Since the explosion of growth caused by its arrival on the Internet, pornography has also become a super-giga-business: in 2020, the revenues of the industry were estimated at 60 billion worldwide. These figures whisper to us that porn is now a common culture, whether we like it or not.
“In Japanese, we don’t say yaoi. When we look for these mangas, we will talk about BL, for boys love, explains the anthropologist and specialist in Japan Valérie Harvey. This is how they will be presented in bookstores. ” Of boys love ? Yes, in manga, for young readers, ranging from sentimental to very pornographic, where the loves of young boys are read, drawn and followed. Designed by them, and for them. Taboos for them. And which sell a lot, a lot here too, and in the Francophonie.
” Oh yes ! These are very, very popular manga with us! “Replies immediately Amélie Jean-Louis, co-owner of bookstores specializing in manga O-Taku. “There are a lot of them, maybe a dozen a month, often short stories. And we have a lot of fans. The bookstore even has a secluded “adults-only” section where yaoi stronger in explicit content.
And what are these young women reading? Gay porn manga, strong enough for him, but designed for them, and by them. The BL, thus summarized, is already a phenomenon in the eyes of the professor in the Department of sexology at UQAM Julie Lavigne. “I can now say that I am a porn expert and, in the yaoi, we see sexual scripts that we find almost nowhere else. »
“We see a fascination for the boys love, and sexual relations between men conceived by and for women. That’s rare. In 2011, Christine Détrez went further in her study Shonens for boys, shojos for girls ?asserting that the genera of the boys love are even supreme taboos for boys. Which then makes this new form of romance, and more so, an exclusive field for female readers.
male romance
Moto Hagio is the mother of boys loveesays M.me Jean Louis. Author of shojos of the 1970s, those romances that were aimed specifically at the audience of young women, Mme Hagio comes to weave his plots around only male characters.
“She realized that it allowed her to get out of the feminine shackles of her time and what we imagined of women in literature. She could better express what she wanted. “At the time, his stories were only sentimental, very platonic, specifies Mme Jean Louis.
“Moto Hagio was part of the circle of mangakas Le groupe de l’an 24, where the women were who began to come up with much more powerful and complex female characters. They have integrated feminist issues. They are the ones who started the wheel of feminist movements in Japan. »
If the yaoi features homosexuals, its readership is almost entirely female. In Japan, gay people, who have their own porn manga, even violently opposed the yaoi, according to the study of M.me Detrez. For Valérie Harvey, these mangas are a clear form of emancipation of women’s imagination, of applied feminism. “But we can’t say that for everyone. yaoi, you should know that there are also very, very bad ones…”
Here, “the buyers are on average between 16 and 25 years old”, assesses the co-owner of O-Taku. Porn doesn’t appeal to male curiosity at all. There would even be strong resistance from readers, according to Mme Detrez. At the bookstore, we confirm: “I have trouble getting my male employees to read it, when they have to know what it is, to sell it, it’s their job… »
Anal preparation
“When I talk about fairly new sexual scripts, it goes beyond purely sexual gestures, explains Julie Lavigne. We will see, for example, trips reverse harem, with a girl in the center and lots of men who are attracted to her, where she chooses. »
” In Kiss Him, Not Meof Junko, a chubby girl, consumer of yaoi, wakes up skinny and super fired up, and gets guys to kiss in front of her because that’s what turns her on. We will also see male homosexual puppets who do what we want. The men make their sexual parades there for the pleasure of the eyes of the girls.
“There is a big, big emphasis on anal preparation for sex. And also a great importance given to the affective relationship, which does not escape power, but where there is more, perhaps, equality? … between the partners, “says the professor, in a minute analysis for The duty.
“Mononormativity is still well established there. We are always with a “real” partner”, even if we splurge around. There are several sexual relations; a sexual scene will include several penetrations, several ejaculations. There are no body limits. And relationships last for a while, both emotionally and sexually. »
The taste for yaoi also inspires some of our female readers, who write and post fanfiction, or who stage themselves… disguising themselves as young boys. “There is no equivalent at all, especially of this sort of recovery, in our Western cultural pornographic productions,” says Julie Lavigne.
THE yaoi are not entirely acceptable, but not taboo either, for women. “Porn is relatively accepted for anything heterosexual, but I don’t think a girl can read a yaoi in the metro”, emphasizes Amélie Jean-Louis.
The mangakas who write yaoi or BL sign under a pseudonym. But the books are easily found, everywhere in Japan, without seals even for the most explicit, often within reach of the hands or the eyes of children. “Manga is very, very popular in Japan, but if an adult continues to read a lot of it, he will be considered closed in on himself, specifies Valérie Harvey. This is not well seen from the moment one begins seriously in the world of work. But many still read them, without talking about them…” whether they are porn or not.