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User:Rachel Thorn/Sandbox 2

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Here it is, "Sandbox 2". This is just for the Yaoi article! Matt Thorn (talk) 05:21, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

Check text for accuracy. Timothy Perper (talk) 18:19, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Text of YAOI and Debate material edit

Theories and Debates

BL (shōnen-ai, yaoi) manga has received considerable critical attention, especially after translations of BL became commercially available outside of Japan in the 21st Century.[1] Different critics and commentators have had very different views of BL. In 1983, Frederik L. Schodt observed that “aesthetically” depicted male-male homosexual relationships had become popular among female readers as an extension of bisexual themes already present in shōjo manga.[2] Japanese critics have seen BL as allowing girls to distance sex from their own bodies,[3] as allowing girls to avoid adult female sexuality while simultaneously creating greater fluidity in perceptions of gender and sexuality,[4] and as rejecting “socially mandated” gender roles as a “first step toward feminism.”[5] In more elaborate theorizing, Kazuko Suzuki sees BL manga emerging from girls' contempt and dislike for masculine heterosexism and from an effort to define "ideal relationships" among men.[6]

Other commentators have suggested that more radical gender-political issues underlie BL. Shihomi Sakakibara (1998) argued that yaoi fans, including herself, were homosexually oriented female-to-male transsexuals.[7] For Sandra Buckley, bishōnen narratives champion “the imagined potentialities of alternative [gender] differentiations"[8] and James Welker described the bishōnen character as "queer", observing that manga critic Akiko Mizoguchi saw shōnen-ai as playing a role in how she herself had become a lesbian.[9] Welker added that shōnen-ai liberates readers "not just from patriarchy, but from gender dualism and heteronormativity."[9]

Some gay and lesbian commentators have criticized how gay identity is portrayed in BL, most notably in the yaoi ronsō or "yaoi debate" of 1992-1997.[10][11] In May 1992, gay activist Masaki Satō criticized yaoi fans and artists in an open letter to the feminist zine (or minikomi in Japanese) Choisir.[10][11] Satō said that yaoi failed to provide accurate information about gay men, promoted a destructive image of gay men as wealthy, handsome, and well-educated, ignored prejudice and discrimination against gay men in society, and co-opted gay men as masturbation fantasies.[11] An extensive debate ensued, with yaoi fans and artists arguing that yaoi is entertainment for women, not education for gay men, and that yaoi characters are not meant to represent "real gay men."[11] As internet resources for gay men developed in the 1990s, the yaoi debate waned[12] but has had later echoes, for example when Mizoguchi in 2003 characterised stereotypes in modern BL as being "unrealistic and homophobic".[13] In 1993 and 2004, Matt Thorn pointed to the complexity of these phenomena, and suggested that yaoi and slash fiction fans are discontented with “the standards of femininity to which they are expected to adhere and a social environment that does not validate or sympathize with that discontent.”[1][14]

References

  1. ^ a b Thorn, Matthew. (2004) "Girls And Women Getting Out Of Hand: The Pleasure And Politics Of Japan's Amateur Comics Community." pp. 169-186, In Fanning the Flames: Fans and Consumer Culture in Contemporary Japan, William W. Kelly, ed., State University of New York Press. ISBN 0791460320. http://matt-thorn.com/shoujo_manga/outofhand/index.php Accessed August 12, 2008.
  2. ^ Schodt, Frederik L. (1983) Manga! Manga! The World of Japanese Comics. pages 100-101 Tokyo and New York: Kodansha International. ISBN 0-87011-752-1
  3. ^ Ueno, Chizuko (1989) "Jendaaresu waarudo no <ai> no jikken" ("Experimenting with <love> in a Genderless World"). In Kikan Toshi II ("Quarterly City II"), Tokyo: Kawade Shobō Shinsha, ISBN 4309902227. Cited and translated in Thorn, 2004.
  4. ^ Fujimoto, Yukari (1991) "Shōjo manga ni okeru 'shōnen ai' no imi" ("The Meaning of 'Boys' Love' in Shōjo Manga"). In N. Mizuta, ed. New Feminism Review, Vol. 2: Onna to hyōgen ("Women and Expression"). Tokyo: Gakuyō Shobō, ISBN 4313840427. http://matt-thorn.com/shoujo_manga/fujimoto.php (in Japanese). Accessed August 12, 2008.
  5. ^ Takemiya, Keiko. (1993) "Josei wa gei ga suki!?" (Women Like Gays!?) Bungei shunjū, June, pp. 82-83.
  6. ^ Suzuki, Kazuko. (1999) "Pornography or Therapy? Japanese Girls Creating the Yaoi Phenomenon". In Sherrie Inness, ed., Millennium Girls: Today's Girls Around the World. London: Rowman & Littlefield, p.246 ISBN 0847691365, ISBN 0847691373.
  7. ^ Sakakibara, Shihomi (1998) Yaoi genron: yaoi kara mieta mono (An Elusive Theory of Yaoi: The view from Yaoi). Tokyo: Natsume Shobo, ISBN 4931391427.
  8. ^ Buckley, Sandra (1991) "'Penguin in Bondage': A Graphic Tale of Japanese Comic Books", pp. 163-196, In Technoculture. C. Penley and A. Ross, eds. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota ISBN 0-8166-1932-8
  9. ^ a b Welker, James. 2006. "Beautiful, Borrowed, and Bent: 'Boys' Love' as Girls' Love in Shôjo Manga' Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society vol. 31, no. 3. page 843. doi:10.1086/498987
  10. ^ a b Lunsing, Wim. January 2006. "Yaoi Ronsō: Discussing Depictions of Male Homosexuality in Japanese Girls' Comics, Gay Comics and Gay Pornography". Intersections: Gender, History and Culture in the Asian Context Issue 12. http://wwwsshe.murdoch.edu.au/intersections/issue12/lunsing.html Accessed August 12, 2008.
  11. ^ a b c d Vincent, Keith (2007) "A Japanese Electra and Her Queer Progeny" Mechademia, 2, pp.64-79. http://www.upress.umn.edu/Books/L/lunning_mechademia2.html Accessed August 12, 2008.
  12. ^ Blackarmor (February 19, 2008) "A Follow-Up To the Yaoi Debate" http://blackarmor.exblog.jp/7508722/ (In Japanese.) Accessed August 14, 2008.
  13. ^ Mizoguchi, Akiko. (2003) "Homophobic Homos, Rapes of Love, and Queer Lesbians: Yaoi as a Conflicting Site of Homo/ Hetero-Sexual Female Sexual Fantasy". Session 187, Association for Asian Studies Annual Meeting, New York, March 27-30, 2003. http://www.aasianst.org/absts/2003abst/Japan/sessions.htm Accessed August 12, 2008.
  14. ^ Thorn, Matt. (1993) "Unlikely Explorers: Alternative Narratives of Love, Sex, Gender, and Friendship in Japanese Girls' Comics." New York Conference on Asian Studies, New Paltz, New York, October 16, 1993.
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