jpny01

So Much In Love was a glorious disaster - it's one of my favorites. How often do you get a BL with not one, but TWO totally unrelated ghost stories and an evil principal out to destroy a volleyball team for no apparent reason?

Why did they do that to Ron Angeles' hair? Even still, it's unclear to me why Jethro is preferable to Arnold. Jerk who's leaving in a few weeks vs. Super hot guy who feeds him frequently (albeit needs a haircut).

I tried watching the finale but it's so dull and poorly done in every way that I couldn't finish it, even on 2X speed. I think this may take the prize for worst BL ever. There are BLs that are poorly filmed, BLs that have sound problems, BLs with bad acting, writing, abd editing, but this has all of them. It's not "so bad it's good" like So Much In Love - it's just flat and featureless.

I thought I was the only person shallow enough to obsess over that.

Busted! Good work! It's even worse because there's two servings per bottle.

That made me LOL to the point my parents asked me what I was laughing at but I'm ashamed to tell them.

I don't get it. What is heartbreaking?

The one thing I'll say is at least the writer attempted to give Pran a reason for his resistance, like because Pat's sister was there. I don't think I'd want to fool around with someone if my brother was there, let alone a sister. But it did get on my nerves this ep - there was just too much of it. Again we're expected to believe that 20-year old men in a new relationship don't want to have sex all day.

Sorry, but I completely agree with dannyvan - you are trying to take offense, and acting like a child rather than defending your position.

That's not what J100 meant though. This ep was casting shade on the trope, which I enjoyed. It's not characters identifying as bisexual, like Fiat in My Gear Your Gown, which is fine and to be encouraged. It's men identifying as 100% straight but love just one man, for ever and ever. That's not bisexual, it's a weird BL thing.

I agree with you that objectification can be taken to that extreme and is all too often, but objectification is not the same thing as subjugation or commodification. Like most (but not all) men, my initial attraction to someone is always entirely physical, although that's not enough for me to want to have a relationship (anymore - it certainly was when I was a youngster).

That's why there are separate words for subjugation and commodification. Most people like to be found physically attractive, and for more or less everyone a person's appearance is part of the attraction, especially up front when it's even more important. I am totally unbothered by someone being attracted to me for what I look like. If that's all their attracted to, not much will come of it, but I don't see what's wrong with that. And let's not pretend appearance isn't important to women, because it absolutely is. But some women will use words like "creepy" to dismiss an unattractive man because creepy is a personality trait, and so an acceptable judgment.

Science fiction allows the examination of social issues through analogies that are purposefully separated from real-world circumstances in order to allow more objective thought. For example, there's a classic Star Trek that examines racism through aliens that are black on one side and white on the other (all played by white actors) - but some of them are black on the right side, and others on the left, which they view as an insurmountable difference.

Likewise, it's useful to take a situation in which both parties are men to examine oppressive patriarchal gender norms, like Bad Buddy does (or tries to) - I would agree with your point (paraphrasing and elucidating) that that usually writers are just taking a 19th c model and dropping a boy in the 12-year old virgin role, but what you're doing throughout - and again I agree with the main thrust of your points - is taking a spectrum and lumping everything on the extreme end.

For example, in Bad Buddy, Pat teasing Pran by calling him "wifey" is not as bad as seriously calling him that with the expectation that he take a passive and subordinate role. Being attracted to someone for their physical appearance is not as bad as devaluing women and treating them as "fuck-puppets".

Also, I don't think it's true that everything is about a patriarchal power dynamic that permeates everything - that's an oversimplification. Poll everyone here and ask who's the boss at home, mom or dad - I'll bet mom wins, comfortably. Of course there are assholes, but most people find partnerships that are just that - partnerships.

And men are also subject to patriarchal social norms - that are enforced by both men and women. How many women will accept a man who doesn't work? How many women have never dismissed a man for being too short? I can't conceive of a circumstance in which I'm not working and providing - my sense of self-worth is irrevocably tied to this because I'm just as subject to restrictive social pressures as anyone else. And on the subject of Japan, there's no English equivalent for the term "karoshi" - why did men create a system in which they routinely work themselves to death? Women are subjected to disgusting sexual harassment, but men are subjected to horrific bullying, as I discovered working at a Korean firm. Why do we allow that if we're in power? Why not just quit? Because it's not that simple.

Yikes. I wonder if it's related to the hurt/comfort trope.

In any case, lying all day on your ass isn't going to help the situation - it's better to be on your feet. If anyone has ever had hemorrhoids, it's a little like that.

I'm 5'10", at the time was about 160 lbs, not very athletic, and I dated a guy who was 6'2" 200+ pounds and a PE major. And a huge bottom. I'll admit it was a bit incongruous hammering a guy whose arms were thicker than my legs and could effortlessly snap me in half, but it goes to show how meaningless size, age, & appearance is in determining top and bottom. Or I have an ex that I continued to see for many years after we dated, during which time he was a bottom, but subsequently became a top, and hence I changed roles as well. He's 10 years younger than me.

I'm OK with hetero terms used as long as they're not misogynist - e.g. if they both call each other wifey. But it's a minefiled and best avoided. Even in Bad Buddy where they were casting shade on that, it still came off that they regarded "wife" as subordinate and that's why they didn't want to the term applied to them.

I didn't realize Minato was the top in Cherry Magic - I was not interested in their story so I might not have been paying attention, but that is a revolution in BL - the only time I can think of where the uke was shorter than the seme. We've had the seme younger (e.g. 2 moons/Gen Y), but never shorter. I thought that was an inviolable rule.

OK, I've pulled myself back from the brink.

Anyway, Jagi was incredible in the last ep - I think I forgot to breathe throughout that whole last section. This was a brilliant story, and I loved the deconstruction of the seme/uke dynamic.

I think the objection is the misogyny more than obsessing over top and bottom although that gets tiresome too.

I'm glad they didn't put that plot point you referenced into the live-action Addicted - that would have ruined it. I've noticed in reading female-written erotica that there's an obsession with "preparation" - to the point that sex scenes are 99% preparation (one finger, then two, then three) and 1% actual sex. In my experience a stiff drink and deep breathing is usually preparation enough. Anyway, lack of endless preparation is usually depicted as some sort of abuse.

I was actually open-mouthed at Lovely Writer. Do you think maybe BL writers tend to be masochists or something? The obsession with the pain and injury is really, really strange. You can certainly bleed from it, but to be hurt so badly you need hospitalization would require someone hung like an elephant. Fisting is a thing - you can fit a lot up there - it's designed to stretch.

To be fair, though, almost all BL is written that way. It needs to change there first.

What is all this obsession with top and bottom? This was not addressed at all in the drama, nor is it relevant. Hira could just as well be an aggressive bottom as a top, or they could be versatile, or disinterested in anal sex entirely. The sexual role is not related to the power dynamic, psychology, or anything else. It's just what turns you on.

It's implied that Hira is the top, which is only interesting because the impression was created that it might be the opposite of that, but what's really interesting about this drama is it examines objectification without having a woman in it, which makes it less "loaded" by societal gender-role baggage, which is ironic as the audience here seems to want to reload all that baggage right back in there.

It's actually quite interesting - Kiyoi likes being objectified, but doesn't want to be isolated on a pedestal, either.

That's a mistake I'm seeing a lot of in this discussion section - it's painted as either/or. You can objectify someone and still love them for who they are, and you can like being objectified while still wanting to be loved for who you are. I know I like being objectified, and I miss being young and beautiful, but I also like being less stupid, so there are some advantages to age.

But I've also been in a relationship where I was wholly an object, and he really didn't know me at all or how I felt about anything. And for the record, he was the bottom.

But it wasn't a D/s relationship at all - in fact it was Hira who had the power all along.

I think maybe they should stop releasing them as eight 12-minute episodes and just put it out as a movie or maybe at least four 24-min episodes. I'm thinking I might actually drop this until it's complete and then watch the whole thing.

On the other hand, I don't want to reduce the number of views. Maybe I can just click on everything but not watch it.