Women write about gay love, men not burdened with patriarchy

I finished the book Something Wild and Wonderful by Anita Kelly. The author uses they/them pronouns and has a wife, so a member of the LGBTQ community. Much of the story takes place on the Pacific Crest Trail, a western equivalent of the Appalachian Trail in the east. The PCT is 2652 miles, stretching from the Mexican to the Canadian borders through the Sierra and Cascade mountains. The story is about Alexei and Ben. Both are approaching their 30th birthdays, so delightfully not teenagers. Alexei is from near Portland, OR and on the trail because his parents disowned him because he told them he is gay. They are members of a conservative church. He’s had a few one-night stands and is tired of that. He hopes his time on the trail will help him figure out how to create Alexei 2.0. Ben is from Nashville feels he wasted his 20s in not knowing what he wants in life. He also had a few not good relationships. He got his act together enough to complete nursing school and hopes time on the PCT will settle his restlessness before getting a job. Their “meet cute” is on Alexei’s first day on the trail. He joined the trail a hundred miles from Mexico to skip the worst of the desert. He hears a rattlesnake ahead and puts out his arm to block and protect the people coming up behind him. Of course, at the front of that group is Ben. A couple days later Alexei and Ben meet again. Ben decides to leave the group he’s been hiking with and join Alexei. One reason is to keep Alexei from hiking alone through the dangerous desert. Another reason is he’s attracted to Alexei. From there friendship and love develop. But Alexei is still dealing with his demons. Also, both are wary of the other leaving, unsure of their own commitment, burned by previous relationships, and doubtful they will want to live where the other is from. I downloaded a map of the PCT to follow along, though only 250 miles, the time they fall in love (the first 2/3 of the book), is covered in much detail. I was amused by and saw the great practicality of the PCT map that shows the train, bus, and car routes that cross or are near the trail. The last third of the book shows Alexei dealing with those demons in a healthy way. I enjoyed this gay love story. Krotor of the Daily Kos community discussed Boys’ Love, a multimedia genre that focuses on male relationships. This is the first I’ve heard of that term. Krotor intends to have this as the start of a regular discussion on Kos because the topic is wide. The use of “boys” in the description does not refer to male children. It is used in the same manner as “boys’ night out.” The central characters are late teens to young 30s. And, yes, this is young men falling in love with young men. The genre started in Japan with manga graphic novels. And...

The original Japanese creators — and consumers — of Boys’ Love works were typically heterosexual females. The explanation I have seen most frequently is that straight women enjoy fantasies about men being loving and vulnerable with each other in relationships that are not burdened with the misogyny, patriarchy, constrictive gender roles, and similar negatives that women often experience in their own relationships with straight guys.

In 2014 the genre became international, or at least Southeast Asian. A company in Thailand released Love Sick: The Series that explored male relationships over 51 episodes. In contrast to the sexiness of some of the early manga, Boys’ Love video series usually stick to kissing, and that is usually only a second or two before the scene ends. That kiss tends to come in the last or second-to-last episode. Only a few swear words might keep a show from being rated G. A standard pattern to these shows is two young men are thrown together (perhaps the reason is contrived). Their relationship grows, they must overcome challenges, and they eventually see they’re in love. The focus is on the romance, not sexual desire. The assumption is if the emotional connection is strong enough physical passion will be there. There is no discussion of passion outside of that connection. There seems to be no concept of one-night stands. These are not like Hollywood rom-coms. The characters usually are not driven by lust and don’t shed their clothes to convey passion. Conventional European and American shows derive their tension through the cultural gender wars. But in these shows there are no shortcuts through opposing genders. Instead, the story is about the individuals. They slowly develop an emotional bond and physical attraction grows from that. Homophobia barely exists, if at all. If one of the lads is beaten up, it is because they’re from the opposing sport team and not because they’re gay. Straight friends are supportive of them pursuing a same-sex relationship. And there is no concern that a guy dating a woman flips to dating a man. In Hollywood the woman must be beautiful, but the man doesn’t need to be (how did he end up with her!). But in the Boys’ Love universe both of them are beautiful (and many work as models). These shows are quite popular. Fans call for sequels to keep the relationship going. Fans are disappointed when the actors have love lives away different from their show’s love life, especially if they love a woman. That isn’t entirely the fan’s fault. Sometimes the producers have the actors appear in public together with enough interaction that fans can conclude they’re in love. Krotor discussed US made movies with gay characters. Before the 1980s gay characters were portrayed as perverse and disgusting and worthy of a violent death. In the 1980s AIDS colored the films, but gay men still faced illness, suffering, and death. By the 1990s the gay characters weren’t the butt of jokes and didn’t always die, but they had no serious emotional connections. Unless it was the anguish from coming out. With that sort of portrayal no wonder the religious right was afraid of their children turning gay.

Heck, yeah, I love BL. It finally shows me who we should always have been seen as: strong and valued and loved and loving and happy and deserving of love and happiness. We needed this decades ago and it would have had a tremendous positive impact on gay boys, giving hope and guidance and encouragement as they developed into young gay men. We have it now and I am grateful for it and generations of gay boys to come will be better for it.

This discussion ends with ways to find Boys’ Love stories. I’ll try to see a few of them. And I’ll keep watching for more articles on the topic. Krotor linked to a list on IMDB of 100 Boys’ Love series. The list I saw had only 85 entries. A few of them are rated for mature audiences. I see I’ve seen a couple of them already, two that aren’t from Southeast Asia. They are Heartstopper and Young Royals. A few more are American. I went to another list on My Drama List. The link is for a search that brought up 1939 entries (the first page listed only 20). This list includes trailers. So I watched a couple. The first trailer I watched went so fast I couldn’t keep up with the English subtitles. In the second the subtitles were in Korean. I had written that the satirical news site The Onion had put in a winning bid to purchase Infowars, the site Alex Jones uses to spread conspiracy theories. The Onion announced plans to repurpose the site for good messages rather than destructive ones. Tovia Smith of NPR reported a federal bankruptcy judge blocked the sale. The judge said there was a lack of transparency in the bidding process and that there was a failure to maximize value for the people Jones owes money to. Those people are the parents and family members of the children killed at Sandy Hook. They had sued Jones because he called the shooting that killed 26 children and teachers a hoax. He now owes them a billion dollars. The Infowars show, its equipment, studio, and brand are only a part of the whole package. The families said they liked what The Onion planned to do with the Infowars site and brand and were willing to forego some of what they are owed so that the purchase could proceed. But the judge rejected their argument. So Jones still has the capability of spewing his bile, at least for now, and he did his usual spewing in praise of the judge. I had lunch with my friend and debate partner today. Some of our discussion turned to the momentous events in Syria. He said there are more factions in Syria, some of them Islamist, than we hear about in mainstream media. He was disappointed that the US military targeted several military sites around Syria after Assad left. And he said he would not at all be surprised if Syria fell into civil war as these various factions fight for power and the ability to impose their ideas on the country. In a pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin quoted a few articles that explain the situation in Syria a bit more. That includes a thread by Raylan Givens that explains the term “Syrian Rebels” actually refers to several groups. Other articles discuss how much the HTS leader can be trusted when he claims religious minorities and women shouldn’t fear his group coming to power. Another pundit roundup by Dworkin has more quotes about Syria. I include it for a tweet by Charles Lister:

With #Assad gone & his brutal regime dissolved, #Syria refugees are already surging back home. There was only ever one solution to the “refugee crisis” & all those who said reinforcing #Assad would resolve it were at best delusional, at worst, complicit in #Assad’s agenda.

The tweet includes a minute long video of a huge traffic backup from all those refugees surging home. Irena Buzarewicz posted a cartoon by John Atkinson that has small images of how two dozen famous artists would depict a Christmas tree. The artists include Picasso, Seurat, Monet, Haring, Pollock, Warhol, Van Gogh, and Dali.