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Eduard_023 05/19/2011 7:23:00 PM
"Virtually all the characters in yaoi are boys, though they're so slender and delicate-featured that, aside from dangling genitalia, they could pass for girls."
The most famous yaoi titles have men who could never pass as girls (and one of them got his "dangling genitalia" cut off).
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Katrina 12/19/2009 9:26:00 AM
Can we stop overreacting, please? Obviously this article has been highly sensationalized. Nothing like what is portrayed in the article actually happened at the convention. The VERY worst thing was the "spin the gun" kissing game and some girls (and boys and women and men) giggling over innuendo. The "hardcore" artwork, novels, etc. were only available to those over 18, who are legally able to buy it in the store anyway. The panels with the alleged penis puppets and naughty artwork were 18+ as well. The worst the under 18s were exposed to were a few people cracking naughty jokes and maybe the comics their 18+ friends showed them. Get over it, people.
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DNTME 12/19/2009 2:46:00 AM
Well, Mary, I shudder to think you might actually be a parent one day in the future, or, worse yet, now. I'm not an antisex nazi, and I could care less what adults do. Children are another matter entirely. I know kids show each other their genitals and it's not that big a deal. Heck, they may even masturbate together a few times, ok, fine. Thing is, this stuff goes waaaaay beyond that sort of relatively innocent, and natural curiosity. Supervised or not, a parent condoning their young daughter visit such a convention is a sterling example of bad parenting. The kind of parents who think "well, they're going to do it anyway, better I'm there for them." The kind of parents who will let them smoke (cigs and pot) and drink or even have sex at 10 or 12 as well. Long as they do it under their supervision. I know it happens as I've seen it first hand. They are NOT doing their child any favors. I know that too, as I've seen the results first hand as well, in later years. Young girls, especially, are extremely impressionable where love and sex are concerned. Reinforcing this sort of impression at such a tender age is not a good message to be sending.
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Mary 12/17/2009 4:27:00 AM
Yes, there were 12 and 13 year old girls at this convention. And also, somewhere in the world right now, two seven-year-old boys are playing "I'll show you mine if you show me yours" in a basement somewhere. Sexuality is a part of human nature, and we choose to express ours through having fun at these conventions rather than being ashamed and trying to pretend it doesn't exist. =) I'm loving this article, because the thought of dozens of religious bigots and overprotective parents being up-in-arms in rage will keep me warm at night for weeks. Nights that will also be accompanied by my copy of Happy Yaoi Yum Yum
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Jerome 12/16/2009 12:24:00 AM
Uh ... Huey P. Newton is right. And blacks have lower rates of use of psychotherapists, lower rates of homosexuality ... You would think their rates of all this would be *higher* given the "head trip" of being black in America. But the rates are *lower*. The activity in this article is definitely a lost and lonely suburban white kid phenomenon.
Thanks RFT for the article. You beat the Post ... again.
The defenders of anime above doth protest too much, methinks.
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Z 12/15/2009 7:29:00 PM
Pssst, don't tell anyone Heuy, but there were people of "color" there too! Let me guess, its that evil white man (or woman in this case) that's leading good color folks astray, am I right?
And to the poster above me, I believe rules were that no one under 16 could get in without parental supervision. At least this con is being responsible.
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DNTME 12/14/2009 4:30:00 AM
There were children as young as 13 there? Were there even younger kids there? WTF is this? Why is a child like that doing anywhere near this convention? More to the point why is a child that young "into" Yaoi in the first place? Sugar coat it as much as you like, it deals with blantant homosexual love and sex. The bottom line is that it's sexual at it's core. The girls attending it know this and are immersing themselves in the erotic nature of it. In the final analysis, it's the female version of the male's enjoyment girl-girl sex. Apparently these kids parents are blissfully unaware of this fact or don't care. What are they doing letting their barely teen (or younger) girls read this stuff? One thing about all this though is that it shows females can be every bit as sexually perverse as males. Though they do seem to be louder about it.
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Randy 12/13/2009 7:31:00 PM
These people sound sick. Boys who love boys? ICK!
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Huey P Newton 12/13/2009 12:57:00 AM
St.Louis is a haven for the gay, perverted, and confused... and promoting this type of garbage through 'lost' young white children only adds to the problem. I'm so glad that people of color have other things on their minds besides exploiting the 'holes' in their body.
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Jayme 12/12/2009 3:20:00 PM
I had almost forgot about being interviewed at this con until I was reminded by one of my friends. When I did a search of StL newspapers and found out this article was published, we read it and had a great time remembering everything we experienced there! While it may sound a little bit worse than it actually is, yaoi IS about sex between two men. All kinds of sex. The softer stuff is called shounen-ai (I think Gravitation falls more into this category).
Some people are freaked out about the sex, but the fact is, sex is a part of life in one way or another from the time you are born to the time you die and especially around puberty for a lot of people. Girls included. And don't be so judgmental! You do your thing and we will do ours and we'll all be happy! What anyone does at whatever age as long as it's CONSENSUAL is their business, not anyone else's. We like yaoi and we like conventions and we like dressing up in costumes!
Remember also, and I say this because a lot of people forget... no matter what, these are just drawings. Marks on paper. Stories. In America, everybody can indulge in whatever sort they want.
I can't wait until next year! See you at Kawa!
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lavi 12/11/2009 11:17:00 PM
Gravi did had rape not matter what the editors tried to do some were heavily toned over but there. Beside that artist love that stuff of what didnt get into the main series
I dont mind stories like Fake with 2 unrealted men fall for each other, and I dont mind light hearted things like many bl but for stuff like rape, abuse and what not, I dont see the point and Im even more offened with the uke looks to female.
My problem comes more from the fans anyways, obsesive fans of any culture seriously gets on my nerves and is why I tend to leave cons around 8-9
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Disgusted 12/11/2009 7:58:00 PM
And I thought furry convrntions were bad. At least the majority of attendees were adults. Now we have 12 - 16 year old children fanninf their fantasies with the liikes of Japanimation "literature" that includes rape, beastiality and incest. Good times! Such things were quite common in the Roman Empire... right before it collapsed. So, you are going to hell in a bucket, babe, but at least you're enjoying the ride!
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Katrina 12/11/2009 6:52:00 PM
The het hentai fans are really starting to drive me nuts at conventions, though. I've been harassed more and more by guys at conventions the more I dress as female characters. They're getting drunk and then going around pretending their keyblades and gunblades are penis extensions. I've been poked by guys holding their props in genitalia locations several times. It's much more disgusting than a glomp, even though they aren't touching me per se.
Bishie Con was mostly mutual in the hugging and such except one girl I had to call off for groping someone. I think she was drunk.
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Jennifer 12/11/2009 2:07:00 PM
>> What's next: conventions to act out human-animal sex, or father-toddler sex???
Er... you'd be surprised.
Um, moving on!
Yeah, aside from being pretty politically incorrect, yaoi doesn't really bother me, but fujoshi can be hella annoying. Some of them are okay, but for those of you complaining about the really raunchy depiction of BishieCon in this article: while YOU might not have been the particular cause of it, paddles and glomping and proselytizing and needlessly calling people homophobic all don't really help your subculture's image. As it stands, more people have a problem with yaoi fangirls (and furries and Twilight fans) than people in other subcultures (like yuri, het hentai, or even lolicon) purely because of what they seen in behavior.
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Bolmung 12/11/2009 6:15:00 AM
To the poster above that was disturbed by this article...
They made the convention sound WAY dirtier than it actually was. It was more of a for fun convention that a 'let's get it on!' convention.
It was an overall fun and happy convention and the few naughty things that did happen were well contained and no one did anyhting 'against god' at the con.
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Sandara 12/11/2009 4:52:00 AM
"Instead girls get to be sexual without having to worry about...being called a bitch or a slut."
How about "pervert"?
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Anonymous 12/10/2009 10:35:00 PM
It really wasn't as bad as the article makes it sound. Promise. The younger kids had to be out by 10:00. They've seen worse stuff on the Internet and done worse stuff at school.
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Sarah Ashwood 12/10/2009 9:18:00 PM
This is one of the most disgusting, perverted things I have ever read in my life. Is nobody disturbed that we are now having conventions to celebrate and "act out" not just graphic male-male sex, but also to celebrate a form of literature that glorifies rape and incest and child abuse and every other form of sexual perversion under the sun? Is nobody disturbed that CHILDREN are reading this trash? Where are the parents? Where is the morality? What's next: conventions to act out human-animal sex, or father-toddler sex??? If you don't draw the line somewhere, as in--WHERE GOD DREW IT--where does it stop?
The more I see of this world, the more absolutely disgusted I am with it.
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Fireproof Lady 12/10/2009 8:59:00 PM
From the article: **Instead girls get to be sexual without having to worry about getting raped or being called a bitch or a slut. It's sex without the politics. Instead, it's just fun.**
Perhaps, but it's also hilarious to those of us who, happily, don't share these girls'...issues. Best of all, it's a guilt-free laugh because a lot of these poor, poor slash enthusiasts, who suffer so greatly (they say) from bullying, are often grand cyber-bullies themselves. If you're online in any given discussion group concerning a TV show or movie, and are foolish enough to protest the idea that, say, Mulder and Krycek (from the X-Files) find each other attractive, you're liable to be labeled a "homophobe" - an attack that 99% of the time comes from non-homosexual yaoi devotees (I'd call them "heterosexual", but that's a term that's difficult to apply to these girls because, as mentioned, they have...issues). Unfortunately, Yaoi devotees infiltrate every online community concerned with any genre of media, whether it's film, television, anime, manga, American comics, books, or even children's cartoons. (There's a lot of "The Fairly Odd Parents" Timmy/Cosmo yaio fanfiction out there. Nice, eh?) These devotees generally disrupt intelligent discussion and pretty much make a nuisance of themselves.
But, as previously mentioned, at least, occasionally, they're good for a laugh.
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Moriah Douglas 12/10/2009 9:06:00 AM
It was actually supposed to be a look into Yuki's character. He thinks somehow, that when Shuichi says 'love' he means 'sex'. It's because of a complicated past that Yuki is unable to understand the difference. Yuki was actually making an effort to get Shuichi to go away by giving him what he assumed he wanted.
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Aimee Levitt 12/10/2009 7:37:00 AM
Thanks for the clarifications, Katrina.
As for the comments about "Gravitation," when I read the manga before the con, I noticed a scene where Yuki initiates sex with Shuichi and Shuichi protests multiple times before giving in. This looked a lot like rape to me.
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Katrina (again) 12/10/2009 6:24:00 AM
Robin, I do absolutely agree with you, but the reason I can understand and even enjoyed the article is that I know the RFT goes for sensationalism over journalism verite. I was surprise at the "garden-variety" line as well as the word "ickiest" on the cover, but I know Aimee probably didn't write the cover byline.
I'm heavily involved in the fandom subculture, and yaoi is sort of my subsubculture. When I brought up the possibility of getting volunteers for Bishie Con at a meeting of what amounts of a fan club of fantasy and sf fans of all ages, I got a worse response than the whole of this article put together. It was insulting... from my own subculture no less. When I see even the slightest willingness to become engaged in our interests for a weekend from someone completely outside, it's exciting.
Now my husband and I really are co-organizers. While I take the "chair" role and do most of the work in the trenches, drumming up support, kissing the hands, shaking the babies, and all that jazz, he's in the background making sure the A/V equipment and volunteers are where they belong. More people know me than know him because I'm out front, but he does do his share of work to get our events off the ground. I know there are few female con chairs and even fewer who actually get to hold the title all to themselves, but when people meet us, it's easy to tell who's the one running the show.
The pants size... well, he introduced himself to several people at Bishie Con that way, and Aimee must have found it amusing. I had put up a picture of him in the jeans on the art show wall so it wouldn't look empty, and it became a guessing game among the staff to figure out whose butt was in the picture.
Anyway, I think the article is an effort. It's a noble effort considering the RFT probably begged for the story to be as weird and sexed-up as possible. I want to thank Aimee for her many interviews with us and enthusiasm for covering the subject (as well as a little research, which included watching Ouran before the Host Party). I want to thank Jennifer for the beautiful pictures, including the one of my sister-in-law who really is also named "Katrina Lynn". One more thank you goes to all of you who have read this article, whether you enjoyed it or not. Bishie Con was a lot of fun, and I'm excited that we may be able to do it again!
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Robin 12/10/2009 4:38:00 AM
Honestly, this article seems determined to misrepresent yaoi and the people who enjoy it in every way possible, as well as make several mean-spirited jokes at various people involved's expense. I'm uncertain why the Convention Chair is regulated off to the side as "(another staff member's) wife and co-organizer." There are few enough female Con Chairs in this country as it is, from what I have seen. It seems a deliberate slight to ignore this fact here. (I am also wracking my brain trying to determine the journalistic integrity behind including Mr. Lynn's jean size, and the random description of Robert Pattinson's nipples.)
The fact that this article again continues the misconception that duct tape is and should be used to bind breasts is also distressing, and the author takes no time to clear this up or comment on it, another avenue of the rambling story that shows poor understanding of the subject matter and no initiative to research. Duct tape is dangerous to use to bind breasts - it can restrict breathing, and even break ribs, because it has no give to it. (Ace bandages can present the same problem in the long run.)
There are many sloppy inaccuracies in describing many of the works referenced, from Gravitation (which has no sex scenes in it at all and the main seme never assaults the main uke at all) and Boku no Sexual Harassment (where the corn was not used to rape the uke character at all). The inability to look up a simple Japanese word and a wide-spread Japanese concept shows the unwillingness of the author to Google, or to even to read the convention's Web site and "About Bishie Con" page.
Some truly nice commentary on the psychological rational behind why we like yaoi is buried in an otherwise point-missing article determined to play up the supposed raunchiness of things that are simply not always so. It's as though the writer were writing about a huge, diverse, topic, like, say, Christmas, and, instead of focusing on why it is celebrated, what it means to people, why they have certain traditions or standards or symbols, etc., the author simply went on a rambling summary of how people give presents, and that's about it. (I'm not saying yaoi is equitable to Christmas, of course, but the analogy of ignoring all of the real aspects to focus on an altogether minor part of it remains the same.)
The heteronormative angle of this article reflects the annoying mindset in the yaoi fandom in general - there were more than just young teens and "creepy" older women at this con, as this article makes out. Straight and lesbian females of all ages, and gay and straight males were in attendance at Bishie Con. (Again, I am trying to discern the purpose for the throwaway, insulting commentary on the "garden-variety female impersonators in high heels" in this article.)
Honestly, given the sloppiness of the research, the poor understanding of the subject matter, the willingness to misrepresent and sensationalize a hobby and an entire genre of art and literature, and the disjointed, rambling pace and content of the article (which appears to be an attempt to boost word count, rather than to inform), I would certainly say this article fits well into the topic it barely managers to discuss over its giggling and its blushing - Yama nashi, ochi nashi, imi nashi. No Climax, no point, no meaning.
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Audrey 12/10/2009 1:20:00 AM
Yaoi Con is definately not as raunchy as you made it sound... Really most yaoi is just fluffly little romance stories between two guys with the occaisional ambiguous sex scene that doesn't really show much of anything besides facial expressions.
Also, I noticed an error on page 1. In the manga Gravitation, you said that the main characters comsumate their relationship with rape. This is not true at all! Where did you get your info? There are no sex scenes in gravitation (it's rated 14+) and it only vaguely mentions sex between the two main characters. There is definately no rape in the two main characters' relationship, although one was attacked sexually when he was a child (we don't know if he was raped or not)and the other character was raped by a side character over the course of the manga...
Something about this article just seems.... off.... to me. It makes con-goers sound like depraved lunatics! It's really just a bunch of hyperactive teens with a bit too much imagination and time on their hands.
Also, about the corncob thing, the author meant for that to be a satirical joke. It was in no way serious.
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Katrina Lynn 12/09/2009 8:04:00 PM
Hey, I just want to make a couple of clarifications since they've been brought to my attention.
A "bishie" isn't simply a guy in a yaoi story. It's a shortening of the Japanese word "bishounen", which means "beautiful boy". It refers to a certain aesthetic in males that has been considered attractive in Japan for over a thousand years.
The convention, while it definitely had its jokes and innuendo, was not nearly as raunchy as the article makes it sound. Most of it was girls giggling over innuendo and implied relationships between guys. And it wasn't all Japanese-origin stuff either. As the article mentions, Harry Potter slash was hugely popular (so much so that there was even a Coming Out Party for Dumbledore), as was Trek slash and all manner of other series.
While the stuff Yamila does in her Yaoi Hentaipalooza panel is pretty rancid (in a silly way, of course), it's the exception to the rule, perhaps the exception that proves the rule, but honestly most yaoi tends NOT to show penises, which is where the whole "penetration with vegetables" thing comes in. Most yaoi and Boys' Love is rather light and romantic ("fluff", as many call it), but there was a call for hardcore early in yaoi's history, hence early yaoi showing penetration with weird objects because genitalia was not allowed to be shown in Japan at the time. Yamila is making fun of that with her corn jokes. It's not that all or even anywhere near most yaoi is like that. Most of it is cute, romantic, and erotic rather than depraved.
Although they are not mentioned, our guests of honor were Studio Kosen from Spain, the fabulous writers/illustrators of Saihoshi, Stallion, and Daemonium.
Thanks!
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Moriah Douglas 12/09/2009 8:42:00 AM
I can't tell you how much I love you guys for putting my (and my Sebastian's) picture on the front cover. And I agree with Katrina, the article makes it sound much dirtier. Teehee.
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Katrina 12/09/2009 8:23:00 AM
Thanks for the article, Aimee! Sounds much dirtier when you talk about the convention. I hope you had fun! :)
