Typically, BL is written by women for a predominantly female audience, but there are other genres depicting gay relationships, such as bara that are written by men specifically for a homosexual male audience. But, why is that? Why is a genre that is supposed to be celebrating the beauty of homosexual relationships synonymous with things like ‘smut’ or ‘sinning’ ? Why is it that we only see the hypersexualized fantasy that permeates most of the BL genre? Why not the quiet intimate moments of two people in love? What makes the idea of a healthy homosexual relationship in the boys’ love genre such a rarity? When did BL become synonymous with sex?īoys’ Love or BL as it’s more commonly referred to, is a genre of Japanese media that focuses on romantic relationships between men. When you think about boys’ love, you probably only think about sex, hot gay sex to be precise.
When you hear the words ‘boys’ love’ or ‘ yaoi’ what images does it bring to mind? Do they bring up images of a happy couple on a date? How about a couple walking hand in hand down the street? Probably not.