Boys Love I: Homoerotic Stories That Appeal to Women

Homoerotic literature is an alternative to your usual romance story. LGTB literature is not made exclusively for homosexual people. There are several reasons why a straight person might be interested in reading these stories; one of them is the opportunity to enjoy a different way of portraying love, beyond gender. Well, that’s a very general view of course, but I am going to talk about my personal preference regarding this theme, specifically in the manga universe. Why manga? well, I like comics, an image is worth a thousand words! and books are easier to find. But if you are really interested in them you might want to check the wonderful blog of Elisa Rolle, where you can find tons of reviews.

If you are a person who enjoys anime/manga, or even if you are not, you might have seen the word yaoi before. It is something that calls a lot of attention, especially with the big amount of fans that seem to be crazy about it; it seems that no story can be saved from being slashed in this fashion. I am talking about gay fiction, of course, some of the oddest pairs are created to please the minds of the fan-girls that aren’t happy with just the usual amount of heterosexual romance.

Why is this? Well, I previously stated one, the curiosity or need of something new and out of the “frame”. In my case I use the same logic as men watching lesbian pornography: because it’s hot!. And there is something really interesting for me in people that behave out of what is relied as normal. Besides, the fact that love can be as beautiful as to transcend genders is a great thing.

The term Boy’s Love is mostly assigned to the mangas that feature this kind of relationship.  Yaoi is only a subdivision of the BL genre, while the other one is called shounen-ai; the difference is the explicitness, shounen ai stories focus on the feelings and can be read by teens older than 13, while yaoi stories tend to feature sex and focus more in the physical part of the relationship, these are mostly for 17+. There is another sub-genre known as bara that’s usually targeted towards other demographics, mostly gay men, while BL is targeted to women. Consequently, bara is considered a genre on its own rather than a part of BL.

Dōjinshis are independent or self-published works that can have original content or be an slash fiction of another story. There is a fair amount of BL dōjinshis around, and most BL fans are introduced to the genre in this fashion. One moment you are reading a DJ/fan-fiction about the heterosexual couples you would like to see in some story, next thing you know you might unknowingly find yourself reading a homosexual  one and well, if you enjoy it, there is no going back. 

Next, Where do I start?