The Reasons I Don't Support Yuri or Yaoi

This is actually three different articles I wrote at different times. The first 
was written in 2000, maybe, and is the original. The second article was a post I 
had on my message board in late 2001. The third is another post I made on the 
same message board in December 2001. 

Before I get people saying I'm a hypocrite, let me start off by saying yes, I 
have a clique called Yum Yum! This webclique has different attributes you can 
select from: hentai, ecchi, yuri, yaoi, shounen-ai, shoujo-ai, etc. My Uranus 
and Neptune shrine has also joined a Yuri webring. 
The reason I created the clique was because I don't care if other people like 
any of these things. That's their opinion, not mine. Also, a lot of people have 
this fear of sex, so I decided to parodize cliques by using this avoidance of 
"hentai" and whatever. I joined the webring because the owner defined "yuri" as 
simply lesbian anime couples, and my shrine focuses on a lesbian anime couple. 
I didn't quibble with this definition of "yuri", partially because I've never 
actually seen a comprehensive, working definition of it. I've seen accurate 
definitions of "yaoi" and "june", of course, thanks to Aestheticism.com, so I 
know what I'm working with there. Until someone proves otherwise, I'm assuming 
"yuri" is the female counterpart to "yaoi". 
"Yaoi" basically takes male anime, video game, or manga characters and puts them 
into a sex relationship with other male characters. Yes, the emphasis is on 
sexual intercourse. Taking into consideration my view of "yuri", "yuri" 
therefore pairs up female characters from anime, manga, or video games, and 
places them in sex relationships with other females. Again, the emphasis is on 
sex. 
The kicker is that "yaoi" (and by relation, "yuri") will throw any two 
characters together for absolutely no reason whatsoever other than the creators 
said, "I think they look good together." It does not matter if the characters 
are brothers or siblings. There's a huge amount of Folken X Van ("Vision of 
Escaflowne") yaoi doujinshi. It doesn't matter if the characters are 
heterosexual, if the characters already have other love interests, if the 
characters absolutely hate each other, or whatever, off to bed they go. Example: 
There's a lot of Sanosuke X Kenshin ("Rurouni Kenshin") yaoi dojin, when Kenshin 
has or has had two female love interests (Tomoe and Kaoru). 
This is where the problem is. It's not that I care whether people like m/m 
relationships or f/f relationships or m/f relationships, it's all the same to 
me. I personally don't follow m/m relationships just because it doesn't appeal 
to me, but I'm not against it. Basically I'm not against homosexuality or 
heterosexuality (though I am against incest, which has become increasingly 
common in anime/manga as canon, such as "Angel Sanctuary" and "Shoujo Kakumei 
Utena", and bestality, which I've mostly only seen in doujinshi). 
My main problem with "yaoi" and "yuri" is that they just randomly pair up 
whoever, whenever, whereever, for whatever. Overall, I follow canon. I support 
relationships that exist, provided I don't hate the characters, in which case I 
hate them, not their relationship. Actually I haven't yet found a relationship 
where I think the characters are ill-suited to each other. For instance, I think 
Kaoru from "Rurouni Kenshin" becomes annoying as hell during the Kyoto arc, but 
I still believe she and Kenshin make a good couple. I hate Miaka and Tamahome 
from "Fushigi Yuugi", but since they're equally stupid and annoying, they 
deserve each other. Shiori from "Shoujo Kakumei Utena" is a bitch, and I'm sorry 
Jury is in love with her, but it's still an interesting relationship. Aya from 
"Ayashi no Ceres" is a slut through and through, so shrines to her and Tooya 
piss me off completely, but again, I don't like either of them, so they might as 
well be together even if talk about their "eternal love" is complete BS. 
Anyway, very rarely do I not follow canon. There are a few instances of this, 
and actually the only one I can think of is Heero and Relena. Not that I think 
the guys of "Gundam Wing" are gay, but I heard the producers said that Heero and 
Relena weren't meant to be together, which is kind of sad, but whatever. 
The point is, I like canon. For all people complain about making gay and lesbian 
characters straight, I think it's just as bad making heterosexual characters 
gay/lesbian, just because you feel like it. I have as many problems with saying, 
"Haruka and Michiru should get boyfriends" as I do with, "You know, Sakura and 
Tomoyo are cute, so let's kick that Li kid out of the picture" or "Hotaru and 
Chibi-usa are kids, and Chibi-usa likes boys a lot, but I'm sure they're 
lesbians" or "Hot damn, Quatre looks good in a pink dress, he and Trowa should 
get together" (though honestly, if there's one gay "GWing" boy, it's Quatre). 
More problems with "yuri" and "yaoi" arise when people just start labeling 
characters this or that, like it's official, and then they use "yaoi" or "yuri" 
without really understanding what it means. A lot of people just use these terms 
to mean "gay" and "lesbian", which is obviously incorrect. There's a difference 
between me drooling over Tenoh Haruka and Kaioh Michiru ("Sailormoon"), an 
established lesbian couple, and someone drooling over Hino Rei and Tsukino Usagi 
("Sailormoon"), a couple that's completely non-legit. 
I have yet to see one accurate list of anime lesbian or gay characters. There 
are of course legit lesbians- Haruka, Michiru, Arisugawa Jury, Fatora ("El 
Hazard"), Alliele ("El Hazard"), etc.- and then there are the non-lesbians: 
Tenjou Utena and Himemiya Anthy (from "Shoujo Kakumei Utena" TV who end up 
together just because Utena's "masculine", nevermind how Utena falls for Akio, 
the epitome of masculinity; Anthy's whole story; and even in the movie, they're 
at most bisexual), all the straight Sailor Senshi, Kinomoto Sakura and Tomoyo 
("Card Captor Sakura"), etc. 
What's worse is when people start up support groups for yaoi and yuri, trying to 
make you out to be evil and "close-minded" if you don't support them. On one 
hand, I think the former hentaiFREE was stupid, and I openly supported 
hentaiFREEfree when it was still being updated. However, that was more because 
hentaiFREE seemed to think that anything remotely related to nudity and sex 
would somehow cause you to turn into serial rapists. I don't have anything 
against sex, and I'll admit yaoi and yuri can be entertaining at times, but it 
IS kind of annoying to have people expect you to "open up" and accept stories 
where brothers, enemies, and straight characters with lovers are thrown together 
in this huge orgy. Yeah, sorry if I prefer actual romance and reasons behind 
these pair-ups (which is why I have more tolerance for "shounen-ai" and 
"shoujo-ai", even though these often turn sexually explicit anyway). 

Love is Love 
My general problem with "love is love" is that... no, it's not. Canon stuff I 
totally go for, it's just the non canon stuff that gets kind of irritating. For 
instance, I can't see how anyone can claim Utena and Anthy from "Utena" are 
lesbians in the TV series. They simply aren't, and you probably have one line in 
the entire series that suggests that they COULD be, but a lot of evidence that 
points to that they're not. 
My biggest problem with yaoi/yuri is that the point of it is it's random. A lot 
of people online have twisted it to just meaning "gay" and "lesbian" when it's 
not that way at all. Yaoi and yuri don't even qualify as slash, because slash 
looks for hints/evidence, whereas yaoi/yuri are completely random. It's not 
based on anything that actually occurs, it's all because the creators of the 
pairings decided, "Wow, these two look hot together. Let's make a 
doujinshi/fanart/fanfic with them together." 
I understand this is all fiction, but it's still kind of disturbing to see 
characters who show no attraction or indication that they have love/sexual 
feelings for each other suddenly having a blossoming romance in a fanfic. For 
example, I personally don't like fanfics that have Haruka and Usagi together or 
Haruka dumping Michiru for a man. If you do, that's your choice, just that I 
think Haruka and Michiru go together because they're canon. Similarly, I don't 
think Minako and Rei should start making out because they're both straight. @.o 
Same with Hotaru and Chibiyam. 
In general, I think I don't get things because I see fiction still reflecting 
somewhat of the values of real life. So... it'd be kind of disturbing if some 
random person decided for you, "Hey, you're a girl and you like guys.. but I 
think you look better with that sexy chick over there, so you're now a lesbian." 
o_O; I mean, if you enjoyed it, that's one thing, but.. @.o;; 
Basically, I like love when it's "real" (even though it's fiction and it's not 
real). I don't like made up stuff that's just created on a whim of the authors. 
All of the guy/guy relationships in "Gundam Wing" are made-up; they have no 
basis in the series @.o;; Most of the senshi pair-ups (with each other) are also 
randomly made up. Being against yaoi or yuri does NOT mean you're against gays 
or lesbians; at least, not at the root of what they mean and stand for. Maybe I 
should just give in to the tendency of people to identify the terms with 
sexuality @.o;; 
Messing with a character's sexuality either to make them straight or to make 
them gay when they're not is wrong either way. It makes me kind of laugh when I 
hear about people bashing Heero and Relena lovers when Heero's been paired up 
with every guy in the series, and NONE of them are supported in any way (not 
even Heero and Duo). "GWing" is a perfect example of guys obviously getting 
paired up with females or having explicit female counterparts, but still having 
a billion yaoi doujinshi @.o 
All that said... I'll admit I don't go canon sometimes. Usually I totally am, 
but I think Nuriko and Hotohori would be CUTE (just because of Nuriko, not 
because of Hotohori ) Sadly, Nuriko becomes.. erm.. well, that's an example of a 
creator doing it to her own characters X_x And I think Juri and Ruka is way 
cuter than Juri and Shiori; I guess if I want that, I'll turn to the manga where 
Juri is straight. 
Anyhow.. those're just my beliefs. I'm not on some weird crusade to eliminate 
yaoi and yuri, contrary to the kind of forcefulness of what I've stated ^^;;; 
Just that I think it's reasonable not to expect people to accept yaoi and yuri 
because they're random. I sink my teeth into anything Haruka and Michiru, but 
I'm not likely to go scouring the net for Haruka and Usagi, Michiru and Ami, 
HarukaMichiruUsagi, or Haruka and Mamoru Sometimes respecting a character's 
personality and sexuality is more important than respecting broader terms in 
general. (ooh, that sounded kind of harsh.. it wasn't meant to be :X ) 
Either extreme is kind of sad X_x;; A lot of people eat up everything 
gay/lesbian (or just one and not the other) and ignore the "straight" 
pairings... and vice versa is definitely true. In general, that's just personal 
preference. However, condemning one just because it IS gay or straight isn't 
nice or right. 

Yaoi and Yuri again 
I despise most non-canon couples, generally because 1) the only reason the 
characters are paired up is because the author thinks they'd look good in bed 
together, 2) the reason the characters are put together is because the author 
has a huge fetish with yaoi or yuri (or with "straightening" a character), 3) 
the characters' personalities are warped or twisted to suit this new pairing, or 
4) the basics about the characters are completely disregarded for the new 
pairing. 
Frankly, no matter what you say, I think it'd be very, very hard to convince me 
that boy crazy Makoto and Minako suddenly decide that men suck and lesbianism is 
the way to go. It just doesn't work. Maybe if they both had psychological 
trauma- SEVERE psychological trauma- it would work, but otherwise, I don't see 
it happening. The same with Haruka and Mamoru- there is no way in heck those two 
would EVER get together, no matter if Michiru and Usagi were killed off in freak 
accidents, and Haruka and Mamoru had to console each other. Actually, my main 
beef with non-canon is the fact that they usually screw up the characters' 
sexualities and personalities. I have less antagonism towards couples that 
maintain those two qualities, even if I might not like them, ie. the Inner 
Senshi x the generals (which I don't like except for Venus and Kunzite because 
that's possible). 
In any case, no matter what I feel about non-canon couples, I don't think they 
should be massively supported. By that, I mean waving little flags saying "THIS 
IS THE BEST COUPLE IN THIS SERIES!" or "If you hate this couple, you suck!" or 
"We should be recognized and respected too!" The whole point of non-canon is 
that they AREN'T legit and never happen. Honestly, I don't see any reason why I 
*should* respect a couple someone made up; I can make couples up, too, that no 
one has to support or like. I think I've mostly seen this type of conflict in 
"X" and "Gundam Wing." A lot of "X" people seem to fight over whether Fuuma and 
Kamui are meant to be or if Kamui and Subaru are meant to be or whatever. 
"Gundam Wing" - it's the yaoi fangirls versus those who prefer the straight 
couplings. At least with "X," there are the usual CLAMP overtones of yaoi. 
"Gundam Wing" yaoi overtones were invented by Japanese women who liked how there 
were five bishounen together in one series, and from there it spread. 
I think there are some non-canon couples that are more believable than others. 
Personally, I think Heero and Relena is a cute couple, and it's WAY more 
believable than Heero and Duo. I don't know if it'd ever occur, and I don't 
spend time thinking about it, either, but if it did, it'd be cute. I think Juri 
and Ruka from "Utena" should hook up, but I don't think that would ever happen 
(except in the manga where Juri is straight), nor do I support it because it 
just wouldn't occur. I don't think Sanosuke and Megumi from "Rurouni Kenshin" is 
canon, but they are cute, and it is hinted that they may like each other and 
hide it by being obnoxious towards each other. Sanosuke x Kenshin, though, is 
wrong, and Kenshin x Megumi is wrong. :X 
Sometimes it's hard to determine what is canon and what isn't; for instance, in 
the video game "The Bouncer," it's blatantly obvious that Kou has a huge thing 
for Leann, but they don't hook up in the game. I think they'd end up being a 
couple, but I don't know for sure, so despite the "liking" thing, I consider 
them non-canon. Locke and Celes from "Final Fantasy VI" don't officially hook up 
(ie say, "Hey, we're in love!" or "We're getting married!" or have sex), but I 
think they're pretty much canon for the game. 
I can't think of many canon couples that I don't like. Most of them I respect 
because they are canon and they do occur and they're backed up by the series. 
There are characters within couples that I don't like, but :X Anyhow, I usually 
just avoid anything that says "yaoi" or "yuri" or has random, weird pairings I 
don't like, even though I might wince at the couplings. It's just that I don't 
particularly care for it when people start getting mad that others don't respect 
their made-up pairings and when they have weird support groups saying "love is 
love!" and such. 


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