InsaneJournal

Note To Self
Do. Not. Read. Boy's Love Fandom Thoughts On Rape In BL & Yaoi.

Just don't.

*shudders*

It's like a convention of Polanski fans.



1. "It's forced seduction. Forced seduction is not rape."

2. Japanese people love rape. It's what turns them on. That's why there's so much of it.

3. It's really an initiation into homosexuality via a romanticized prison rape, therefore it isn't real rape. Besides, real rape is 'gruesome'.

4. Americans have Lolita, Japanese have BL's rape.

5. Japanese women have no power, therefore they like to see men being forced.

The only one that made even the smallest bit of sense was one stating "It's a genre where the reader knows forgiveness is predetermined, therefore it's easier for them not to see the act differently. When the forgiveness doesn't happen, then the act becomes a violation."

But that's starting from the basis that BL WILL have rape and only explains why it isn't pointed out.

Others then concluded that bodice rippers in the West have rape all the time and no one calls it awful or gets upside that it's making money. To which I quietly state here 'THERE IS A REASON I HAVE LOATHED ROMANCE BOOKS OF A CERTAIN TYPE FOR YEARS'.

NB/ Thoughts So Far: Forceful seduction, where a certain measure of aggressiveness is part of the personality of the woo-er and it's very much about woo-ing reads differently to me than 'forced seduction' where the physical act is forced, unwanted onto the supposedly woo-ed. But I also think there is too fine a line of distinction to be made in how the two are portrayed. Not everyone can do well a set up for a strongly coaxing seduction that is wanted (for various psychological reasons which are exposed for the set up) and plain old force. And I think because of that, there's this horrible stinking rash of rape as seduction. Which is then followed by all these people making excuses.

Somewhere in there, the concept of charming, debonair seducer who wants the individual of their attentions to recognize and admit they want the seducer; has been seriously lost. The concept of someone who doesn't have to use physical or psychological power to sate themselves, because they have a presence that attracts -- wooosh, all gone. I suppose it is an oddly old fashioned view on masculine attractiveness. And yet, isn't it the father/seed of 'the bad boy' in the first place? The character who doesn't lie and pretend the world is chaster than it is?

Which is getting heavy in my head and far away from the ick that is still ick, which is so. many. people. going on and on about 'It isn't rape-rape' ala Whoopi Goldberg. And that's just ugh. So much ugh.

And oh look, tvtropes as a name for it. Rape Is Love and they bring up the whole concept of Seme meaning Attacker... which just puts a brain twisty spin on it all as being somehow built into the Japanese concept of BL in the first place.

*runs away*