“Yaoi is a fully articulated, user-generated, open-source,
consumer-driven, formalistic commodification of women’s desire as a narrative genre, that women fap to.”
Flashback & Aside:
Ten thousand years ago, I was in a room full of women, setting up a 16mm projector
for an art-school sponsored screening of a documentary on female ejaculation – a how-to guide by a wimmen’s sex activist who had been invited to screen and discuss her work. The conference room was packed!
At this point, I was soooooooo happy to have gone back to University that I was about to faint. All I had to do is shut the f&%* up, unobtrusively help with the AV equipment, WATCH and LEARN. I might not have been the world’s best-looking or socially skilled guy, but if favored, I was determined to be sufficient to the task at hand, (as well as sensitive and well-mannered, and an all around price of a guy, of course – can you spell LOSER?).
Twelve jaw-dropping minutes later, as the filmmaker and star of the piece began her on-screen discussion of the actual mechanics of how every woman can pleasure herself to a very moist conclusion, the film broke!
Unhappy viewing audience time!
Plenty of growling in my direction – I was AV-boy. The Auteur proclaims that she fears for the rest of the print in our defective male chauvinist projector and suggests re-convening the meeting at the hosting (woman) professor’s after-party. AV-boy can handle getting the equipment put away – as in don’t bother following us!
To this day, I suspect it was all an elaborate performance piece.
And I never did learn any wimmen’s sex secrets.
What filled the conference room with very attentive women, (and a few LFB’s) was not the incidentals of female sexual response, but the radical idea that women’s desire could be articulated outside of a mainstream, presumably commercialized, male-gaze driven order; made by, made, for, very samizdat, very amateur – more of a dialog less of a product. Obviously the Auteur had not heard of yaoi. Would she have appreciated it? At that time, the internet was all gopher and pine, so this sounds quaint today. I have looked for the film since; unfortunately, the documentary title is the same as a well-distributed pr0n movie, so no trace of it can be found.
You can see where I am going with this.
Canon yaoi (just WTF is Canon yaoi?) is far odder than any western how-to wimmens’ films. It is far odder than mirror reversals of male smutty stories. It is far odder than bodice-ripper fiction. It is far odder than Playgirl Magazine. It is far odder than fanfiction, and it is far odder than yuri pr0n. (I swear on this last one!) For purposes of this blog, I will aim for an ideal state of yaoi as that which is produced in Japan, by and for Japanese women – preferably in a doujinshi distributed effort. Women’s amateur pr0n, as what the Genshiken fujoshi tribe supposedly aspire to appreciate and produce. Second, third and nth-order reflections; fan scanlations; slash works and the noisy horde of Kawaiiiiii! Moe !!! desu!! desu!! desu!! (Am I japanese yet????) artifacts will be considered, but as such.
OH GAWD DO I LOVE JAPAN! (be still, my fevered heart)
Wait a second: a few problems:
1) Silly gaijin boy, this stuff isn’t for you.
2) Fine, go ahead and read it.. Oh, wait YOU can’t read japanese!
3) Neither can the scanlators, but that didn’t stop them.
4) This is not life drawing class, oh my!
5) This works for you? No, no doubts whatsoever that women have desires too, and every right to them, OK! Huh?
6) Is this divine punishment for all the pr0n I have ever read?
7) Is this how we appear to you? Oh! you are not listening. . .
A glimpse of what could drive the Hato character to a dissociative disorder emerges. Excuse me while I go burn some incense to appease the angry shade of Alice Sheldon.
Here are a few more:
8 ) No, no one here is gay. (well, if they are supposed to be, it’s besides the point)
9) Is this a shame thing or a sin thing?
Which leads to:
10) I am not a trainee manga editor, so perhaps I should just keep my nose out of big sister’s diary.
No friggin way in hell !!!!
HEARTS OF FURIOUS FANCIES 