Homophobia and transphobia. 5mh2u
8 years ago
Posts: 236
I'm sure Japan has people of all those kinds. Apparently they are not as vocal or powerful as here in the USA—or Japan's manga wouldn't be as wide-ranging as it is. Japan has always had, I understand, a more open attitude toward sex, both in action and in media, than the anglo-American countries do. 2yq65
Christianity has always been down on sex. The USA has always had a Puritan Christian streak. Now, among the young at least, that old Puritan hyper-moralism has taken a whole new form and marches on in a whole new generation of social justice warriors.
8 years ago
Posts: 16
Well, you have to understand that a lot of yaoi and yuri is written by and for straight women (yaoi), and by and for straight men (yuri). I see a slightly higher proportion of women writing yuri than men writing yaoi (though, that may just be due to the fact that I read more lesbian romance in general, but I digress) , but even that's still pretty low. So, you can't expect someone who's self and the audience they're writing for to be concerned with portraying those things realistically.
Japan is a little different from the West because while they aren't like Christian majority countries like the States where there's idiots yelling at you that you'll go to hell and how "God Hates Fags", they treated LGBT as jokes for the longest time and even today there's not much representation or realistic portrayal of gay/trans characters outside a few instances. They have recently started getting better about it though.
As someone who's LGBT myself, I don't think Japan's problems with the LGBT community today stems from a place of malice, but more that they just don't understand why some things are wrong. Straight people writing that stuff for people like them aren't going to feel hurt or offended by it because it doesn't effect them. And I don't expect them to because of that. I appreciate when someone outside has chosen to educate themselves to be a better ally, but I also understand that not everyone takes that initiative so until it's pointed out to them they won't know it's wrong.
