1. Introduction
[1.1] "Growing up, you was taught that it's man and woman, no exceptions. But when I first saw BL, I was like, 'What the heck is this?'" an individual known to me as Blackbeard (pseudonym) told me over a late-night Discord call. A gay Black man living in a Southern town in the United States, Blackbeard hides his sexuality from his workplace, his community, and his family in fear of social rejection. However, BL/yaoi fandom has given him a place of respite. "I can watch and enjoy BL or yaoi, and that gives me peace of mind. Whereas in real life, these things can't happen."
[1.2] As growing online communities allow for the exchange of media across the globe, many queer men like Blackbeard have found themselves stumbling upon a niche type of Japanese homoerotica called BL or yaoi (note 1) while exploring their sexuality. The genre, which depicts same-gender relationships between fictional male characters, spans mediums such as anime (animations), manga (comics), and other art forms. This media is often characterized as appealing to a heterosexual female gaze, leading to some scholars and critics implying that this genre holds little cultural appeal to gay men (Basu 2020; Ishida 2015; Lunsing 2006). However, recent qualitative studies indicate that the genre carries deeper symbolic significance to LGBTQ+ communities (both within and outside Japan) than early literature suggested (e.g., Zsila et al. 2018; Baudinette 2022; Bunyavejchewin 2022; Fermin 2022; Lavrentyeva et al. 2024). To further explore the perspective of queer men who are BL fans and the social relevance of virtual BL fandom communities, I engaged in virtual ethnography within a BL/yaoi-centric Discord server called the Yaoi Association (pseudonym), where fans of this content share and consume media together, and conducted eight semistructured interviews with server members. Though all interviewees identified as queer men, they derived from different racial and national backgrounds, illuminating the social dynamics of transnational fandom spaces. In this article, I argue that queer men engage with BL/yaoi media and its fandom as a form of identity work. Rooted in symbolic interactionism (Blumer 1969), identity work is a process defined as "the range of activities people engage in, both individually and collectively, to signify and express who they are and what they stand for" (Snow 2001, 2216). By consuming BL/yaoi media and creating communities centric to queer romance, queer men can build virtual worlds engaging with narratives that celebrate their queer desires and reject the heteronormative culture that aims to suppress them.
2. Literature review
[2.1] Past literature on the topic of BL/yaoi media and its fans often focused on the perspectives of Japanese heterosexual women, but the field of BL studies has increasingly expanded its analysis into queer and non-Japanese BL/yaoi fandom. Early articles published on the topic examine the history of BL/yaoi media production, exploring how it reflects heterosexual women's rejection of stifling heteronormative social norms in Japan (Kinsella 1998; McLelland 2000, 2010; Nagaike 2003). The male characters are often depicted as bishounen, or "beautiful boys," who are characterized by androgynously attractive features, such as large eyes, long hair, and slender bodies, and embodied other stereotypically feminine beauty standards. To describe the style of the genre, cultural historian Mark McLelland wrote, "The implied female gaze of the artist and viewer is able to create a scenario in which the homophobia and violence characteristic of male desire is overthrown" (2000, 285). From its inception, BL/yaoi manga was created to be a safe space where women could celebrate their sexuality and subvert heteronormative social rules, albeit with men as the stars of their stories. Due to the centering of the female gaze, some have considered BL/yaoi to be inauthentically gay texts within academic discussions on Japanese manga literature (Kolbeins et al. 2014; Ishida 2015). One author described BL/yaoi as literature for women that contains a form of representational appropriation, where gay male characters exist merely as conduits for female desire (Ishida 2015). On social media, the association of BL/yaoi media and heterosexual women has generated arguments by some that deem the genre as "illegitimate" LGBTQ+ media (Aburime 2024, 265). This discourse had caused a tenuous relationship between BL/yaoi and its murky positionality within the body of LGBTQ+ Japanese media.
[2.2] However, recent publications have expanded scholarly understanding of BL/yaoi fandom to include LGBTQ+ audiences as well as consumers beyond Japan. Thomas Baudinette (2022), who investigated the perspectives of Chinese gay men who are fans of BL, found that these fans draw upon BL as a "resource of hope" while struggling against Chinese ideals of heteronormativity and instances of anti-Chinese discrimination in Japan (42). In Thailand, where Thai-created BL (called series Y) is surging in popularity, numerous studies have examined how queer men interpret the symbolic significance of BL media. One survey study found that Thai BL offers queer men a glimpse into an imagined world where "gay guys are surrounded by friends who actually admire them rather than despise them" (Bunyavejchewin 2022, 186). As the genre became increasingly commercialized across Asian media markets, Baudinette's recent study on Thai BL found that it provided gay men "access to fantasies of romance that heteronormative societies such as Thailand have historically denied them" (2023, 53). In the Philippines, fans appreciated the androgyny of BL characters, who represented resistance to essentialist understandings of gender and sexuality (Fermin 2022). This symbolic resistance against restrictive constructions of gender and sexuality resonates particularly with queer young people, mediating feelings of isolation and fulfilling gaps in queer representation that may be lacking in Western media (Lavrentyeva et al. 2024). Even if BL/yaoi is historically associated with providing a space for sexual exploration and escapism for women, the aforementioned research offers perspectives on how BL/yaoi symbolizes an aspirational future for queer love and desire, providing a sense of hope and connectivity for consumers across transnational contexts. While many of these studies offer perspectives throughout Asia and Oceania, there is a need for additional research to expand our understanding of how consumers in North America and Europe make meaning of BL/yaoi media, and how virtual platforms such as Discord offer flexible spaces for fans to find community within BL fandom.
[2.3] To explore the symbolic significance of BL/yaoi media among LGBTQ+ consumers, I draw upon theoretical frameworks from feminist queer theory and symbolic interactionism to shape the research process and data analysis. The social world in which BL/yaoi media is produced and consumed is dominated by social forces policing expressions of gender and sexuality. In this article, I conceptualize sexuality as "all erotically significant aspects of social life and social being—desires, practices, relationships and identities...and refers to a rather fluid field since what is sexual in the sense of erotic is not fixed but depends on what is defined as such" (Jackson 2006, 106). Queer sexuality is often suppressed by cultural norms such as heteronormativity, which asserts heterosexuality as the natural sexual orientation (Rich 1980; Warner 1991). This creates a cultural sex hierarchy, which equates heterosexual sex with morality, and queer sexuality as immoral (Rubin 2006). For queer men who enjoy BL/yaoi media, their queer desire, consumption of homoerotica, and participation in queer-centric communities are marginalized within heteronormative society.
[2.4] Entangled with heteronormativity is hegemonic masculinity, described by sociologist Raewyn Connell as "the most honored way of being a man" and deemed superior compared to other expressions of masculinity. In contemporary Western society, hegemonic masculinity is embodied as the hypermasculine, stoic, (hetero)sexually aggressive man (quoted in Connell and Messerschmidt 2005). This type of masculinity also manifests in the form of compulsive heterosexuality, defined by sociologist C. J. Pascoe (2012) as a process by which young men assert heterosexual masculinity through utilizing verbal and physical dominance against one another, and surveilling both themselves and their peers to judge the quality of their masculine performance. In a study on the influence of compulsive heterosexuality on young men, Pascoe found that the epithets gay and fag were frequently used to police insufficient performances of masculinity. These various cultural forces create a social world with rigid expectations for proper masculine gender expression and sexuality, marginalizing those who do not conform.
[2.5] Queer men are often stereotyped in the media as effeminate, but there are a multiplicity of masculinities that queer men may inhabit, ranging from "the strongest of masculine stereotypes" to "less dominant" forms (Nardi 1999, 2). Their non-heteronormative sexual identity complicates their ability to uphold hegemonic masculinity, and those who outright reject these gender roles face social rejection. To combat stereotypes of effeminate queer masculinity and distance themselves from so-called sissies, some American gay men in the 1970s embraced an image of hypermasculinity, aiming to become "the manliest of men" in their gender performance (Levine 1998, 7). Similarly, to distance themselves from the image of "failed men," Japanese gay men in the 1970s turned toward "valorization of hypermasculinity in the form of extremely muscular, savage, and sadistic men" (Baudinette 2021, 20). Today in Japan, Baudinette found that this type of "hard masculinity" is still privileged by some gay young men, who view imagery of bishounen in media such as BL as a "curse," and stated that it is "'common sense' for gay men to prefer hardness and masculinity over cuteness" (2021, 100). In both Western and Japanese society, queer men who are perceived as having a more feminine gender performance are stigmatized within heterosexual and queer communities.
[2.6] Though the term identity work is not typically applied to study queer desire and masculinity, utilizing this theoretical concept offers sociologists interested in gender and sexuality a road map for how identities are socially constructed, maintained, and performed. The term originates from a qualitative study of a different marginalized population: those experiencing homelessness. Within this study, identity work was conceptualized to describe "how people construct and negotiate personal identities," including a range of practices such as the arrangement of physical settings and props, personal appearance, and association with particular groups (Snow and Anderson 1987, 1336). Identity work has also been used to describe the role of individual social actors in social movements, exploring how narratives and behaviors establish "what they stand for in relation or contrast to some set of others" (Snow 2001, 2216). In the context of BL/yaoi fandom, I theorize that queer men engage with the media and online community spaces to construct and grapple with their marginalized sexual identities as a form of identity work.
[2.7] To delve further into the connections between identity work and sexual media, the field of porn studies provides insight into the symbolic significance of homoerotica within the LGBTQ+ community. In an introduction to the first volume and issue of the journal Porn Studies, the authors discuss that the purpose of porn studies is to move beyond binaries that assert pornography as either morally good or bad and open academic discourse by "[engaging with] pornography as texts, productions or performances; as occurring in various kinds of 'spaces' with various significances...and with different importances for its participants and for observers of those participants" (Attwood and Smith 2014, 4). One pathway to analyze pornography from a sociological perspective is to explore its connections with identity work. Through a series of qualitative interviews, Michael Putnam (2001) discusses how "sexual fantasy is a means to investigate the concealed, invisible spaces of identity," and for queer men, pornography was a window to see models of gay relationships in a world where these representations are otherwise limited (171). While not inherently pornographic, BL/yaoi media can include sexual scenes and act as a site for sexual identity work and symbolic resources for gay relationships, similar to the ideas expressed above with mainstream erotic content.
[2.8] Elements of identity work are also often an undercurrent in the realm of fan studies, such as Henry Jenkins's writing on slash fan fiction authors in the book Textual Poachers: Television Fans and Participatory Culture. As a form of sexual identity work, readers of slash could "participate within their erotic fantasies" and identify with homosexual desire (Jenkins 2012, 199). Recent articles from fan studies continue to relate fandom participation to identity work, where writing, reading, and discussing slash fan fiction became a method for queer audiences to reckon with their own queer identities and express their sexuality without fear of judgment. In Diana Floegel's (2020) article on the "world-queering" potential of slash fan fiction, she notes that fandom settings often become a source of community for queer individuals, as her respondents discussed how fandom participation facilitated connections with other queer people over mutual interests in slash media (789). More broadly, articles on the symbolic significance of romance media have posited the genre as an "aesthetic sphere," a term used in cultural sociology to describe "a space for commentary about important matters of concern" that "work at the level of the social imaginary, providing important meaning structures and cultural scripts that individuals use in order to make sense of themselves and the world around them" (Jacobs 2012, 323). Cultural sociologist Anna Michelson describes romantic fiction literature as an "aesthetic world" where readers can contest hegemonic politics and provide "happily-ever-afters for people who have historically been denied 'triumphant lives,'" which she argues "can be a transformative reading experience" (2021, 201). For fans of BL/yaoi, I argue that the narrative symbolism of queer romance within the genre contests heteronormative cultural hegemony, and BL-centric fandom spaces such as Discord servers act as an aesthetic sphere where fans can play with nonnormative expressions of gender and sexuality, constructing a vision of what a queer-friendly world may look like.
3. Methods
[3.1] To understand the symbolic significance of BL/yaoi media to queer men, I utilized virtual ethnographic participant observation and semi-structured interviews. For the participant observation portion of the research, I collected field notes while visiting my field site, a virtual community called the Yaoi Association (pseudonym). The Yaoi Association is an online community based on the digital communications platform Discord. Originally developed to host calls between people playing online video games together, Discord features the ability for users to text, voice call, video chat, screen share, and share files. While the platform can be used to communicate one-on-one with other users in private direct messages, a popular function of Discord is to socialize within communities called servers, where users can access numerous preestablished chat rooms and voice channels. Servers can be created by anybody, and server admins can customize server settings such as having channels (chat rooms or voice channels) designated to specific topics, electing moderators to enforce server rules, and uploading custom emojis to be used by fellow server members in the chat rooms.
[3.2] The ability for admins to create and moderate numerous channels within a server allows for the formation of social and emotional boundaries around spaces, such as creating a channel specifically for sharing sexual content, one for general chatting, and another for the discussion of emotionally heavy issues. In an analysis of how Discord's server structuring shapes fandom experiences, play theorist Welmoed Wagenaar writes:
[3.3] Discord allows fans to erect and negotiate barriers and manage access to online spaces, building in a higher level of privacy control, which is especially important to those involved with NSFW material. These spaces can be organized in ways that adhere to established fandom norms concerning warnings and consent...and channel divisions that separate fannish play, transgressive play, and ordinary life...Through their practices...fans are able to (re)establish powerful, collective moods in servers that they can continually come back to (2024, ¶ 7.1).
[3.4] By creating boundaries around play, such as having designated channels to discuss serious topics versus channels to share NSFW fan works and bawdy jokes, Discord fan communities can curate specific moods for each digital space within the umbrella of the server. As Wagenaar describes, the Yaoi Association server also has designated playgrounds (such as the NSFW channel titled #yaoi or the popular #meme channel) as well as areas for more tempered conversations (such as the #deep-chats channel, where users can vent about issues occurring in their personal lives and receive comfort or advice from fellow members). Server moderators are used to enforce rules and maintain social boundaries around play versus nonplay spaces, users can readily anticipate the mood of the space they are entering, and play can flourish within appropriate channels.
[3.5] While there were numerous other public BL/yaoi servers I examined for potential research sites, I selected the Yaoi Association because of its large population (n = 1,500~), frequent activity in the channels designated for sharing BL/yaoi content, and a significant proportion of male users (n = 1,200~). Information on gender was collected by viewing who responded voluntarily to a post that assigned the role of fudanshi (a male BL/yaoi fan) or fujoshi (a female BL/yaoi fan) as a label to a user's profile (note 2). After joining the server and receiving permission from the admin to conduct participant observation, I began analyzing the type of content shared within the server, notable and common topics of conversation across numerous channels, and the overall dynamics of social interaction within these channels. I frequented the #yaoi and #shounen-ai (note 3) channels to observe the BL/yaoi content being shared and discussed, as well as additional channels like #politics or #livestreaming to gain broader insight into the server environment outside of homoerotica-specific spaces. Given that it can be difficult to discern tone over text dialogue due to the lack of body language and other physical visual cues, I included the usage of emojis and GIF reactions in my analysis to understand the emotionality behind messages.
[3.6] In all my qualitative data, members of the server were given pseudonyms to protect their identity. However, I attempted to preserve the spirit of the original username, as I believe usernames and user icons may hold symbolic significance to the individual, and could be an asset for understanding how individuals curate their online identities. In a study of how Discord's technical affordances shape relations of power and fan intimacy, researchers discussed how the usage of Discord Nitro (a premium service that grants higher levels of profile customization among other benefits) allowed users to shape their user profile (and virtual identity) uniquely to each server. This provided the ability for users to "verbalize their identity and interests more clearly and find others with similar interests and aesthetic leanings" to produce a sense of self (Kocik et al. 2024, ¶ 7.3). As I collected qualitative data, I made notes of how Yaoi Association members (many of whom were also Nitro subscribers) customized their Discord profiles to signal their in-group status. To maintain the balance of data quality and duty to protect server members' privacy within the analysis of my field note data, I decided to tweak certain elements of quotes taken from the Yaoi Association chat rooms so that they are not searchable but still contain the essence of the message. This practice is recommended by a member of the Association of Internet Researchers (AoIR) Ethics Committee, Annette Markham, who suggests modifying chat room text in publications to protect the privacy of virtual ethnographic participants (2012; Markham and Buchanan 2019). An example of this that I utilized are small grammatical edits or word changes so that these messages are not directly verbatim in my writing (e.g., changing "your" to "ur" or vice versa), therefore lessening the possibility of my sources being de-anonymized through searching chat records.
[3.7] Aware of my positionality as a woman in a space predominantly occupied by gay men who might be wary of my presence, I aimed to build rapport with members over a shared interest in BL/yaoi media and lived queer experiences. I openly shared my identity as an acafan, or an individual who is both a participant in fandom and an academic. Acafans are uniquely situated to understand both the languages of fandom and academic communities and facilitate the transfer of knowledge to and from either space (Cristofari and Guitton 2017). Similar to many of my interviewees, BL/yaoi media and transformative works such as slash fan fiction and fan art were my first experiences of exposure to media that depicted queerness in a positive light, and helped me find acceptance of my sexual orientation among fellow queer fans. During my interactions with server members, I relied on my knowledge of BL/yaoi media to share my insider status. Aware of the pervasive stereotype that most women in BL/yaoi spaces are heterosexual, I would also offhandedly mention my wife to signal that I was a queer woman in a same-gender relationship. Through these self-disclosures, I attempted to convey to research participants that I was not a researcher with a distanced academic curiosity in BL/yaoi fandom, but a queer-identifying acafan who aims to contribute knowledge about the communities we mutually occupy.
[3.8] For the interview portion of the project, I spoke with members of the Yaoi Association (n = 8) in semi-structured interviews either over Discord's private voice chat function or through direct messaging, with the latter option offered for users who were interested in the study but could not participate in a voice call due to privacy concerns. Once an interview was completed, I offered respondents an honorarium in the form of a one-month Discord Nitro subscription or a ten US dollar donation to an LGBTQ+ charity of their choice. Respondents were recruited to the study after I posted an open-call message in the #general channel describing the study and my desire to understand the perspective of BL/yaoi fans who identify as men.
[3.9] The interviewees all self-identified as queer men (50 percent were bisexual, 50 percent homosexual) and lived in various locations throughout North America and Europe (the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Portugal, and France). One of the interviewees identified as Black, one as Latino, one as multiracial (white European and African), and the rest identified as white. All interviewees were adults, as the server is restricted to users older than eighteen years of age. The average age of respondents was twenty-six, with the youngest interviewee at the age of eighteen and the oldest at the age of thirty-two. While a few respondents noted that they are flexible with their gender and are ambivalent about what pronouns others may use for them, no respondents identified specifically as transgender or nonbinary.
[3.10] Interviewees were asked questions regarding their sexual identity conceptualization process, perceived cultural acceptance of LGBTQ+ identities in their community, opinions on BL/yaoi media and its significance, and their experiences within the Discord server. Throughout the research process, I utilized a grounded theory approach, providing space for surprises or puzzles to emerge from the data naturally (Chun Tie et al. 2019; Glaser and Strauss 1967). Interview questions often contained follow-up inquiries that prompted respondents to provide illustrative examples, such as asking "Do you feel your sexuality is accepted in your local culture? Could you share a story of a time you felt accepted or not?" These questions provided a platform for respondents to share narratives of their lived experiences, yielding data that provided a deeper insight into relevant topics. Afterward, interview transcripts were coded, and numerous memos were created to organize major themes recurring in the data. This study was approved by the Temple University Institutional Review Board (IRB number: 30998).
4. Results: Identity work through escapism, fantasy, and community
[4.1] Even though past literature has asserted the existence of the heterosexual female gaze within BL/yaoi media (Ishida 2015; McLelland 2000), many of my male queer interviewees reflected on how their exposure to this media has helped them as a form of identity work, as they have utilized it to understand and embrace their queer desires. One interviewee named Starussy, a bisexual man living in Puerto Rico, discussed how his discovery of BL/yaoi content was what allowed him to embrace his identity, saying,
[4.2] Originally, I was very in the closet. I just discovered this subgenre of anime and manga...getting into it, it helped me come out of my shell. It's important to me because it helped me realize who I am. I want to see more representation of myself. I like it because of the expressions of queer sexuality and openness. I'm open about my sexuality now, but I wasn't always. So yaoi was a place where I could explore and get more comfortable with that side of myself.
[4.3] This quote from Starussy parallels the ideas about homoerotica and identity work presented in Putnam's (2001) analysis of men's experiences with pornography, as it highlights how the depictions of gay sexuality have allowed Starussy to understand his sexual identity and find affirmative representation. Additionally, Starussy notes that he revisits BL/yaoi media because seeing depictions of queer relationships is a representative extension of himself.
[4.4] Many respondents enjoyed consuming BL/yaoi content as a form of escapism, where they could insert themselves into the narrative and reimagine their world as a place where queer relationships are accepted and embraced. Many members highlighted the symbolic significance of intimacy in BL/yaoi media and construed this as a separate quality from the erotic aspects of the genre. When asked what they enjoy about the genre, they responded with a significant emphasis on the importance of seeing gay male emotional intimacy and romance, rather than expressing enjoyment over the more pornographic elements of this media type. The most notable example of this was my interview with Blackbeard, who is closeted to everyone in his offline personal life. Blackbeard explained to me that due to the severe homophobic backlash he could face if he ever tried to live openly as a gay man, including the potential of being fired from his job, he likes to consume BL/yaoi media to fulfill the lack of intimacy in his offline life, stating, "It's a way to enjoy romance. Me, in real life, I don't have that luxury. Watching yaoi or BL gives me an outlet." This content provides Blackbeard with a form of escapism, as through this media he can vicariously experience the queer romance he feels is impossible to pursue in his current living situation.
[4.5] Another respondent, Guz (a biracial homosexual man living in Portugal), combined these ideas of escapism and identity work by expressing how engaging with romantic stories of queer men in love allowed him to grow into his identity:
[4.6] I believe that there are certain aspects of yaoi that helped me grow more...I had my first crush, and I was kinda like, what do you do now? As a gay person, when you've been told all your life that you're supposed to be straight, and this is how things go, but that doesn't apply to me! I've always liked romance, ever since I was very young. I've always loved, oh, Prince Charming...I think that yaoi is romantic like that. It's kind of like a fantasy of some sort for a queer person. It's like when we see a romantic story...We identify with it. We're like, "Oh, I wish my life was like this."
[4.7] In this quote, Guz explains how consuming BL/yaoi stories allowed him to embrace his queerness despite his heteronormative socialization, as he identified with the romantic narratives and escapist fantasies within the genre. Additionally, Guz goes on to explain that a particular element he likes about the genre is the ability to read about gay romance that is free from the conflict of "social pressure" that the gay community faces, and how this helped him a bit with undoing his own internalized homophobia. Other interviewees echoed this sentiment, such as Caesar (a white bisexual man from the United Kingdom), who stated that what he appreciates most in BL/yaoi media are "[storylines] that show the questioning of identity and sexuality in a positive light...Historically, the queer experience has often been one of assumed trauma and adversity, so it's refreshing to see questioning and discovery happening without the need to have that backdrop."
[4.8] While past academic literature has criticized BL/yaoi media for being an unrealistic depiction of gay romance, Caesar and Guz see symbolic significance within the depiction of queer love that is unbridled by the constraints of heterosexism in the real world. The symbolic significance that both interviewees describe within BL/yaoi media mirrors research on the sociopolitical relevance of mainstream romance literature to women and LGBTQ+ readers.
[4.9] Numerous interviewees noted their appreciation for BL/yaoi media where characters directly confront issues of grappling with their own sexual identity and conflict in relationships, such as Umibe no Étranger (Stranger by the Sea) (2013–14). Panda (a white cisgender man from Canada) stated that he read the series during his own "coming out period" after leaving the "very small, conservative, white-picket-fence community" he grew up in, "where light homophobia was pretty much the norm," and felt that the realistic depiction of coming to terms with one's sexuality made the story seem like it "could conceivably happen in real life." Like many others, he conveyed that through reading texts such as Umibe no Étranger, "I finally felt the freedom to explore my sexuality openly." While happy endings in queer romance are symbolically significant for challenging heterosexism and creating an aesthetic world of queer liberation, stories that also include challenges that the audience may have faced in their own lives (such as Panda's connection to sexual identity exploration) can generate deep emotional resonance with LGBTQ+ audiences.
[4.10] In addition to finding comfort in BL/yaoi media for its depiction of queer romance, members of the community I observed often drew from BL/yaoi narratives or imagery to challenge hegemonic masculinity. Like many other of my respondents, Bunnie (a white gay man from the United Kingdom) noted that his general interest in BL/yaoi media aligned with the questioning of his sexual identity, but was most eager to discuss his "giant infatuation" for a particular character from the BL/yaoi video game NU: Carnival (2022). He admired the character Yakumo because he is "incredibly soft," even though this character is "a top" (which is sometimes assumed to be a sexually dominant position) and possesses incredible supernatural power. When I began to ask Bunnie if he identified with his character in any way, his voice excitedly interjected over mine on the Discord call, saying, "Yeah, yes—I think I can be very soft when it comes to the relationships." Similar to Bunnie, Caesar also expressed interest in stories that subvert expectations on sexuality and gender expression. He finds the character Jock from the comic Boyfriends (2020) compelling because "He is outwardly the most traditionally masculine in presentation, but arguably the least traditionally masculine in personality," adding that this characterization is "a nice break from narrow ideas of gender." As characters, Jock and Yakumo symbolically represent both masculine and feminine attributes, but it is the qualities that rebel against hegemonic masculinity that Bunnie and Caesar admire the most.
[4.11] The admiration for emotional softness and vulnerability in characters was a theme repeated throughout my experiences in the server, as many members enjoyed sharing their fantasies in group discussions. I interpret this as a form of collective identity work, as group members often engaged in building collective fantasies of queer desire and expressions of masculinity that challenged hegemonic expectations. An example of this is embodied in one of my field note excerpts:
[4.12] A member posted a photo of Link from Legend of Zelda, and in the artwork Link was bruised from battle. The poster of the art, Femboy-kun, asked the group, who's going to "help and patch him [Link] up?" Members responded, with responses including "I would give him first aid, also cuddles and headpats," "I take his clothes off...count as help or not?," and "I'd give lot's of booboo kisses."
[4.13] At this moment, group members collectively expressed their desire to perform romantic (and sexually suggestive) acts to the character depicted in the art, sharing their fantasies of how they would react in the situation of an attractive young hero needing their assistance. While men conforming to compulsive heterosexuality would police one another for failing to uphold traditional masculinity, the group members inhabited a caretaking role in this fantasy and mutually affirmed one another's desires.
[4.14] While the BL/yaoi content exists as the foundation of the Yaoi Association, many members seem to engage with the server as a space where they can embrace queerness and exist authentically as their true selves, often discussing various topics beyond homoerotica. Guz, who also volunteers as a moderator for the server, described that people typically join the server seeking BL/yaoi content but remain active on the server due to the sense of camaraderie members have with one another. Additionally, though BL/yaoi fandom is typically considered a predominantly female space, Guz contradicted this idea, as he assumes the centrality of BL/yaoi in the server's description is akin to "putting a sign in front of your house saying, 'hey, there's gay people here.'" While Guz clarified that anyone of any sexuality is welcome to join the server, BL/yaoi media symbolically represents the group's values of LGBTQ+ inclusion, particularly for queer men. This idea was reinforced by another interviewee called Davussy, a French gay man, who reflected upon his time in the server saying "[The Yaoi Association server] has been pretty much my first way to communicate with other gay men. And it's still a very reliable way, because there's a lot of people [in the server], and in real life you do not meet that many gay men."
[4.15] Davussy explained to me that he joined the server to find BL/yaoi content, yet was inspired to remain engaged within the community as the server was his first exposure to fellow queer men. Even though Davussy is now openly gay in his offline life, he still returns to the Yaoi Association server as a source of queer companionship, as he feels it is easier to make these types of connections within the server and its "pub-like atmosphere" than in his local area. The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has also amplified the power of online communities to find connection with others, as Panda described the Yaoi Association server as being his "primary source of social fulfillment" during the pandemic.
[4.16] The depth of the queer camaraderie and group support developed within the server is exemplified in the #real-talk channel, which provides a designated space for Yaoi Association members to discuss issues that are unrelated to BL/yaoi or are too emotionally charged for discussion in the #general channel and to vent about their personal issues in a supportive space. Posts often include queer-centric topics such as relationship problems with boyfriends, advice on how to immigrate to a country with comprehensive LGBTQ+ rights, and difficulties in finding a queer-friendly community in their offline lives. In one post from the #real-talk channel, a group member named Nova discussed how he attempted to reach out to someone from his church after discovering that their Discord username had pride flags. However, shortly after Nova contacted this person, they quickly removed all traces of queer identity from their online presence. Turning to the #real-talk channel for advice on how to proceed, Nova expressed, "I was thinking that they could be like me, & more out online than to anyone in person, but when I finally asked them about it they acted like they didn't know what I was talking about." Other group members expressed sympathy for the difficulty of finding fellow queer people in their hometowns, especially if the church has a notable presence in their communities, and offered advice on how to subtly signal queer-friendliness toward others without being overt. This excerpt from my field notes demonstrates how group members use the #real-talk space to reconcile their openly queer online identity with their offline identities, which tend to be more restrained and isolated due to the heteronormativity of the offline world.
5. Discussion
[5.1] Interviewees and community members of the Yaoi Association frequently frame BL/yaoi and the Yaoi Association as a space where one can imagine a world that fully embraces queer love, where BL/yaoi fans can connect with the genre's narratives or images as a form of identity work on both an individual and collective level. Nearly all my interviewees connected their experiences with questioning and constructing their sexual identity in conjunction with their discovery of BL/yaoi media, viewing the genre as a helpful tool to explore their desires for men. Numerous interviewees noted how they were raised to understand that heterosexuality was the natural order of things, reflecting the power of heteronormativity in American and European society. Once they began to diverge from the heteronormative sexual scripts they were taught, the fantasy of queer romance in BL/yaoi media and connection to welcoming fandom communities was a foray into embracing their queer desires and identity.
[5.2] For queer men in BL/yaoi fandom who remain closeted in their offline lives, like Blackbeard, BL/yaoi media is a fantasy that provides an escapist outlet and hope for a better future. As a form of an aesthetic world, BL/yaoi narratives allow space for consumers to contest heteronormative social scripts and reimagine what romance would look like between two men who "can be themselves without being a stereotype...they can love one another and be happy," as Blackbeard told me. This narrative resonates with thoughts from nonbinary author of LGBTQ+ literature Heidi Cullinan (2019), who described that for readers of queer romance, "the possibility of a happy ending is itself an act of revolution, of cultural inspiration." As Caesar noted how queerness is often marked with "assumed trauma and adversity" in mainstream Western media, the aesthetic world of BL/yaoi acts as a platform for fans to reimagine happier endings for real queer lives and romances.
[5.3] In addition to this, elements from BL/yaoi media and experiences in BL/yaoi fandom resonate with fans who felt confined by traditional gender roles and desired expressions of masculinity that gave room for vulnerability, empathy, and romance. Many respondents such as Panda critiqued "heteronormalized" BL/yaoi stories where the main couple is an archetypal man who is "very feminine and submissive" and another who is "masculine and aloof" and identified strongly with BL/yaoi narratives that subverted gendered expectations and celebrated softness within male characters. As hypermasculinity is often extolled in queer men's spaces across cultural contexts, such as in Japan or the United States, the beautiful boys of BL/yaoi media symbolize a softer type of queer masculinity.
[5.4] However, there is room for future exploration on the topic of identity work and queer masculinity in BL fandom, especially regarding the intersection of race. While it is impossible to know the ethnicity of all members of the Yaoi Association due to the anonymity of the server, my sample was predominantly white and their experiences in fandom cannot be removed from their racial positionality. Blackbeard, the only Black American man in my interview sample, noted that his identification with BL/yaoi characters was complicated by the lack of racial representation in the genre, and he was the target of anti-Black remarks in a different BL/yaoi-centric server. His experiences beget the question of how racial prejudice limits the experiences of fans who are people of color, and underscores the necessity for fans to decolonize fandom spaces, which have been criticized for perpetuating white-centered queer perspectives (Pande 2018). Additionally, given that Asian men, particularly queer Asian men, are perceived as inhabiting emasculated positions in Eurocentric society (Han 2006), it would be compelling to research how Asian American or Asian European men understand the construction of their identity concerning the softer performances of masculinity within BL/yaoi media. There are similar possibilities for further inquiry regarding transgender men who enjoy BL/yaoi, and how their identity construction relates to their connection to BL/yaoi media and its fandom. While I observed many server members discussing their support for transgender rights and noted one server member who openly identified as a transgender man, I was not able to conduct an in-depth interview with any transgender server members.
[5.5] Though the authenticity of BL/yaoi media as a gay genre has been questioned and contested by some past scholars, this type of media nonetheless engages within a symbolic discourse about queer love and challenges heteronormativity, holding cultural meaning to some of the queer men who consume it. Within BL/yaoi-centric fandom spaces such as Discord servers, fans have the space to symbolically challenge social norms through social play and develop a sense of camaraderie on the mutual basis of queer identity and fandom interests. These findings offer further insight into how erotic materials are understood as cultural texts, and how the symbolism within these texts is utilized as tools in the process of queer identity work. More broadly, my research deepens sociological knowledge into the construction and performance of gender and sexuality within the virtual social world. Within the realm of gay masculinity studies, analyses of BL/yaoi fandom contribute to discussion on the intersection of cultural norms, media, and new pathways for queer masculinity.