quick question for those of you familiar

[kaigou]

...with yaoi-girls and/or (female) m/m fans. Of those you've known/met in the subculture who prefer the m/m and avoid the m/f, have any of them ever explained the reasoning behind their preference? Beyond just the younger version of "well, m/f is icky" or the lazier version of "I just don't like m/f". Anything more in-depth, more honest, more insightful?

Because the only explanations I've ever gotten amount to variations on those two, and that's not much substance when it comes to deconstructing what, exactly, is going on for readers with the preference.

Comments

[dogemperor]

The only thing I ever got resembling an explanation was, essentially, "Het is icky". That, or they didn't like the particular *female* who was being paired as much as the male (usually under grounds that the female was essentially too much of a pushover, or the female was "too annoying").

As an aside, this is something I've never quite understood. Especially in the GWing fandom, everyone gets paired with just about everyone else (yes, I've even seen 6xOtto and the rare 6xWalker; I tend to like the more unusual pairings) and I've never quite gotten the hatedom around the female characters in general. (I actually LIKED Noin, Relena did mature in time, and Sally was good folk. The only ones who gave me creeps were Une and Dorothy, and that was less because of their femininity and more over the fact they were bugfuck nuts in their own way.)

Then again, out of the three fandoms I really follow that are heavy on pairings, the primary m/m pairing tends to be selfcest (Mo No No Ke with Kusuriuri x Hyper, Breath of Fire IV with Ryu x Fou-lu), at least the BOF IV fandom doesn't get into holy wars over it (there, it really IS a matter of "het is icky" versus "yaoi is icky" versus "I don't like Mami because *I'D* rather be sleeping with Fou-lu, damnit"), and the three women that tend to be in the main het pairings have tended to be strong women (Noin, Mami, and Kayo respectively--and yes, Kayo does count, especially if you consider the strictures women in Edo-era Japan lived under who weren't nobles).

And for the record, I also tend to like both the het *and* yaoi pairings. I'm more of a fan of whom the person fits with, gender be damned :D (Probably why I tend to like selfcestuous ones too.)

[dogemperor]

And to continue the thought:

Honestly, I think Gundam Wing is the one fandom I've actually seen any sort of true "holy warring" about this in (and other Gundam fandoms to an extent as well).

With the BOF IV fandom, people who don't like FouMami usually don't have a thing against het pairings, but for some reason just don't like the pairing with Mami. (Probably the most vociferous opponent I've seen of that pairing is NOT a yaoi fan--actually despises yaoi; she essentially writes fanfic involving herself as a Relationship Sue with Fou-lu, and doesn't like *any* competition. She is honest about this, though.) The few I've seen opposed tend to oppose the relationship on the grounds of "Country girl and god-emperor would never work" or essentially thinking Mami is being a fangirl (and showing unrequited love).

Interestingly, I've also seen that identical argument against FouMami (the "Mami is being unrequited in love and Fou-lu doesn't care) used against 6x9 (usually far more strongly, and with implications that Noin is actually stalking Zechs). The main difference is that in the BOF fandom, typically those opposed to FouMami generally think Fou-lu doesn't care about emotional relationships with anyone.

(Admittedly, in the BOF fandom this is coloured by the knowledge that Mami does canonically die in an especially tragic manner--and one that does imply, IMHO, that they did have a relationship together. Specifically, Mami gets captured, tortured to the breaking point, and is used in a human sacrifice to power a "hex cannon" in an attempt to kill Fou-lu--because hex cannon "ammo" works better the closer the relationship between the "warhead" and the hexed (he ends up going insane and deciding to wipe out humanity on the grounds we're all bastards). In the manga version of it, in fact, it was such a tearjerker that a lot of Japanese FouRyu shippers stated they almost converted to FouMami through that arc alone.)

Those who don't like yaoi in the BOF fandom tend not to like yaoi pairings at all, and at the same time there are folks who do both FouMami *and* FouRyu (especially in Japan); I've even seen cases where FouMami and FouRyu ended up being combined (where Fou-lu is angsting over his relationship with Mami and feeling guilty over her death, and Ryu essentially takes him in for a comfort relationship--why yes, most FouRyu IS incredibly fluffy, why do you ask? :D) There also tends to be an emphasis on avoiding holy warring in that fandom, especially as (compared to Gundam fandom or even Mo No No Ke fandom in Japan) the fandom tends to be Small But Dedicated. :D

From what little debate I've ever seen in the Mo No No Ke fandom on who Kusuriuri is sleeping with, most arguments I've seen against KxK are on the same grounds against FouMami--Kusuriuri isn't going to be getting into a relationship with anyone. (Of course, a lot of those shippers are also KxH. Your mileage may vary.)

[kaigou]

I'll reply more later -- in the middle of bricklaying right now -- but I find it amusing that nearly all replies here have assumed I mean m/m within the context of fandom... and in fact I meant in general -- as in, including pseudo-gay-romance. "Pseudo" for the fact that it's gay romance written by (mostly) straight women, that is. So the particular quibbles of fandom, such as the fact that in both western and eastern media-based stories it's men who get the really fleshed-out character arcs and development, thus rendering those characters the most intriguing and potential-filled, doesn't really apply -- unless we're to argue that women writing m/m stories within original fic are just so acclimated/acculturated to "the most interesting stories have men at the center" that it renders, even for the author, all m/f pairings to be of less interest in contrast.

[dogemperor]

Ah, understood there--well, to be perfectly honest, I really don't read a whole lot of romance, so I'm afraid I'm not a whole lot of help there. :P (Most of the romance I've read honestly tends to be fanfic, which STILL gets into the fandom thing.)

[kaigou]

Most of the romance I've read honestly tends to be fanfic, which STILL gets into the fandom thing.

It's not actually the issue of fandom that gives me trouble here, so much as the fact that I don't know too many fandoms currently (not really following very many, if at all), so the specifics and details are hard to determine/measure for universality. So to speak of tropes or trends or general patterns is easier, plus will facilitate seeing how those compare to ofic romance and romantic-subplots in non-romance genres, too. Hard to parse that out when I'm digging through details of a specific fandom, is all. XD

[sharibet.livejournal.com]

I don't know about everyone else here, but you referred to "yaoi girls" in your original question, which immediately directed my musings on the the topic of anime/manga fandom, since I haven't heard that term used outside those fandoms.

I have to say, I've found the variety of answers on this topic absolutely fascinating, and it's gotten me thinking about how I'm handling the m/f romance in my current novel versus how I'm handling an established m/m couple in the same story.

[kaigou]

Heh, true, yaoi-girls is a fandom thing (specifically animanga, at that). I really should've been more specific in terms of the breadth, but given that (it seems) the majority of m/m female readers come from a slash background of some sort, that does usually mean a familiarity with fandom and its tropes. So it's not entirely inapplicable to the research question.

[mikkeneko.livejournal.com]

t I find it amusing that nearly all replies here have assumed I mean m/m within the context of fandom... and in fact I meant in general -- as in, including pseudo-gay-romance.

Yes, but I only know about it in fandom. :) I don't encounter it in the other contexts you describe. So I can only speak whereof I know.

[kaigou]

It was less to do with ya'll and more to do with the fact that I read so very little in fandom these days that obviously I've developed a bit of a blind spot when it comes to remembering regardless of my own habits, my flist remains pretty damn active in a variety of fandoms.

The replies are still relevant (once you step outside specific fandoms), given that the current M/M craze does seem to stem pretty strongly from the popularity of slash & yaoi. It makes sense that the patterns & issues that make slash & yaoi so popular would also exist in M/M fiction. It's just the use of specific fandom-based examples that lose me, when I'm not familiar.

Though I hold that after the GW Pairing War(s), any other pairing wars -- and even wank, for that matter -- ends up being more like the Falklands War in comparison. Which I guess would mean that list-mods and comm-mods are analogues for Margaret Thatcher, which is both strangely appropriate yet somewhat disturbing.

[kaigou]

There is absolutely no contest that Dorothy was bugfuck nuts, but when I rewatched, I realized just how much fun she is being bugfuck nuts. It really makes her last few episodes -- where she breaks down and you get a sudden total retconning of her entire motivation -- such a freaking cop-out. What's wrong with being bugfuck nuts for the sake of? We didn't get any of the male antagonists giving us the same crap... *cough* But anyway!

Okay, I thought I'd heard them all, but somehow 'selfcest' had gotten past me. *makes a note* I'm sure I'll be tested on that one.

I think the only reason you saw holy warring in GW was because the fandom really was that massive -- and was also coming into its own right as the internet itself really started to take off at least as a communication platform -- so you have what seems to be a dangerous combination of a lot of new-to-this-medium mixed with newly-entranced-by-story and add sun, atmosphere, and water, and you have weather! In this case, really bad weather. Other fandoms come close to pairing wars, but they're more like wars in the sense that the Greco-Turkish War was technically a war, if only thirty days long -- while the GW pairing wars were the freaking Hundred Years' War of the goddamn fandom world: lots more land to cover, lots more people involved, lots more noise being made, lots more attention paid.

But then, one of the reason (I surmise) the later wars in other fandoms haven't always burned so hot is because many GW fans have moved onto those other fandoms -- and remain disinclined and disinterested in ever having to go through that again. Although that's based mostly on the fact that anytime I've seen a pairing battle start to flare up, you can pretty much bet pizza money the first person to speak up and ask folks to calm the fuck down is going to close out their demand with, "I lived through the GW pairing wars, and believe me, I have NO INTEREST in going back, so cut it the hell out right NOW don't MAKE me come OVER THERE."

...and then the newbies get all hushed at the thought of facing down a True Veteran of Pairing Wars. Because everyone knows, those in the GW Pairing Wars took no names and took no prisoners, and let's not re-awaken the berserkers, shall we?