sparks off each other.

This is why people write slash for all sorts of buddy movies and TV shows (where the women exist, when they exist at all, as peripheral characters). It is why "they're focused on each other" is seen as justification for a pair even when the focus is because of intense rivalry.

(You also get a lot of women writing gen homosocial relationships, because they're fascinating in and of themselves.)

What is Kannazuki no Miko, btw?

[permetaform]

Personally I was very glad that your fic didn't become yaoi *because* it was so character and plot driven and because it was so tightly focused on the single character. I've read fic before where this lovely friendship interaction was utterly ruined because it became a relationship and all cliche and I'm so glad that you didn't take that route with Apartment Manager. I say this as a huge fan of yaoi too; there's nothing in your fic I feel that made it feel like you were anti-yaoi, but your fic didn't need the relationship. It wasn't *about* the relationship and if you'd put it in there it would have just be superfluous and dragged it down.

If you structured the sequel to allow room for the relationship, I'd think that would be fine. In fact the potential for Sasuke/Naruto just makes my inner-fangirl squeal with joy; BUT, if it is hard for you to write or if it has no place with your story then I would prefer that you keep that relationship subtext. The same goes for the KakaIru or NagaKafu, don't push it in that direction if it feels unnatural or if it drags down the story as a whole.

=) That's just in my opinion.

[edenfalling]

In "The Guardian in Spite of Herself," Naruto and Sasuke are eight years old. No romance! No no no! Just... no. I have no idea who they might get together with later on, and how many relationships they might have, but no shotacon. That is not one of my kinks.

Even when I write romance, I try to avoid cliches; love seems fairly worthless to me if it stops the rest of your life. :-)

[sarraceniaceae.livejournal.com]

For what it's worth, I read The Way of the Apartment Manager as gen, with a certain degree of openness to het or yaoi. So, to someone who reads all over the place on het-yaoi-yuri-threesomes, it seemed pretty balanced to me.

Part of the problem is probably that I've noticed that most fandoms tend to divide strictly up het vs. yaoi lines, and if you're on one side or the other, you read with that perspective. I remember when I was primarily a yaoi fan, I read from the perspective of a yaoi fan. Gen stories leaned towards yaoi, and if I never dropped some poor author a similar "And thank you for not writing it as het", it was probably because even at my worst, I loved gen almost as much as I did slash.

And then, of course, Naruto strikes me as a fandom really strictly divided up along het vs. yaoi (with yuri fans mostly content to stay in their quiet corner). I haven't wandered the fandom that much, but judging from past experience, the absolute worst het vs. yaoi wars come from shounen series with large yaoi followings. Gundam Wing is legendary for its yaoi fandom, and the flamewars with the poor, deluged het fans were just unending. FMA follows the same patters, with almost no one ever writing both het and yaoi in the same series. *sigh* And Naruto kind of fits the same mold, except it is designed to attract an even younger crowd, making it possibly even worse.

You know, there might actually be some truth to the idea that yaoi's becoming more prevalent. I remember that when I was younger, there was a lot of yaoi in a few fandoms, but there were just as many fandoms that didn't have a lot of yaoi. Now, it seems like no matter what fandom I'm in (except Yu Yu Hakusho, about which I am very bitter), I find lots of yaoi. It might just be a matter of what sort of fandoms I'm in nowadays, but it's certainly worth noting.

And I ramble on far too long. So...yeah.

[edenfalling]

*stares at your icon* Wow, that's hypnotic...

The whole het vs. slash thing has never made a lot of sense to me, though now that you mention it I do recall seeing threads on forums talking about getting so used to reading slash that reading het began to feel oddly squicky. Strange. Then again, I don't really understand hardcore shipping either, so perhaps I'm the strange one. *sigh*

I have seen the edges of some GW yaoi vs. het kerfuffles and the Relena-bashing that seems to accompany them, and they're kind of scary.

[rianax.livejournal.com]

/Gundam Wing is legendary for its yaoi fandom, and the flamewars with the poor, deluged het fans were just unending/

That series consumed me and burned me badly, I fell in love with complex characters and a twisting political landscape that literally gave me fits in keeping track of everyone. Fandom just gave me fits.

I honestly didn't care /who/ was shacking with who because other then maybe Quatre most of the characters are simply /unable/ to emotionally commit or carry out a functional relationship. Fandom reduced the cast to shallowly drawn fifteen year olds rejects from the O.C.

There would be no happily ever afters-- not for Heero and Duo, not for Relena and Heero.

I can't even read GW fics anyone except for a few authors a remember and love.

FMA yaoi is crack. No ifs, ands, or buts about it. Many of the authors even admit it. The series was not and will never be about romantic relationships.

[luriko-ysabeth.livejournal.com]

LJ keeps eating my comments. Let's try this again.

What is this with YYH? Did all the authors I knew fall off the face of the Net or something? My experience with the fandom was 70% yaoi, 18% gen, 12% other. (Percentages supplied by the Random Guesstimate Department.) ^_^

[icedark-elf.livejournal.com]

I have a hard time telling if yaoi/slash is becoming more popluar in fandom actually. The reason for that is very simple. I have a set of writers that I tend to follow around. If they recommend someone, I tend to check that person out. It doesn't matter to me if they write het, slash, or gen. I'm a rabid reader, and enjoy everything. Not to mention that one of my big things is multiple partner fics. When you start getting into threesomes(or more people), het and slash both tend to appear.

Primarily, though, I write and read slash. I have seen the trend to call gen fics het fics, though I'm really unsure why. I don't understand why people, when there is no relationship, tends to assume het.

Genderwise, I have noticed a few more things. When it comes to rants about "the evil yaoifangirls", it tends to be male writers/readers to are move vocal about it. I'm not saying that female writers/readers won't make a snide comment or two, but, generally, men are the ones who seem to take a "you're either het or slash" stand. Not sure if this is always the case, just what I've seen in the past. As part of the FMA crowd, I'ved seen more than one of the "I loved this fandom, but you yaoi fangirls ruined it." And, most of the time, these people write like, and usually say they are, male. Females seem to be more likely to ignore something, or simply leave bad reviews about how out of character people are. Women tend to vent a little bit at a time, men seem to store it up until they got pop. *not trying to sound genderbias here*

Another thing. Once again, just a trend I've noticed, which may or may not be the case. Slashers read a fic that isn't slash and do one of two things. Enjoy it exactly as it is, or say that you should have Boy A with Boy B. Het fans will do something similar. They enjoy it as is, or tell you that it's good you didn't have Boy A with Boy B.(or girls in the case of femslash). Slashers seem more likely to accept a fic as gen, and hets tend to see a fic that has no pairings as non-slash.

Maybe slash has gotten so common that it only seems as if it can be one way or another. Who knows. All I do know is that the wars between het and yaoi seemed to be pairing wars done large. *shrugs*

Your fic isn't sending out any vibes about slash, one way or another. It's a case of people perceiving things in their own way.

This made no sense at all, did it?

[edenfalling]

'Evil yaoi fangirls will kill the fandom' is a school of thought that truly baffles me. It's similar to the 'OMG, newbies will kill the fandom as soon as X series hits the American market' attitude, and both suffer from the same problem: namely, that a fandom is not defined by only the parts that you, personally, approve of and agree with. Yes, fandoms change, and an influx of new people will bring more crap (Sturgeon's Law again) but it will also bring some new gems. Some will even be in the areas you like.

Besides, I could make similar arguments about 'evil het fanpeople' or 'evil violence fanpeople' if I wanted to bother. I don't -- I think it's a stupid pattern of reasoning -- but the dreck exists to support that sort of thing.

As for the pairing comments, I did have a few people who asked about Kakashi/Iruka, but I also had a few people who asked about Kakashi/Yukiko, so I wouldn't say that there was any het/yaoi bias there. Of course, that could be because Iruka and Kakashi were clearly not the main characters, and Naruto was obviously too young for romance. So I don't have evidence to prove or disprove your observation.

You made sense to me!

[ryuu-kaze.livejournal.com]

"Slashers seem more likely to accept a fic as gen, and hets tend to see a fic that has no pairings as non-slash."

I can explain this, at least when it comes to me. I'm male, and straight. If I read a genfic, I assume, much like that real world, that most people are straight. It's just more likely. If I'm not told someone is gay, I assume they're straight. Which means in a genfic, where I'm usually not told people are gay, I end up feeling like the fic is non-slash.

[acechan.livejournal.com]

Okay, so first off, I can assure you that the subtext in Apartment Manager just says, "vague bisexuality" to me more than anything else, so you don't need to worry on that score.

I think the reason you're getting these comments is because a) there are, understandably, a fair number of people out there who really don't like yaoi at all, and b) the vast majority of Naruto fanfic I've seen is yaoi (which is also understandable, as two-thirds of the cast is male). Personally, I'm just as happy that this fic is gen, since, while I do like yaoi, het and yuri, there are maybe 10 fics in the fandom that are over a page long and don't involve sex (or some degree of romance). It's nice to have a change once in a while. I would also be interested to see any relationships you decided to put in the next one though, since I'm pretty sure you wouldn't let it overshadow the plot. (Though, yeah, Kakashi/Yukiko would be weird).

Oh, and Naga can't be a Mary Sue because her special power is kinda gross and disturbing. Also because she doesn't actively angst about her past enough.

[edenfalling]

There are not enough girls in Naruto. There are not enough girls and women in most adventure series.

The way I figured it, "Apartment Manager" was a story about finding your dreams again, and building a family. Secondarily, it was a story about a chuunin exam. Neither of those really screams 'romance' to me, and I am not a shipper, so I wasn't looking for ways to squeeze any romance in around the edges. (Naga and Kafunnokaze came as a complete surprise to me.)

Yeah, the extendable neck and prehensile tongue are kind of squicky. Most bloodline limits are kind of squicky, actually -- I mean, bulging veins and blank white eyes? Red eyes with spinning black specks? Bones that rip through your skin? Eeew. Haku's was the only one so far that didn't look gross in operation.

[rianax.livejournal.com]

You write well but the focus is the story not the romance.

Most people can't write a relationship to save their life, and the slash ficcers are only more rabid and prolific. It tends to wear on down on people like a rusty cheese grater. Even in yaoi focused series like Yami no Matsuei, with a focus on a gay relationships, everyone is still always gay and loving it. No is ever bi, tired, experimenting, or simply is asexual.

Oversexualizing relationships tends to cheapen them and frustrate a lot of fans, whether straight or gay or even blood related. Deep friendship, admiration, or platonic love is not possible in the minds of many fans.

It is a backlash, a stupid and blind one.

So just take it as you wrote a wonderful gen story. Saves on the headache pills.

[edenfalling]

Some of the oversexualization in fanfiction is completely natural. Fanfiction exists because people want to portray the source material their way, and a lot of people see a close relationship of some sort and wonder 'What if they were in love? What if they had sex?' If there are any tensions in the source material, people are going to explore them in fanfiction.

There's also the problem that people in Western cultures, girls and women especially, are culturally conditioned to seek romance. I have known far too many otherwise intelligent and centered friends who felt that they needed to be in a romantic relationship of some sort. This transfers to the stories people write. It is, in my opinion, quite sad, but it's part of a general social pattern and there isn't much anyone can do to change it in the short run.

Romance is sometimes used as a shortcut to get around awkward characterization issues, or to smooth over difficult plot developments. A writer can say, 'Oh, X fell in love with Y, so of course he changed his mind about such-and-such,' or 'Because Y loves X, naturally she'll go off and do something she's normally far too intelligent to do.' This shows a fundamental misreading of the nature of love, but it's tied up in the cultural idealization and idolization of romance. Again, not much can be done to change it.

*sigh*

I do appreciate the sentiments in the way I suspect they were meant. I just get a little twitchy about the phrasing.

Yaoi

[macavias.livejournal.com]

I'll admit that I hate Yaoi. And it is probably because I'm a guy. But my definition of Yaoi is prolly a little different than a lot of guy's. I've not problem with stuff like Gravitation or any other series where the characters are openly gay. Thats cool. Shonen-ai and all that stuff is perfectly fine (as long as it doesn't get graphic...*Shivers*), but only if the character have shown any signs of being actually homosexual.

What I hate about Yaoi, is the throwing together of heterosexual character and making them gay for no reason at all. I'm aware there are probably millions of plot points along the line that could make a character gay, but most Yaoi authors just assume from the start that they are gay. Its all the out of character part of yaoi/slash that I despise.

Of course, characters that are neutral can sometimes be both. I liked your way of doing Kakashi in Apartment manager. While personally think he's probably not homosexual, he is ambiguous. And Likely to flirt with any moving object. ^^

Re: Yaoi

[icedark-elf.livejournal.com]

*grins* I can honestly say I understand your pov. However, as a yaoifangirl myself, I tend to look at yaoi/slash from a different way. Most as this is a kink. We're, for the most part, aren't trying to make the characters gay. We just want them to have hot sex with the other pretty character. It's a bit more interactive than lesbian porn(which I also enjoy), and with characters we can visualize a great deal better because we have the aid of manga/anime.

Just out of curiosity, do you mind when people slash two female characters together, or does that trigger the OOC response as well? I'm just curious. It's kind of an ongoing study for me to what makes people go "eww." For some people, it's incest, for some it's muliple people in a relationship, for others to yaoi/yuri. A weird hobby, yes, but an interesting one.

As for Kakashi... Yah, he'd flirt with everything that moved, even if it's only to freak said moving object out.

Re: Yaoi

[edenfalling]

Hmm. I think the problem here is that there are two subsets of shounen-ai and yaoi -- in one, the writer is telling a story about the relationship between two characters and thus makes at least some effort to justify it. In another, it's really more about throwing two attractive men/boys together and justification is therefore not particularly relevant to the goal. Of course, these are not hard and fast divisions.

I like to think I provide justification for whatever relationship I happen to write, but I do see sexual orientations as less fixed than some people might consider them, so I can also see how it would be easy for a writer to think she's providing enough justification when she hasn't actually convinced people whose base assumptions are a little different from hers.

[tjalorak.livejournal.com]

Eimii's Suiren was a yuri epic, but it hasn't been updated in forever. Other than that, I think some people are just overwhelmed by the prevalence of yaoi fanfic.

[edenfalling]

Oooh! *runs off to investigate*

[acyl.livejournal.com]

Uh, you don't know me. I'm just a random peon who reads your stories.

But, hm. There's enough controversy here for a sociological study. I see two related issues 'ere, really. A point about Naruto in particular, and one about yaoi in general.

Naruto is a popular series. It has mass appeal. It's watched by people of both genders. It caters to folks who like action, and those who like character development and thematic exploration. It's got heterosexual bits, with Naruto's pursuit of Sakura, Hinata's crush on Naruto, and so on. And it's got homosexual bits, with the whole accidental Naruto-Sasuke kiss right at the start - it's easy to read homosexual subtext between those two, in the course of the series. I think so...and I'm a straight guy.

'course, some folks would insist the Naruto and Sasuke thing isn't a romantic thing. Hell, some would say there's no real romantic aspect at all, because the characters are twelve.

And they'd be justified in saying it, too. Because it's open to interpretation.

That's the problem. You get different opinions. So you get polarization.

Maybe it's a human thing. I dunno. It happens over all kinds of subjects. I think it's just particularly evident in fandom, 'cause the characters and stories hold a great deal of emotional weight for people. If you didn't care strongly for 'em, you wouldn't be into fanfic in the first place.

But because folks feel that way, you start getting all these clashes. There's this whole matter of defending what's mine. And when it comes to this debate, there's also a moral and sexual dimension, guaranteed to set people off.

What does 'yaoi' actually mean? What's 'slash'? What's 'het'? What do we define 'em as? It seems obvious, but when you get into it...the words mean different things to different people. Because they carry different connotations. So folks square off into camps and snipe at each other.

Eh. That's life.

[edenfalling]

I have peons? Cool. :-)

The heterosexual bits are definitely played up more, but there is tension between Naruto and Sasuke that can be read in a number of ways, and one can also read subtext into Sakura and Ino's friendship/rivalry. If they're old enough to have heterosexual crushes, then they are logically also old enough to have homosexual crushes -- it's not as though there are different age limits depending on the gender of the people you like.

I hadn't thought that people who read and write fanfiction would have a greater emotional investment in the series and characters, but that makes a lot of sense. And with emotional investment comes possessiveness. Huh. That goes a long way toward explaining how virulent fandom kerfuffles can get... which is something I never quite understood.

(While I'm possessive of my stories and interpretations, I tend to think that whatever other people think and say, they can't make my stories disappear, and they can't change my mind unless their arguments make sense. So my emotional investment is not nearly as challenged by opposing interpretations.)

It occured to me that perhaps I should have started this discussion by talking about yaoi and shounen-ai, because yaoi is much more strongly associated with actual sex, whereas shounen-ai is more focused on the emotional development of a relationship. But the reviews used the word yaoi, not shounen-ai. Which makes me wonder if all people make a distinction between the two.

Oh, my head hurts!