Yaoi...and Why It Isn't A Good Thing...

[DemonGoddess]

Because I address almost every remark, doesn't mean I am throwing a hissy fit. I just like to talk to people. I'm a sociable creature, to tell you the truth. And I never wanted a flame war, I just liked to point out that DemonGoddess is close friends with SquallSama, and I think that her comment on me wanting a flame war because of a comedic term, while overlooking her friend's blatantly burning comments was a teensy bit fishy.

I'm like the littlest kid on the block, with lots of milk money.

Actually, as I said to begin with, that one sentence (at the end of your original post) is what made me look twice at what you were attempting to do with this topic. I've been administering/moderating various forums for well over 8 years, so sentences like that are an automatic red flag, which means I will watch. Period. That sort of sentence is CLASSIC flame baiting.

As to playing favorites? Sorry, not in my nature to do so. Of course, you can believe what you like with that. Think about it though. IF I was playing favorites, this topic would've been locked already, the participant who I was "targeting" to support my "favorite" would be moderated and unable to post were I supposedly took offense on behalf of another user who I was being percieved as playing favorites with. It hasn't been though, has it? Nor have any users posting abilities been restricted. You would have felt up close and personal why it is I have a reputation as a HAMMER in other forums, now wouldn't ya (if I was playing favorites)?

Anyway, moving on...

The topic has great potential to bring up concerns which can be addressed and looked into. There's already something that came up as a result of this which could, in fact, make it easier on users in the future for general searching and a quick overview before even clicking a story link. I won't say more about it, until I'm told whether or not it's doable in future archive versions. I expect that it will be. Techically, it's just another form field after all.

[DarkInuLord]

So much to read. ._. I'll do it later.

Well, as you can see from this picture, my fandom is generally organized. It's the authors' fault that Yaoi ends up everywhere, and not their respective pairing. Though.... I haven't actually checked the other straight pairings, to see if a yaoi gets tossed in, I know I've seen the occasional Inuyasha/Kagome, where he ends up with another male more often than with her. And yes, it was bad. =_=

[DemonGoddess]

So much to read. ._. I'll do it later.

Well, as you can see from this picture, my fandom is generally organized. It's the authors' fault that Yaoi ends up everywhere, and not their respective pairing. Though.... I haven't actually checked the other straight pairings, to see if a yaoi gets tossed in, I know I've seen the occasional Inuyasha/Kagome, where he ends up with another male more often than with her. And yes, it was bad. =_=

That section is a mess ain't it? That (which is very much a WIP) is what is likely to happen structurally once we're able to go more than 3 levels of categories, which we currently cannot. Of course, that's also a long term project, in terms of the initial scripting revisions and then the actual work involved moving the stories around so that they still remain linked with their reviews. In the meantime, so we have a record of 'em, there's already a forum for misplaced stories. Just post linkage so we know right where to look to get started, in moving fics from categories they don't belong in.

[DarkInuLord]

There's still no Inuyasha/Rin category. D= Oh well. I can only dream~

[Guest Zyx]

There's always bad fanfiction.

All fics have a rating of +++++ so that doesn't help at all...

And sometimes I get the feeling the archive is understaffed... No offence... Seriously, take none, you're doing a great job.

I'd just like to see some more of that great work.

[DemonGoddess]

There's still no Inuyasha/Rin category. D= Oh well. I can only dream~

Are there stories for it? That's part of how the restructure is being done you know. Categories with pre-existing stories, and it would really need to be more than say one or two stories ya know.

[DemonGoddess]

There's always bad fanfiction.

All fics have a rating of +++++ so that doesn't help at all...

And sometimes I get the feeling the archive is understaffed... No offence... Seriously, take none, you're doing a great job.

I'd just like to see some more of that great work.

Unfortunately, some of it you won't see for quite awhile. There are other things that have to be done to facilitate much of what many of you would like to see. Like stories in their right categories, easier tagging for stories, that sort of thing. Lotta background work that has to be done before we get to doing many things. That being the case, you won't necessarily SEE it, 'til it's actually done.

[DarkInuLord]

Are there stories for it? That's part of how the restructure is being done you know. Categories with pre-existing stories, and it would really need to be more than say one or two stories ya know.

Yes. xD There's at least a dozen, maybe two in the general section. The thing is, you can't search for them. >.> The name "Rin" is only three letters....

[Velvet D Coolette]

Now, my title was a little general, but I have a theory and why Yaoi is actually (sometimes, often times) a downfall on AFF.net...

Yaoi has become violently popular within the past few years, and with it has come a plethora of bad writing, bad pairings, and a BAD BAD BAD understanding of Male on Male relationships, contrived within the minds of straight women who NO NOTHING ABOUT THE SUBJECT THEY WRITE.

Why is it written? Same reason "men" have "fantasies" about two women. Women think it's hot. So they write it....without regard to it ACTUALLY FITTING the characters and their personalities....

Can't STAND stories which feature ACTIVELY STRAIGHT MEN...what?! What?! Butt-plugging another guy and usually an ENEMY, or FRIEND? It turns me off so badly to see that. And of course, I think the same of hetero fanfiction.

I have to say I agree with the above - the general theory that low-quality writing does let aff.net and others down. I'm not even surprised that you mention yaoi in this context, because there is an awful lot of it. But I think it's the low-grade writing rather than the yaoi in itself that is the problem.

In particular I think you get a lot of 'fridge magnetism' - people who want to attract attention to themselves and consequently write something - anything - to get their names out there. That is the real problem. You could say the same for randomness masquerading as comedy, for example.

However, yaoi, when misrepresented, does do more harm than failed attempts at comedy. Many gay people already have enough problems with society-in-general's perception of them without more ignorant rubbish being portrayed (in scarily large amounts) on writing sites.

Whenever the rare happening in which I spy a "M/F" in a sea of M/M....yes, my sad little heart leaps and I think...."Oh! Yay! SOMEONE has realized woman-sex is much more adventerous and interesting, than the same ole same ole butt-piracy and licky-licky job of males!"

Again, I think the 'gasp! These characters are GAY! Can you imagine that?!' fare we get from inexperienced writers (inexperienced at good writing and at relationships) is a bit old hat.

Oversexed, bad authors, screaming fanbrats of Yaoi....please, sit this one out....I want to live to see the day where women are useful literary fodder for the fanfic again...

I'm doing my best to bring out good quality M/F pairings. And I generally make the sex flawed in some way to make it a bit more realistic. Variety is always good, no?

Proceed to the Roasting, I dwell in fire.

With regard to the above, somebody took exception to it and I just wanted to say that I read this with a streak of irony. When you're potentially talking to a group of immature adolescents who can't see that their writing is lacking in quality you can almost guarantee the hairdryer treatment at some time or other.

One thing that bothers me was a comment I saw on another thread talking about why people like yaoi. The person said they liked yaoi better than heterosexual couples because the male/male pairing showed "much deeper relationships" than those of heterosexual couples. That in itself is a generalization, because I think a deep relationship can happen in any pairing, no matter what the gender of the two people.

See, this is the thing. I know a few gay men and a recurring complaint from them keeps cropping up: that gay men often just stay together a short time, enjoying the first flush of sex/love and then moving on. One guy I spoke to, eckied up to the gills, on a night out, said that he was pining after companionship; no man would stay with him for any length of time. He was a love, too.

That said, the extra intimacy of sharing love with somebody who has experienced the same as you (social exclusion, homophobic attacks etc.) is bound to happen sometimes, so perhaps this is where the yaoibrats get the 'extra depth' idea from. But then, I've had some hard experiences in the past (not to do with sex) which my other half, Mike, has also experienced, so we have a deep relationship on a similar basis.

I fully accept that the above is a generalisation and only a cross-section of the small number of homosexual men I've met, but as it directly contradicts the comment by this person on the other thread, I thought I'd add it.

[wattersk]

Dang that's a lot to proccess so early in the morning. XD

All joking aside, though, I'd like to point out that it isn't always Yaoi that brings such conditions about. What you have described about Yaoi has happened many times in other fandoms using hetero pairings.

While the stories here are limited, Shaman King often suffers many of the symptoms mentioned in the original post. The main canon pairing (YohxAnna) tends to have a lot of sucky stories simply because the personalities (primarily Anna's) are totally twisted into something that isn't even a fragment of her.

And then there's the infamous HoroxTamao and RenxPirika. The best excuse I've seen for the existance of the first pair is the fact that Horo likes food and Tamao's a good cook. As for the latter, I have yet to figure out how it even came into existance, other than "it looks good".

And how about all this incest that's been hanging around? Sure, the thought is nasty, but there are a couple of pairings, whether it is GLBT or Q, that can be accomplished with good reasoning.

Let us not forget about cross species. Pokemon, Digimon, and all that jazz brings about relations between two different species. There are a lot of squick-worthy fics out there of this particular theme, but there are also a couple of really beautiful ones.

Now I'll admit that a couple of my favourite pairings are m/m, but that doesn't mean my interest is exclusive *shivers at the thought of SpikexXander*. And I'm sure that most mature authors are the same way.

So what am I trying to say through all of this?

It's easy to point fingers at Yaoi if you don't care for it. But there are other places where there's an abundance of other types of fanfiction that people are probably complaining about including crossbreeding, incest, pedo, yuri, and hetero.

With that said, I'm sure many people sympathize with what you are saying, if only in an indirect way. I definitely understand your feelings on the issue, but it is something we all have to live with in such a free setting.

[canterro]

I think the point is that we, to the certain extent, write for readers.

So...

When a hetero woman writes Yaoi fiction, its target is... no, not hemosexual people, but other hetero women

Yaoi for het girls and for homo boys are two totally different things.

It's worth taking into account - you write for a target audience and not everyone has the same expectations

Anyway... I'd be more than happy if TurtleHermit could help me to authenticate my story in regard to homosexual relationship

[Crazed Flow]

As strange as this sounds coming from me, I'd rather see more Yaoi than Yuri.

Maybe the reason there isn't much Yuri is because all the would-be Yuri writers are probably satisfied with watching real-life lesbian porn, which I bet there is way more of than Yaoi.

[Guest Zyx]

As strange as this sounds coming from me, I'd rather see more Yaoi than Yuri.

Maybe the reason there isn't much Yuri is because all the would-be Yuri writers are probably satisfied with watching real-life lesbian porn, which I bet there is way more of than Yaoi.

Makes sense I suppose, though I don't see why anyone would want more yaoi than yuri...

I'd like some more F/F and M/F.... And perhaps a table for each story instead of that horrible string of text.

[Zimarah]

I'll admit, I haven't read this whole thread, but I want to say my piece.

I write yaoi and slash, yet I didn't find this offensive in the least. There is a lot of bad yaoi out there, but I do my best to keep things in character while being as realistic as possible. I don't get much constructive feedback, even though I would love it. I think I do a decent job, but my audience is heterosexual woman, and I myself am one as well. No, I don't know what gay sex feels like in the least, but I do my best, and this is mostly based on what I read in other fics that I enjoy.

So what was my point? I have no idea. I think my writing is decent, better than most of the yaoi "crap" that is out there, but I am no where near as good as I want to be. I want my fics to be as realistic as possible, even though they are based in a very unreal fantasy world.

[shinigamiinochi]

I'm a lesbian writing slash, but I live with a bunch of gay guys, so if I get stuck, I just ask them. The only reason why my yuri stuff isn't on this site is because the series I write for isn't here.

[TrulyWished]

Now, I admit that I adore yaoi. But, I also enjoy a well written het story and even yuri on my odd days. A strong story is a strong story, no matter what genre it falls under. And, while bad writing happens, it can happen to anyone and the point of a free-to-publish forum like this is to allow people to write what they want and get feedback from it. I woudl rather have one review that says - this is poorly done because... than a dozen - oh this is great! when it sucks. Research is the key! To everything of course, but especially to protraying a relationship that, as a woman, I simply can not experience. The fact that it's a great excuse to watch porn has nothing to do with it. Really.

Very plainly, I do my best every day to write strong stories and whether they are or not is what I take from the feedback I receive. I enjoy writing yaoi, so I do so, as well as het pairings. I don't really have an opinion as to whether it is good or not, I can only say I enjoy it. I do wish authors would take the time to place their stories in the correct category and would choose the appropriate tags, it would make choosing stories to read much easier. It is never offensive to portray an opinion whenit is not harmful to anyone else's feelings. I'm quite glad I decided to read this post as it is interesting to know where other people stand in the yaoi debate.

[Shinju]

Okay, I didn't even read most of the posts in this thread, I just scanned because bickering hurts my brain. So please take that into consideration if I make any points that might have already been made, I am just trying to answer the first post in a rational and non angry manor. And you know what, I'm not angry, because TurtleHermit made a valid point about the lack of m/f pairings on AFF and asked a valid question on why that was and I will try to address that issue here in this post.

I believe most females are sick of m/f parings, mainly due to Harlequins and the monotony of the modern day romance novel industry as published by AVON and Bantam and whatnot. I mean, seriously, have you ever read that crap? I mean, it's great when you are like, 12 years old and getting to read ridiculous story lines attached to graphic sex scenes for the first time in your life, but once you've been reading that stuff into your late teens, you realize that 1)every story line is the same, just different settings like, past time periods, future time periods, outer space, New York, San Francisco, North Dakota and Texas, 2)there is always some poorly written, sappy and contrived happy ending and no romance novel will EVER deviate from that, 3) Harlequins are BORING seeing as they no longer publish anything but the same old regurgitated JUNK over and over again. If you go to your supermarket/bookstore/airport newspaper stand, you will see about FIFTY Harlequin Presents with the same words in every title just moved around. IE: For The Sheikh's Pleasure, Love-Slave To The Sheikh, Possessed by the Sheikh, Sheikh's Revenge, Sold To The Sheikh, Surrender To The Sheikh, At The Sheikh's Bidding, At The Greek Boss's Bidding, The Greek Tycoon's Convenient Bride, The Greek Boss's Bride, The Greek's Virgin Bride , Taken by Her Greek Boss, The Greek's Royal Mistress, The Greek Tycoon's Virgin Wife, The Millionaire's Mistress, Mistress To A Millionaire, Surrender To The Millionaire, Marriage At The Millionaire's Command, Bought by the Billionaire Prince, Bought By A Billionaire, At The Billionaire's Bidding, The Billionaire's Virgin Mistress, NEED I GO ON, BECAUSE NOW I NEED TO GO VOMIT.

Anyways, my grand theory is that publishers such as HARLEQUIN in all their mass produced paperback glory, have TRAUMATIZED the female population of pretty much half the world and we now have turned to the avant-guard and underground realm of man-love for support. That is why now a days you will see many female authors that could be writing m/f write m/m. We're just so sick of mary-sue-esque pussy that we avoid thinking about the entire m/f thing all together.

This is also my theory on why certain female authors, we'll use me for an example, have such a bad understanding of m/m relationships, because we have BEEN TRAUMATIZED BY HARLEQUIN. Trust me, if I wrote m/f or f/f, my understanding of plausible fictional relationships wouldn't be any better, unless I wrote about realistic m/f relationships, which I do have experience with, but to make my fiction more realistic would completely defeat the purpose as to why I write fiction in the first place. And the fact that we don't have penises probably has something to do with it, but hey, it's a free country and we can write about what we want and anyone who has a problem with it can just get over it or go to a site that monitors their stories like nazis.

So yeah, to answer your question, that is the reason I feel that there is a lack of decent m/f stories out there and why there is some pretty bad m/m stuff.

And I don't count Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series as a romance novel in the traditional sense, so don't flame me about that.

[shinigamiinochi]

Once upon a time, I dared to go to the grocery store with my cousin (Yuki) and his three year old daughter (Inoue). She was bored and went to look at the books. She picked up a romance novel and just stared at the cover. My cousin immediately went over to her and their conversation went a little like this:

Yuki: Honey, I don't think that you should be reading stuff like that

Inoue: Oh, I'm not. The cover alone is incorrect and highly improbable, so I don't think that the inside is going to be much better.

-.- that child...

[bitBlackmage]

Yaoi, het, yuri, (insert anything else)... if written in a way that appeases the reader, can be good. The problem is that there are trends and subjectivity. Trends show us what is popular and subjectivity tells us that you, my dear ranter, are into something else entirely.

Not only that, but people interpret characters differently and how they will react. I agree that people shouldn't just hop into bed and say "OMG I LUV j000!!!1!" That's just inane and random.

[canterro]

I agree that people shouldn't just hop into bed and say "OMG I LUV j000!!!1!" That's just inane and random.

well, people do this sometimes although it's insane and random

[bitBlackmage]

Well they shouldn't, but they do (and I know a lot of people that just forgot to keep their emotions from getting in the way). I guess in fiction you can do that... but me, I have to have development.

[canterro]

Well they shouldn't, but they do (and I know a lot of people that just forgot to keep their emotions from getting in the way). I guess in fiction you can do that... but me, I have to have development.

I get it

Actually, I could have such 'easy' people in the story... but I wouldn't make them positive characters to follow