Over the past few months, I’ve noticed a correlation between something I occasionally indulge in and a mindset that I cannot condone. That is, I’ve noticed a disturbing number of people who seem to believe they can base their sex-lives and relationships on the– frankly unhealthy– model presented in yaoi manga and fanfiction.

According to Wikipedia, yaoi can be defined as media featuring idealized homosexual male relationships, usually created by women for women. Yaoi commonly features the the heteronormative roles of a top, the “seme”, and a bottom, the “uke”. The seme is typically depicted as masculine, and the uke as feminine. It seems to be a common theme in yaoi for the uke to be hesitant or outright unwilling, and the seme to pursue and coerce them into a sexual relationship. Typically, that sexual relationship is founded on a set of extremely unhealthy sexual ideals. The problem arises because people read this fiction, meant only for entertainment, and use it as an instruction manual for sex and relationship structures, without acknowledging that it is fiction and it isn’t acceptable to behave that way in real life.

“No only means no the first three times.” is a common meme among yaoi fans, and it’s pretty obvious why, if you’ve spent any amount of time reading yaoi. Far too often in yaoi, rape seems to be used as a catalyst for love. As we all know, some of us all too well, rape and love are not the same thing, and this way of thinking isn’t healthy in the least. And yet, in yaoi it is all too common to see the seme rape the uke to “show them their passion”, because they “love them so much they cannot resist them”. It’s just as common to see the victim of such an assault in yaoi fall in love with their rapist. It is never called rape in yaoi, however. The general idea seems to be that it was just sex the uke “didn’t know he wanted”.

This perpetuates two equally damaging ideas that we as a society need to work towards phasing out: men are animals who can’t control their urges, and men can’t be raped because they always want sex. I don’t think I should need to explain why these two concepts are terrible and lead to nothing good. Men can control their urges, that’s why we don’t see men humping anything with a pulse, people. In fact, I can seem to recall curling up naked with my lover, a man I know finds me desirable, and my orifices remained penis-free at my behest because he had the self-control not to shove it in me, even though it would have been remarkably easy to do so. So, too, can men be raped. Men do not always want sex. Some men are even asexual or demisexual.

Yet another damaging stereotype yaoi perpetuates is the seme and uke dynamic itself. Not every gay relationship has a “man” and a “woman”. Some gay relationships have a top and a bottom, but to think it is necessary for there to be a “woman” in every relationship, even one that involves two penis-having individuals, is unfair to the gay community. The stereotypical male and female roles aren’t even needed in heterosexual relationships, why should we force them on relationships that weren’t heteronormative to begin with? The seme and uke dynamic in yaoi has a decidedly dominance-oriented slant. The seme in the relationship is dominant over the uke and can do whatever he wants to him. In a fully consensual D/s relationship, that’s perfectly acceptable, but not everyone in a homosexual relationship is also in a D/s relationship. Yaoi presents it in such a way that it would imply that D/s or pre-feminist feminine roles are required in every gay relationship.

Which brings me to the things that are noticeably missing from yaoi: lube and preparation. Yaoi seems to perpetuate the idea that lube is unnecessary for anal sex. In yaoi, preparation is almost never depicted, and quite often, when it is, it often shows the characters using saliva as lube, a practice that is hit or miss at best. Occasionally, yaoi depicts the anus as though it’s self lubricating. Worse, yaoi depicts anal sex with a complete lack of preparation beforehand. It almost always depicts anal hard and fast, as though it can be treated exactly like vaginal sex without causing injury, and it rarely depicts the uke as being injured, even after the violent assaults I described before.

None of the things I have described are a problem in the context of fiction, as long as it is treated as fiction. There’s a distinct difference between fantasizing about something you know isn’t real and isn’t hurting anyone, and attempting to perpetuate that fantasy in the real world with real people. The problem isn’t the yaoi itself, it’s what people do with it.

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