# Tell me more about yaoi and fangirls **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 15, 2009, 6:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-more-about-yaoi-and-fangirls/493154 "2009-04-15T06:49:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![kushiel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bbce88/32.png) [@kushiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kushiel)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2009, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-more-about-yaoi-and-fangirls/493154/21 "2009-04-15T16:46:50Z")
> [@PharmBoy](#): > > Really, you’re not sure? Because, as the parent of a 13-year old I’m pretty sure: the father is a jack-ass and should lose custody for a few weeks until he grows some brain cells. In the meantime, he may want to get used to the idea that he’s going to be a grandfather soon, because this girl is well on her way to Knockedupsville… > > I guess I am not a hip and modern father. Some of you are saying to yourselves, “weell, I guess ol’ PharmBoy’s not very tolerant of alternative view-points”. > > Perhaps. I’ll tell you something, though: I can recognize innappropriate behavior by young people - and writing porn is IT. Yaoi for a lot of girls that young isn’t even about the porn at all. Seriously, they don’t comprehend it as anything more than kissing. I don’t know how to explain it, but if you showed actual gay porn to those girls they would run screaming. It’s Harlequin novels featuring two guys instead of a guy and a girl. Most people wouldn’t care if their 14 year old was reading Harlequin novels, and this is the same thing. I’ve gotten flamed for saying this before, but there are two types of yaoi fans: the ones that see it as the newest trend and grow out of it when their friends do/their social circle moves on (like ‘lesbian until graduation’) and the ones that actually actually grow up and see the societal issues behind homosexuality and mature into the realization that a lot of yaoi basically has a macho man (the seme) and a feminine man which is almost a female substitute (the uke). Many of the latter category move onto slash, which is more realistic. ---
**Author:** ![Yllaria](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yllaria/32/3452_2.png) [@Yllaria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yllaria)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2009, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-more-about-yaoi-and-fangirls/493154/22 "2009-04-15T17:22:39Z")
> [@anu-la1979](#): > > . . . But I will admit that my friend finds my tastes plebeain and lack of insight into this type of stuff very frustrating. Currently she’s teaching a class on zombies and she was bitching to me about a student who couldn’t adequately respond to the question “and what does the shovel represent” and I said “the best possible tool for bashing in a zombies head, how is that at all hard” and she got very huffy and told me it was actually a phallic symbol. Sorry. She’s got it wrong. I have to call a spade a spade on this one. I’m curious as to what she would call a [brick flail?](http://www.thezombiehunters.com/index.php?strip_id=62) (Warning to the squeemish - there is cartoon blood-splatter. In color.) ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2009, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-more-about-yaoi-and-fangirls/493154/23 "2009-04-15T17:35:50Z")
> [@Ichini\_Sanshigo](#): > > Shovels are phallic now? _Turns head sideways_ How does _that_ work? It’s a college lit course. Everything is a phallic symbol. _Vaginas_ are a phallic symbol. ---
**Author:** ![Justin\_Bailey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/justin_bailey/32/8792_2.png) [@Justin\_Bailey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justin_Bailey)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2009, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-more-about-yaoi-and-fangirls/493154/24 "2009-04-15T17:37:06Z")
> [@anu-la1979](#): > > Currently she’s teaching a class on zombies and she was bitching to me about a student who couldn’t adequately respond to the question “and what does the shovel represent” and I said “the best possible tool for bashing in a zombies head, how is that at all hard” and she got very huffy and told me it was actually a phallic symbol. Some people are too stupid for words. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2009, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-more-about-yaoi-and-fangirls/493154/25 "2009-04-15T17:39:02Z")
> [@PharmBoy](#): > > Really, you’re not sure? Because, as the parent of a 13-year old I’m pretty sure: the father is a jack-ass and should lose custody for a few weeks until he grows some brain cells. In the meantime, he may want to get used to the idea that he’s going to be a grandfather soon, because this girl is well on her way to Knockedupsville… > > I guess I am not a hip and modern father. Some of you are saying to yourselves, “weell, I guess ol’ PharmBoy’s not very tolerant of alternative view-points”. > > Perhaps. I’ll tell you something, though: I can recognize innappropriate behavior by young people - and writing porn is IT. All other things being equal, if we had a parent like the one described in the OP, and a parent like the one you describe, I’d put money on your parenting style being the most likely to lead to a teenage pregnancy. ---
**Author:** ![anu-la1979](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/47e85d/32.png) [@anu-la1979](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/anu-la1979)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2009, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-more-about-yaoi-and-fangirls/493154/26 "2009-04-15T17:57:26Z")
> [@Justin\_Bailey](#): > > Some people are too stupid for words. Yeah, maybe I’m retarded but it’s a frocking zombie movie not War and Peace. ---
**Author:** ![Gary\_Robson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gary_robson/32/3448_2.png) [@Gary\_Robson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_Robson)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2009, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-more-about-yaoi-and-fangirls/493154/27 "2009-04-15T18:08:33Z")
How is yaoi different from slash fan-fiction? ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Fight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/90ced4/32.png) [@Cat\_Fight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Fight)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2009, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-more-about-yaoi-and-fangirls/493154/28 "2009-04-15T18:11:14Z")
> [@Giles](#): > > I’m with Anaamika on this one (as the parent of four children, now all grown up). I don’t think writing about this stuff means that the 14-year-old girl is going to go out and have sex with anyone. All us girls _did_ in school was pass around porn, either underlined stuff in books or written by one of us (the boys were nice but not quite up to par yet). I wrote some quasi-stuff myself and, for the most part, wasn’t putting any of it into practice. ---
**Author:** ![Ichini\_Sanshigo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/d9b06d/32.png) [@Ichini\_Sanshigo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ichini_Sanshigo)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2009, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-more-about-yaoi-and-fangirls/493154/29 "2009-04-15T18:15:03Z")
My understanding is that yaoi is based on pretty-boy anime characters. While slash fan fiction is based on melae characters from more mainstream media (_The Sentinel_ slashfic, _Due South_ slashfic, _X-Files_, _Stargate_, or _Star Trek_ slashfic, etc.) The writers, and probably the audience tend to be older. I think there’s a higher quality ration when it comes to realistic relationships. And there’s probably a higher volume of NC-17 rated stuff in slash than in yaoi. Well, _good_ NC-17 stuff. ---
**Author:** ![Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eyebrows_0f_doom/32/3119_2.png) [@Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eyebrows_0f_Doom)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2009, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-more-about-yaoi-and-fangirls/493154/30 "2009-04-15T18:22:57Z")
> [@PharmBoy](#): > > Really, you’re not sure? Because, as the parent of a 13-year old I’m pretty sure: the father is a jack-ass and should lose custody for a few weeks until he grows some brain cells. In the meantime, he may want to get used to the idea that he’s going to be a grandfather soon, because this girl is well on her way to Knockedupsville… > > I guess I am not a hip and modern father. Some of you are saying to yourselves, “weell, I guess ol’ PharmBoy’s not very tolerant of alternative view-points”. > > Perhaps. I’ll tell you something, though: I can recognize innappropriate behavior by young people - and writing porn is IT. So when you were young you never looked at a single piece of porn? Never had a sexual thought at all? Oh wait, I bet that doesn’t count because you’re a guy. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2009, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-more-about-yaoi-and-fangirls/493154/31 "2009-04-15T18:45:26Z")
I still think that if parents relaxed more about the fact that their teenage girls will think about sex, and will touch themselves, and will explore, and be curious about boys, and furthermore, all of this up until this point is treated as perfectly normal, girls will grow up to have healthier sexual attitudes. Pharmboy isn’t really thinking through his entire thought process. Because I’ll tell you, here is what happens. Girl writes porn. Father tells someone. Father gets in mega uber trouble and people make a huge deal about it and maybe gets his custody revoked and whatever. You may think this is all good and fine. But here is what happens next. 14 year old girl thinks “OMG - what I did caused Dad to get in so much trouble. I must be bad.” Maybe she doesn’t vocalize it but IME 14 is an extremely sensitive and tough age. So she has learned that not only is sex bad and dirty but even writing some smut gets her dad in big trouble. And her, too, no doubt. She learns that this is not the “correct” way of expressing her sexuality. Well…then she wonders, what is? Where do I go from here? The same family that repressed her here is going to tell her that expressing it at all is DIRTY and bad until she’s 18, at which point it automatically becomes OK somehow. Naw, that doesn’t work - I can tell you from experience. Instead, she comes out with majorly fucked-up ideas about sex and takes years to get over them. I don’t have kids, I can only tell you what I remember, but yes, fourteen, and even younger, is a pretty natural age to be thinking aboutboys, and yes, even sex, even if it’s vaguely formed. And I also think that right about now is when I’d probably buy my daughter a vibrator and leave it quietly in her room. Better that than sleeping around with any boys yet. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2009, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-more-about-yaoi-and-fangirls/493154/32 "2009-04-15T18:52:57Z")
> [@Anaamika](#): > > Girl writes porn. Father tells someone. > Father gets in mega uber trouble and people make a huge deal about it and maybe gets his custody revoked and whatever. > You may think this is all good and fine. But here is what happens next. > 14 year old girl thinks “OMG - what I did caused Dad to get in so much trouble. I must be bad.” Maybe she doesn’t vocalize it but IME 14 is an extremely sensitive and tough age. > So she has learned that not only is sex bad and dirty but even writing some smut gets her dad in big trouble. And her, too, no doubt. She learns that this is not the “correct” way of expressing her sexuality. Well…then she wonders, what is? Where do I go from here? > The same family that repressed her here is going to tell her that expressing it at all is DIRTY and bad until she’s 18, at which point it automatically becomes OK somehow. Alternative: girl writes porn. Dad finds out and flips his lid, forbidding her from reading or writing about that kind of stuff. Of course, she’s still _thinking_ about it. But now she knows that she can’t talk to her parents about it. So instead, she gets all of her information about sex from her friends, some of whom are going to be boys who are primarily interested in getting into her pants. She gets a lot of bad information (“You can’t get pregnant your first time!”) and gets a lot of peer pressure with any sort of adult guidance on how to deal with it (because dad’s made it clear that these sorts of things are Not Okay to Talk About) and she ends up getting pregnant and/or with an STD before she’s sixteen. ---
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2009, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-more-about-yaoi-and-fangirls/493154/33 "2009-04-15T19:12:28Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > Alternative: girl writes porn. Dad finds out and flips his lid, forbidding her from reading or writing about that kind of stuff. Of course, she’s still _thinking_ about it. But now she knows that she can’t talk to her parents about it. So instead, she gets all of her information about sex from her friends, some of whom are going to be boys who are primarily interested in getting into her pants. She gets a lot of bad information (“You can’t get pregnant your first time!”) and gets a lot of peer pressure with any sort of adult guidance on how to deal with it (because dad’s made it clear that these sorts of things are Not Okay to Talk About) . Well, that was my life, up until… > [@](#): > > and she ends up getting pregnant and/or with an STD before she’s sixteen here. I was lucky. Oh, and replace “dad” with “mom”. But I was going with the parameters in the OP. I don’t think a lot of people really realize how much teen girls think about boys. Maybe they don’t think about sex as much, but we certainly do think about boys! ---
**Author:** ![JR\_Brown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d6d6ee/32.png) [@JR\_Brown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JR_Brown)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2009, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-more-about-yaoi-and-fangirls/493154/34 "2009-04-15T19:22:16Z")
> [@Ichini\_Sanshigo](#): > > My understanding is that yaoi is based on pretty-boy anime characters. While slash fan fiction is based on melae characters from more mainstream media (_The Sentinel_ slashfic, _Due South_ slashfic, _X-Files_, _Stargate_, or _Star Trek_ slashfic, etc.) The writers, and probably the audience tend to be older. I think there’s a higher quality ration when it comes to realistic relationships. And there’s probably a higher volume of NC-17 rated stuff in slash than in yaoi. Well, _good_ NC-17 stuff. In addition to differences in the source of fanfic characters, yaoi is a [professionally published book category-cum-genre](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yaoi) in Japan and (mostly in translation) in the US; there’s even an [Amazon.com category](http://www.amazon.com/Yaoi-Manga-Books/b?ie=UTF8&node=302952011) for it. Professionally published Japanese yaoi has been around since the mid-70’s (like slash fanfic) and has acquired its own set of tropes and cliches (like slash fanfic), so Anglophone m/m fanfic that uses those tropes is yaoi, while Anglophone m/m fanfic that doesn’t is slash. It should be pointed out that both the fanfic and the professionally published stuff runs the gamut from squeaky-clean hand-holding to flat-out porn (the Japanese market is considered to start around 12, so there’s a lot of innocent fluffy stuff aimed at the younger set), so I’m not disturbed by a 14-year-old’s involvement. Her dad may well have been joking or exaggerating when he said she wrote “gay porn”. Or maybe not. It wouldn’t be the first time a younger teen wrote smut, and I doubt it will hurt her in any way, unless she has to deal with people like **PharmBoy**. ---
**Author:** ![cher3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/da6949/32.png) [@cher3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cher3)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2009, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-more-about-yaoi-and-fangirls/493154/35 "2009-04-15T19:34:42Z")
What about the openness of all of it? I can assure you that kids are having sexual thoughts well before puberty and certainly by 14 years old. I’m quite sure I was writing all kinds of porn in my head by then. But discussing it with your parents, who in turn discuss it with their friends? That seems odd to me, but I can’t tell if it’s just hypocrisy or not. Somehow I feel that keeping your sexual feelings secret from your parents is part of a natural growing away from them. ---
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2009, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-more-about-yaoi-and-fangirls/493154/36 "2009-04-15T19:36:25Z")
> [@cher3](#): > > What about the openness of all of it? I can assure you that kids are having sexual thoughts well before puberty and certainly by 14 years old. I’m quite sure I was writing all kinds of porn in my head by then. But discussing it with your parents, who in turn discuss it with their friends? That seems odd to me, but I can’t tell if it’s just hypocrisy or not. Somehow I feel that keeping your sexual feelings secret from your parents is part of a natural growing away from them. I admit I was trying to figure out the motivations of the dad telling the friends. I would be mortified if my parents’ friends knew! ---
**Author:** ![shy\_guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a6a055/32.png) [@shy\_guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/shy_guy)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2009, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-more-about-yaoi-and-fangirls/493154/37 "2009-04-15T19:44:21Z")
I’m willing to bet that **Pharmboy** doesn’t really get what Yaoi is. Which is understandable. As **kushiel** explained, Yaoi is fucking _weird_, and calling it “porn” is bound to give anybody unfamiliar with it completely the wrong idea of what’s going on. As other posters have said, it has nothing to do with gay people or relationships or sexual acts. _At all_. A lot of what the girl in the OP is doing is probably more properly described as “bishonen” anyway, I bet. Obviously there’s icky stuff out there, but I’ve read plenty of professional, published Yaoi and any phsyical contact _at all_ between characters is a huge deal. Romance is typically displayed with longing embraces and maybe a kiss. Lots of silk sheets and flowers. **Kushiel** is absolutely correct that if this girl saw _actual_ gay porn she’d scream. It has about as much to do with gay porn as _Twilight_ does with straight. ---
**Author:** ![JR\_Brown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d6d6ee/32.png) [@JR\_Brown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JR_Brown)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2009, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-more-about-yaoi-and-fangirls/493154/38 "2009-04-15T20:29:52Z")
> [@shy\_guy](#): > > Obviously there’s icky stuff out there, but I’ve read plenty of professional, published Yaoi and any phsyical contact _at all_ between characters is a huge deal. Romance is typically displayed with longing embraces and maybe a kiss. Lots of silk sheets and flowers. You, my friend, have been reading the wrong yaoi. 😃 Or maybe you stopped reading it a few years back, before the American licensees stopped living in fear of being besieged by outraged conservatives with torches and pitchforks and started dishing up healthy doses of smut. It’s served with a heaping helping of blushes, longing glances, and tearful declarations of eternal devotion, but nowadays there’s actual sex happening in quite a lot of yaoi-in-translation (still usually not all that explicit, though). And the professionally published Original English Language yaoi stuff is overwhelmingly flat-out porn. ---
**Author:** ![Revenant\_Threshold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f1d935/32.png) [@Revenant\_Threshold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revenant_Threshold)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2009, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-more-about-yaoi-and-fangirls/493154/39 "2009-04-15T21:57:20Z")
> [@InvisibleWombat](#): > > How is yaoi different from slash fan-fiction? It’s also worth pointing out that slash can refer to same-sex pairings of either gender, while yaoi is specifically male-male (the female-female equivalent being yuri). Too, slash wouldn’t refer to a canonical pairing. As far as the actual girl goes - it may well be that not only the OP but she herself isn’t entirely aware of what the word means. It wouldn’t be the first time i’ve seen arguments about what “yaoi” actually entails so far as content, even with such extremes as being entirely porn-without-plot and entirely sex-absent. I’m not entirely sure i’d be entirely worried about what a 14 year old girl thinks is “erotic” as far as two guys go. ---
**Author:** ![Kamino\_Neko](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kamino_neko/32/34_2.png) [@Kamino\_Neko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kamino_Neko)\ **Post date:** [April 15, 2009, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-more-about-yaoi-and-fangirls/493154/40 "2009-04-15T23:42:43Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > It’s a college lit course. Everything is a phallic symbol. _Vaginas_ are a phallic symbol. If I bothered with a .sig on this board, this would be it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-more-about-yaoi-and-fangirls/493154.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-me-more-about-yaoi-and-fangirls/493154.md?page=3)