China’s ‘rotten girls’ are escaping into erotic fiction about gay men

*smiles in decades worth of ao3/LiveJournal/Geocities rpf slash*

China loves the gays. Will this anger the Ts and Qs?

This has been a common neurosis in the West for at least a decade, if not longer.

^It's not even new in the Far East. Japan has been all over the BL genre for the last 15 years. Until recently, they were the leading Eastern creators & consumers of it. Only lately have K0rea, Taiwan, Ch!na etc. jumped on the bandwagon.

^^^^

So the Chinese have finally discovered yaoi. It was only a matter of time.

Straight female fantasies of essentially asexual gay men. Meanwhile, straight men get off on gay women as testosterone-fueled sex maniacs.

[quote] This has been a common neurosis in the West for at least a decade, if not longer.

R3 I beg your pudding?

R4 Why the hell would you need to censor the name of a country?

R7, one of my good friends is a professor at a community college and he teaches creative writing courses. This past month, one of the assignments was to write a piece involving seduction. He said seven girls wrote about male-male couples. Interesting, I guess...

Japan has always loved gays and have been in their anime and manga for over 40 years. They were even in Sailor Moon.

R10 women are so poorly written and so underwritten in terms of the erotic in classic fiction (the fiction most taught and revered), and are so objectively commodified and sexualised and emotionally-battered in our popular culture, that it's no wonder females are conditioned to latch onto male characters to express themselves sexually. Look at it as a vicarious trauma response.

Why does R8 look like AI Midjourney?

[quote] KFC’s sponsorship deal saw the chain decorate its stores with giant illustrations of the story’s main characters and produce special menu items and merchandise.

When are US KFCs going to plaster their walls with the gays and produce special gay menu items and gay merchandise? Come on, Kernel.

R14 They would be aiming it at women.

Hasn’t this been done for decades here in America now?

Hell, Entertainment Weekly, back when they were relevant, did a cover story on slash.

There have been stories going back to XFiles. The Clex fandom is the stuff of legend.

R16 lol did you mean Smallville?

that's a tainted fandom now regrettably...

Everything old is new again.

It's amusing and cool that these women are reclaiming a term their repressive and judgmental and limiting society uses to slur them, the same way Japan's 'fujoshi' (meaning, 'broken wife' or 'disrespectable woman') have done in the past.

R11 it never fails to tickle me when I watch the early English-language dubs of Sailor Moon, where the dubbers translated Haruka & Michiru as 'cousins' yet kept all their flirtations in the dialogue.

R19 Actually, “rotten women” comes from the Japanese word, fujoshi. 腐 or FU means rotten in Chinese.

R2 It's impressive how you managed to use this story to take an anti-trans swipe. But you're wrong. In China as in many parts of Asia, trans women are more respected than gay men. Plus, as in many modern urban societies, lesbians are more tolerated than us. So gay men are pretty much at the bottom of the LGBT totem pole in China.

R10 have you considered the fact that it may be because he's an older male professor of female students, and the students may find it awkward or uncomfortable to write straight erotica for him to peruse and grade? Not accusing your mate of noncing or perving, just saying that some women wouldn't want their fiction about romance & sex to meet with male eyes first and foremost.

[quote] Hell, Entertainment Weekly, back when they were relevant, did a cover story on slash.

On what?

Lesbians get wet to gay porn for some reason. At least gay sex, gay kissing, is seen as hot as two chicks kissing or scissoring.

[quote] She publishes under a pseudonym, in this case Mo Xiang Tong Xiu (“fragrance of ink, odour of money”)

That's such a sick pseud, and a brave one to use under communism. This courageous bitch is hustling her m/m softcore and she doesn't care what the rayjeem do to her over it.

Seems unfair that they’re doing TV shows and fast food tie-ins to an anon story posted on the internet. It’s as if someone took a DL post and made millions by turning it into a movie franchise and poor Anonymous gets nothing.

R27 welcome to late-stage global capitalism

Supposedly two bois…

R29 it's a hallmark of yaoi that one of the two partners typically but not always be feminine in appearance, more submissive ('uke') in demeanour, and the consistent bottom in sexual situations.

Nothing hotter than 2 hot Northeast Asian guys going at it with each other.

Don't understand Asia's (or really anybody's) objection to Male Homosexuality when it's not tied to the Bible/Religion.

r31 Male homosexuality used to be very common in China and Japan. In Japan it declined as the country tried to "modernize" in the 19th century and in China after the 1900 British invasion.

R31/R32 as I understand it (do correct me if I'm wrong), the old oriental stance on homosexuality was similar to that of the ancient Greeks & Romans--fine, but only in certain social settings and performed in certain class-abiding ways.

One had to be careful not to offend or shame a superior or one's family, but that aside there was no taboo calling homosexuality a blanket sin. Heterosexuality--i.e. traditional productivity and nuclear stability in the domestic sphere--was of course still preferential and supported by entrenched law.

r33 This is broadly correct, but I think you overstate Greco-Roman restrictions on homosexuality. Many Greek and Roman men remained unmarried pursuing relationships only with males, without running afoul of any social rules; and I know of no instance where such men faced pressure to establish a family, either. It's generally agreed that, for example, Martial's poems about his wife or wives were not based in real experience; and considering how he spoke of boys and women, it's likely his slave boys were his main partners throughout his life. And yet he positioned himself as a guardian of Roman social order against inferiors such as women, non-Romans, slaves, freedmen, passive homosexuals, and lesbians, all of whom he ruthlessly mocked. Conversely in China and, to some extant, Japan, Confucian norms demanded that men produce children and continue their bloodline. Affairs with one's pageboys and other catamites should not preclude one from fulfilling one's duty to marry and become a father. The matter of the fact is that Greeks always prided themselves in their liberty and this was reflected in their ability to freely pursue love with other males. In Plato's Symposium, homosexuality is even presented as a mark of Greek distinction separating them from authoritarian, eastern barbarians.

However, the Greeks, the Romans, and a host of other Mediterranean and Middle Eastern populations also nurtured an acute hostility to passive homosexuality by an adult male (a perversion), male attraction to adult males (though this is more the case with Greece than Rome), group sex (a perversion that betrays lack of self-control), oral sex (filthy though pleasurable -- should only be done with whores if at all and a man should always be the one receiving), and lesbianism (another perversion).

Despite the compulsive heterosexuality, however, I feel there was less stigma in China and Japan than in Greece against relationships between adult males and less than both Greece and Rome against bottoming. Japan especially left us a number of first-hand accounts of bottoming, something that neither the Romans nor the Greeks did. For example, medieval Japanese statesman Fujiwara no Yorinaga wrote about his lover in his diary, "He fucked me for the first time. How bold of him!"

The Japanese and Chinese seem to have taken a more casual view of each of these phenomena, though they still regarded lesbianism as less natural than male homosexuality.

R23, he's in his late forties and openly gay to his students, if that makes any difference at all.

R34 thank you for the breakdown, very informative and well-written.

Your comment has led us to discover that Martial was the among the first great DLers in recorded history:

[quote] Martial's poems about his wife or wives were not based in real experience; and considering how he spoke of boys and women, it's likely his slave boys were his main partners throughout his life. And yet he positioned himself as a guardian of Roman social order against inferiors such as women, non-Romans, slaves, freedmen, passive homosexuals, and lesbians, all of whom he ruthlessly mocked.

This gave me a giggle, too:

[quote] For example, medieval Japanese statesman Fujiwara no Yorinaga wrote about his lover in his diary, "He fucked me for the first time. How bold of him!"

And also put me in mind of the mad love(?) story between the wild 'Demon Lord' Nobunaga & his long-suffering, ambitious and beautiful page Ranmaru.

Thailand is also going through a boom of "boy love" TV series. Their main audience is young women, of course.

Well, good for them, I guess. This whole tired straight-male fetishization of lesbianism has certainly run its course. It's high time for something different, and if that means other people appreciating the awesomeness of male/male couples, then I'm all for it.

[Quote] it's a hallmark of yaoi that one of the two partners typically but not always be feminine in appearance, more submissive ('uke') in demeanour, and the consistent bottom in sexual situations.

Reminds me of an anime porno i saw where a prince gets raped by a bunch of goblins. It was split into 3 parts with a good ending and a bad ending 😳

[Quote] The Clex fandom is the stuff of legend.

Which is kind of weird considering Clark was supposed to be 14 while Lex was like 19 or 20....

[Quote] When are US KFCs going to plaster their walls with the gays and produce special gay menu items and gay merchandise? Come on, Kernel.

WB can start by putting out some SuperBat merchandise.

[quote] an anime porno i saw where a prince gets raped by a bunch of goblins. It was split into 3 parts with a good ending and a bad ending

How could that possibly end well?

Women also love writing erotic fan fiction about gay men. It’s a whole thing. They range from teenagers to middle aged lesbians.

That woman who wrote “A little life” and her latest book (which also features a bunch of gay men) is just a more high brow variant of this phenomenon.

I don’t have an issue with it - a lot of them are great writers - go to town. I just wish more gay men were writing so it didn’t always sound like a bunch of women writing about sex.

Nah, R39, it didn’t matter.

Actually, Michael and Tom had mad chemistry.

Holy cow, they were hot together.

Meanwhile, Asian f/f media be like

R40 he was rescued and escaped the cave.

R42 it wouldn't fly now. Same with Lex and Lana.

Lex was not 19. He was the CEO of a company.

Whenever I hear ‘rotten girls’ or ‘fujoshi’ I just think of the Corpse Bride

[quote]R40 he was rescued and escaped the cave.

R44 not just rescued and escaped, but he later seduced his rescuer into fucking him.

R47 I would have chosen suicide after that....ordeal.

[quote] I just wish more gay men were writing so it didn’t always sound like a bunch of women writing about sex.

R41 for you, I recommend nifty.com. It's mostly gay men who write and post stories there.

The difference in the biggest fandoms on AO3 and Nifty always throws me. On AO3 its stuff you'd expect from looking at the big online fandoms in general so stuff like Harry Potter, MCU and Star Wars, on Nifty (celebrity part less said about the rest of the site the better) its General Hospital and the British soaps. I feel DL users must write heavily on there.

[quote]They were even in Sailor Moon.

r11 Nonsense. Sailor Neptune and Sailor Uranus were cousins. Really, really, close cousins.

You know all those dangerous fujoshi you hear about on the news?

I'm the worst one ;)

'The Husky & his White Cat Shizun' is a massive story. The young girls & gays worldwide seem to love it.

How come young reclusive men who create and enjoy henta! aren't called 'rotten'?

[Quote] misogyny has many tentacles

Of different shapes and sizes.

Its all well and good until they come out as gay FTMs.....and its quite common...

Thailand has about 100-170 BL/Y series showing every year! All shitty with ugly men, anyway.

R57 sports RPF is just shipping weird-looking annoying dumb gremlin men together (and having the best time doing it)

R57 idk tbh a few of those guys are cute

Not that I follow any BL, but I do know that Thai BL is popular across East Asia and has been attracting female fans to Thailand as tourists and Thai language students. I doubt this would have been achieved with ugly actors.

R60 it's nice for Thailand--a nation with a colourful, rich, beautiful heritage and history--to have some good PR, and to be associated by Westerners with something more wholesome than just prostitution.

BL-ō desu~! ٩(ˊᗜˋ*)ﾉ

[quote]Nothing hotter than 2 hot Northeast Asian guys going at it with each other.

Actually R31 nearly every other gay porn genre is better than what you describe.

What is a rotten girl?