Writers including Graham Kolbeins, one of the authors of Massive: Gay Erotic Manga and the Men Who Make It, have posited that part of the appeal of yaoi to women, particularly in Japan, is that it often depicts sex without patriarchal trappings. Another is diminshed female roles, with female characters often background figures at best, if not sometimes villains of the piece.
When sex is shown, while those seme and uke roles are usually definitive, but also reflective of characters’ personalities, with the seme often dominating the uke.Ĭommon tropes of yaoi manga include the chase, with one partner either unaware of, if not hostile to, the other’s interest, and the lowering of their emotional defences and the acceptance of the other’s feelings often being a key moment in yaoi stories.
The participants in a relationship in yaoi manga are often shown as the “seme” (“top”), typically an older, more powerful or protective figure, and the “uke” (“bottom”), usually a shorter or more overtly feminine looking man. Yaoi will often show sexual acts more directly than genteel BL series will.
