User:Rachel Thorn/Sandbox 1

My first sandbox! Let's play! Knock down my fort and I'll throw your bucket over the fence, poopyhead! Matt Thorn (talk) 02:04, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Shōjo Manga in Japanese Society
Your brilliant prose here! Matt Thorn (talk) 02:19, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Kazuko Suzuki says that up until the 1970s, shoujo manga followed a "Cinderella" script, characterised by females being very dependent on males. In the 1970s, social changes allowed women to work outside of the home more. Suzuki ref moved Suzuki describes Attack No. 1 as being "a new innovation on the campus story" and praises the independence of its heroine, who trains hard to make her own happiness possible. (p. 246-247) Suzuki suggests that as women tried to become more independent, they started to perceive more and more obstacles, and so shoujo manga began to explore themes of hardships associated with being female. (p. 247) A study by Suzuki suggests that around 80% of girls' manga in the early 1970s was formulaic girl-meets-boy romance. (p. 247) Realistic girls' manga of this time would portray an independent girl being in an equal romance with a boy, but losing this equality once she has an unwanted pregnancy. Suzuki suggests that this is part of the reason that heroines were discarded by writers in order to explore equality in relationships without the spectre of pregnancy. (p.248-249)


 * This paragraph is by Matt or Malkinann? It's supposed to go into the Yaoi entry, yes? Timothy Perper (talk) 11:37, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
 * It's by me, and I thought most of it was slightly more relevant to the history of shoujo manga rather than yaoi??? -Malkinann (talk) 11:48, 5 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Great. Do you have any specific titles for girls that depict the heroine with an unwanted pregnancy? Citing them would be worth its weight in gold. Timothy Perper (talk) 11:59, 5 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Kazuko Suzuki doesn't give any examples of this, (citing an unpublished paper by a Hideko Suzuki) but a little birdie says something about Yumiko Ooshima's Birth, which may or may not fit the pattern described by Hideko Suzuki. -Malkinann (talk) 12:13, 5 August 2008 (UTC)


 * I think Suzuki is really stretching things here. I can think of plenty of better early examples of independent, strong heroines than Attack No. 1, which is known as the first really popular sports manga in shoujo manga, but is otherwise, well, pretty goofy. Tetsuya Chiba's shoujo manga from the late 1950s and early 1960s feature wonderful, strong heroines. Then there's the question of what constitutes "formulaic girl-meets-boy romance." Depending on your measuring stick, you could argue that 80% of shoujo manga still fit that description. As for unwanted pregnancy, I know of only one quite famous example from 1970-71, Yumiko Ōshima's Tanjō! ("Birth!"), which was shocking at the time and was probably not repeated in the genre for another ten years (except perhaps in the case of a secondary character). And I don't see how Tanjō! could be seen as making the heroine "unequal" to the male lead, apart from the obvious fact that she's the one who became pregnant and had to deal with it. The point of the story, IMO, is not what choice she made, but the fact that she took control of her own destiny and made the choice on her own, rather than passively doing what her parents or boyfriend wanted her to do. (BTW, she decides to have the baby.) Anyway, generalizing based only on Tanjō! would be quite odd. And artists certainly did not "discard" heroines. (If anything, Tanjō! inspired other artists, who thought, "Wow! If she can do this, then surely I can do that." In fact, I think Hagio actually said something just like that to me once.) Shoujo manga featuring male protagonists were the exception, and (with the exception of BL) are still rare today. I'm afraid this paragraph as it is gives a distorted and confusing picture of shoujo manga. For every shoujo manga featuring a male protagonist ("The Heart of Thomas", etc.) I could name 50 or more popular manga from the same period featuring a female protagonist ("Aim for the Ace!", etc.) For this section, I was picturing something more along the lines of 1) how public perceptions of shoujo manga evolved, 2) how the meaning of shoujo manga to readers has evolved, 3) how shoujo manga may have affected society (always a tricky question), 4) how shoujo manga have reflected society over the years and 5) how social changes have affected the industry. Fujimoto is a great source for this, as the title of her first book ("Where Do I Belong?: The Shape of the Heart as Reflected in Girls' Comics") implies. Yonezawa, in his writings on the history of shoujo manga, talks about how it was transformed from a belittled genre to a respected one, mostly thanks to the 24 Year Group. And my own work talks about the place of manga in the lives of Japanese girls and women. Matt Thorn (talk) 12:36, 5 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Hah! Once again, we were editing at the same time, Malkinann. Yeah, I'm the "little birdie." (^^;) Matt Thorn (talk) 12:45, 5 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Here's an excerpt from my interview with Hagio about Ōshima:


 * Matt Thorn (talk) 12:53, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

More cross-editing...

I don't think we want to generalize about Tanjō! -- I think we want to say that it exists. In contrast to an academic paper that draws only generalized conclusions, this article can include unique cases, or if not unique then not commonplace, especially if they were, as Matt says, "shocking." Off-hand, I would suggest that part of what was shocking was a breach in one or another kind of public/private barrier, because certainly unwanted pregnancies were occurring in Japan and being dealt with privately (I can cite references another time). So what we're seeing here is the entree of something widely familiar (unwanted pregnancy and of course abortion) into a public and popular medium. So even if Tanjō! rejected the possibility of the woman having an abortion, it still deals with an issue perhaps for the first time. That, IMO, certainly deserves mention especially in the context of her actively making decisions about her own life.

Given that many of my interests in manga are related to my interests and writing about human sexuality, I think an important theme of this history deals with the public/private nature of sexuality and of "sexual discourse." I can go into a lot more about that, but it seems to be something we can't disregard when looking at this history.

Timothy Perper (talk) 13:00, 5 August 2008 (UTC)


 * From TP. I agree with Matt that the shōjo heroine was not abandoned. In fact, I see the history of shōjo manga in part as an increasing focus on the heroine, and especially on her self-agency, self-determination, and independence. Shiokawa (1999) makes a similar point, and we have elaborated on it in a forthcoming paper of ours in the International Journal of Comic Art -- that these stories point to "... on-going shift away from neo-Confucianist, hence patriarchal, ideals of the good wife and wise mother who is the passive subordinate of men and the passive producer of offspring for men." In a symbolic sense, YAOI is part of the same historical trend, because in YAOI the woman artist and her readers get to play Goddess with men and make them do all kinds of interesting things, e.g., bonking each other. One YAOI dojinshi artist said in a reference I have misplaced that drawing YAOI is like playing with dolls: You get to make them do whatever you want! So I do not think that YAOI represents displacement of female libido from prohibited avenues (either heterosexual or lesbian) by means of a sublimated (and therefore ultimately false-consciousness) identification with the oppressor; rather, I see YAOI as an exercise in female autonomy, based on a really quite erotic definition of what men are. Instead of having these men fight each other and vie with each other for who is King of the Mountain, these women artists show men forming sexual unions in varying degrees of explicitness. The underlying ethos of YAOI is literally and truly "Make love, not war." If one asks what would the world look like if women really ran it, would if be filled with armed men, heroically battling each other against impossible odds and dying heroic deaths? Hell, no. It'd have all these GORGEOUS guys bonking each other -- or thus one might readily argue from YAOI. We certainly don't want them dead, the YAOi artist is typically saying, we want them alive and sexy! Timothy Perper (talk) 18:31, 5 August 2008 (UTC)


 * There's always the possibility that I'm just not understanding Suzuki perfectly here, right? Maybe she only meant that the shonen-ai writers stopped showing females, rather than all writers in total, for instance.  Incidentally Mr Perper, I gather that your and Ms Cornog's work that most concerns yaoi is "Eroticism for the masses"?  I've looked it up and I don't have access to it...  I don't suppose I could prevail upon you to drop by Talk:Yaoi some time and give enough of a summary for us to cite you?  It'd be really helpful if you could!  Also, the 'girls playing with dolls' comment sounds like something I've got cited to Yoshihiro Yonezawa via Sequential Tart. -Malkinann (talk) 23:03, 5 August 2008 (UTC)


 * How much and what to say about Tanjō! is tricky. Abortion in Japan is not and never has been a "hot-button" issue, as it is the U.S. Although the heroine chooses to give birth, there is no anti-abortion message here at all. But Timothy is right about Tanjō exposing to the light of day a topic that had been (and remains) one not discussed in polite company, and certainly not in a magazine whose core readership was pubescent and prepubescent girls. Takemiya's The Song of the Wind and the Trees (1976) was even more controversial. The editor (Junya Yamamoto) took serious heat from the suits on that one, but stood by Takemiya and refused to even pressure her to tone it down. The danger in spending too much space on these works, though, is is that it gives the impression that these radical works were (and are) representative of shoujo manga as a whole, when what they really represent is the diversification of content, form, and theme that took place when women artists took over the field. "Playing with dolls" is brilliant. That must be included in the Yaoi article. Matt Thorn (talk) 02:34, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Matt, I agree about abortion. The questions are very different in Japan and in the US. I see the significance of works like Tanjō, The Song of the Wind and the Trees, and Berusaiyu no Bara not in their being representative, but in how they opened new vistas for later artists that expanded portrayals of shōjo self-determination and agency.

I'm in the middle of reading Suzuki's article. I have the sense that I'm missing something important, but I haven't finished it yet, so I'll wait a bit before asking you people questions!

Actually, Malkinann, Martha and I haven't published very much about YAOI. The "Eroticism for the masses" paper dealt with it only in passing (it was written in 2001, before the big YAOI market opened in the US). An interesting sidenote: I'm a member of sex therapy listserve, and I posted a question there about YAOI (figuring that some of them had to have heard of it). My absolute favorite comment so far was a woman therapist who wrote "For a staight woman who sees the body type she most favors, what could be better than two versions of this?" My own feeling is that a good deal of academic commentary on YAOI is hand-wringing worry about whether it's NORMAL for girls to be Interested in Such Things. Well, yes, my answer is, it certainly is -- not exactly traditional, but certainly normal.

I found some websites for the "playing with dolls" quote, but not the one I remember. I'll keep digging.

BTW, our "eroticism" paper is available for the low, low price of $32 from Springer-Verlag  We do not get one red cent from them, and they weren't even the damn publishers back in 2002 when the paper was first published. But they're selling the paper anyway. I think it's a good paper, but I can't guarantee that it's a $32-good-paper.

A more accessible paper is:

Perper, Timothy and Martha Cornog 2003 Sex, love, and women in Japanese comics. In Robert T. Francoeur and Raymond Noonan, editors. The Comprehensive International Encyclopedia of Sexuality. New York: Continuum. pages 663-671. You can find it when you scroll down to Section 8D in 

Both these papers were done before the recent Manga Explosion in the US and before the equally recent explosion of academic commentary about manga and anime.

Timothy Perper (talk) 17:05, 6 August 2008 (UTC)


 * We could, if we find critics waxing lyrical about one title or another, briefly mention it in the shoujo manga article and port the majority of the reception to the series article? (Like From Eroica with Love is mentioned as an example in the yaoi article, but I've created a small reception section for it from that information.)  This would help guard those articles against notability problems, too.  Thanks for clarifying about the yaoi-content of your 2002 paper.  They charge $32 for your paper, and you don't see any of it?  That's awful!!  Thank you for showing me your other paper - we might be able to use it in the yuri article. -Malkinann (talk) 21:36, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Critical Attention
Your brilliant and concise overview here! Matt Thorn (talk) 23:31, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

The shonen-ai, yaoi and BL phenomena have been analysed by critics in various ways, including common themes presented, the gender-bending of the bishonen protagonists, moved Welker ref how gay identity is portrayed in yaoi, moved McLelland ref (also Vincent a little) looking at yaoi as a feminist expression including an 'ideal love' not found in heterosexual romances,(Suzuki) and discussing what may lie behind the popularity of yaoi.(Every man and his dog)


 * Malkinann wrote this, right? Sorry, it looks like we were writing at the same time. I didn't notice your contribution until I posted the draft below. Don't know Welker or Suzuki. Matt Thorn (talk) 01:56, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Yeah, oops. I don't use sandboxes that much.  James Welker writes about lesbians and BL manga, and Suzuki is Kazuko Suzuki, who I've been citing all over yaoi already.  (Her fieldwork for the chapter extended from about the mid 80s to '94, so I'd be highly surprised if you and she didn't come to similar conclusions). -Malkinann (talk) 02:12, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Just reading the abstract, it sounds like we do share a similar viewpoint. I'll have to get the book. Matt Thorn (talk) 02:17, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Here's Matt's first second third draft:

BL (shounen-ai, yaoi) have received considerable scholarly and critical attention, since the early 1980s in Japan, and since the early 1990s in English. The amount of English-language writings, in particular, has increased sharply since commercially published translation of BL have become widely available in the first decade of the 21st Century. '''Need some examples here! The only one in my bibliography is my own 2004 paper! Ueno, in 1989, wrote that ""male homosexuality [in shōjo manga] was a safety device that allowed [girls] to operate this dangerous thing called 'sex' at a distance from [their] own bodies; it was the wings that enabled girls to fly." Ueno 1989 moved ref Fujimoto, writing in 1991, argued that shōnen-ai represented a way for readers to avoid the reality of adult female sexuality, while proposing the possibility that the genre could eventually lead to a more fluid perception of gender and sexuality. Fujimoto 1991 moved ref Takemiya, in 1993, suggested that the genre, in rejecting socially mandated heterosexual gender roles, is "a first step towards feminism." Takemiya moved ref'''

Sakakibara, in 1998, took the radical stance that fans of yaoi, including herself, are in fact female-to-male transsexuals with a homosexual orientation. Sakakibara moved ref In English, Schodt first noted the phenomenon in 1983, simply reporting that "[t]ales of homosexual relationships between young boys, when depicted 'aesthetically,' are very popular among female readers and are an extension of the underlying bisexual theme traditionally present in many girls' comic stories." Schodt ref moved Buckley, writing in 1991, suggested that, "[t]he objective of the bishōnen narratives is is not the transformation or naturalization of difference but the valorization of the imagined potentialities of alternative differentiations." Moved Buckley ref Thorn wrote in 1993 that the phenomenon is "one of enormous complexity that resist[s] easy formulations. There are different reasons that different Japanese are attracted to sexual ambiguity in shoujo manga, yet there is at the same time undeniably some thing there." moved Thorn1993 ref In 2004, Thorn revisited the issue, argued that what fans of yaoi and slash "share in common is 1) discontent with the standards of femininity to which they are expected to adhere, and 2) a social environment that does not validate or sympathize with that discontent." Moved Thorn 2004 ref Welker, in 2006, described the bishōnen as being a "queer" character, noting that such lesbians as manga critic Akiko Mizoguchi have spoken of the role of shonen-ai in their own process of "becoming a lesbian". Welker declared that shonen-ai liberates readers "not just from patriarchy, but from gender dualism and heteronormativity." Welker ref moved Matt Thorn (talk) 06:23, 6 August 2008 (UTC)


 * What does "[t]he objective of the bishōnen narratives is is not the transformation or naturalization of difference but the valorization of the imagined potentialities of alternative differentiations." mean? The point of having bishonen in the stories is not to make the gender difference (between men and women) less, but to champion the sex and gender possibilities that imagination allows us? ...Even after translating it, I don't get it! ^_^; -Malkinann (talk) 05:43, 5 August 2008 (UTC)


 * To be honest, I don't know what the hell Buckley is trying to say here, which is why I quoted her rather than tried to summarize. (^_^) I strongly dislike her article, personally, but it is widely cited in "the literature," so I thought I should include it. I have no objection, though, to removing the reference to Buckley entirely. I remember hearing hear present an earlier version of this paper at some conference way back around 1990 and thinking it was awful. Then in got published in Technoculture, and since it was basically the only "academic" thing in print on the topic in English, it became a popular source. I feel like I've spent most of my academic career fighting against this article by Buckley and Anne Allison' Permitted & Prohibited Desires. (I like Anne very much as a person, but I hate that book.) The line I quoted is really typical of the kind of smarty-pants, enigmatic prose that is popular in a lot "cultural studies" work, and which is one reason I basically stopped writing for academics after finishing my "Out of Hand" article. BTW, shounen-ai is only a small part of the Buckley article, so I think omitting it is easily justified.


 * Phew, so it's not just me, then!! James Welker covers the transgressive gender performance of the bishonen in much clearer (but lengthier) language in his "Girls love as Boys Love", with special reference to lesbian readings of Heart of Thomas and Kaze to Ki no Uta. I think that perhaps we should err on the side of making it easier for the reader to understand the shonenai/yaoi/BL phenomena rather than reproducing a history of the scholarship. -Malkinann (talk) 10:37, 5 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Agreed. So you're volunteering to add a line about Welker, right? (^^) As you can see, I struck the line about Buckley (though I left it there just as a record of the drafting process). Matt Thorn (talk) 10:51, 5 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Guess so, lol. Might need some help teasing out the hyper-relevant bits, though. James Welker describes the bishonen as being "queer", as the bishonen is an androgynous aesthete with a feminine soul "who lives and loves outside of the heteropatriarchal world" (Beautiful, Borrowed and Bent, p.842)  Welker agrees with Fujimoto when she says that part of the reason why the bishonen is genderqueer ((My word here, not Welker's or Fujimoto's)) is because girls can't accept and celebrate their own sexuality.  Then Welker presents the idea that lesbians (namedrop, namedrop) also read shonen ai as part of their self-identification.  "hence the full potential of boys' love is largely overlooked: that of liberating readers not just from patriarchy but from gender dualism and heteronormativity"(p. 843)  He then goes on to say that Takarazuka, Sapphire and Oscar are inspirations for bishonen, that the enforced censorship of "male sex organs" can suggest femininity in Gilbert specifically and bishonen in general, that gender is a matter of degree (put a flamboyantly gay boy next to a woman and he seems more masculine, put him next to a macho man and the boy seems more feminine)  He also goes on a bit about the "lesbian panic" inherent in suggesting that bishonen are girls under their skins - that the stories are really about female-female relationships. -Malkinann (talk) 11:45, 5 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Great! Now boil that all down to one sentence. (^o^) Matt Thorn (talk) 02:36, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Jeez, that's a hard task! Got it in two? JW describes the bishonen as being a "queer" character, as lesbians such as manga critic Akiko Mizoguchi have read shonen ai as part of their own "becoming a lesbian". Welker declares that shonen ai liberates readers "not just from patriarchy, but from gender dualism and heteronormativity". Of course, it helps now that I've made a "Critical attention" section for bishonen... ^^ -Malkinann (talk) 03:05, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
 * I added your summary to the lit review. (See above.) Does that look all right? Note that the link to the article is dead, so I removed it. I think this is probably good enough for the "Critical Attention" section. It's not comprehensive, but provides a decent sample of both Japanese English writings. If there are no objections, I suggest we check the piece for formatting and typos and plug it into the article. Matt Thorn (talk) 06:23, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
 * "such lesbians as..." wierds me out, it kind of implies that there's a lesbian hierarchy, rather than we're just using Mizoguchi as a named example (as she is a lesbian and a manga critic). Otherwise, it's a darned improvement on what we've got already in yaoi. -Malkinann (talk) 06:32, 6 August 2008 (UTC)


 * I think I'll try editing this stuff down a bit. Not simplifying, just shortening. Is OK? Timothy Perper (talk) 12:31, 7 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Please do! And, yeah, Malkinann, I was weirded out by "such lesbians as" even as I wrote it. (^^;) It was an awkward first attempt to "streamline" your summary. Please keep in mind that while English is my first language, I've spent most of my adult life in Japan and spend a hell of a lot more time speaking and writing Japanese than I do English, so sometimes my English sounds as if it was translated from Japanese (because it was, in my head). Particularly sad, since I majored in writing in college, and am supposed to be something of a professional writer. (-_-;) Matt Thorn (talk) 13:13, 7 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Ouch! I get what you mean there - the good thing about wiki is that we don't necessarily have to get the prose just right the first time around, and it can benefit from having many sets of eyes on it.  After all, yaoi is one of wikipedia's popular pages - more popular than Ghostbusters! -Malkinann (talk) 21:38, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

Edited for Brevity
Here's a first shot at editing it down. My aim is brevity and precision. The stuff below needs references, especially page refs. We need a single term for BL, yaoi, shonen-ai, and so on. We also need to add the given names of the people cited. Timothy Perper (talk) 13:26, 7 August 2008 (UTC)


 * I've added text footnotes and reference queries where we need information. The refs should be transferred from the numbered list to this text. I transferred Malkinann's comment about critics. We need a footnote defining yaoi ronsou. More coming. Timothy Perper (talk) 04:58, 8 August 2008 (UTC)


 * I've added some more material from various comments made in the discussion. More importantly, I also added references.


 * These are tricky and are one of the major problems working on Wikipedia. The Wikipedia word-processing program gathers ALL references into one huge reference list, numbering them seqquentially, which means that any reference prior to the text below will be included as number 1,2,3, or whatever. That means that we need to be very careful using the Different critics and commentators have had very different views of BL. In 1983, Frederik L. Schodt observed that “aesthetically” depicted male-male homosexual relationships had become popular among female readers as an extension of bisexual themes already present in shōjo manga. Japanese critics have seen BL as allowing girls to distance sex from their own bodies, as allowing girls to avoid adult female sexuality while simultaneously creating greater fluidity in perceptions of gender and sexuality, and as rejecting “socially mandated” gender roles as a “first step toward feminism.” In more elaborate theorizing, Suzuki Kazuko sees BL manga emerging from girls' contempt and dislike for masculine heterosexism and from an effort to define "ideal relationships" among men.


 * Other commentators have suggested that more radical gender-political issues underlie BL. Shihomi Sakakibara (1998) argued that yaoi fans, including herself, were homosexually oriented female-to-male transsexuals. For Sandra Buckley, bishōnen narratives valorize “the imagined potentialities of alternative [gender] differentiations" and James Welker described the bishōnen character as "queer", observing that manga critic Akiko Mizoguchi saw shōnen-ai as playing a role in how she herself had become a lesbian. Welker added that shōnen-ai liberates readers "not just from patriarchy, but from gender dualism and heteronormativity."


 * Some gay and lesbian commentators have criticized how gay identity is portrayed in BL, most notably in the yaoi ronsō of 1992-1997. In 2003, Mizoguchi characterised some stereotypes in modern BL as being "unrealistic and homophobic". In 1993 and 2004, Matthew Thorn pointed to the complexity of these phenomena, and suggested that yaoi and slash fiction fans are discontented with “the standards of femininity to which they are expected to adhere and a social environment that does not validate or sympathize with that discontent.”

References


 * Wow, that's a lot shorter!!! :D  Thank you, Tim!  I'm kind of sorry to bring it up, but what about gay and lesbian commentary?  I think we've got the main part of it in the yaoi ronsou section, (I kind of got the impression that everyone just got sick of arguing about it in '97, lol) but I found something yesterday which was interesting...  Gay and lesbian commentators have focussed on the realism of gay identity in BL, most notably in the yaoi ronsou of 1992-1997.(Lunsing, Vincent)  In 2003, Mizoguchi characterised some stereotypes in modern BL as being "unrealistic and homophobic". Mizoguchi ref moved Also, I'm going to have to take Suzuki back to the library today, sigh. -Malkinann (talk) 21:19, 7 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Great job. (Note that the earlier paper by me is from 1993, not 2003.) Here are the page numbers for the quotes from the references I supplied:
 * Schodt: 100-101
 * Buckley: 177
 * Thorn (2004): 180
 * I don't suppose page numbers are required for the other refs, since they are summaries of arguments that span whole pieces. Malkinann, I'd like to hear more about the "yaoi ronsou of 1992-1997." I'd also like to read the complete text of Mizoguchi's presentation. Do you know where I could find it? I found a lengthy summary in Japanese here. She seems like one of those freelance scholars who teaches/works all over the place, but doesn't have a single "home base." Her work looks quite interesting. I'm thinking about buying the book that includes the Suzuki chapter, but even if I buy the cheapest copy I could find on Bookfinder.com, the shipping costs are enough to give me pause. My bookshelf is overflowing as it is, and the last thing I want is another academic anthology that is 80% crap. (-_-;) I'll see if the Kyoto Prefectural Library has a copy. Matt Thorn (talk) 01:31, 8 August 2008 (UTC)
 * The yaoi ronsou hasn't been the subject of much English-language literature, Keith Vincent's Mechademia 2 paper covers it the best I've seen, although Wim Lunsing seems to have been the pioneer English-language writer about the ronsou. Properly, it should say 1992-1997ish, with revivals by English-language gay activists etc. I've tried to condense the yaoi ronsou into Yaoi, and Lunsing's paper references some of the original debaters.  I'm pretty sure that Suzuki's chapter was the only Japanese-related paper in the book, so you may find that the book as a whole isn't as relevant to you as you might wish. (However, if you happen to be a closet fan of the Spice Girls, the book has you covered. XD)  I can't find any full works by Mizoguchi, but she has also published in the US-Japan Women's Journal (which I can't access) and in "Queer Japan" (according to Google Scholar, I can't find a website for that journal.) Hope this helps. :) -Malkinann (talk) 13:14, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

I honestly couldn't say that McLelland says there's a lot of scholarship out there on BL - he says on page 61 that there's stuff-all in English and even less in Japanese. Mind you, that was in 2000, pre-BL boom. -Malkinann (talk) 21:59, 8 August 2008 (UTC)


 * OK, we remove the McLelland ref. No problem at all. Timothy Perper (talk) 00:29, 9 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Mind you, from what I've seen, academics like to complain that no-one else has written on this incredibly important aspect of topic X, even when they haven't investigated as thoroughly as ideally they should be able to. Makes their own stuff seem more important to the reader, I think? Once we port this over to the article, I'm thinking of requesting a hand from WikiProject Citation cleanup (they're going to *slay* me, aren't they?) and then a reassessment from the LGBT wikiproject - hopefully it won't cause a ronsou.  -Malkinann (talk) 00:50, 9 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Malkinann, may I suggest another procedure? It's based on my experience doing this kind of thing on the manga and History of manga articles. I can pretty much tell you what the Citation cleanup people will say -- and we don't need them yet. First, the references are all in and numbered correctly, but they are not yet complete. They need to be put in consistent format, they need starting and final pages for all print references, and all books need an ISBN (available by searching for the title and author on Google Books). There are probably other glitches as well that I haven't noticed (in fact I just found and corrected one). Second, the Citation cleanup folks will tell us to use the various citation templates, which, in my experience are a waste of space and time. Their use is NOT -- repeat, not, not, not -- mandated. So, first, you and Matt need to complete the references with all the additional stuff needed. I can't do this because I don't have the references at hand.


 * Then, once the references are complete, Matt gets to make another sandbox, this one called "Matt Thorn/Sandbox 2," and we move ONLY the new material into it. I'll help with this when he makes the new Sandbox. The reason is to ask people to look ONLY at Sandbox 2 and not at Sandbox 1. If people see Sandbox 1, they will start objecting and adding things and helpfully changing everything we have. The result will be unusable -- believe me, this is the voice of experience talking!


 * Then go over to the page we're porting this into and put a note on its talk page that we have new material to add that can be found on Sandbox2. This tells people what we're doing and creates consensus about it. Yes, I know it's tedious but the alternative can be a lot worse.


 * Yes, you are absolutely right that academics say that topic X has little research in order to inflate their own work.


 * Timothy Perper (talk) 12:14, 9 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Yeah, I'm a bit conflicted on the citation templates too - I'm not sure if, for example, they'd support someone writing a foreword to a book chapter by someone else. Do you have any recommendations for a citation style?  I'm only really familiar with Harvard, and that doesn't fully go with the style of things. This "critical attention" section we're drafting here is intended to entirely replace the current "appeal" section? -Malkinann (talk) 22:51, 9 August 2008 (UTC)


 * I added page numbers and ISBNs where I could, but the ISBNs on Amazon do not include hyphens. Do we need to include both ISBNs when two are given? Sheesh. This reference formatting has addled my ADD-impaired brain. (Pun intended.) I'll continue looking for missing info from the references I added. As for the question about whether this should replace the "Appeal" section, I don't know. What do you think? The problem with writing about appeal apart from what we're doing here is "verifiability." In my own paper, I tried to rely on the statements of fans, and to summarize some of the more common reasons fans give for liking the genre, but I can't claim that my list of reasons is exhaustive. Sakakibara is herself a fan, but 99% of fans think her theory is nuts. Finding published or otherwise recorded statements by fans that we can reference would probably be difficult, though not impossible. And since I think this article is primarily about the yaoi phenomenon in Japan, I would be wary of referencing statements by non-Japanese fans (except in a section on reception outside of Japan), since I think the rationales given are extremely influenced by their society's discourse on homosexuality. I think the underlying appeal is basically the same, but the way Japanese and American fans talk about it is very different. Do we need an "Appeal" section? Matt Thorn (talk) 05:14, 10 August 2008 (UTC)


 * BTW, should I add the Original Japanese for titles and authors? I suppose it would make it easier for people who want to track down the original source material. Matt Thorn (talk) 05:16, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

Some comments about the new material and answers to some questions
I transferred the text (and therefore the references) to Sandbox 2. It looks good. We can adjust and format the references over there.

(1) My personal preference is to use ISBNs with hyphens. Here is a website that is worth its weight in gold -- it identifies the publisher associated with each Japanese ISBN.

http://www.isbn-center.jp/cgi-bin/isbndb/isbn.cgi

An ISBN has several parts. For example, ISBN 4-08-873444-0

The "4" means Japanese. Each language has its own number - 0 & 1 are English; 2 is French; 3 is German; 4 is Japanese. The "08" is a unique code uniquely identifying the publisher, in this case, Shueisha. (Given on the Japanese ISBN site above!) The "873444" uniquely identifies the book, this book and no other. In this case, a de luxe edition of Dragon Ball. The final "0" is a so-called "checksum," meaning you can use it to see if the numbers were right.

The full reference would be

TORIYAMA Akira 2002 Doragonbo-ru: Dragonball. Tokyo: Shueisha. Volume One. ISBN 4-08-873444-0.

(2) Verifiability is Wiki-jargon and doesn't mean what it would mean if we were writing this for scholarly publication. It means instead something like "traceability" or "locatability," meaning that (in ideal, but, alas, not always in practice) all statements made on Wikipedia can be traced to someone who actually made that statement. In the material we have above, everything we said is Wiki-verifiable because each substantive statement is referred to a source where someone said what we said they said. The reason for this is to prevent Wikipedia from drowning under a swamp of unreferenced opinion, guesswork, ranting, fancruft, and half-remembered "what somebody said in the bar one night after 8 beers." We do NOT have to worry about that in the material in Sandbox 2 -- our text is very heavily referenced. In brief, none of it is made up.

So we're not concerned by whether or not a given statement is true or even plausible; we're concerned to reference it to someone who said it. Of course, it is also our responsibility to make sure that what this someone said is significant, interesting, and/or insightful, but it does NOT have to be "true" in some positivist sense for us to use it. In the present case, the fact that the three of us know a good deal -- a lot -- about the subject assures us that we're not giving "undue weight" (another Wiki-ism) to various crackpot theories. But, Matt, rest assured that WE do not have to "verify" the claims being made by the people we're citing. Our job is to choose serious scholars, even if we disagree with them, and cite them accurately. When we do that, "Wiki-verifiability" has been satisfied.

(3) I don't have a quick answer to where this goes -- Malkinann, you're the expert on the YAOI entry. I'll trust your judgement, and Matt's. I'll look at the article with an eye to seeing where I think it might go, but I respect your judgement.

More later. Timothy Perper (talk) 07:41, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

WP:ISBN (I can't believe it exists... o_O) suggests using solely the 13 number ISBN, with dashes if available. WP:V and the Manual of Style for Japanese articles don't say anything about adding the original titles for non-English sources, but it would probably be a good idea to do so somehow. The Japanese MOS seems to advocate using Nihongo in general, which I know how to use. On replacing the appeal section with a critical attention section... I think a critical attention section has the potential to cover more than just the appeal, but I think there's also an issue of going off on a tangent and placing undue weight on 'why'. There are lots of theories out there, touching on them all would cause the article to be about "The why of yaoi" rather than yaoi/BL itself (such as themes, use of rape, more on this 'equality' idea). I might have the bias that as a fan, I'd feel touchy about 'why', as a distrust of being studied by people. We might add the current appeal section to what we're working on, and then edit out the duplicate information? -Malkinann (talk) 09:05, 10 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Should we fold in the "debate" material from the YAOI entry into the new section? I can transfer that section to Sandbox2 and summarize it if you like. Timothy Perper (talk) 15:03, 10 August 2008 (UTC)


 * ISBNs...Phew. I'll try to find the proper 13-digit (and hyphenated) ISBNs for the books I introduced. (Why the hell are there two different ISBNs? Wait, don't answer that; I really don't want to know.) I'm inclined to defer to Malkinann on the issue of how much "why" is enough. I say trim as you see fit, Malkinann. There are literally dozens (possibly hundreds, if you include stuff in languages other than Japanese and English) of scholarly and semi-scholarly articles on the subject, many of them variations on the same themes. Personally, I think 90% of them are crap. I think it's enough to introduce a few, just to show what kind of things are being said, and to demonstrate that this has "merited" scholarly attention (which, if nothing else, could help students who want to write papers on the subject and need some references to justify it to skeptical teachers/profs). Timothy, I'm not sure what you mean by the "debate" material, but I think anything to make the article a smooth, well-structured read is defnitely welcome. BTW, I found myself checking out books on "fujoshi" on Amazon.co.jp today, and was surprised to find that virtually all of them (and there were at least five or six) were very poorly reviewed. It seems the definitive (or even just decent) book on the subject has yet to be written, in any language. Matt Thorn (talk) 15:23, 10 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Currently in the article there's a section on the yaoi ronsou called Yaoi, (although "dispute" might be better) which covers a period in Japanese yaoi fan history where gay activists began to notice and take offense at yaoi. Tim, please go ahead and incorporate "Debate" (and "Appeal"? please??) in the "Critical attention" section - I fear that I've used excessively emotive language (^_^;) to describe the debate.  Incorporating the debate section in 'critical attention' may also make it easier to briefly touch upon the similar debates in the English-speaking fandom. -Malkinann (talk) 10:08, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

I'll leave it to you folks. I agree with Matt's idea of having a few examples to give the lay of the land, and skipping the rest, especially poorly reviewed books about fujoshi. Just let me know when and if I can edit the results. I like incorporating "Debate" and "Appeal" into one section. Maybe that should be done on Sandbox2? Looking forward to seeing more material! I don't want to know about the ISBNs either. Timothy Perper (talk) 11:55, 11 August 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm confused - Tim, if you're going to edit down the current "appeal" and "debate" sections into the second, yaoi-devoted sandbox, why are you calling for more material? I suppose that we have to check that the current arguments in 'appeal' are actually representative of the various 'why' arguments, but I can't find more English-language scholarship on the ronsou. -Malkinann (talk) 21:24, 11 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Sorry, Malkinann, I wasn't saying that I am calling for (= demanding) more material; I was saying that if you or Matt come up with it, that's fine. I can deal with what's in the article without anything new, but I won't be horrified or terribilized or (so on) if there isn't more material. Is OK? Timothy Perper (talk) 02:08, 12 August 2008 (UTC)


 * I was thinking of "calling" = asking, myself. I may have supressed the more unpalatable reasons myself - there's Mori Mari, who Keith Vincent interprets as being both Electra-ish and a key influence on yaoi (which could be extrapolated to be "yaoi fans have daddy issues", but that may fall under "original research") "mummy issues" (Suzuki, page 259) - "...it is interesting to find Yaoi comics repeatedly describing extremely negative images of mothers" (going on to say that the characters find an unconditional love, like that of a mother's, in the arms of a yaoi man.) Then there's Kinsella's equation of yaoi girls with lolicon guys and saying that both groups are all such social misfits that we can only find love within a manga page. -Malkinann (talk) 03:57, 12 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Is that what Kinsella says? Well, that just goes to confirm my impression of her. I think she has plenty of issues herself. ( Heaven help the soul who does not address her as "Doctor Kinsella". ) The equation of yaoi and lolicon sounds like she's taking Shigematsu's very interesting analysis and twisting it to her own purposes. Anyway, though there may be something to it, the Freudian angle is a slippery slope, IMO. I prefer to listen to what fans themselves have to say, and I tried to record some of that in my own article, though in retrospect I wish I had included more fan quotes and less academic name-dropping. (-_-;) Matt Thorn (talk) 05:47, 12 August 2008 (UTC)


 * I might not be properly understanding Kinsella's joining of lolicon guys and yaoi girls, or I may just be having a YKINOK reaction going on there. People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones, right?  Kinsella references "Ueno Chizuko, "Kyuju nendai no Sexual Revolution, " in Otaku no Hon, (1989)."  Ueno seems to be saying that amateur genres are wish-fulfillment for people who write them (isn't all fiction?), but I think it's Kinsella who takes it that extra step. -Malkinann (talk) 23:51, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

I just discovered a book titled BL shin nihonshi (BL新日本史, "BL New History of Japan") that may or not prove to be a useful reference. It was published in 2006, and is a history of Japan through the lens of BL. It seems to be a history of male homosexuality in Japan, but perhaps focusing more on specific individuals and relationships, and certainly not academic. There are plenty of books about male homosexuality in Japanese history, but this is the first I've ever seen that has a contemporary BL angle. It has three reviews, all four stars, and all fairly coherently written, so, without hesitation, I ordered the book. It was only after I confirmed the order that I noticed there were really cheap used copies available. Damn. I had assumed it was a new book, since it just appeared on my recommended list today. And now I'm sitting here wondering how many heterosexual, middle-aged men in the world (of any nationality), besides me, would have this book recommended to them by Amazon. Food for thought. (-_-;) Anyway, I'll report on it once I've read it. Matt Thorn (talk) 11:15, 12 August 2008 (UTC)


 * This will be interesting... Maybe we can get a bit more on tanbi and "shonen ai mono" stories from it...  McLelland says that prior to shonen ai, most representations of homoerotic behaviour were by men, for men.  I seem to have picked up the vague idea that The Tale of Genji may be a forerunner, (by women, for women, beautiful male protagonist) but I can't say where I got the idea from or even *really* why... :(  Tough luck on buying the book for full price and thanks for promising a report. -Malkinann (talk) 23:51, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Reference Listed Alphabetically
So that we can see our beautiful references here! -Malkinann (talk) 23:50, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

In Buckley, Sandra
 * 1991 "'Penguin in Bondage': A Graphic Tale of Japanese Comic Books." (In Technoculture. C. Penley and A. Ross, eds. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota.)

In Fujimoto Yukari
 * 1991 "Shôjo manga ni okeru 'shōnen ai' no imi" ("The Meaning of 'Boys' Love' in Shōjo Manga"). In New Feminism Review, Vol. 2: Onna to hyôgen ("Women and Expression"). N. MIZUTA, ed. Tokyo: Gakuyō Shobō.

Perper, Timothy and Martha Cornog
 * 2007 "The Education of Desire: Futari Etchi and the Globalization of Sexual Tolerance." Mechademia: An Academic Forum for Anime, Manga and the Fan Arts, 2:201-214.


 * (in press) " “I Never Said I Was a Boy”: Utena, Arita Forland, and the (Non) Phallic Woman." International Journal of Comic Art.

In Sakakibara Shihomi
 * 1998 Yaoi genron: yaoi kara mieta mono (An Elusive Theory of Yaoi: The view from Yaoi). Tokyo: Natsume Shobo.

In Schodt, Frederik L.
 * 1986 Manga! Manga! The World Of Japanese Comics. Tokyo and New York: Kodansha International.

Shamoon, Deborah
 * 2008 "Situating the shōjo in shōjo manga: Teenage girls, romance comics, and contemporary Japanese culture." In Japanese Visual Culture: Explorations In the World of Manga and Anime. Edited by Mark W. MacWilliams. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe. pp. 137-154. ISBN 978-0-7656-1602-9.

Shiokawa, Kanoko.
 * 1999. “Cute but Deadly: Women and Violence in Japanese Comics.” Themes and Issues in Asian Cartooning: Cute, Cheap, Mad, and Sexy, edited by John A. Lent, pp 93-125. Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green State University Popular Press.

Takahashi, Mizuki
 * 2008 "Opening the closed world of shōjo manga." In Japanese Visual Culture: Explorations In the World of Manga and Anime. Edited by Mark W. MacWilliams. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe. pp. 114-136. ISBN 978-0-7656-1602-9.

In Takemiya Keiko
 * 1993 "Josei wa gei ga suki!?" (Women Like Gays!?). ????

Thorn, Matt
 * In 1993 "Unlikely Explorers: Alternative Narratives of Love, Sex, Gender, and Friendship in Japanese 'Girls'' Comics" (New York Conference on Asian Studies, New Paltz, New York, October 16)
 * In 2004 "Girls And Women Getting Out Of Hand: The Pleasure And Politics Of Japan's Amateur Comics Community" (In Fanning the Flames: Fans and Consumer Culture in Contemporary Japan, William W. Kelly, ed., State University of New York Press)

In Ueno Chizuko
 * 1989 "Jendaaresu waarudo no  no jikken" ("Experimenting with in a Genderless World"). In Kikan Toshi, no. 2.,

Added Sandbox 2
Here's User:Matt Thorn/Sandbox 2. This is to be used for the Yaoi article as suggested by Timothy. Matt Thorn (talk) 05:25, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

I Added the "Debate" Material to Sandbox 2
Please check my revision for accuracy. I added a few details that I remember from the debate. I'll fix the references later. If it's OK, I'll remove the original text. Timothy Perper (talk) 11:57, 12 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Looks great. I say we go with it as is. Malkinann? Matt Thorn (talk) 14:00, 12 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks, Matt! Malkinann, what do you think? Let me fix up the refs next. I'll see if I can find a more direct reference to Choisir. Do either of you have a Japanese or other website for Choisir? I'm going to do a Google Book Search using "Choisir" and "Sato" or "Satou."


 * This paragraph goes right after the last paragraph of the stuff we already have on Sandbox2? Timothy Perper (talk) 17:02, 12 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Choisir is described as a 'minikomi', which is an independent magazine - seemingly equivalent to a zine. The "masturbation fantasies" sentence seems awkward (even given its subject matter... -_-*)  I think it's important to note that Satou implied that the market is so saturated with BL that it's hard for a young, questioning or closeted gay man in Japan to find images of, for and by gay men.  A couple of things that didn't get mentioned in the "article version" were that Kurihara is also a feminist - after her realisation, she describes herself as having taken a flame thrower to her mind, burning out the vestiges of her interest.   Also, the yaoi fans were like, 'I see how you could get offended, but we like our freedom of thought, and censorship would be repressive and bad - we don't always like thinking about straight sex'. Another thing that didn't get into the yaoi article was that Satou developed an interest in women's issues, and he started his own minikomi, and they all lived happily ever after, The End.-Malkinann (talk) 21:04, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, Malkinann. I did some Google searches but came up with very little that we either don't have or is otherwise usable. So you think the text is OK, or should I change it? If so, what do you recommend? Timothy Perper (talk) 21:33, 12 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Sorry to sound so critical, your text is really quite good. Change magazine to minikomi perhaps with a link to zine, like minikomi - using "magazine" implies a glossy to me.  The only way I can think of improving the "masturbation fantasies" sentence is "Satō also accused yaoi fans of co-opting gay men as masturbation fantasies, arguing that these portrayals created self-esteem problems for real gay men who did not fit the youthful image of good looks and wealth."  I really got the impression that Satou took offense at the sheer volume of yaoi as well, as it drowns out gay representations of gay men - It's almost like a gay man might not believe he is gay, and might not come out, because he's not bishonen? -Malkinann (talk) 22:04, 12 August 2008 (UTC)


 * OK, I'll make that change. Thanks! Timothy Perper (talk) 22:08, 12 August 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure the idea that Satou felt that yaoi was drowning gay men out is coming through in the text - I'm not sure if this is reliable, but I've found something which says that June outsells Badi, (NSFW, put ad-block on and it's okay) and in 2003, a study found there were equal numbers of Japanese websites about yaoi as there were Japanese sites for gay men about homosexuality. I'm sorry that I can't fully articulate my thoughts. -Malkinann (talk) 22:54, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Can you find a quote for the "drowning out" part? I'm not convinced by the June vs. Badi website; we need something better, I think, than a passing comment in an article about Mishima. The mere number of websites for various people doesn't tell us anything direct, IMO, about "drowning out." In order to avoid POV, I'd also like to see someone who answered the accusation of being "drowned out." Timothy Perper (talk) 04:52, 13 August 2008 (UTC)


 * I found something better for the Badi reference. Unfortunately, Mechademia is back at the library, but from Lunsing's paper - "However, as long as yaoi remained small scale and something for personal pleasure, he [Satou] did not find any harm in it. The problems arose once the genre entered into the mainstream."  From McHarry's paper - "Sato's complaint is not devoid of merit. To a young Japanese boy beginning to realize same-sex erotic desires, bishōnen are perhaps the only visual representation of same-sex desiring males in the mass media, save for the transvestite entertainers favored by television and the gender-ambiguous members of some J-pop bands. Japanese boys are well aware of bishōnen since boys' love manga such as BeBoy can be bought at convenience stores in even small towns, according to Iwamoto. But to my mind, this is better than the invisibility or homophobia of much of the North American mainstream media. And for the (presumably) subset of same-sex desiring boys who identify as bishōnen and/or desire them as sexual objects, perhaps they feel fortunate." -Malkinann (talk) 05:11, 13 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Are we beginning to overuse Lunsing's article? I'd like to stay with a discussion of yaoi and BL in this entry, rather than get into issues about how gay males are depicted in the media. That debate is powerfully interesting to many gay men, but it deals with the status and place of male homosexuality in society (Japan and elsewhere) and is not about yaoi or BL manga. For example, one could say that shampoo ads on television also "drown out" representations and portrayals of gay men, but those ads are not aimed at gay men -- they're aimed at women. I don't think it's particularly fruitful to stray too far into questions about how gay men are and are not portrayed in the media, including cartoon media. To put it differently, we run the risk of changing the subject if we drift too far in the direction McHarry is taking. McHarry's concerns are legitimate in their own contexts, but I don't see that context as dealing centrally or integrally with yaoi or BL.


 * We're also running the risk ot straying into POV material. I think we need to hear the words of yaoi and BL fans who disagreed with Sato. Let me reread Lunsing's article and see what I come up with. Timothy Perper (talk) 05:49, 13 August 2008 (UTC)


 * I added a new quote in Sandbox2, but didn't put it into the text. See if it fills the bill. Timothy Perper (talk) 06:28, 13 August 2008 (UTC)


 * I think I see what you mean now - if it's inserted, it seems like the article takes Satou's side in the ronsou? I don't believe the Wikipedia article uses Lunsing's article too much, but I might be mentally comparing to how it looked about a year ago.  In Lunsing's article, Tamae Tanigawa says that Satou is picking on yaoi women, because gay men are an established group, and yaoi women aren't, and why aren't the gay men putting out the images that they like? -Malkinann (talk) 07:25, 13 August 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm starting to wonder if this was really a "ronsou" at all or just a one-sided critique. In my experience, BL fans have never given much thought to such topics, and except for a handful of "high-profile" BL creators/fans, it's hard to imagine the average BL fan reacting with more than idle curiosity to such criticisms. This is very different from the Anglophone Slash community, which has long been hyper-sensitive (and hyper-defensive) about the "slash vs. real-life homosexuality" issue. I was living in Japan for much of the time this ronsou was supposed to be taking place, and regularly interacting with BL fans and creators, and never heard it mentioned. (Come to think of it, I can't remember where I first heard of it.) I would ask fans/creators about the relationship between BL and real-life gay men, and, to a person, they invariably responded, "This is just a woman's fantasy; it has nothing to do with real-life gay men." But setting aside parodies, which are inherently "fantastic," there have long been examples of shounen-ai/yaoi/BL that have tried to be more realistic, and I think that is particularly true today. I think it's enough to mention the criticism from some gays, and a representative response. This is not something, I think, that we want to spend more than two sentences on. Matt Thorn (talk) 13:57, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

I'm coming to agree with Matt's view here, especially as I continued to write the new material. I felt that it was one-sided, meaning that we are taking Satou's side. I can easily shorten the paragraph dealing with the ronsou down to two sentences. Let me check Lunsing for the Tamae Tanigawa material, and add it in as an NPOV balance to Satou's views. Timothy Perper (talk) 14:31, 13 August 2008 (UTC)


 * I just did a search in Japanese for "Choisir" and "yaoi ronsou" and found an interesting little blog entry that neatly summarizes it. I say "neatly," but it's still pretty long, and I haven't finished reading it, but it may be useful. Apparently the whole thing started with Satoh's blunt expression of contempt: "Yaoi should just die. I despise yaoi. I discriminate against [them]. I refuse to recognize the human rights of this sort of scum. Seriously, I wish they would die." In his "excitement" he seems to be conflating yaoi and its fans/creators. According to the blogger (who is apparently himself a gay man--it's not real clear), Satoh's rhetoric had mellowed considerably by the time the ronsou ended four years later. The blogger says that shortly after this ronsou, one of the Satoh's main grievances--the lack of information about real-life homosexuality available to young men and boys--was solved by the growth of the Internet. I think this is true. Juné may outsell Badi, but just Google "gay" (ゲイ) and all the top hits are precisely the sort of sources of information Satoh was hoping for. BL websites hardly even use the word "gay," let alone "douseiai" (homosexuality). It's not a completely dead issue, it seems, but I don't see any sign of the kind of anger that sparked Satoh's first tirade. If I find anything that looks like it might be a useful source, I'll add it here, but I think we have all we need. Oh, Malkinann, I made a minor change to your zine/minikomi, because I thought it might be a bit confusing as it was. Matt Thorn (talk) 14:45, 13 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Can I just be a bit embarrassed now? If someone really, truly, wanted to know more about gay views on yaoi, they'd go to the articles we use as references for those parts, wouldn't they?  It's not necessary for us to cover every nuance of a five year debate, is it?  Humph, I don't know what to think now... But I would say that Lunsing is more pro-yaoi than Vincent is. -Malkinann (talk) 01:53, 14 August 2008 (UTC)


 * What's to be embarrassed about? It's hard to tell what is important and what isn't, even if (or sometimes because) you are very close to the material. (Hell, if I were given dictatorial control of the shoujo manga article, I can promise you I would spend way too much space on the history and cut out huge chunks that Anglophone fans would find more important and interesting.) The paragraph we have may give a bit more attention to the debate than it merits, but it's a solid, well-referenced paragraph, and I think it's good enough for the time-being. I say we consider this topic taken care of and move to other parts of the article. What do you think? Matt Thorn (talk) 11:30, 14 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Well, I'm embarrassed about giving Tim such a hard time about it! I'm sorry, Tim!!  Just to remind myself again, the article does not have to be perfect, it just has to be better than it was before.  -Malkinann (talk) 13:15, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

Malkinann, please don't be embarassed for anything you said about my summaries! Writers thrive on thoughtful criticism, and you and Matt are providing precisely that. I'm acting as an amanuensis for what you guys are finding -- and I'm going to go over to Sandbox 2 and shorten up the stuff we have. Once that's done, then, yes, let's move on to the rest of the article. Thanks, guys! Timothy Perper (talk) 14:41, 14 August 2008 (UTC)


 * OK, I compressed the text in Sandbox 2 (if I did it right, you won't even notice!) and added the reference Matt found. Also, for the record, I'm transferring my previous comment from Sandbox2 to here (putting the comment over there was my mistake).


 * "TP again. Now the tone strikes me as strongly POV. We must balance Sato/Lunsing with quotes and reasonable defenses of yaoi and BL by quoting other people. Otherwise, we have all our critical eggs in an anti-yaoi basket. Surely someone had to have said "All right, you gay guys, stop bitching about us women being in your way and keeping you in the closet and how much you hate us and want us dead and blame us for creating an immensely popular artform when you didn't. Just shut up and make your own damn comics." That's the kind of reply we have to find for balancing the anti-female tone and style of Sato's criticisms. Otherwise, we're stuck in what sounds very much like simple misogyny. Timothy Perper (talk) 06:56, 13 August 2008 (UTC)"


 * I think the new version is much better -- it's not POV and covers the bases without excessive detail. If it's OK with you guys, I think we can go with it and move on to other parts of the article. Timothy Perper (talk) 15:19, 14 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Looks great to me. I say plug it in! Matt Thorn (talk) 16:31, 14 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Malkinann, thanks for catching the error about the Vincent reference! Have you looked at the josei material on Matt's Sandbox 3? Timothy Perper (talk) 20:26, 14 August 2008 (UTC)


 * "Amanuensis", eh? Posh. :)  You're doing a great job of it!  The "some artists and fans" phrase gives me a  "weasel words" feeling, but if you read the weasel words essay, that's okay to do, as it is the majority opinion whilst describing Satou's position, yes?  Naming everyone feels like we're name-dropping, as well.  I'd feel more comfortable if we could be sure that the Japanese blog passed WP:RS.  As far as yaoi's concerned, it's time to move on!  I haven't checked out the josei material, I'll have to save it for tomorrow.-Malkinann (talk) 22:26, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

I may fix up the "some artists and fans" but, yes, it's accurate. It means, some, not all. The Japanese blog is fine -- an English-language blog might not be, but I am not going to raise questions about what a "blog" is, or how reliable this one might be, about comments made in Japanese. The major point, to my mind, is that it makes sense to see that the Internet provided gay-themed material for gay male readers written by gay men and, with that, some of Satou's critique loses much of its force. I'd leave it and let other people argue if they want to -- and my experience is that they won't even notice.

The new YAOI stuff needs some reference-fixing. That will need Matt to do.

Timothy Perper (talk) 02:39, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

Finalizing the Referencing
Matt, can you fix up the Takemiya reference? It's #5. Then everyone should give it a final proofreading, and Malkinann, you can move it into the YAOI article? Onwards to josei! Timothy Perper (talk) 03:49, 15 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Got it! I fixed it in User:Matt Thorn/Sandbox 2. Matt Thorn (talk) 05:44, 15 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Are we sure it covers everything important in the appeal section? I'd like the idea of subversion as part of the appeal to clearly come through (perhaps by directly using the word somewhere...) - I think Sueen Noh's paper is very good.  It makes sense that the Internet would have plugged the gap for gay men - whether that's sufficiently common knowledge enough may be up for debate.  (Is it common knowledge for people who don't have the Net?  What's the likelihood that someone without the Net will get a hold of this page?)  So we're calling the new section "critical attention", plunking it down after "Fandom demographics", and replacing the current "appeal" and "debate" sections? -Malkinann (talk) 08:27, 15 August 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm not familiar with Noh's paper, but if you can work it in somewhere to add a bit emphasis on that point, that's fine with me. Subversion is (I think) a main theme of my own paper. Subversion is definitely a major aspect of the appeal for fans. You can tell that just from their conversation, though the Japanese fans I've known have never framed it in a political way. As for Net access, for the young Japanese Satoh seemed most concerned with, it's practically universal. Even kids who don't have Net access at home (a small minority these days, I think) have access to it elsewhere, and certainly know how to make use of it. Virtually all cell phones in Japan allow users to access the Web. Compared to even ten years ago, information about homosexuality, and most importantly information about local gay communities, is incredibly easy to come by. As for your last questions, I think the answers are "yes," "yes," and "yes," unless you think it should be done some other way. The debate does not, I believe, merit it's own section, because it really was (as far as both the BL community and gay community were concerned) a tempest in a teapot. Matt Thorn (talk) 09:50, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

I'm not familiar with the paper either, but inserting it is easy. Just add it with the comment that "Sueen Noh (ref) points out that the appeal of yaoi is in part subverting received gender roles or rules" or something like that. Timothy Perper (talk) 11:03, 15 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Sueen Noh wrote on the Korean yaoi fandom in about 2001ish. How about:  "Although yaoi fandom is apolitical on questions of gay identity, Thorn and Noh have suggested a subversive..." um... "pleasure is inherent in yaoi"?  Darn it, I can't even write a whole sentence.  :P -Malkinann (talk) 11:16, 15 August 2008 (UTC)


 * I think you're on the right track. (^^) As I told Tim, I'm late with a translation deadline and also fighting a cold, so I probably won't be able to contribute much for a few days. Good luck! (^o^) Matt Thorn (talk) 13:22, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

Are we ready to insert new material?
Malkinann, I'm not sure if you want to add a reference to Sueen Noh to the material in Sandbox 2 or if you think we can add the whole section without Noh -- as in Be Bold -- to the yaoi article. The voice of experience here: it's always possible "to add just one more reference." But it's never-ending because there always is "just one more reference"... So I think we're ready to add the new material. What's your feeling? Timothy Perper (talk) 22:52, 17 August 2008 (UTC)


 * (From TP). Hmmm... another point. Maybe Noh's paper should go into a section about International Reception or something like that rather than into the present (Sandbox 1) material? I'd like to add the Sandbox 1 material as it is now to the article so we can clear the decks and move on to josei manga. After all, you can always add Noh later after the new section has been included in the article. Timothy Perper (talk) 22:59, 17 August 2008 (UTC)


 * I didn't notice until I read Tim's comments that the Noh paper was about Korean fandom. Shows how carefully I was paying attention. I agree that it probably belongs in an International Reception section. I say we go with the material as is. Matt Thorn (talk) 23:54, 17 August 2008 (UTC)


 * I wanted to add a reference to Sueen Noh into the Sandbox 2 material, and I'm wondering how much "International Reception" there is... (although, assuming that "international" means non-Japanese here, that expands the scope somewhat to comparisons of yaoi with romance novels.) Toku and Wilson's paper uses information from both Taiwan and Japan, McLelland's bonking paper repeats a rumour about Chinese fandom being more prudish, and there's a couple of forthcoming papers on Taiwan, Germany and China - there's one paper in Swedish (can't read it, but thank goodness for English abstracts!).  What would an International Reception section have that Critical attention could not be expanded to have? Currently, the "fandom demographics" incorporates data from a few regions (although it's not awfully clear in the text).  -Malkinann (talk) 01:05, 19 August 2008 (UTC)


 * I think "International reception" doesn't have to be academic, or at least not exclusively academic. Citable, verifiable statements about the popularity of BL outside Japan (e.g., Amazon rankings) seem good enough to me. Matt Thorn (talk) 14:23, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Has anyone put the new material in yet? If not, I will. Another source for reception information is the manga ratings data from Anime News Network. Timothy Perper (talk) 15:03, 19 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Oops I just looked at the Yaoi article and I'm not sure what gets removed and where to add the new (Sandbox 2) material. Also we need a comment on the talk page that we're about to do this. So can I have some input from both of you? We shouldn't let this sit around forever... Timothy Perper (talk) 19:13, 19 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Malkinann took the initiative on this one. Thanks, Malkinann. Matt Thorn (talk) 04:21, 21 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Great! Thanks, Malkinann! The section reads really well. Are we going to do more Yaoi or do josei instead? Timothy Perper (talk) 15:48, 21 August 2008 (UTC)


 * If it reads really well, it's cos you wrote it really well, Tim! ;)  Given that everything I know about josei manga fits on the head of a pin, I think I'll continue "playing with dolls" at yaoi - but you two should write on whatever you want to.  -Malkinann (talk) 20:23, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Aw, gee, shucks. Thanks. Malkinann, who the $%^&* is this Zodiac person, who I just removed from Maria-sama ga Miteru? I'm real glad you added that note to the Marimite talk page! Timothy Perper (talk) 22:08, 21 August 2008 (UTC)


 * You both did a great job. Thanks! I finished my translation job (est em's Red Blinds the Foolish-BL!), so I'll try to find time to finish the josei manga history and plug in the references. Matt Thorn (talk) 00:55, 22 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks. OK, we do some work on josei. In the meantime, how about we also look at the "Further Readings" reference list on Yaoi? It's tagged with some kind of "verifiability" flag, which I'd like to remove when we've verified the references. Malkinann, how's that for you? Timothy Perper (talk) 03:46, 22 August 2008 (UTC)


 * That tag was originally added by me - I took the tag to mean that the ratio of footnotes to further reading was unfavourable. The article looked dodgy because there was too much further reading/external links, not enough footnotes (which I will concede is becoming less true). ;) What I have been doing in the past with the further reading is using it as a wishlist for articles I want, and a 'holding pen' for web articles I don't know how to include as footnotes.  I've been removing links and articles from the further reading section as I've been including them in footnotes, although I've gotten a little slack with removing them as of late. I know it's not classically what one does with a further reading section, but it's worked for me for a while.  Tim, I don't know who that Zodiac person is, but they're really annoying.  I ran crying to the admin noticeboard when I first saw that kind of vandalism, cos I didn't know how to fix it.  They fixed it for me. :)  -Malkinann (talk) 07:10, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Further Readings for Yaoi page
Continuing from Malkinann's preceding comment. I really like the Further Readings section. These manga/anime articles (and others) all need something like that. But even so, I think we can check the references, confirming or changing them if they're wrong. I also agree that right now the "verifiability" tag is needed -- we do have to check them. Matt, you want to make a new Sandbox (#4) for this? We can transfer the reading list and check things off as we confirm them.

I have some doujinshi references at User:Timothy Perper/SandboxDojinshi -- they were supposed to be for the manga article doujinshi section, but they didn't get used. Malkinann and Matt, take a look and see if they can or should be transferred to the doujinshi section of Yaoi. There's some other stuff too.

The Zodiac thing is settling down. Bloody damn nuisance.

Timothy Perper (talk) 13:24, 22 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Done! User:Matt Thorn/Sandbox 4


 * Great! I transferred the references. We can start checking them now, and deciding what to include or exclude. Timothy Perper (talk) 18:05, 22 August 2008 (UTC)