Who knew that one day I will write an academic article which made me read quite a lot of nasty boys love manga. But that is life.
I’m pleased to share my article that looks into how BL’s getting nastier by the minute!
I find it so surreal to write this so casually given the tone of what I’ve been writing for the past few years. I have disappeared from this site as I prioritised my academic work and now I’m happy to share a result of that work!
This article was born from reading all the naughty BL that’s been released in the last decade. Harada. Ogeretsu Tanaka. Yamane Ayano. You know, the nasty titles that are not classified as shonen’ai in foreign sites and are often categorised as yaoi for their “sexually explicit” content. In Japan, it has been referred to as Hard BL, but in recent years these titles have been described as eroBL. I examine the nuances of this term and the characteristics that make these eroBL titles as pornographic among BL readers. Much like the BL pundits I mentioned in this article, this research was born from my own curiosity over what makes a “sexually explicit” BL work and how that even happened.
There’s a lot of history that I glossed over for the purposes of the article. I’ll probably write about that on this blog if time permits.
Nonetheless, here’s my published article for everyone to read! It’s free for the first 50 downloads and if it runs out, don’t hesitate to contact me. ^_~)
This was a fun research to do and I’m so happy to the editors of this special issue for their support!
Cheers and let me know what you think in the comments below or on twitter!