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 Posted: Wed Sep 27, 2006 1:16 pm
I'm a legal adult and have been for some years. In fact, I've been a legal adult the entire time that I have been into the yaoi fandom. I know that a lot of you aren't. Simply put, I'm curious about you. So, I hope that you'll take the time to talk about it (and earn some gold). Hell, I may even give away something nifty to the person with the most informative and useful answer. Incentive enough for you?
That said, I'm curious about how you got into yaoi and how you feel about it. Were you drawn into yaoi because of anime or some other way, like Harry Potter perhaps? Was if fanfiction that converted you, or maybe fanart? Do you find that you're discriminated against because of your age? Do you feel that perhaps you're not mature enough to deal with some of the content? What age do you consider to be mature enough? Are there fans that annoy you? Are you angry that places like Y!Gallery won't let you join because of your age? Are you a "squeeeee" type of fan or do you feel that you hold yourself with more maturity? What are your yaoi genre preferences (fluff, hardcore, etc)?
Feel free to answer question by question or just give a general answer of your experiences in yaoi in relation to your age. If you are of age, feel free to participate as well and offer thoughts on younger fans. Like I said, I'm curious and I hope you'll take the time to stop and talk with me.
P.S. Lady Nox pointed out how my poll went from 19 - 21 to 20s...yeah, my brain wasn't working, just click 20s if you're 22-29.
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Posted: Wed Sep 27, 2006 1:38 pm
I'm 14. Not sure how long I've been into BL, but I bought the first Gravitation volume shortly after it came out, so.. I can't recall what my first experience with BL was online, but I assume I discovered it as a genre through Gravitation discussion.
I don't think there's much social stigma related with being a younger BL fan, as long as you don't get into the major hardcore stuff. (Of course, that's only to a point - I'd raise an eyebrow at an 8-year-old fangirl, too.) There seems to be much more controversy about male BL fans of any age.
I'm mature enough not to be disgusted when I see yaoi, but I don't go actively looking for it, as I'm not all that interested. I prefer plot and fluff over PWP. But I have no problem with sex scenes that are handled well, in a story where the characters have developed enough to get to that point.
I don't think there's any specific age where someone is mature enough to handle yaoi. It should really be like with an age-rating like this: if their parents are okay with it, fine, if not, then listen to them until you're 18.
Fans that annoy me are the ones who make no attempt to have decent spelling and grammar, and who bash pairings they don't like. Or people who don't like their favorite pairings.
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Posted: Wed Sep 27, 2006 1:57 pm
I'm not legal yet sweatdrop I'm 15, but I enjoy the M rated stuff the most. I'm drawn by the fact that there's no whiney girl in the need of rescue! And men are sexy, instead of just one in a relationsship why not two? heart
I love when they just act on impulses heart Sexual tension .. ahh..
Yeah.. fanfiction.net converted me into a yaoi fangirl. I was a Narutard at the time, and found a GaaraxLee story xd They were my favorite pairing for such a long time!
Then my friend got me into reading the hardcore fanfictions, with lemons and stuff. But though I liked it, I wasn't the fangirl I am today.
Not before I found this guild heart I read through all the threads and felt more and more like I belonged here!
Then I told my friend that we should try watching some graphic stuff. The next day we watched Sensitive Pornograph together. It was kinda awkward at first. Then I started commenting their hairstyles/clothes/smexy bods.
It became a ritual that we should watch yaoi on her laptop in the school breaks.
Then
The meaningles buttsex and no plot suddenly grew old and I felt that I missed something in my life crying
I blessed my height and adult features when they sold me yaoi manga without any problems in the bookstore heart
I love manga the most, there's usually more plot in the hardcore stuff!
I panic if I don't get my daily yaoi. It's like medicine.. heart
I have no idea what Y!Gallery is? Care to explain? heart
English is not my first language crying
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Posted: Wed Sep 27, 2006 1:57 pm
Mmkay, well, cool =D
I just started with BL in general last December -- so it's been less than a year. I'm seventeen and was sixteen when I started.
When I started reading BL it was a real movie I slashed, not anime. You see, when I was in the seventh grade we watched this movie called 'Newsies' very often in school. Last December I was sick and curled up on the couch watching TV when I saw Newsies on Demand and decided, cool, I'll watch it again.
Your viewing pleasure takes a huge turn when you watch a movie at twelve years old and then watch it again at sixteen. My initial reaction to Newsies at twelve was 'Ooh, boys who can sing and dance...' and my initial reaction to it at sixteen was 'HOLY HOT!'. This morphed into genuine appreciation for the movie itself fairly quickly. It still stands as my favorite.
I really wanted to read fanfiction for it but at the time I was only ever interested in romance stories, and that genre was loaded with either slash or the main canon pairing of the movie because that female was the only young female therein. The latter ones were really dull and that depressed me because I really loved the movie.
I decided to give the slash a shot because I was curious about it. The only fans of yaoi I ever met were the loud, annoying kind who tried to make you read Gravitation and used Japanese words incorrectly in english sentences so I was really hesitant about it. But, I found that it was something interesting so I kept reading until I ran out and went looking for more on google. I hit the jackpot.
I spent the majority of my time reading Newsies slash until I was comfortable enough with the subject in general to davel into other fandoms. I started out with Touya/Yukito from Cardcaptor Sakura because I was already desensitized to it since it was canon. Then I moved on to non-canon things. My first non-canon anime yaoi pairing was SasuNaru.
It was definetely fanfiction that got me into yaoi -- I haven't read yaoi manga yet. I think a lot of that has to do with being too young to buy it, first of all, and also because I think I'm very immature about it. I'm not so much "Eww!" as I am completely nervous about being found out. I wouldn't be able to enjoy it properly. I'll probably wait until I'm old enough, which is actually relatively soon.
I haven't come across anybody who has discriminated against me for my age, and I think that's because I sound intelligent when I talk. I am mature enough to read the content but I'm not so much about viewing it (like in doujinshi). That's another beast I haven't yet conquered. I don't think age has so much to do with it; I think it has to do with taking time to get used to the idea and slowly work my way towards it. It only took me a month to get used to BL alone in fanfiction.
I'm annoyed by the "bad name" we tend to have because of certain very vocal fans. Before I started reading BL I was one of those people who thought all yaoi fans were weird, for lack of a better word. That's because the only ones I have ever spoken to or seen were loud and trying to hard to be Japanese. I'm annoyed that they're who you think of when you think of slash fans.
I haven't been anywhere that didn't let me view things because of my age. Mostly because I'm old enough to view NC-17 content now, but also because I go to DeviantART for the most part. I haven't explored further.
I'm not so sure what you mean by 'yaoi preferences'. I've already written an excessive amount though. XD
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Posted: Wed Sep 27, 2006 2:14 pm
Im a 16 year old male, Ive loved anime for many years, 6 or so, maybe a bit more. I remember watching Sailor Moon when i was like 8 or 9. I can safely say I loved Yaoi before I realized I was gay either. It was a friend of mine's and she let me read it and it was so cute, and I really thought it was a great read. It was the Gravitation series, right after it came out. I've read FAKE, watched Loveless and am reading the manga, and I love the pair of Shinji and Kowarou from Evangelion. I've found that even if I werent gay, or even bi, I would still read BL. I dont know what it is but I fell in love with it when I started reading it. Though lately Ive watched Sensual Pornography and it was amazing >.<
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Posted: Wed Sep 27, 2006 3:10 pm
I'm 16 and I've been a fan of BL for quite some time now. ^.^ It really started when I was looking around for just some random anime images (i think i was 12 or 13 at the time)and I found an entire site dedicated to BL. As soon as I looked at the first image I was really drawn to it, so I'd look around for images every now and then. Then my friend told me that she ordered this new series for her sister called Gravitation and that it had BL in it, so we watched it and I thought it was so cute. After that I got more and more into it, until I became the completely obsessed fangirl I am today. heart I have a big manga,dvd, and image collection of all the BL I can get ^.^ My most recent that I've watched it Sensitive Pornograph, which is so awesome. heart If I can't get my daily dose of BL I go crazy.
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Posted: Wed Sep 27, 2006 3:56 pm
I'm fourteen years old. ^_^
I was drawn to yaoi on accident. I don't remember what was the catalyst after it, but I do remember going on ff.net looking for het DBZ stories (this was about five years ago) and stumbled across GokuXVegeta. This kinda creeped me out and made me classify ff.net as a porn site and didn't go on it for like, a year or two. I dunno what happened after that to make me like it so much. I think I mighta picked up a volume of Gravitation without knowing what it was.
Sometimes I think I am not only discriminated against because of my age, but because my interests in the genre are not that of Yaoi but BL. (In the case of anime, anyway. For some reason I can deal with it better in writing.) I get the impression sometimes that people will think you are not a "real" fan unless you are into the hardcore kind of stuff, and anybody else is just a wanna-be. It's a little frustrating.
But even more so are the fans that a.) Get a huge kick out of BL but hate homosexuality of any kind IRL, b.) have nothing to contribute to the conversation but "OMG [insert seme] IZ SO KEWL! [insert uke] IS SO HOT!"
I try and be a bit more mature about it, but I also have a sense of humor about it too. I don't really take myself too seriously in any situation, but try and at least know what I am talking about. ^_^
Hope that helps.
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Posted: Wed Sep 27, 2006 6:57 pm
Well I am 15 almost 16 and my gay friends were writting a book and they kept haveing me spell words out. So I got intrested in what they were doing. SO they let me read it and look at pictures. One is an artist and the other is a writer. So I really enjoyed it and I had to look more into it so they showed me and that is really how it happend. (the book has both yuri and yaoi) Not that I can really tell I have not found that anyone has really said anything about my age. They just kind of are like ohhh really I thought you were older but they have not said anything about me looking or reading it or anything. I think that I am. I mean I have biology and you really kind of have to be mature about that stuff. So that has helped I think. All and all I feel that I am very mature enough to look at just about w/e. Weather or not I do I feel is a personal choice that is made off of if I feel that I could handel it. No not really because most of the time they are going by people as the whole and alot of teens my age are not mature enough to look at it. So it really does not bother me that and if I want to I have my friends account so I can just go on their. Well I must atmit that their is times that I am just like "AWWWWS" and stuff like that. So I guess I am a little bit of both because sometimes I don't say anything and just admire the beauty of it, but you know their are those pictures that just make you go "awwww" weather you want to or not. I really don't have any. I do like softer stuff over the really hardcore stuff. I find it holds more beauty for me if it is soft stuff. I just like the look of it they look really happy in those and have a very loveing feeling to them I think. So yeah that is about it for that.
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Posted: Wed Sep 27, 2006 9:09 pm
I got into BL when I was technically under aged. I was like sixteen, maybe seventeen. I don’t remember the exact age. I’m pretty sure I was a junior in HS. I’m very aware that my circumstances were probably very different than that of under aged fans today. For one, anime was still pretty underground when I got into it. So BL was like somewhere close to the core, it was so deep down. XD
What really and truly got me into BL was Gundam Wing. It’s fan fiction to be exact. But it wasn’t a hard transition into the genre. I already was a Sailor Moon fan for years. Haruka and Michiru were my favorite couple (this was before they aired the seasons of SM that had Haruka and Michiru). I would complain constantly about the homophobia that got Zoicite turned into a girl and so on. So yeah, I had no real problem slipping into the genre. It honestly fit like a glove. It was more of an amazement that there were other people who thought like me out there. ^^; The internet is a true eye opener. ^^;
At the time, I didn’t particularly feel any discrimination. Maybe it’s because there wasn’t a huge influx of crazy loud kiddy fans, maybe there was and I just acted mature enough that no one noticed I was a kid. I will always be a very happy, cheerful fan but I was respectful. I’d squee sometimes. But only when appropriate. I’m not exactly sure.
All I do know is that being an older fan now, I am really sick and tired of kiddy fans. To me, they’re the ones who’ve ruin great places online places. Places I use to go to all the time. Like ff.net. They’re the ones that flood websites with garbage fan fiction, who don’t seem to understand relationship dynamics (and I suppose it is understandable given their age), who are attached to stereotypes, who bash perfectly harmless female characters, and who just don’t have a clue in their little pastel-and-bubbles heads. I know very well that not all of them are annoying like that. I know that that not all young fans have a lack courtesy and common sense. But it really feels like the majority of them are annoying. So if I know better and still can‘t fully shake that impression, imagine what people who aren’t into this genre most think!
When I was a young fan I wasn’t really very pleased with censorship. This hasn’t changed over the years. I don’t believe teenagers need to be censored. Not about sex and definitely not about homosexuality. If you’ve taken sex ed (or are at an age where you should have taken sex ed), I don’t see a point in hiding the world from you. You know people have sex. Maybe instead of trying to pretend you don’t know, parents should be more attentive and communicate with their children. My parents spoke with me. They explained things to me. So I never felt like I wasn’t old enough to view hardcore yaoi. Furthermore, I don’t believe homosexuality needs to be censored until your eighteen. There’s nothing wrong with it. There’s nothing violent, graphic or inappropriate about same sex couples and I have always felt (even as a sixteen year old) that censoring it was nothing more than prejudice and discrimination. So as a sixteen year old I always felt a great annoyance with websites like aestheticism.com who demanded physical proof of your age. You had to send them a copy of your ID! It made me so mad.
What are my yaoi preferences? I’m not picky. I like drama, romance, comedy, action... I really like a good action BL story. I have also realized that I do feel sorta gypped if there’s no porn in the story ever. XD So yeah, I like BL stories with sex. Of course, I’d like the sex to make sense with the story. If they’ve been together for a while and you want to have some sex in there, that’s fine. At least it makes sense that they are having sex but if they just met and they hate each other and they’re not even drunk, why are they having sex? If I wanted pointless sex, I’d go read a PWP.
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Posted: Wed Sep 27, 2006 9:43 pm
I'm a legal adult now, but I got into yaoi when I was underaged, like a lot of people here.
I started out slashing anime series, though I quickly expanded to, well, everything. When I was younger, I liked anything that had my favorite pairings. I read everything and didn't care about quality. I was also very adverse to angst.
Now I like angst more, and I can handle the darker fics better. I'm also very picky about quaility; I won't read something that's inane.
I've gotten a lot more picky and less squee-y. I mean, I still squee, but just when I'm alone and very hyper, or with a few friends. I don't go berserk at 'cons or anything. I just quietly sneak over to the doujinshi and start looking through them.
I was never too concerned with content, since I'd read almost everything the hetero fiction community could dish out.
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Posted: Wed Sep 27, 2006 10:06 pm
I'm 24yrsold and I got into Yaoi when I was 21 when I read my first fanfic about Subaru/Seishirou. The funny thing is that I was looking for some pictures and information about the two when I saw a search result on yahoo that looked like a storie about tokyo babylon so I clicked it and I started to read it and I had no idea what was going on at first until I figured out that the fanfic was a lemon lol. Since then I started to get some Yaoi manga my first one was called Desire from DMP but then I got into more hardcore manga like Skyscrapers Of Oz, But I'm Your Teacher, Golden Cain and I Can't Stop Loving You. I also like Boys Love even though I like Yaoi alot more.
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Posted: Thu Sep 28, 2006 12:10 pm
LadyNox I have also realized that I do feel sorta gypped if there’s no porn in the story ever. XD I'm sort of like that sometimes. Not necessarily sex, but at least a little lime-y stuff. If I read too much happy "peck on the cheek" type fluff I get pissed after a while. xd
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Posted: Thu Sep 28, 2006 2:04 pm
I am 15 years old, almost 16, and I've been interested in yaoi for the last year, which is when I found out about it.
I don't even remember how I found yaoi, but I think it was from a fan music video that included Gravitation scenes.
I used to watch anime before yaoi, but not in a very frequent basis - I'd watch ones that were on TV if I had the time.
I don't think age really matters, as long as you're not VERY young.
I think that the thing that matters is being mature enough to understand and approve what you see, and this maturity can come with any age.
I don't usually get annoyed by other fans, because even the too serious or the too "oh, kawaii" ones, I think it's all about what phase you are on - I mean, I pride myself on being a mature enough person, but there are moments I like to be "oh, kawaii".
I get a little angry sometimes with the fact that there's this sort of age limit - at the bookshops for example, where you have to be 16 to buy yaoi, but I fortunately don't have to face that since there's no yaoi in the bookshops in my country at all - if it wasn't for Amazon.de.....
But I think it is only ment to protect people from seeing something they are not ready for - I've always disagreed with this though, and not only on yaoi, but on movies and other stuff.
I don't think I have a particular preference in yaoi genres.
It generally depends on the way I feel at the time, so i can watch the fluffiest of fluff and really hardcore stuff, and it generally doesn't make a difference to me.
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Posted: Thu Sep 28, 2006 2:18 pm
I'm underaged. And I started reading BL-like stuff about two or three years ago.
I was thirteen. =x
What drew me into the fandom was when my dearest friend, Christana, was kind enough to buy me Gravitation. And of course, given my age at the time and how many fangirls Gravitation can draw in, I was a total annoyance. >_< Sometimes I had the urge to punch myself. Over and over.
And about the age? Yes. Yes I do. Yaoi fangirls that scream and force their obsessions down people's esophagus is one thing, but I absolutely hate it when a legal, elitistic fan trashes everyone for either reading too much or too little at no matter what age. I really don't think the number of years you've been alive on the planet earth is important if you really are mature enough to handle material of graphic, sexual nature. I honestly don't.
And speaking of maturity, I do think I am, but at the same time, not. (Of course, I don't read PORN that often anymore, but I do have the urge to sometimes.) Mentally, yes, I can handle it, but sometimes I feel akward only because I feel strange bringing a manga up to the cashier that reads: "ADULT CONTENT" on the front in ginormous letters when I still have yet to reach the age of sixteen. But that's about it. (And I don't "squee", I "aww". 'Nough said. xD But that's because some fluff is just too sweet not to.)
Yaoi preferences? Eh... it's all porn to me. xP I tend to like BL/June more, though. I guess I just like storyline the majority of the time. I don't like futa, though. (Which I would hardly call Yaoi.)
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Posted: Thu Sep 28, 2006 5:45 pm
I'm 14. When I first started to like yaoi, I was 12. I got into anime when I was 11, and I discovered fanfiction just before I turned twelve. My first fandom was Yu-Gi-Oh. That was where I first found slash. I was still exploring fanfiction terms and such, so I didn't know what most warnings meant. I stumbled into a yamixhikari fic. I was a bit surprised for a few seconds, and then I though 'hey, this is really cool'. For a few months I stuck with shounen-ai, but then I rapidly progressed to more hardcore things. By the time I was 13, I was reading yaoi with hardcore bondage, kinks, bloodplay, you name it. The more I discovered was out there, the more I liked.
I do run into some problems because of my age. People don't take me seriously after they find out how old I am, etc. They tend to ignore my opinions if they know my age. I do feel that I'm mature enough to deal with explicit content. I think that being 'old enough' isn't quite right. Chronological age can be very different to mental age. I know some 12-year-olds that are more mature than some 17-year-olds. Being mature, in my view, is different to being old.
There are fans that annoy me. Those that think I can't handle reading/seeing certain things because of my age, when I've written more graphic things myself. Those who try to shove their own preferances down my throat. Fans that really annoy me are the ones that do things like write 'fanfiction' in chatspeak/txt talk. I find fans that lack all semblance of maturity, regardless of their actual age, annoying.
It does get on my nerves that some sites won't let me join, or access parts of them, simply because of my age.
My way of reacting to things often depends on my moods. I like to think I'm usually pretty collected about things, but I have some brief moments of 'squee'-ing. I squee for Pandect, and that's about it.
As for genre... I like angst, and hardcore yaoi. When it comes to the explicit stuff I have basically no taboos. I like BDSM, incest, etc. I sometimes enjoy fluff and romance, but I usually prefer darker things. It depends on my mood. Fantasy and supernatural are highly enjoyable for me as well.
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