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Yaoi is a concept that pretty much defies understanding by non-fans, particularly
in the West. Here we've tried to answer some of the more commonly asked questions
we receive about what yaoi is - and isn't. We are indebted to Jeanne Johnson, who has proved an invaluable resource for Yaoi-Con and without whom we could not have compiled these FAQs. The word yaoi is derived from the first syllables of each word in the expression, "yama nashi, ochi nashi, imi nashi ," which means "no peak, no point, no meaning," and originally referred to badly drawn self-published fan comics (doujinshi). Later, it came to be used for doujinshi with sexual pairings between two males. In Japan today, it is mainly used to point to the sex scenes of a manga or to doujinshi with male/male content. In the West, Yaoi has become a catchall term to indicate any story that includes a male/male relationship and is linked to Japan, be it commercial manga, anime, games, game-based slash fiction, English-language fan fiction, fan art, etc. Boy's Love (BL) is the usual term used by the Japanese publishing industry to categorize commercial works focusing on male/male relationships marketed at women. These now include not only manga but novels, CDs, games, and anime. Who are the fans?As mentioned above, the intended audience is female. Which isn't to say that guys, regardless of sexual persuasion, do not enjoy yaoi. Some definitely do, immensely so, but the intended audience of Japanese yaoi is exclusively female.So it's hentai or gay porn for women?Not at all. Remember that it's all written by women for the enjoyment of other women, so the works display a female fantasy of what's sexually attractive, not necessarily a gay male one. Secondly, there's a common misconception that yaoi is all about the sex, nothing more than hentai or pornography for women. Yaoi manga, novels and anime actually cover a wide variety of genres, from comedy to science fiction, from giant robots to high school romance and have been known to have long, complex, volume- spanning plots. Which isn't to say that yaoi works cannot be sexually explicit. Some of them are very much so, and definitely not for minors.Are yaoi and shounen-ai the same thing?Shounen-ai (literally boy-love) is an obsolete term referring to shoujo manga written in the '70s and early '80s that featured stories about angsty, poetic, platonic or romantic relationships between pubescent or pre-pubescent boys. The term has fallen into disuse in Japan, since there are no current (or even recent) shounen-ai works. However, Western fans have whole-heartedly adopted the term and use it differently. Latching onto the unrequited romantic aspects of shounen-ai manga, fans tend to apply the term to stories that have little to no sex, saving yaoi to describe those with a higher erotic or sexual content.Do you have any viewing/reading suggestions?To assist you, we have compiled a list of commercial anime, manga and game companies (and a few of their titles) publishing yaoi in the United States. Click on the company name to visit their site and see the full range of yaoi titles available.
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