Women Who Love Boy Love
» Amorous Pop Culture
A visit to the innocently filthy world of the Yaoi Con:
A few of the half-cat androids and gothic Lolitas have come to this particular event not just to dress up as their favorite characters but also because they are fans of yaoi, a publishing genre that focuses on boy love. It seems peculiar that yaoi would attract such a big female fan base, but one yaoi author, who writes under the name Ayame Sakuma, explains: “Yaoi is boy love, but it’s for heterosexual women. It’s like a Harlequin romance with the cutest boys.” Another devotee, a stay-at-home mom in her 40’s, adds, “It’s like if you had Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt kissing in a story.” The female comic-book creators who came up with yaoi wanted to write about true romance, platonic love, what they thought female audiences were really longing for.