Yaoi - No Anal?

lol There is no "delicate" way to talk about this subject, which is why it's here instead of anywhere else in my internet life. Because I kinda just need to rant on this a bit.

I was reading through some forums - I believe they were the ones at Manga-Updates - and thought I'd check the yaoi threads. I don't have friends in to yaoi, and it seems the genre is just fading off in local bookstores. So I was kinda missing feeling like a group with fellow fans.

And I hit one of the current threads - a fan looking for yaoi manga with NO anal. Sick of the anal. No mention of it, nada. And I'm like....wait, what?

And no other fan has this reaction. They just throw out titles that might work for this person - mostly BL (boys' love) type stuff. Evidently, I'm the only bothered by the fact that the fan is actually looking for no anal.

So I take a look myself and try to figure out what about that request bothers me. The conclusion I've come to is this: As a older yaoi fan, I worked hard to FIND anal. So some newb coming along and complaining about it kinda pisses me off.

See, in the world of yaoi 10 years ago in the US, fans had to look for it. And what made this search so frustrating was the almost-yaoi type titles. Back then, even yaoi jokes in titles was harder to find. Hell, anime was harder to find. But I did track down CLAMP's Tokyo Babylon. Titles like that annoyed me slightly, because the leads would hold each other and kiss and generally be all tortured lovely, but NOTHING ACTUALLY HAPPENED. And for a while there was this line, because there were still a lot of people against yaoi. So to keep things "straight", they'd sometimes argue that "they're friends! They never actually did anything!". So I was always wanting to find that one manga or anime that was irrefutably yaoi - where they did *everything*.

And, yeah, I guess at some point it become necessary to me. And I'm not saying it's about seeing the scenes. Don't get me wrong, I love the smut, but that's not even the point to me. Another part of the issue is that so many yaoi mangas feature one or even both lead characters that have had relations with women in the past, or at the very least are still denying they're gay. And that pisses me off on a personal level. You can't say you're straight and have a same-sex lover - that's denying that lover. I don't care if you're bi or gay or whatever, but you're not straight. But most such characters don't give in to their love until after they have gone all the way. Sometimes even then they try to deny it some more. But that moment - when they consciously and willingly decided to go "all the way" - was always the big climax of the story. Honestly, no pun intended. It was how most storylines came to a close because it was a decisive moment of "okay, I accept everything about me and everything about you and I trust you enough to let this happen now".

And I guess now all those emotions of acceptance and trust are just too involved in that moment for me to dismiss it so easily. That's what I want in my love stories - I want that moment of perfection, of total trust and honesty ...and, well, love. And like I said, I don't have to see it. Have it fade out on a closed door. Have it as a far-off promise of the future. But don't deny it.

Okay, I'm done. It's just one of those moments I feel old and have to shake my head and go "you youngsters will never understand". Because younger anime and manga fans never will really get it. They don't remember the days of sending off for VHS fansubs. The days when Ranma 1/2 was just about the only fricking graphic novel in the US and it only published like - what? - once a year? They'll never get the devotion we once had. It wasn't about learning the language or the culture. It wasn't about going to Japan. It was just the stories. We fell in love with a type of story telling that wasn't available anywhere else. And these days, that's not even true anymore. Because anime has been so popular for so long that everyone is picking up on it and those types of stories and that type of telling has leaked in to everything.

Saa.

Things I Do Want...

Okay, so, I keep telling people reasons why I don't want a relationship. They're very valid, very true reasons. But what I don't tell them is that there's also reasons I DO want a relationship. I never list them because I don't want everyone else to know. But since the whole point of this blog is secrecy, I can list them here. So...

I do want someone at home that can hold me when I'm having a bad day.

I do want someone to tell me I look cute in my little house-dress that's too short for the public.

I do want to kiss someone before I die. I'm a virgin for fuck's sake! I AM cute. And, okay, I'm anti-social. But there's people out there that are ugly bastards with horrible personalities that have had sex. But I'm 26 and I've never even been kissed.

I do want someone that's just mine. Someone that puts me first. I can't even put me first all the time. I just want to be somebody's most important person. Not second to a parent, a kid, or a spouse. Just me - my somebody.

I want someone that'll make me laugh even when I'm in such a bad mood all I wanna do is stay mad.

I want someone that will suddenly make it seem like putting the book down would actually be a good thing, cause for once reality is better than fiction.

I want someone that could read all these blogs and see past the crazy.

I Shouldn't Be Alive

So I'm flippin through the channels and hit upon this show - "I Shouldn't Be Alive". I think it was on Discovery.

Basic point of the show is to show a true story of something horrible that happened to someone. But, thanks to the fact they're being interviewed and the title of the show, you know that this horrible thing did not, in fact, kill them. Which kinda spoils the ending really, but there ya have it.

Thing is - I think most people must watch the show and say "well thank gods that isn't me!"

But I kept watching and wishing it was me. I mean, granted, being slowly eaten alive by sand flies while I cook in the sun is not the most gentle of deaths...but still. It's odd, isn't it? All these people in these horrible situations, and all they seem to chatter on about is how much they wanted to live and how that made all the difference. And I can't help but think that had it been me, I could have sat back and let it happen and just be done with this hopeless charade.

But nope. I don't get in horrible situations. Because my life is boring and I like it that way. Even though I'm perfectly willing and wanting to die, the truth is I also hate pain and demand routine and just basically was never built for dare devil activities.

My family's even "blessed" with incredibly healthy genes. Oh, sure, I get flat feet and possibly a bad back in the future and mental illness runs all through that tree. But cancer? Nah. Nothing truly life threatening. Just annoying.

gah

Reminded why I made this...

So yesterday I see this lady at work - Kim - who I only talk to once in a blue moon when we pass each other in the hallway. She's also friends with my best friend, Jes, who works with us. I met her through Jes, and she's a nice lady so I always say hi and try to be polite.

But honestly, it's not in me to form relationships all over the place. They're very limited, and the only people I seriously want to talk to about my feelings and life happenings is someone I actually know. That'd be family, and my three best friends. Otherwise, you don't need to worry about me.

However, this is the day of Twitter and Facebook and all the other shit we got going. So, yes, Kim is my "friend" on Facebook. Because she asked and how do I say no with out being insulting or sounding like a stuck up bitch while going about how I don't friend everyone? Nope, I was stuck, and I friended her.

Then I made my Facebook status something depressing. I believe it was "what do you when, after 26 years of being told to 'be yourself', you find out 'yourself' doesn't have a place in this world".

Well, she saw it and had to bring it up at work the next day - said she was worried and how she didn't know what to say to my status sometimes and blah blah blah.

What can I say? I can't really roll my eyes and be like "look, I was being emo, it's a Facebook status - let it go". I could say that to someone I considered a rational human being. But Kim doesn't know me like that - she wouldn't see it as me being me (ie, logical to the point of rude). She'd just see the rude and be hurt that I was brushing me off when she wanted to "be there" for me. So I explained I had some stuff going on (job hunting) and shrugged it off as just a bad moment.

And the point of all that is this - some things I want to say should be said here, on the blog nobody knows I have. Because otherwise someone is going to take this shit the wrong way and suddenly I'll be on suicide watch just because I was listening to the wrong song or reading an odd story or something. Cripes people, I'm aloud to feel what I feel - it needs no reaction from you.

Lesson learned - creepier talk goes here. When I want to rant or rave about the latest winner on Project Runway - well, that can go on Facebook.