Honglou Meng

Don't worry about your English. You express yourself perfectly well!

But yes, astonishing, isn't it?

Thank you! I am glad it entertained you -- the best compliment you could have given it. :)

I don't know. But a similar set of symptoms plagued Luca Guadagnino when he directed I Am Love & Call Me By Your Name. As soon as gay sex came into the picture, the camera became shy. I hear he's gotten over that issue in Queer with Daniel Craig. Maybe he's no longer Catholic?

I see your point! Also, I didn't know that the guy who directed Your Name Engraved Herein also directed this one. If I had, I never would have bothered to watch the show. Explains a lot!

It was before I joined MDL. I can't quite remember where or when anymore, but it evidently went nowhere.

I'm glad people here care enough about a show to petition producers, directors & the audience for another season. I wish the same zeal and fervour went into petitioning MDL. This platform is nothing if not institutionally homophobic.

Unless I've been living in a parallel universe and snorting cocaine, no, there are no dogs in the show! Which is why I put out a plea in my review for someone to explain what on earth the title means. Is it an idiom? Is it some sort of message? Now, I sort of get it.

Strange choices: they kept the title, but not the dog. A dog would have made this show a *lot* more exciting... But then, so would a fly.

Oh my god, you just answered the question I posed in my review. Why on earth it's called Sugar Dog Life. Because there are no dogs in the show. Except, I think once, hot dogs.

I'm here mostly for him too, but, strangely, also for the utter lack of chemistry between the leads. (I found myself wanting for him to get with his protective friend -- but that's a thread that went nowhere.) I have yet to see a gastronomic JBL in which the leads have good chemistry. Though Mitsuya Sensei is perhaps the worst. Ever. I think Elon Musk and Grimes had better chemistry than them.

Did you also notice that throughout the show, Isumi is coded more and more like a wife? (Also, look at the posters!)

I've been thinking about it less as "fluff" than as "candy floss" (or "cotton candy", for Americans). It's mostly air and full of sugar -- but that's why it tastes good and we keep coming back for more.

For me, it also afforded the opportunity to amuse myself by writing a review I've long been wanting to write: A recipe for food-based JBLs.

For tomorrow's episode, I've decided to get a bottle of sake, and have a shot everytime Amasawa says "I-su-mi-kun." If you don't hear from me for the next fortnight, you know why.

Sind Sie Deutsche? Wie wunderbar. Es ist schon eine Weile her, seit ich Deutsch gesprochen oder geschrieben habe. Ich vermisse die Sprache.

P. S. Wie konnte ich das Wortspiel mit 'fröhlich' übersehen?

I forgot about that! Thanks for adding this to the evidence.

I do wish every BL fan here would start writing to the admins/mods/whoever else is in charge of this website, on a daily basis if necessary, until they stop being discriminatory. I can dream, I suppose.

I don't disagree with your first paragraph, and one of the many things that the screen and the forum conceal from us is the age difference between the people we communicate with. We might be a lot more forgiving, and in some instances, a lot less forgiving, if we knew the age, the culture, or the language of the people at the other end of the link. (A particular failing of mine.) However, I have come to feel that, of late, the onus of educating young people falls disproportionately on the marginalised communities, and we spend so much of our lives reaching out to, and being open to the majority that the effort becomes exhausting, and saps into our lives. I can only hope that the straight community here -- especially the older ones -- will be more willing to act as shepherds to the young people here, and encourage them to listen more to LGBT voices.

What I find hardest to bear is a chorus of people -- mostly young, mostly straight, not all -- talks over and talks down to people like me. This is what happens when I try to talk about the issue of gay intimacy on screen here. (You will find, I hope, a nuanced discussion of this topic below between me, John Masters, and etoks21.) I will say, I have sort of given up broaching this matter, because of the vitriol directed towards people like us. You rightly raise the point about harsh headwinds faced by the young. But it is easy to forget that the harshness can be self-generated and self-perpetuating. I don't expect young people here to respect me, or take my word as the law. Nothing gives me more pleasure than intellectual disagreement. But I also don't want to be called horrible names for expressing a nuanced thought. It is not a good idea to stab the pilot who steers you through harsh winds.

Lastly, you might be surprised to hear this from me: but I do agree that MDL is a better platform than, say, Reddit, to talk about these things. Reddit moderators are quick to censor thoughts that make them uncomfortable, and god only knows what Instagram or TikTok are like. Now I *am* showing my age...

Anyway, I'm glad we could talk.

I would have never guessed English is not your first language, because you are unfailingly eloquent. So you need have no anxiety on that count! Also, I don't know what your first language is, but Froehlein sounds awfully like the German Fräulein (or its Dutch/Plattdeutsch equivalents), which means "little girl" or "little lady". Hence my comment about your age!

And I completely agree with you about the lack of context, body language, and tone of voice, in an online forum, which makes things much harder to communicate. I'm British, and our humour is often biting, sardonic, or ironic. I think that's lost to a lot of people, and I need to consciously remind myself that English is not the first language to a lot of people here.

Finally, I appreciate your last paragraph, and the sentiments it reflects, more than I can say. Thank you.

Also, to see how mind-boggling this policy is, just go to the home page, and see what the top trending shows in each country are: in Taiwan, it's this show; in Japan, it's Sugar Dog Life and Doku Koi, in Thailand, all top 5 shows, even in Korea, one of the top 5 is a BL.

Despite the fact that, apart from KDrama, BLs tend to be the most popular on the website, there are no articles devoted to them. It's hard to imagine how this is anything but intentional and homophobic.

Hi Hanna. I am a relatively new member here myself, however, I have long used MDL without an account. I have seen it raised multiple times here and on Reddit that there is a blanket policy on MDL of not promoting any LGBT content on the front page, or in any prominent places on the website. MDL refuses to add GagaOOLala to its list of streaming platforms despite multiple requests, and there are no technical reasons why this shouldn't be possible. People have written and tried to post articles about high-impact BL shows -- such as this one -- only to have their articles rejected and rejected again by the moderators. To this day, long-term users of MDL tell me, there has yet to be a BL article promoted on the front page.

Many of us have contacted the administrators and site owners for comments, but have received no response. However, a few moderators -- whose names must be anonymous -- have confirmed to me and others that this is indeed the official policy. Some cite sponsorship issues. Some cite institutional homophobia. The reasons are not clear. But the directives are clear: no promotion of LGBT content, even where BL shows are trending, and no prominent placement of any LGBT shows anywhere on the website.

I wish every BL fan would write to the admins and the site owners to pressure them into either answering our queries, or into allowing promotion of LGBT content. So far, however, there hasn't been a lot of community interest in the matter. Hence my melancholic comment above.

Thanks, Cat! I'm glad to hear you say this, and yes, we should support any actor or actress who stars in an LGBT role for which they receive a backlash. Particularly in virulently homophobic countries like South Korea.

As to your more specific point, my comment was less an accusation than an appeal. An important distinction. That appeal, I will not conceal however, is tinged with sadness and regret. I don’t know whether your name, Froehlein, reflects your age or not — you say you have been supporting LGBT rights for 20 years, which heartens me -- but, what I have to offer here are simple demographic observations, based on my long experiences in this forum and elsewhere. (I emphasise that my comments only apply to the BL fandom, such as it appears here and elsewhere online. It does not apply to the world as a whole.)

I have noticed that, everytime there is a show whose ending is tragic, open, or just plain unsatisfactory, there is always a frenzy of activity to get that show renewed. Petitions are created, comments sections bombed, and voices clamour. Great! In rare instances, such a campaign is effective. For the most part, alas, not.

When broader appeals are made, however, for LGBT rights -- within the realms of fandoms -- it usually falls not so much on deaf ears as indifferent ones. (Again, a demographic observation. Not true of all individuals.) The comments I received when I last made such an appeal were telling. Not that there wasn’t a lot of sympathy and zeal for action, but there was also a significant backlash, with a heavy dose of cynicism and sarcasm. You might say — isn’t this human behaviour? — true, but it has also been my observation that the voices which proclaim their credentials the loudest tend to be the most silent, or most ignorant. MDL has not proved an exception. The context is made more bitter for some of us by the fact that there are, within the comments here and elsewhere, sometimes subtle and sometimes not so subtle forms of homophobia. It may shock some people to hear this: but BL fans can be homophobic. Sometimes fanatically so. Now imagine how this feels to a gay person, who knows that BL is created by and for the enjoyment of a predominantly straight audience.

There you have it. The context in which I wrote my comment. You suggest I devalue people's commitment. Far from it. I am, however, questioning the relative value of the objects of that commitment. I think, as a gay man, I can arrogate myself that right, given that gay (and bi) men's lives form the substance of all BL. I don't think it wrong to ask better support from the straight community. To do so, I hope, is not tantamount to destruction. If you think it is, ask yourself what the implications of that claim are for gay people's voices who raise any dissent or suspicions whatsoever.

Perhaps it *is* wrong of me, and unproductive, to say these things aloud, and I wish I weren’t as impulsive as I am. But I also did not enter the world of BL expecting to be made this sad by its fandom. Fortunately, there are good shows, and good people, to get me through it.

Thank you for your comment, Froehlein! I've come across some of your comments before, and find you to be generally kind and thoughtful. So, let me clarify a couple of things, in two different comments:

Firstly, far be it from me to undermine, in any way, the petition calling for a second season of TOO. I myself want it to happen, for all of us! I really enjoyed the first 8 episodes of the show, and nothing would make me happier than if they wiped my memory of the last four by creating a second series. To all those clamouring for it: lead on! I'm with you!

Secondly, I’m really glad to hear that you fought Viki on their not promoting LGBT content, and for your unflailing support of gay rights. I'm gladder still that it had some effect. I’m proud of you, and of everyone who calls out homophobia openly, and who makes efforts on behalf of LGBT rights. My missive wasn’t directed against any of you, or any one individual in particular. In fact, my missive wasn’t “against” anything.

You are all astonishing. You are disappointed with the ending of a show, and feel that it needs a second season, whether because you simply want more of it, or because you want a more satisfactory resolution to it. So you create petitions, and have already gathered thousands of signatures. Good for you! I really hope you get it!

I just want to point out that, when there was a petition going around a couple of months ago, about MDL’s blanket ban on promoting LGBT content on its front page or elsewhere, and its refusal to incorporate gay streaming websites into its platform, it barely gathered a few hundred signatures. What we did get was a hefty dose of cynicism and snark — even from some names below — which made many of us wonder whether people who watched BL were in fact as supportive of gay rights as they claimed to be.

So, if you do care as much about gay rights as you do about gay content, which you can’t feed enough on, please put your money where your mouth is, and create petitions to fight MDL’s homophobic policies. Write to the administrators — everyday if it need be — in your thousands, and have them hear your voice. Effect change. Then you’ll win the respect of at least this particular gay man.

Our comments just crossed. But I have sort of made the same comment, seen from another angle, above.