Guestblog: A yaoi lesson with Kris

Today I have a funky, funny and smutty guest blogger for you all to meet who is going to give you a YAOI lesson. A what? A YAOI lesson. I didn't know of its existence either until I read on of Kris' blogposts. You can find her place at Kris 'n' Good Books & follow her on Twitter, where she talk about all random things and books. I'm a lurker at her place but often have a ball reading her thoughts or opinions :) So when I wanted more peeps to know about YAOI I knocked on the "pearly gates" of Kris' and she answered with the following:

A yaoi lesson with Kris

Hello class. My name is Miss Kris and I’ll be your substitute smutty teacher. Today, it is my privilege and honour to introduce you all to the ‘yaoi’ genre in 8 simple lessons. And, no, there won’t be a test because that sounds too much like hard work for me all involved.

Very basically, yaoi refers to Japanese manga and anime that focuses on ‘boy’s love’ and is written and drawn by women for women.

That’s right. It’s primarily for we pervy girls:

Because of this, it is sometimes accused of being overly romanticised and unrealistic. What. Ever. But if that’s not your thing – this would be Lesson 1 – go try ‘Bara’, which is the form created by and for gay men.

Lesson 2 – Unless it hasn’t quite smacked you across the back of the head yet, yaoi is all about boys falling in love, lust, etc with other boys. If your girly bits haven’t woken up to the fact this is a HOT HOT HOT genre then you might want to give it a miss.

Lesson 3 – For those of you who don’t know, manga and anime are the Japanese versions of comics and cartoons respectively. Although translated, the manga are printed in the Japanese form, which is read back to front, from right to left. It might take you a little while to get used to it, but once you have, especially if you like comics and graphic novels, the sky’s the limit!

Lesson 4 – So, you realise the whole manga thing means that you get drawn pictures, right. Of everything. *waggles eyebrows* Yep, everything. Some yaoi are more explicit than others but what’s the point of that. Still, if you are insane think it will squick you out, I’d suggest trying one of the more PG series such as Junjo Romantica.

Lesson 5 – Yaoi can be quite trope-y. This is normally something I can take or leave in general fiction, but, surprisingly, doesn’t bother me as much in yaoi. This, of course, has nothing to do with me being distracted by pictures of pretty boys fucking each other:

*ahem*

Anyhoo, commonly the yaoi relationship involves the seme (the attacker/ the seducer/ the top) and the uke (the receiver/ the innocent/ the bottom). To use language most of us who read PNR are familiar with; the seme tends to be the alpha and the uke the omega. This power dynamic is also reflected in the way the characters are drawn – the seme generally looking the more masculine of the two.

Lesson 6 – You may have noticed I’ve talked about ‘boys’ a lot in this post? This is because there is quite a lot of yaoi featuring pubescent guys. This can be off putting for some – a friend told me it was too much like fantasising about her son’s friends *eek!* - however, like everything, there are exceptions to this. One of these being the terrific Haru wo Daite Ita (Embracing Love) about two actors in their 20s and 30s who fall in love with each other.

Lesson 7 – ‘No, no, no, no, no, no...’ Whether it be ‘no, stop, I’m not into boys’ (ie but kissing/being sucked off is okay), ‘no, stop, it hurts’ (ie anal sex), ‘no, stop, it’s making me feel funny (ie he’s going to cum), get used to it. Let me make clear, though, that most of this type of thing falls under the banners of dub con/strong seduction or the uke protesting too much. I’ve only ever come across a couple which have made me very uncomfortable because I felt it was rape. Most just make me roll my eyes.

Lesson 8 – It’s back to Lesson 1. I won’t fib to you – yaoi can definitely be an education in suspending disbelief. These are women drawing and writing it after all and among other things some of these ladies can have fucking weird, err, interesting ideas about what gay sex is like, including self-lubing arses and copious amounts of cum. O_o Yeah.

So, even though I’m sure some smart arse will tell me I’ve left something out, that’s Miss Kris’ lesson in yaoi in a very basic, broad nutshell.

I suppose I’m meant to give you a few of my faves as well? Okay, my top 3: The Crimson Spell which is a high fantasy series by Ayano Yamane; Totally Captivated actually manwha (Korean manga) and yakuza themed; and, for western-based yaoi fiction, Jet Mykles’ awesome Heaven Sent series.

Oh, and btw:

Here endeth the lesson.
 




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