Having recently been asked to explain how and why I came to be a yaoi fan through shounen manga (or despite it), I found myself procrastinating, and making up more and more bizarre excuses to procrastinate further.
I do want to explain it; really, I do. But I can't. The 'how' is easy. The 'why'.... completely escapes me. I find myself feeling panicked and hyperventilating, when I approach 'why'. But I said I would, and so I will. Perhaps through 'how' I can explore 'why' and come to some sort of conclusion.
My manga experience began in 1995 when a well-meaning Aussie sent me a volume of manga: volume 19 of Ranma 1/2. I'd read some of the Viz translations of Ranma but for some reason, holding this battered little tome in my hands and flipping through it right to left and seeing the super-cute little panels filled with black-and-white-and-toned characters enchanted me to no end, and I have been since then a slave to my manga fetish.
Many of you reading now will already be well aware of my love
affair with Dragon Ball so I won't go into it in any depth.
The very long and fannish story short: I discovered it, fell in love,
was disappointed by the fact that the series ended so soon after my
having fallen in love, and I began to write fanfiction for the series
(and still do, to the chagrin of my sensible self).
Fanfiction being what it is, and fanfiction fandom being what it is, I met a number of fellow writers and fans on the Internet, and I was influenced by them as much as my writing was. From Dragon Ball I was introduced to Yuu Yuu Hakusho, which I was assured was very like Dragon Ball. I didn't see the comparison after watching some of the YYH anime, except for the similarity between Hiei's hair and Vejiita's. But I was intrigued anyway, by Hiei and to a certain extent by Kurama, and so I did a little research...
What came next Changed My Life ®.
I found, during my surfing sessions, several YYH
fanfiction sites. I discovered that these authors were putting Kurama
and Hiei into romantic relationships with one another -- nothing sexual,
just a lot of lovey-dovey and some bittersweet romance. As far as I
knew, the two of them weren't a couple in the series... so why were they
together in these stories?? Baffled, I stopped reading YYH
fanfiction. But I bought the manga, and struggled through it, and a few
ideas percolated through my aging brain.
Then a friend sent me a present, and part of the present contained a picture of Kurama and Hiei, and though the picture is innocent as far as sexuality goes the intimacy that is so apparent in that particular piece of art completely shocked me. In a span of less than two hours this old brain of mine wrapped itself completely around the idea of Kurama and Hiei as a couple and without any previous yaoi experience, I started churning out what I fondly call my YYH 'slush'. Because Hiei seemed so reluctant, so passive, I unthinking made him the uke (oh, little did I know!), wrote eighteen stories in seven days -- most of which, thank the gods, have been lost forever -- and took my baby steps into the eternal fantasy world of yaoi.
You must remember at this point that my experience with manga had been so far strictly with shounen series. Macho guys, cute girls, lots of fighting, seishun to the max.
When I began to seek out others who shared this new love of mine, I stumbled over some slashy mailing lists and there found the means to indulge my ego. I had fun writing stories for the lists, but quickly tired of the repetitive 'Great! More!' responses. And so I sought deeper stimulation.
I eventually found the AMLA. And there I found myself surrounded by people who knew more than I will ever know, who could read Japanese without having to look up every other verb, and to whom slash wasn't a tee hee giggle forbidden activity. Through AMLA and Aestheticism's online 'zine, the scope of my reading expanded -- and I discovered yaoi manga. And I discovered doujinshi, where people like me (albeit Japanese!) put on paper their own delicious stories about their favourite characters. I had found my fannish niche.
Now, you must also keep in mind that I cannot bear to look at men with chicken-bone fingers, who look as though a spring breeze would snap their spines. I came from a background of Macho Men, with big muscles and spiky hair. So how on earth could I possibly stand to look at yaoi manga, or doujinshi, where the breakable bishounen are the norm?
It comes around again to Yuu Yuu Hakusho, I think. The manga is a shounen series; but compared to other shounen series the boys are slender, pretty -- without compromising their masculinity (Kurama never fooled me for a second ^_-). It made the transition from testosterone-dripping shounen series to semen-dripping sex scenes in yaoi that much easier for me. If the masculine guys in YYH can go at it with abandon, why can't masculine guys in other series? After all, they do have feelings, and of course Goten has a thing for Vejiita who is the disciplinarian that Gokuu never was for him...
But I was speaking of physical appearances, wasn't I?
If I can envision and verbalise in a story the biggest,
strongest, most apparently heterosexual guys screwing one another until
the proverbial cows come home... I can certainly envision a few skinny
boys with a few pounds on them.
In my own mind, the scrawniest of the 'willowy' bishounen has a pelvis wherein he can maintain his vital organs. His fingers don't break with a firm handshake. His jaw isn't can-opener sharp. His legs don't just sort of... taper into nothing. In my mind, he becomes more palatable. On the other end of the scale, though, the biggest of my shounen-series boys gets slimmed down in my mind, just enough to fit into the arms of his beloved. Or those of his afternoon fuck-buddy, whoever happens to be handy that day. The art in the manga or doujinshi becomes a template for my own imagination.
My love of shounen manga has never waned; I can't see it doing so any time soon. I think I'm luckier than many yaoi fans, in that my aesthetic preferences are not limited to shoujo or yaoi series -- or, worse, limited to those breakable bishounen -- that I can find shounen-series boys pretty enough to slash. It makes my playground oh so much bigger than everyone else's!!
But I'm willing to let them have a turn on my swing set, if they promise to be nice.