Seme as Vibrator, Seme as Dildo: Body Kiss Love
By Shima Asahi in Vari (Gust Comics)

Warning: contains plot summaries and spoilers

    Yaoi is a vast continent, and your idea of its natural features will depend very much on where you've spent your time. People who've strolled pleasantly through the meadows of yaoi are irritated by those who say it's a jungle, and those who've tracked its forests wonder why some people consider it a desert. I'm told that semes in love and semes on white horses exist in abundance, but what I first encountered were the dirty rotten semes of Sakamoto Miki and Johnny in the old Breath collections. (This was after I'd got through stacks of Raping Papa Magic in my own fandom.) Semes in my conception of the term are cold-eyed shits with no emotions, no attachments and no redeeming features. They exist to rape the uke who's either helpless because he's
helpless or helpless because he loves his seme so much. End of
story.

The raping seme will never die so long as fans draw yaoi and the Japanese have their bondage fetish. And damned if he isn't still out there in pro yaoi, with a few new wrinkles. Take Body Kiss Love (as the old line has it- please.) Here we have the new development of the loving uke: loving uke (big-eyed, soft- featured, long-haired) initiated the relationship with the older, taller, shorter-haired school president. This makes it a little difficult for the seme to rape, but he does a good job of screwing the uke over emotionally: he's as cold, ungiving and contemptuous as they come. The two have a lot of sex, which is what you might expect of high school teenagers. As always in this genre, sex consists of uke having panting groaning sweating orgasms while stone-faced seme jerks him off, or while uke bounces up and down on stone-faced seme's unmoving cock. The stone-face is emphasized here by the seme's glasses, which deprive him of visible eyes entirely.

The physiology of this type of sex is a subject in itself. These ukes have the best of all possible worlds. Their semes are animated dildos with no needs of their own and no desire beyond bringing their uke to orgasm. Who could ask for more? Well, some people are never satisfied. Our uke is eating his sweet girlish heart out because seme only wants sex. Uke wants emotional connection: romance, dates, kisses, 'I love yous'. What he gets is stone-faced seme watching unmoved while the class creep hits on his uke. In revenge uke pretends to be enjoying himself. Seme walks away and weeping uke concludes that All Is Over. 'But Joe-' sob sob 'I really loved you, really I did' sob sob as organ music swells. Days of Our Lives will return after a message from our sponsor.

    Uke should have been born a girl in a shoujo manga, where the hero would have enfolded her in his manly arms. Instead he's a boy in a yaoi manga, where making your boyfriend jealous leads to a long protracted screwing session in the seme's apartment. (What's a highschool kid doing with his own deluxe apartment that can't cost less than $1000 a month? Don't ask.) Seme even takes his glasses off for the occasion. He has mean eyes. Are we surprised? Uke concludes happily and inevitably that seme really does love him even if he won't say so. Jaundiced observers may be excused for having their doubts.

Doubts are confirmed in a little epilogue at the end of the book. Creep has been suspended for hitting on the uke. Creep is being jeered at by friends outside the school as school head and boyfriend leave from a late student council meeting. Seme suddenly initiates heavy smooching and grope session in the alleyway, to uke's delight. Uke believes seme who says he's been overcome with lust and can't wait to get home. Seme has caught sight of creep and wants to rub his face in it. This lends point to the argument that semes are patterned on real guys and ukes are patterned on real girls. 'Dump him, dear, he isn't worth it.'

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