jpny01

Actually, in a Common Law court, they would be judged equally. I can't speak to Thai law, but I can speak to Mame law, which is that anything goes. If you apologize for having someone gang-raped and trying to strangle someone to death, no problem, so long as you cry a lot. And is desperation an excuse to agree to torture?

As for Leo & Fiat, then why are Tharn & Type toxic but Leo & Fiat aren't? I agree that being different doesn't mean it's toxic, but at no point did we ever see a discussion in which Leo asked to be FIat's master and Fiat consented. Leo is older and stronger, and Fiat is totally dependent on him - that puts him in a position of immense power in the relationship, and we've received no indication that Fiat can or has consented to the dynamic, which is the most extreme we've seen in a BL. Leo doesn't even let Fiat walk anywhere - he has to give him an infantilizing piggy-back ride.

And DO Leo & Fiat have great communication? All the crises in this series have been due to their total failure to communicate. Is it OK for Leo to discuss with his father behind his back how they will parent a grown man?

So evil girls says she has info on King's plan to harm Fiat and she'll tell him if he kisses her. What does he do? Go an discuss it with Fiat and determine a course of action? Or does he trust her and kiss her? Fiat sees it (of course) - does he discuss it with Leo? They never discuss anything!

He also wasn't wearing a muscle shirt in that scene. I could spend an hour a day on those arms. But yes, it was the hair, too.

This is not going to win any awards, for sure - but it doesn't have anything wrong with it, either. The writing & dialog are cute and clever, Ryu's arms are like a fourth character - actually, Ryu and Mix are both really sexy - and it's just enjoyable to watch. I'm guessing from the names that Mix & Match will have to get together, and BL is too Victorian for a thrupple.

There's nothing that irritates me more than trip/catch/stare, but doing it as a threesome was really clever and really funny. And the bed scene...

I feel like Ryu's muscle shirt counts as a "shower equivalent".

There seems to be some different idea about the topic in Asia, or at least in BL. I really liked He's Coming To Me, but the ending... "I'm sorry about committing first degree murder. " "It's ok, since you apologized."

Concentration camp guards didn't come up with the Final Solution, either. Leo agreed to and participated, and is 100% complicit. Can you imagine Leon agreeing to that for Pob? Or anyone else at all? That was some f@#$ed up shit there.

I'm totally fine if people aren't bothered by it, but let's not pretend Leo & Fiat have some wholesome and toxin-free relationship - it's one of the most twisted in the entirety of BL. Whatever Tharn & Type's issues, they're still equals in their relationship. Leo is Fiat's owner.

Well, they made money off it... sorry, dark humor.

The eagle is 100% Nazi and everyone involved knows it. Roman eagles are just eagles. The Nazi eagle is very specific and easy to distinguish with it's Art Deco design, and the location of the "o" is not in the slightest coincidental. The dimensions are even accurate.

Again, I don't expect a non-Western 20-year old actor to be familiar with it, but COME ON. Let's see that company produce shirts with the Japanese sunburst war flag on it and see how many people are beaten to death by angry crowds.

Actually, now that I think about it, drag kings are doing that. I'm still not sure about the appropriating, but I think I agree about drag reinforcing patriarcal norms. I'm not sure that the participants in it, at least the drag queens, are viewing it as anything but parody of societal norms - but that doesn't always matter. Alec Baldwin just fired a fake gun at someone, but it still killed her. Thanks for this discussion - it was helpful to me to understand perspectives I was missing.

Actually, now that I think about it, drag kings are doing that. I'm still not sure about the appropriating, but I think I agree about drag reinforcing patriarcal norms. I'm not sure that the participants in it, at least the drag queens, are viewing it as anything but parody of societal norms - but that doesn't always matter. Alec Baldwin just fired a fake gun at someone, but it still killed her. Thanks for this discussion - it was helpful to me to understand perspectives I was missing.

That is definitely a fair point, so forget what I said. sInstead, sticking strictly to DSN, how would you characterize these two comments from Leo? "I want to lock you up, preventing you from seeing anyone" and "There's a demon in my heart that could harm you at any time."

That wasn't bad, but it's not great. The idea is good, but the plot is a tad too riduclous, and the contrast with the authenticity in Bite Me is rather stark. I actually didn't love Jang Eui Soo's performance, although I love looking at him. It was just too artificially cocky and too over the top. The apron scene would have led to a fistfight in real life. I hope it gets a little more plausible. Any self-respecting person would immediately look for new work after being baldly lied to like that. And can we just once have a non-female villain?

Anyway, there was nothing in this that would make me want to drop it - certainly not all the nonsense about JES. That's what people mean when they condemn "cancel culture". Get real. There are people who want to strip gays of basic human rights - let's not attack someone who's been happy to preform in several BLs - including one of the best. I was just watching WYEL, and he seriously committed to that.

They are the same characters, written, directed, and produced by identically the same people. Does that make a difference? It happened, and part of that scene was flashed back to in Ep 0. The Fiat in Don't Say Know has abduction and torture by Leo in his past.

You don't seem angry at all, just direct and to the point. I agree with much of what you wrote, but I think there may be some different definitions of "fetishization." You are defining it as as a specific thing needed for sexual gratification, which is not wrong, but I mean, and I thought other people meant, "a subject of unreasonable, irrational, and/or excessive devotion". Maybe people mean what you mean, or just as likely, people heard that said somewhere and don't really know what they mean but it sounded good.

I have no argument about the origins of Beauty and the Beast - the original is even worse than you're describing - and goes all the way back to Cupid & Psyche - but does that mean that a more positive twist on it is disqualified? There was a genre called the "rescue opera" which has found its way into cinema, wherein the damsel is abducted and the hero has to go rescue her. Beethoven wrote Fidelio, in which a man is abducted and his wife has to go rescue him. It's fairly incredible and gender bending for something written in 1805 - but is it disqualified because it's based on a misogynist trope even though it totally upsets and subverts that trope? On the other hand, I'm not sure Beethoven is really comparable to a Disney film.

I have to agree with your first paragraph - but I would add it has to be a two-way street. I don't think anyone can claim gay men haven't been just as oppressed as women. It's improving faster for gay men than it is for women, largely because of women, but historically it's been pretty grim and is still pretty bad.

If people are going as far as you're saying, I agree with you. My only point is that there are people who have to trot in whenever the boys in BL are stripped of sexuality and pronounce "SEE?!? We don't need steamy sex scenes to have a good romance!!!" They want to desex men and leave only cute boys being cute to each other. Gay men have had to hide who they are - the biggest difference between homophobia and misogyny - so desexing men in love is slamming the closet door in their faces and is inherently homophobic. That's what I mean by fetishization. But you're probably right that that's not what other people mean.

As for yaoi, lack of consent is an endemic quality of the genre, and it's rooted in the idea that it's unacceptable for a man to seek and enjoy bottoming, and so has to be forced or coerced. It's an exact analogue to straight dramas where the same phenomenon is in play for women, who can't be seen seeking sexual pleasure unless they're bad (i.e. sexually "loose") women, who have to die or at least suffer some sort of punishment. Like in horror movies - a woman is safe from death as long as she stays chaste. So in BL and much straight drama, sexual assault and even rape is morally prefable to a man or woman seeking penetration for pleasure.

That's why to me BL is not only homophobic, it's misogynist, since the uke is just a boy dropped in the woman's slot with no modification. He/she is useless and weak and needs a real man to take care of him/her.

You're right about Love Simon. The age group it's aimed at doesn't really allow for a ton of sex, but the treatment of Ethan is bad - I forgot about that or blocked it out. But that's still not as bad as BL where in almost every series there are pathetic trans or effeminate gay characters screeching and pawing at every half-attractive man that enters their line of sight.

A drag queen is a man dressed as a woman. That's already a violation of gender norms - there is nothing heteronormative about them. They are never submissive to men, they do not seek marriage, and they are not appropriating anyone's body. A drag queen is celebrating the Diva archetype without relying on sexuality - she can't because she's neither a real woman or sexually alluring - she's demanding only respect. That's why they're important. "I'm not nbehaving the way you say I have to behave and you're going to show me respect anyway." Is a drag king objectionable? There's a difference because of the societal power imbalance, but is a woman appropriating a man's body when she's performing thusly?

But in the end, your main point is inarguable that the only path foward is educating the audience. I suppose it's progress that BL is popular at all - hopefully over time it will improve its representation of both women and gay men. Societal acceptance is progressing rapidly in Asia, and I don't think it's out of the question to credit BL audiences with some of that progress. And really, the funding of these series are controlled by men, who are going to make conservative decisions based on what has worked in the past, just as Hollywood does. Hence the presence of f@$#ing engineers in every f@$#ing BL.

Thanks - much appreciated!

Thank you! It's kind of you to say so.

I go back and forth on this - is it the production or the actor? But Earth and Mix in 1,000 Stars didn't have much in the way of love scenes but when they did touch, it felt like they were into each other. Or in 7 Project, when Santa hugs Earth, he presses their bodies together and I think that makes it feel real - I actually gasped when he did that. I felt it.

I think it's probably both actor discomfort and directing. A good director can get a lot out of an actor, and an actor has to commit to a role. Smart and James are less experienced than Ja or First, but blew them away in terms of physical chemistry, even though James' character was standoffish.

Thank you! I feel like I need to try to entertain in exchange for you putting up with my rambling.

OK, this is well reasoned and I take some of these points, but you're making a lot of assumptions about people's motivations, to the point it comes off as a little anti-gay-male. You're right - men using female terms CAN perpetuate misogynist tropes, but that doesn't mean that they all ARE. (Sorry for the caps - there's no "italics" button). Among gay men, they are not aimed at the "small" "weak" men, it's equal opportunity. Don't confuse BL, which is written by people who clearly have no real LGBTQ+ exposure, with actual LGBTQ+ people.

I'm confused by your characterization of drag queens, which is to me 180 degrees from the reality. Drag queens are performers, portrating an OTT feminine persona that is as far away from weak as you can possibly get. A drag queen is a force that you Do Not Mess With. Drag queens are and have always been at the forefront of the fight for LGBTQ+ rights and especially early on were the driving force.

You can find extreme examples of anything you want to on the internet. The fact is that almost no gay men would ever use the term shitoris, and anyone that did would be regarded as ridiculous and offensive. That's not to say there aren't gay male idiots.

I said Mpreg CAN be OK, not that it usually is. I have seen several very good uses in films that critique aspects of society. When it's just there for weird titilation, yes, it's bad.

I've never heard of g0y and I'm a gay man in his fifites. Isn't it disriminatory to characterize an entire group of people based on some small extremist movement? It's like saying "all white people are Nazis". They don't even identify as LGBTQ+.

I meant that BL is the most misogynist LGBTQ+-themed media. Obviously there is far more misogynist media, but Asian BL is particularly bad with it's fem-shaming, relentless use of petty evil female characters, and the uke phenomenon which is a grotesque throwback to Victorian stereotypes of women as uselss fragile things that need a man to take care of them. You will never find such a thing normalized in Western LGBTQ+ media.

"Lack of stomachable representation" is a bit of a dodge. What specifically are you thinking about? What is unstomachable for example, about Love, Simon?

Your straight media DIsney examples, while totally valid, are about movies made 60+ years ago. Cinderella aired in 1950, 72 years ago. Everything was misoynist then - can we stick to modernity? In Enchanted, the latest Disney Cindarella story (2007), the prince is a useless narcissistic idiot and Cindarella rescues the male lead from the dragon not with her inner purity but with a sword. The villainess is still an evil stepmother, but is a parody of the trope.

Even Beauty and the Beast - that's a remarkable spin on a story about a woman who refuses to marry because she's more interested in knowledge and adventure, and the plot revolves around a reversal of the damsel in distress trope as it is she who has to go rescue a man - and later she saves the Beast - and they do not marry, they dance as equals. And incidentally it's a powerful woman who justly punishes the prince for his cruelty and selfishness. I haven't seen the Little Mermaid, so I can't comment, but I'll take your word for it as it's hard to imagine anything with a mermaid having any positive representation.

There's enough misogyny in the world to fight without finding it where it's not and attacking allies. If a gay man says something you find stupid and offensive, tell him, and 99 out of 100 times he'll see your point, apologize, and stop doing it. But on that topic, you are criticizing almost everything as misogynist while saying it's OK to fetishize gay men. Why is that different? Would it be OK if black people started enslaving white people? It might feel satisfying in some cases but it would still be wrong.

I'm not angry if my tone sounds like it - I found your post thought-provoking and I had to reflect to understand where I agree and disagree with you.

Well, there's still the "Special Episode". I'm sure everything will work out. Everything worked out for Lhong in TT, right? :)

Me too - but this was trying to be outrageous and conventional at the same time and failed at both.