What did you expect?

Since BL and fujoshi discourse is the hot topic du jour, let’s talk a bit about gay stereotypes in Japanese manga and anime.

I’m seeing a worrying number of people not only saying that all BL and fujoshi promote homophobic stereotypes, but that BL is the primary or sole instigator of homophobia in Japanese society (excuse me, I choked on drink there).

For those who don’t know, Boy’s Love (BL) is a niche category of shoujo/josei manga that focuses on M/M relationships (commonly known in the west as “yaoi”, though that is a misnomer). It’s still frowned upon, both for being gay content and for being mainly romance aimed at women. The word “fujoshi” — used today to mean “female fan of BL” — even has seriously misogynistic origins.

So far, BL is published on specific magazines, and most anime adaptations are OVAs that aren’t aired on TV. Although it has a significant following, it’s definitely not popular enough to change the opinions on gay men of the entire anime fanbase, much less of Japanese society as a whole.

Homophobia in Japan has a long history, but one of the most impactful chapters was the Meiji Restoration (1867-68), when Japan’s isolationist foreign policy was abolished and rapid westernization began. Negative Christian views on homosexuality disseminated throughout the country and public opinion of practices such as nanshoku/wakashudou declined until they were practically criminalized and banned.

For reference, both BL and yuri had their origins more than a century later, in the 1970’s-80’s.

I find that a lot of criticism of stereotyping in BL is, unsurprising, very US-centric. The thin, androgynous, pretty and emotionally sensitive characters of BL may coincidentally fit western gay stereotypes, but this type of character just represents an East Asian beauty standard for men. Guys who fit these bishounen and ikemen types are considered desirable by Japanese women and are generally assumed to be straight. 

A handful of pretty boys from Touken Ranbu.

In the US, your idea of a stereotypical gay dude may be a metrosexual twink with a lisp and a limp wrist, but different countries have different stereotypes. In Japan, the appearance of イカホモ/イカニモ (“ikahomo” or “ikanimo”, a stereotypical gay man) is a heavy-set masculine guy with short haircut, strong face, and facial hair.

Sort of like the guys you see in geikomi, right?

Pin-ups by Jiraiya, long-time artist for G-men magazine.

But we’re talking about entertainment media, more specifically about animanga. We’ll get there soon.

Gay men in Japan are stereotyped by the general population as being camp, and using feminine clothes, language and pronouns. Those who present femininely are often referred to as オネエ (“onee”) because they use オネエ言葉 (“onee kotoba”, feminine speech), and may or may not identify as male. Many entertainers who are out use onee personas on TV to, well, entertain the audience. That may be the only exposure an average Japanese person has to a real-life openly gay or trans person.

As for fiction, media creators tend to fall back on archetypes based on prejudices for minority characters, and that includes gay men. A bit like how the US has the “fairy” archetype, Japan has the “okama”.

Now, オカマ (“okama”, lit. rice pot) is not a word used in polite conversation to refer to people. It’s a homophobic and transphobic slur, directed at people who fit the onee stereotype. If you’re not a Japanese queer man or transfem individual, you shouldn’t direct it at anyone, period. Not even yourself. Although there are some who reclaim the term, it’s still largely considered derogatory and insulting.

Japanese media has an okama character archetype, which reflects how society thinks a gay man looks and acts. You may be surprised to hear that it’s not the willowy, androgynous bishounen of shoujo manga.

It’s something more like this:

And before you cry about anyone “supporting pedophilia!!!”, the point here is that what you’re complaining about (aka, shipping teenage cartoon characters, which has been a thing for decades) IS NOT PEDOPHILIA.  Literally no one else has ever even considered it to be that before, and you’re abusing what that word means.

According to the 18 U.S. Code § 2256 (yes, the same code that antis have been using a screencap of, but omitting the last part of in order to conceal the truth):

“The term “indistinguishable” used with respect to a depiction, means virtually indistinguishable, in that the depiction is such that an ordinary person viewing the depiction would conclude that the depiction is of an actual minor engaged in sexually explicit conduct. This definition does not apply to depictions that are drawings, cartoons, sculptures, or paintings depicting minors or adults.”

Also note the phrase “recognizable as an actual person” in 9ii.

(For real though–I have to laugh if you’re gonna tell me cartoons and anime characters look like real human beings.  Like, who the fuck has eyes the size of fists and heads the size of pumpkins???  You guys are idiots…)

This is also further upheld by the Supreme Court ruling of Ashcroft vs Free Speech Coalition, and again in Ashcroft vs American Civil Liberties Union (the PROTECT Act has also had related portions–specifically 1466A, which antis love to parade around–judged as unconstitutional on a federal level, as was a result of United States v. Handley, in which the defendant was convicted due to a guilty plea bargain, and not actually convicted on the initial charges of obscenity.  The plea bargain was made under the belief that the jury chosen to judge him would not acquit him of the obscenity charges if they were shown the images in question).  Handley’s case is the only one so far that dealt solely with drawings of characters that did not exist in real life (as in, without further discovery of more serious content in the defendant’s possession–or ties to illegal sites–which is what occurred with other cases that antis tend to cite).

Also:

13-17-year-olds (aka minors) only make up 15% of this site’s user base.  Meanwhile, the site has always allowed adult content.  This means that staff is trusting you to browse appropriately, and to take responsibility for your browsing using the tools they have given to you (like blocking, and filtering search results).  They are allowing you to be here under the assumption that you are mature enough to handle it.  Your behavior is only showing staff that they might want to raise the minimum age limit (which is 17+ for mobile users, by the way).  When faced with the choice of either trying to monitor/control millions of people, or simply adding a new age limitation, a company will always choose the easier option.  Don’t ruin the site for all the teens that aren’t huge, easily-offended pissbabies.

No, fiction does not affect reality the way you want to believe.  The statistics for rape, child abuse, assault, murder, etc. have all experienced a dramatic decline over the past few decades, in spite of our media becoming more graphically violent, and pornography being more easily accessible.  Your logic just doesn’t hold up to the facts (by the way, this also applies to stories with mature themes like rape or murder, or stories with abusive or taboo relationships.  IT’S JUST FICTION, PEOPLE.   It’s a reflection of various aspects of our humanity, which includes the things we most fear.  Writing and reading about them is one way we can strip them of that fear and power they hold over us.  It doesn’t mean we stop recognizing those things as morally wrong–it’s just a way of reconciling their existence, and coping with it).

No, children wouldn’t find truckloads of porn in Google’s Safe Search.  In fact, for most fandoms, you’ll have a hard time finding adult content even with Safe Search OFF.  Google tailors its results to your browsing.  If you’re finding “problematic” content, all that proves is that you were searching for it in the first place.

The internet is not a babysitter.  Small children shouldn’t be on it unsupervised to begin with.  If you wouldn’t let them go to a heavily crime-ridden neighborhood by themselves, then they shouldn’t be online by themselves.  Public spaces are not “safe”.  It’s not the job of millions of strangers to constantly look out for other people’s children (nor are they obligated to look out for you, for that matter).  That’s the responsibility of their PARENTS.  PERIOD.

An abuser can groom a victim without ever using anything sexual whatsoever.  It’s about trust.  It can be something as simple as an interest in model airplanes–does that make those “problematic”?  As for those abusers, chances are that they’re not some random stranger on the internet, but someone known to the victim.  You may not want to hear this, but the greatest threat to children statistically?  It’s their own mothers.

Antis only came about within the past two years.  Before that, there was no real drama in fandoms beyond the occasional shipping war, which no one treated like anything but a shipping war.  You are the ones that made fandoms toxic.  Fan art and fanfiction didn’t affect any of us the way you’re claiming before.  Hell–people have been sexualizing cartoons for literally as long as they’ve existed.  That’s almost 100 fucking years, and it hasn’t caused a goddamn thing.  You’re abusing and trivializing extremely serious issues in order to use as leverage to threaten and silence others, and you bloody well know it.  You choose the things that you’re aware that everyone hates: Pedophilia, abuse, etc.  You know that just mentioning these things causes an instant knee-jerk reaction–one that few people will bother to look into beyond the initial claim.  You’re deliberately emotionally manipulating others.  Those are the tactics of abusers (and don’t even say “UM you’re calling survivors abusers!!”, because those who have been abused are the biggest demographic at risk for becoming abusers.  No, it doesn’t mean every abused child grows up to be an abuser, but the number of serial killers that were abused as children is hard to ignore).

Adult content of fictional characters could actually help prevent cases of child sexual abuse.  But then, we all know this was never about children for any anti, or you wouldn’t limit your concern to just the cartoons that you’re personally interested in.  Honestly, I would think you’d be more concerned about the fact that sites like Pornhub and Redtube require no age verification, account, password, or credit card to access.

Point blank: What you are doing is called “crying wolf”, and it has real consequences. For example: Anti-vaxxers.  All it took was one man claiming a link between vaccines and autism, and now diseases like polio are turning up again because of people who refuse to vaccinate their children.  If you make claims of pedophilia where it doesn’t actually exist, you are hurting legitimate claims of pedophilia.

So, anyway, if you could stop accusing teenage girls (yes, the majority of the people you’re harassing are young women–usually minors themselves) of being “pedophiles” over something that’s 100% legal (which is shaming them during a period of their life where they’re using fan art and fanfiction as a safe means of exploring their own sexuality, and is honestly misogynistic as hell of you), and that was going on long before you came along without any issue, that’d be super.

Oh, and by the way–if you choose to falsely accuse another user of pedophilia, that IS enough of a violation of the Terms of Service for staff to delete your account.  I’d tell you to just ask “bipolaramyrose”, but well…she no longer has an account for that very reason.

I’m going to tag a few blogs that may be interested in this:

@educating-antis, @shippingisnotactivism, @shipwhateveryouwant, @antisdontdoshit, @antiantis-saltmine

Yuri’s home rink is inspired at Karatsu and we all knew that the skating club where Yakov coaches Yurio, Mila and Georgi is located at Saint Petersburg. And yet, despite searching for Saint Petersburg skating rinks, I still couldn’t find any pictures on where it is inspired so I just gave up completely on finding because I don’t even know Russian. But yesterday, I watched  Honoo-no Taiiku-kai TV with Miyu Honda being taught by Evgeni Plushenko and Miyu went to CSKA Figure Skating Club at Moscow to practice and the facade shown tickled my fancy so I searched for it.

The one at the center is the CSKA Ice Palace and on the left was the CSKA Sports center where the club is.

Facade of Yakov’s team skating club.

Inside the CSKA Figure Skating Club.

We searched and searched and searched and SEARCHED and couldn’t find anything in Saint Petersburg that matched up. I’d just about given up, thinking that they must have just made the whole thing up, when I stumbled across this post. THANK YOU @maehustisya!!!!! 

That gave me something to work with and a combination of Wikipedia and Google Earth gave me a better picture of the actual structure in Moscow. Turns out that the dull grey building in the center is actually the ice skating rink, the blue building houses the swimming facilities and the yellow building across the way is for gymnastics. 

If you look at the images below, you can see that the building also doesn’t exactly match what we see in the anime. There is no big glass/concrete section behind it. So our consensus is that the animators saw the Yubileyney facility in St. Petersburg and decided that it needed a bit of sprucing it up - so they borrowed the facade of this building in Moscow to make it stand out a bit more. There are plenty of other buildings with the blue-with-fancy-white-trim color scheme in St. P., so it certainly *could* exist. :)

The entrance to the actual Yubileyney facility (meh - not very exciting, right?):

A larger version of the photo above:

A more straight-on view of the entryway. It’s cool to use the people to see the scale of the place. It’s big!

This is closer to the angle that we see in the anime. The modern building on the left side is totally separate. You can also see that they replaced the water-themed fresco and statuary with a more generic flag and trim.

This last one gives you a better idea of what the actual structure in Moscow looks like. It was apparently an airplane hanger (there was once an air base in this area) originally but it was converted (along with other buildings) as part of the complex for the 1980 Olympics.

In Regards To Love ~Agape~

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In Regards To Love ~Eros~

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Crispy Lithuanian Waffles with Dulce de Leche Cream Filling

These crispy Lithuanian waffles are made perfect with the fantastic dulce de leche cream filling made with a hint of liqueur. Get the recipe here.

Really nice recipes. Every hour.