What is this yaoi stuff anyway?
Whoo-hoo! It's yaoi time! Not entirely sure what yaoi is? Take a look at the picture at to the right. Getting a good idea yet? In my house it's a rare treat when Maia comes over and we can engage in our nasty habit of pairing off the pretty boys 
we like. If you didn't know yaoi is a shortened form of the Japanese phrase 'yami nashi, ochi nashi, imi nashi' which literally means "no mountain, no point, no meaning". What does that mean in plain english? It means I can make my boys play nice with each other and when they play it is in a very, very sexual way.
The word was originally used to refer to fan drawn and published comics known as doujinshi. It wasn’t until later on that it began to take on it’s more well-known version of sex between men. Currently, in Japan, it is used to highlight the sex scenes of a manga or doujinshi that has homosexual content. Here in America it is mainly a catch all phrase to cover anything that has a male/male relationship no matter what the format.
Now, you must keep in mind that yaoi is sex between two men that is (usually) depicted by a woman. While this isn’t a bad thing, it does mean that the sex that is portrayed is a idealized feminine version and may or may not be accurate to how gay men really have sex. Many people sum yaoi up as gay porn for women, but I think that is a little too blanketing - what is in yaoi tends to be what women think is sexually attractive. Yaoi, by its very nature, takes any kind of relationship between men and sexualizes it. This means friends, brothers, rivals, enemies, etc. are all made to jump in the sack with each other to please the fans. Again, this is a genre by women, for women... so you know that the depictions of male/male sex aren't always going to be the most realistic. Personally, the closest encounter I've ever had with it are from reading other yaoi fanfictions so I am simply parroting what seems correct to me. This means that you won't always find one hot boy pausing to find a condom or lube or whatever in the middle of a sex scene. Yes, there are people out there who write about ~realistic~ m/m sex... and I admire them for it. I do my best to keep things in the realm of the believable, but sometimes it just doesn't ~flow~ right so I go with what I think is hot. Which, I might add, generally means it's completely inaccurate.
Plus, yaoi doesn’t have to be all about the sex. But, pk, what’s the point in that? While much of it is sexually explicit, that isn’t the end all and be all of yaoi. It can cover pretty much any genre, ranging from comedy to big robots, then span all the way over to high school romance and historical fiction. Many times, when there are sex scenes, the genetalia of the men is ‘fuzzed’ out or the act is shown from an angle where you won’t be confronted by the dread gay penis. Many doujinshis and mangas show the comically well known “ghost penis” that has a faint outline but for all intents and purposes is invisible.
Most yaoi is from anime, video games, and manga... in that order. The relationships tend to form from shonen anime, etc. since they have more boys and less romance than girls stuff. Of course, this is just a basic idea, not a hard and fast rule. In yaoi there is also the tendency to emphasize sex above all else, even emotions. This means that it's good ole fashioned smut, but there is also a fair amount of non-consensual stuff out there because it can be just about the gratification, not if the other party is willing. I, personally, don't like that, don't write it, don't deal with it. If its your cup of tea you won't find it here.
Since it's a pairing off of two (or more) boys you tend to have a giver and a receiver of said affection. The Japanese terms for this are seme which comes from the verb semeru which means to attack; this is the partner that is the top or the one giving. The bottom, or receiver, is called uke from the Japanese ukeru which means to receive. Pretty simple, huh? And when you see pairings of name x name, the first name is the seme, the second the uke. However, not all fans follow this convention so you may find an Aya x Yohji that actually has Yohji on the top.
OK, now that you’ve had time to digest that last paragraph I have to kind of contradict myself. Yeah, I am a pain in the bottom (I must be a seme!). You remember the Japanese phrase listed at the top? The one that starts yami nashi... Well, when yaoi started it was all about not having a point and emphasized the sex over the plot. I mean, who doesn’t love some instant gratification? Over time, yaoi has evolved (one can’t have sex all the time!) and runs the gamut from simple stories of longing to the more hardcore banging. There is no terms for the more 'soft-core' version, although you will find the terms 'shonen ai' and 'boys love' abused for that reason.
There was a genre in Japan called shonen ai which literally means 'boys love'. Here, in America, many fangirls feel that shonen ai is a 'light' version of yaoi; instead of banging they simply kiss or hold each other. In reality, shonen ai is a defunct and extinct form that was created in the 1970’s and these were very pretty, lyrical, and poetic stories about young men with, you guessed it, other young men. The stories were driven by the growing relationship and romantic overtures made by the young men that were in the story, often their relationships were platonic in nature. Japanese shonen ai, while less explicit, often involved under age characters and the term has mostly fallen out of usage there.
Now that you and I are well educated on the subject, what titles are out there? Where can I get my hands on this yummy yaoi? Well, I’ll list a few below, although there are probably a ton of others. These are things that are available herein the US. Remember, it’s great to download for free, but if you don’t use your dollar votes there is always the chance that it will no longer be available commercially. So, please, save a little cash and buy at least a few licensed items now and again.
Be Beautiful carries such manga as Kizuna, Embracing Love, Golden Cain and Selfish Love.
Blu Manga has the every gorgeous Earthian, Wild Rock, Gorgeous Carat, and Gerard & Jacques.
Kitty Media has the more hard core titles such as Level C, Legend of the Blue Wolves, and Sensitive Pornagraph. My favorite from them is My Sexual Harassment. Corn, dude, corn.
Media Blasters offers such anime as Loveless, Sukisho, and Mirage of Blaze. Their site sucks to navigate though.
Tokyo Pop doles out the nummy Loveless manga, (I-don’t-care-what-anyone-says-it's-yaoi) Pet Shop of Horrors, Legal Drug, and Gravitation (manga and novels).
Viz (as much as I despise them!) has Descendents of Darkness, Here is Greenwood, Utena, and Please Save My Earth. Most of their yaoi is the kind that is more inference than anything else. Viz is also a scum-eating demon in my book. I won't trouble you with my petulance here.
Why do I like yaoi? Well Mikee says it's my version of girl on girl action, but since I'm a girl I make it boys. Yeah, that's probably part of it... but I've always thought that girl parts were nicer to look at than boy parts. Boobies, I mean. I have an unhealthy fascination with really nice boobs. Back to the yaoi, I think a good portion of it is that I am a basically a greedy person by nature. Even though my anime boys aren't real in a three dimensional sense I claim them as MINE, so I would rather see them with another one of my boys instead of some other girl. I also am not all that fond of anime women, most of them are too sweet or whiny tastes. I like the brasher ones, like Ryoko. Since I am a product of the Western world I probably see the shojo heroine’s self-sacrificing tendencies as weakness...even though I understand it and admire it. Makes no sense, does it?
Oh, the husband says it's because I love he cock. He might be right, or he might just be quoteing Jay again.
Now, I'm gong to get all confusing again... just because I like yaoi doesn't mean that I throw it into everything, even if the husband likes to think I do. I like Aoshi and Sano to like girls (for the most part, unless it's Sano and Kenshin or Saito and Aoshi), in my book Allen doesn't have any unnatural desire to consummate with Dilandau, nor will Folken be banging Van any time soon. Hotohori has a wife, as does Saito. Even though I pair up Yohji and Aya I think Ken likes girls and Omi has no interest in sex. Hell, Omi and sex shouldn't even be in the same sentence as each other and I've done it twice in the last ten seconds. EEEK!!! There are some shows to yaoi-ize is just nasty, like Escaflowne. I am generally a firm believer in Fushigi Yuugi being yaoi-free except for the slight exception of the twins. I mean, come on, look at the way those boys hang on each other!!
Small addendum to Fushigi Yuugi. I think the yaoi-ness of it is growing on me. *shamed* I don't cringe away from things with Tasuki in it, especially if he's paired with either Nuriko or Chichiri. And I can't explain away that Hotohori has a wife that looks exactally like Nuriko. And my favorite part of Eikoden is baby Nuriko holding baby Hotohori's hand, but that's OK because Nuri is a girl then. Even though she's a boy. Erm. I think my head hurts.
The one thing that baffles Mikee most about yaoi in my world is that even though the boys are banging each other senseless, they aren't gay. Let me say that again... pk’s yaoi boys aren't gay. They just like to sleep with each other. Erm, isn't that the same thing? Not necessarily and I can't explain it. I love the Yohji x Aya pairing but neither boy is gay to me. I'm not sure how other rabid yaoi girls feel on the subject, but my boys are always willing to roll around with another hot boy... and they don't stop to conceptualize how gay or bi they are. Because to me they are just sexual creatures and none of the labels really apply. With that said... I happen to ~adore~ the confused!Yohji fics where he has to figure out why he gets a stiffy around cold Aya. But I still don't think he's gay.
My husband is an artist and I shamelessly abuse him by begging for pictures of the boys I like. He's going to get a gallery here soon to display the works he's done.... but the point I wanted to make is that he finally figured out what it was that makes a good yaoi picture. One of the boys is always in a pose that would normally be reserved for a female. The male in question doesn't necessarily have to be feminine looking (although many seem to be, like Yukito and Hisoka) just in pose that would normally be reserved for a girl. This is any picture, not necessarily the overtly yaoi ones.
If I’ve confused or led you astray, I offer humble apologies. However, feel free to drop me a line to chat if you so please!
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