Archive of Our Own ^beta

Thanks for the information, but that really makes me queasy to continue being on this site and I'm glad I didn't donate, even though I almost did to be able to vote. But that barrier to access is something else lol. We should have far better accountability to be able to remove blatantly bigoted works from the archive, because that's not what freedom of expression is about. Artistic or otherwise.

How is something that's blatantly bigoted NOT violating the archive's harassment policy? Oh wait, it's because that policy was written by bigots. And this site is protecting them. It makes me sick.

Because we should strive to be better than our predecessors and question what an "anti-censorship archive" serves. I joined this site to post fanfiction not to see Black people mocked.

So you’d rather ban me than the anon user who just posted a very racist work? Ok lmao. Nice to know y’all are reporting me.

Lmao you don't know what the word bigoted means and it shows. You writing a fanfic about an "SJW" harassing you online is proof enough of that lol

I believe it because it's fact. Additionally, you *were* using "fujoshi" negatively. The user might have used the pseudonym "Unapologetic Fujo", but *you* were the one who dismissed their opinion because they are "fujoshi" with the use of comments such "unapologetic fujo says so much about you". Tone may be difficult to read on the internet, but that, combined with your comment of "fetishizing gay men" further in, shows negativity.

I am coming to you in good faith and open discussion. Please do not insult my intelligence.

At any rate, "fujoshi" is a term where it is very important that one knows not only fandom history, but *Japanese* fandom history. It is a term that was coined in the early 2000s, on the Japanese equivalent of 4chan. (A sentence that always heralds good things. /s) Those men did not care if gay men were "fetishized". Their issue was that not only were women intruding upon "masculine" spaces such as their shonen manga, but that those same women were suggesting that some of their favorite male characters could be anything but straight.

In Japanese, the kanji characters used for fujoshi are pronounced in the same way as a homophone which means ‘a woman with rotten thought processes.’ These male fans used this term to indicate that any woman who was not only fine with fictional gay relationships, but actively sought them out for whatever reason, or "twisted" what should be Straight Guy Characters, meant that woman wasn't someone you should fuck! They're not ~marriage material~. Those men wanted it to be known that those women were disgusting, again, not because they cared about gay representation, but because they found both women and gay relationships revolting. It applied whether the ships those women shipped were "fetishizing" or "exploitative" or *not*. Simply appreciating or engaging in queer relationships to any degree was seen as “rotten” and deemed someone a Fujoshi. The term is NOT exclusive to people who are seen as fetishizing said content/relationships.

But then a fun thing happened. Those women looked these misogynistic and homophobic men straight in the eyes and went

"We don't think there's anything wrong with gay relationships. We've also decided we don't particularly care if you think we're not fit for marriage, because we're more than marriage. Eat ass, see ya later, fujoshi are here to stay."

So Japanese fandom women reclaimed it, deciding it wasn't a description on if they were "disgusting and not fit for marriage", but simply a title that said "a woman who likes slash fiction". (Note how no sexuality is attached to "woman" there.) There is nothing inherently wrong with that.

Again: *queer-reading* is what is seen as ruined/rotten by straight men fans. Because by seeing Joseph Joestar or Vegeta or whoever as bisexual or gay, you’re “ruining” the fandom for them. Because they think male characters can only be cis and straight. (and if they *are* gay, they have to be a stereotype side character) How they think queer transformative fandom “ruins” the series for the intended cis straight male audience, hence the ruin/rotten/ferment character in fujoshi.

This was a term FOUNDED in misogyny and queerphobia, and then it was reclaimed.

The term eventually found its way to the Western fandoms, thanks to the wonders of the internet, and.... backslid as the term was appropriated, once again, by misogynists and homophobes. (Fun fact, first time I saw it in ages was when a person on tumblr was complaining about how a m/m ship was only popular because of the "fujoshis", but seemed more bitter because that ship had a dude in it that they preferred in their m/f ship. Ship war never changes.)

Japanese fandom had apparently been fine with Western fandom using the term "fujoshi" as it had been reclaimed as: simply a woman who likes m/m fiction. Yet the term ‘Fujoshi’ has come full circle in western culture to mean: ‘rotten women, degenerates, women who ruin everything, women who are ruined/deviant/corrupted, Abusers etc. etc.’ When it originated as an overall general term for women who didn’t conform to conventional gender & heterosexual roles & standards. Do you not see how that is misogynistic? Honestly, even a little racist considering it was stolen and twisted from its reclaimed use?

This is made even worse because western fandom uses it as though it is purely for "straight" women. However, many people who identify as fujoshi are queer in some capacity, because, as it turns out, queer content attracts queer fans, even if it's not their SPECIFIC brand of queer. (Honestly there's a huge discussion that could be had about women's image of themselves and their connection to their bodies, how that explains why m/m can be so huge in certain fandoms.... but another time.) Again, there's a reason why "fujoshi" only ever originally meant "WOMEN, of all sorts, who like m/m".

Yaoi & Yuri works are all a means to explore gender identity, sexuality, empowerment, etc. Lots of iconic shojo series overlap with themes present in a lot of these works too. It’s not a coincidence (Utena, Sailor Moon, Fruits Basket, etc.)

Many people who got into BL works later discovered “Oh I’m bi, I’m genderfluid, I’m nonbinary, I’m trans, etc.” The past few decades BL has still been ‘taboo’ for having queer relationships, but at least in western culture it was a “safe” way to engage in these stories when LGBTQ+ media was actively shut out from main stream media. People didn’t pay attention to manga or comics, so buying them, borrowing them, reading them could be done almost in plain sight. While many might not have called themselves "fujoshi", they and (quite frankly) you and me would still have been considered "fujoshi". Because, again, it had nothing to do with defending gay male representation, but that queer transformative fandom “ruins” the series for the intended cis straight male audience, hence the ruin/rotten/ferment character in fujoshi.

Fun fact, but there are male and nonbinary versions of "fujoshi" too. I can't remember the latter, but the male ver. is "fudanshi". Additional fun fact, but there was a paper done by someone named Kazumi Nagaike who looked into straight men who self-identified as fudanshi. They read BL manga because it's the only media in which they can experience a male character receiving romantic affection, attention, and being comforted and cared for lovingly. Yet they actively hide it because it would be seen as shameful. If you don't think there are equally deep and fascinating reasons as to why a self-identified fujoshi is drawn to m/m fiction and isn't "fetishizing" it, I don't know what to say.

However, throughout all of this, I've mostly stuck to the misogyny and homophobia, but I know I mentioned transphobia initially. This is a more recent development, brought to you by everyone's favorite bigots: TERFs.

Hating men or anything to do with men is kind of a thing with TERFs, and, really, a lot of radfems. So it's kind of not a surprise that they'd have something against m/m being a popular thing about women. So TERFs in particular decided to merge that with their hatred of trans people. A lot of people have seen evidence of TERFs saying **ANY** trans men who like m/m content are just ~terrible dirty women~ who like men SOOOOO much that they want to BE men so that they can indulge in their ~filthy yaois~. This isn't made up. I have seen it happen. It's bad. It's especially bad because this acts as a gateway to TERF/SWERF/radfem bullshit, since people will often parrot their rhetoric if it's not OUTRIGHT bigoted.

So now everyone who self-identifies as fujoshi, people who *don't* but just like m/m content, and queer/lgbtq folks all get to play the fun game of

"Oh, is this person a misogynist who thinks female sexuality is Satan's Playground, a homophobe upset that queer ships exist at all, a transphobe pulling fuckery, or just a regular asshole"

It's a game where you're always kind of going to lose, but, depending on your gender/sexuality/sometimes race, it might be worse with one option than the others. This is why I can no longer trust many people who use "fujoshi" in a demeaning way, or dismiss people who self-identify as "fujoshi" regardless of the discussion, but have less qualms with people who call themselves fujoshi/fudanshi/fuck what's the nb option again.

This isn't to say that there AREN'T homophobic creeps who fetishize people in the fujoshi community but... that's because those are *everywhere*. Instead of calling them "fujoshi", a reclaimed Japanese term that just describes a like towards m/m content, let's just use our own language to call them what they are: homophobic and/or fetishizing creeps. It gets to the real heart of the matter.

Hope it's okay to jump in with an answer here!

To start with, it's cultural appropriation as well as all those other things. I'm a slash fan and the only difference between calling myself that and calling myself a fujoshi (at least as I understood it fifteen years ago) was that I wasn't really into anime or manga fandoms.

I think the real issue here boils down to what you mean by "fetishize." A fetish is just a kink, something you like sexually. In the past few years I've seen a bunch of folks whipping it around like it's some sort of bad thing. If that's not what you meant, great! We probably don't have any real disagreement here.

If you meant that it's some sort of bad thing...let's take a closer look.

Are men who are sexually attracted to f/f images fetishizers? Maybe, sure, why not? Is that a bad thing? Not really, as long as women are allowed to like m/m things too. But if you start saying it's normal for men to like that stuff but women should be ashamed of their sexual desires, you're sexist.

If you say it's bad for 'normal' people (wtf does normal mean anyway) to like gay content because it's gay but everyone is allowed to enjoy het content if they want, you're homophobic, I don't see any other way to put it.

And if you say that anyone born female who has an outsized interest in m/m content is bad and should be ashamed of themselves...please think for a second about what that means for trans men in the process of figuring out their identities.

If your problem with fujoshi isn't any of those, if it's not intended to shame (often Japanese) women for enjoying the Japanese Boy-Love genre in general, maybe pick a different word for what you have a beef with?