BL: A New Kind of Feminism

In the States the word feminism or feminist has gained a negative connotation, at least from my point of view.  This mostly originates from men's fear of losing power/ a disruption of the status quo, and even some women supporting it in the name of family values.  However, some blame lies with extreme feminists that present an image or stance that other feminists do not agree with or find too polarizing.  For example, women not shaving their legs.  I understand and agree with the stance it takes, however I'm not going to stop shaving my legs for a couple of reasons: (1) I like smooth legs and even though it is a hassle I want to look nice and (2) I believe that it is culturally too far cemented that it is futile; it is too late to reverse the social standard (3) I don't like hairy legs on anyone.  What does this have to do with BL?  Don't worry I'll get to that.  First let me define BL for those who are completely lost.  BL stands for Boys' Love (ボーイズラブ).  It is the genre of homoerotic dramas and films with a target audience for women.  BL could be considered a sub-category of yaoi, which I would consider just manga and anime.  However according to Wikipedia, Boys' Love in Japan encompasses "both parodies and original works, and commercial as well as dōjinshi works."  But for future reference when I refer to yaoi I think anime and manga; I use BL for only live action.  Now let me get to my point.

While I do agree with many negative and positive critiques of this genre, I also believe this is my favorite thing to come out of feminism even if it is not meant to be feminist.  For one, if this new genre just happens to reveal feminist values or Japanese feminism naturally (not as a purposeful statement) then I think it is the best show of feminism.  While it is not ideal because it objectifies males, and homosexuality, I think it fits my view of the future of feminism.  If you can't beat them, join them.  Women have to come to terms that it is impossible to prevent women from being objectified.  Instead, we should focus on balancing things out.  As women have more power, and larger wallets, we can use our power to equally objectify men, which is basically the purpose of BL.  In Boys' Love there are few to no female characters, so there are no women to objectify.  The vast majority of BL and Yaoi are written by and for women.  Not men.  Not even gays, in fact that is one of the negative things about it.  It promotes negative body images, and unrealistic characters just like all the stuff out there for guys.  (If you want to read more about this they have a good introduction to this in Wikipedia.)  But I have to admit, feminists' first priority should be equal pay because once that happens other issues (like equal objectification) may solve themselves.

PS: Sorry if you guys think this is a little too off topic for this blog.  While some assume this blog's focus is idols, which is kind of true, my idea was to have that focus but to also talk about Japanese culture and other forms of media in Japan.  This kind of falls under J-drama.  Oh, and after the jump I will have a clip from Japanorama, a BBC mini-series about Japanese culture, that talks about this and a list of suggested BLs.

So far the most explicit ones are:
Boys Love
Boys Love 2/ theatrical edition
(They include some nudity and sex scenes, but nothing that bad.  You don't actually see anything.)

These range, but you see even less action than those above:
Sukitomo
Kindan no Koi
Itsuka no kimi E
Takumi-Kun (Total of three movies, these include sex scenes but the plot besides that is pretty tamed.)

Personally even the Boys Love could be more explicit because the sex scenes you see (but not really) are blowjob or rape scenes.  Sorry spoiler alert.  If you have something to recommend that would be great, but I prefer Japanese BL.  Yaoi is definitely much more explicit.  Warning the following video is quite explicit!  (But apparently not bad enough on European standards.)