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Step 2: Find a genre that lets you -be- a cute girl that isn't into guys
Step 3: Enjoy the HELL out of that genre
done.
People have pitched theories that say that romance between two girls allows a male audience to feel an attraction to a girl without feeling male 'competition' in the medium. Another theory I've heard is that a lot of yuri stretches/exaggerates feminity or "girliness" and this reaches male audiences more easily. One I heard in last discussion was that yuri is appealing because it's rare and novel to find yuri underneath the primarily heterosexual major romance medium.
For me, I feel like I should know this more intimately because I've seen components of this in my life. In fact, my mother and my sister have both had girlfriends before, believe it or not. As you might guess I've never hated girl-to-girl love but I've never really understood it or explored my feelings on it.
And to keep this relevant to the genre, in anime I've watched Madoka Magica and I'm currently reading the VN, Kindred Spirits on the Roof. The first example is somewhat subjective because people argue whether or not the romantic subtext between the girls is actually there but I'll return to that if anyone wants to.
Yeah I guess.
I mean, I can guess a few things if you like; you like women and it's got twice as many.
But in Phoenix Wright fashion, I want to turn your thinking around and ask - why do you need to question it?
Don't you think the bigger mystery is why you don't just think of it as another flavour of the romance genre? Why is your liking of yuri in particular burning you up like this?
Maybe it reflects how you feel about men and romance. It might not just be that you see the man in a hetero romance story as competition, but it could be that you don't care about his feelings or his pleasure because he's a guy and you don't care about them much. So then for every couple, that's half of the participants you don't really care much about.
It could also be something more to do with the genre. I mean, if we are talking yuri games as in "not just counting all the games that contain lesbians", but "romance games from Japan featuring girls and other girls", then it could be that specific combination of tropes:
* The stories are usually told 3rd person (so that doesn't really fit meowreka's "be a girl" claim), so you get to be equally interested in the protagonist as well as the other girls in the story
* If the story is 3rd person in normal hetero Japanese eroge, the male protag is often a really horrible guy. Predatory, sexist, endlessly making crude jokes to himself, a self-interest-only lover who treats each woman as a trophy... I haven't played those games in a loooong while, but they are fascinating in a staring-at-a-train-wreck kind of way. You don't see protagonists like that in yuri games.
* If the story is first person in normal hetero Japanese dating sims (I am thinking Tokimeki Memorial, Love Plus), the protagonist is usually almost non-existent. Which is usually good - you play as [player-named-character] who has no face in pictures (conveniently placed flashes of light, or you have a haircut that covers your entire face)... you get to choose the options you like (or consider to be what the girl wants as a response), and really focus on each of the girls and their stories, their lives and passions. But with 1st person, you're like "hmm, what should I choose next" and never "wow look hey these two are really into each other, you can see..."
* There's a huge theme of "forbidden love" in yuri. But like, forbidden in a casual, stupid "well only 'cos for some weird reason no-one once thought about it" way. Like, there are so many yuri stories set in Catholic schools, and it's almost like... this is my main idea of what Catholicism is in Japan. It's also full of "but... but.... we're both girls!!", which I find kind of annoying but it seems most people find cute. I dunno, maybe you like that element?
* Super fluffiness, yeah. I guess you might think it was weird if there was a guy being all super fluffy and cute and girly in the middle of all this? Perhaps it is in fact rooted in a deep-seated prejudice against men being so sweet and cute and considerate and loving, within the boundaries of Japanese media. I say, let them! Let there be equality in this world! Let the men be as cute and fluffy as they want! XD
...
...eh, maybe it's just hereditary for you to like lesbians. I mean, maybe that happens? XD
I mean, there's the stereotype about women dating men who are like their fathers (so presumably that's the kind of guy their mother liked...), and the whole Oedipus complex thing could also have been explained "hey Freud maybe you inherited your taste in women from your dad and now you feel jealous"... so maybe being-attracted-to-lesbians runs in your family and you're feeling all confused because you're a guy? XD
That's a lot to think about. I'm not sure if I've grounded with this in my TL;DR opening but I'm still new to romance in general and, as a male, I'm not opposed to male homosexuality, though what I've seen of yaoi on 4chan and such, I feel some yaoi is too extreme and hypersexualizes younger boys (whereas what I see of soft yuri, younger girls are seen as demure and usually not as sex objects). As for girl's love, whether it's the female dynamic or the critical homosexuality of yuri that reaches me I'm still not sure. I know this sounds privileged but in my head I often neglect to think lesbianism is taboo (I can see now making a wordy, confused thread on yuri might make it look like I feel guilty about my association with yuri, but I don't think that's the case). Maybe that's in turn because I've never lived as a lesbian girl and understood their stigma or maybe that means I somehow feel girls are innocent and pure in a regard het relationships don't always express fluidly.
I didn't mean to imply I ever felt gross or guilty about yuri, if that's what anyone construed from my roundabout talk. After all, I've never been in a romantic relationship, heterosexual or otherwise, so a lot of romance is new ground to me. Right now I'm just trying to bolster my understanding.
It's the same with m/m content. It's there, that's cool, but it doesn't touch me.
Although for the record: I like f/f content, but I do NOT like yuri - as in the japanese stuff. It's clichéd, most often offensive, obviously geared towards men, deeply flawed in its depiction of queer relationships and just...blegh in general. (Not that there aren't some exceptions, mind you. But even those are usually impossible to enjoy unless I force myself to ignore absolutely everything about how actual people work.)
One: I've seen shitty het relationships ruin so many great shows, movies, and whatnot... well, to be fair, in most cases, they didn't really ruin the show at all, but I suppose I just disliked the focus on it due to my distaste of het relationships that I've acquired from an early age. Arrow was definitely ruined by Olicity, but that happened long after I got addicted to yuri, so I can't really use that as a reason... Well, the point is that het relationships often overtake the main storyline to such a degree that it butchers the whole story as a whole. Gay relationships usually don't overtake the main story so badly... mostly because they're so rare... I'm kind of fine with het romance when the genre of the story is actually, you know, romance because I obviously know what I'm getting into when I read a heat romance story. I enjoyed Ouran High School much more than I thought I would, for example... although I dislike most romance mostly because I hate seeing men in a dominant position and isn't that what usually happens? (I haven't really read much het romance, so hell if I know) Why the fuck would any woman like a story like fucking Fifty Shades of Grey, which is more or a less an abusive relationship (granted, I never read the book or watched the movie, and all the information I have on it is from articles condemning it, but, considering the subject matter...) is a question I've always had... I've dabbled in a bit of yaoi too; Prunus Girl was great (though I admit I decided to read it because of the lesbian sidecouple tag), though I haven't really found much yaoi that doesn't use that dumb seme-uke dynamic (again, hate seeing controlling relationships) and isn't just plain messed up (I'll gladly take any recommendations). With yuri, the partners tend to be on a more equal basis, which is certainly something I enjoy... though I admit I like the odd yuri controlling relationship... (in short, it's OK if it's yuri)
Two: This is much more personal, so I don't know if I should be saying it on Steam of all places... but it is easier to say this kind of thing to people who don't know who you are, and I have wanted to get this out there for a long time... well, here I go! Ever since I was young, my mom always told my sister and I "Don't get married" and similar things because of, well, my shitty dad... perhaps my view of het relationships is negatively colored by this shit that's still fucking up with all of our lives. Due to this, I've never been interested in romance and I really don't see myself ever becoming interested in it (it's possible that I'm aro too, of course). Looking at other het relationships of the parents of my friends, I don't really see any love... if I ever get married, is that what's gonna happen in 10 years? Are we going to start tiring of each other and merely stay together out of obligation after a while? All their dads seem to drink too (though they're generally not assholes) and I definitely don't want to become a drunken wreck like that in the future... my view of men has been soured by all the men I've known, and that's why I prefer it when women are married to another woman rather than some shitty man. I'm sure the proportion of shitty men to shitty women is pretty equal in real life, but, still... I'm sure women would be able to understand each other better than some douchebag man would... well, basically, I'm of the belief that gay relationships are better and more loving than het relationships, most likely because I have no personal experience with them. I've never personally seen any gay relationships in real life... (now that I'm thinking about it, it's pretty surprising considering how tolerant my community is)... I say to myself that I would like to see one in real life... but maybe I wouldn't really like it if I did. As it is now, I've kind of made gay relationships into a fantasy of sorts... they're not as shitty as het relationships do and they're going to love each other 'til the day the die. Realistically, I know that this isn't really the case, but it sure is nice to fantasize about a perfect relationship that'll never die, the kind of relationship that happens oh so rarely in real life... While yuri undoubtedly has drama too, they tend to end happily... except for the ones that don't. And I actually do like yuri tragedy... well, as long as it's original. If it's the cliched "girl 2 randomly leaves and hooks up with some random asshole dude," then, well, fuck that. If it's something more original, I like it... (if you frequent Dynasty Reader, I can't see Happy Sugar Life ending happily at all, but I still love it) Well, I still like yuri more because of the fantasy I've created around them... I don't know, this doesn't really make that much sense, but it's the best explanation I've got. Yaoi doesn't fill quite the same niche because of how weird most yaoi is. A cursory search gives me shit like Loveless cause who doesn't love pedophilia! ... I actually have no problem with (FICTIONAL) lesbian pedophiles... I mean, there is no way I'm ever going to read Lolita, but I fucking love Yuzumori-san even though it pretty much faces head on the issues that most other yuri lolicon stuff (and presumably het and yaoi lolicon stuff too) completely sidestep. Yet another case of "it's OK if it's yuri," I suppose... though I'm not so drawn in by my lovely yuri fantasy that I would condone this kind of relationship in real life... maybe a 17-year old and a 20-year old or something, but definitely not a 10-year old and a 30-year old... well, yeah, this dragged on for way too long, and I apologize for that...
Three: Well, it's cute. There's that too.
As I've stated in the previous post, I certainly am in no position to say anything about how real life queer relationships work nor how actual people work in romantic situations. Still, I'd recommend Dynasty Reader to you provided that you're not already aware of it... most of the stuff there seem pretty realistic and not offensive. I love that community so much; everyone is just so intelligent, so kind, so tolerant, so most likely gay (at least that's what I can gather from conversing with the more active members) and it's great. You don't have bullshit like that previous "Why do you love yuri?" thread on there, and that's great! Well, I'm getting off-topic... back to topic! Aren't most of the higher profile yuri authors female? Well, I just assume "lesbian unless proven otherwise" when it comes to yuri authors (sure helps that plenty of Japanese names are apparently gender neutral! (I'm in no position to talk about Japanese names either, but I'm sure I heard that somewhere)), but I know for a fact that people like Takemiya Jin, Morishima Akiko, Shizuru Hazushiya, Milk Morinaga, Tachi, and Namori are female... Tachi's Sakura Trick is pretty much geared toward men with the whole "kissing five times an episode" gimmick, I have to admit, but even that has some cute moments that I believe show a deeper understanding... though I'm probably wrong. Even though I don't like male authors writing yuri, there is some good yuri written by guys out there, such as Miyabi Fujieda's works (AGGGH, I ALWAYS THOUGHT HE WAS FEMALE. CURSE YOU TV TROPES), the most famous of them probably being Chatting at the Amber Teahouse and Kurogane Ken's stuff, his most popular things being Hoshikawa Ginza District 4 and Shoujo Sect (after reading Hoshikawa, I thought for sure that Sect would have a half-decent plot, but, NOPE, it's just porn). Hoshikawa definitely is not realistic at all considering the subject matter, but I still enjoyed it and it was an interesting read... well, yeah, the point is that one reason why I like yuri is because most of it is NOT aimed toward men, what with the more prolific authors being female... though maybe I'm wrong about that. Just because the author is female doesn't mean the target audience is female too, after all... if it is the case that most yuri is aimed toward men, then, well, fuck, my life is a lie.
On a slightly related note, this is one reason why I don't like yaoi that much. Most yuri (or at least most of the good ones) are written by women. Most yaoi is written by... women who fetishize the hell out of it. Is there any yaoi out there written by a guy? Even Prunus Girl, a manga I loved, was written by a woman (although it didn't fetishize the relationship at all, thankfully...)
Edit: You know, I really apologize so much for posting so much in this topic... I know that I should probably the stay the fuck out. I mean, this is a group for lesbians to talk (well, that's what I think it should be... but let's face it, it probably isn't...) but... I want to talk about this somewhere... again, I deeply apologize. If you want me to get out and delete everything I've written, then I will gladly so.
Well, I knew as much, really... it's not like queer relationships are all rainbows and sunshine, especially considering the fucking stigma against them that sadly exists even today... but, I don't know, I think that the fantasy I've constructed will remain until I actually personally see a real life queer relationship go to hell in real life... and even then, I doubt that I'm just gonna drop yuri. It's been a part of my life for more or less a year and a half by now, and it's not gonna happen just like that... yeah, it's hard to explain why I love yuri so much because all of my reasons just contradict each other and I can't really make sense of it... maybe it's just cause I'm trying too hard. I mean, actual lesbians (I stumbled upon that subreddit one day, by the by, and it's led me to a ton of great lesbian media that's not restricted by the boundaries of fucking stupid Japan... Almost Human's so great) like Blackrising can simply say that they like yuri because they're gay, but I really don't have any such simple and clean reason. If I liked romance for the same reason people much better than me did, I'd like het romance because I'm represented in it... but I don't. But, yeah, I don't really need a complicated reason to like yuri, do I? I like it because it's cute, it's different, it's unique, it's just plain awesome, it's much better than fucking stupid het relationships... all that good stuff... you know, I tried recommending some yuri to my friends, and now they all think I'm a pervert (granted, I am, but not in this way). Perhaps my mistake was recommending anime to them, but, regardless, I REFUSE to believe that I like yuri just cause "oh, girl on girl is so hot." If I did think like that, all I'd watch would be lesbian porn, wouldn't it? Why would I watch cute, innocent things like YuruYuri (I guess YY isn't all that innocent though... Almost Human is a better example cause WOO AUSTRALIA) if I only liked sex and kissing and shit like that? Hell, if I did think like that... I'd be just like all those fucking creeps that I detest so much, wouldn't I? And if that's the case, then, well, I might as well just drown myself right here and now (I say this kind of jokingly... a bit, sort of).
oh I've been quite outspoken on the state of yuri and how it needs a serious overhaul - its something I've been looking at in my own work as well.
I honestly don't buy that for a second - maybe its because I can be fairly genderblind alot of the time and I don't see the stark differences that it feels like everyone else sees. I just find it hard to believe that two people can EVER know each other on some hypothetical 'other level' regardless of circimstances. I'm not saying there aren't those don't feel that way - but I hold a massive amount of skeptism that they actually do - and its not just their personal preception of it.
I've never really understood ANYONE on a particularly high level and maybe that speaks to my lack of gender - I cant possibly know but - it just feels wrong to me like it could not possibly be true. Maaybe statements like that just clash with my understanding of the world on such a fundamnetal level I have to rationalize it somehow but... I cant accept it as true.
Just reeks of the old world thinking that gave us the 'carved in stone' gender roles. Can't be that simple nothing is that simple.
Feels like splitting hairs honestly and in relation to the minor phisilogical differences sure but thats small potatoes - not speaking to the relationship itself so much. I dunno just feel like a relationship is SO much larger than that or it seems like it should be. so it shifts from empathy to sympathy but is that really so big a difference? if a partner lacks empathy thats its own issue... I went through a lot of taumatic stuff in my childhood and it comes back to haunt me - but I cant imagne it would make that big a difference if my patner HAD gone through something similar as opposed just just being open and empathetic. And if it DID make that big an impact I'd mark that as a fault of my own. When someone start spitting hairs between sympathy and empathy then I'd say yeah that ones the asshole.
lets try this example I'm with someone and they're getting cancer treatments - I've never had cancer - isn't being supportive and empathetic almost INFINITELY more important than not being able to be truly sympathetic?
On top of that not all cancer treatments are the same not all periods are the same different bodies react to things differently - and the split hair only gets thinner.
A question of perspective I think is what I'm asking for here - How much does it really matter?