A brief history of my experience with the genre

For me, boys’ love manga was a taboo for most of the years I had started reading it. I had no idea it was a genre until I started attending anime conventions in 2012 and had heard people (mostly girls and women) talking about it.

I checked out some of it through a dubious website I will not name here, and became hooked. But I hid my love for it out of shame–not because the manga features LGBTQIA couples, but because most of what I read was sexually explicit. While Japanese manga tends to censor penises (aka the “lightsaber” or “black rectangle” effect) and other sexual parts of the body, fans who scanlated BL manga not only translated works themselves, but got artists to decensor the manga for Western audiences. So…I’ve seen a lot of nudity.

I only started to admit I liked BL right before leaving for Japan. I think I nervously dropped the news to my therapist at the time, wondering if it was weird of me to like sexually explicit manga art. I don’t remember what she said, but I left that appointment feeling less shame than before.

When I moved to Japan, I met fellow BL lovers — fujoshi (female BL fans) as well as fudanshi (male BL fans). I started going to bookstores like Kinokuniya, Tsutaya, and Animate, all of which have sizeable BL sections. I couldn’t read a single one of them, but I collected them all the same. I bought the Japanese copies of the (technically illegal) scanlations I had read and loved, and then added new stuff to my manga library. When the time came for me to come back to the States, I had to be really choosy about which books I would take back home with me, and which ones I’d resell to Book Off. I had well over a hundred BL books and made over ¥10,000 reselling. I kept all the BL doujinshi (fan comics) I got in Ikebukuro and shipped them home, then made my choices for the BL keepers and shipped those home, too.

When I got back to the States, I discovered that a lot of the Japanese BL I bought overseas started to be officially translated and sold by publishers such as TOKYOPOP, Seven Seas, Kadokawa, and Animate International…so I started collecting English BL. Some of the BL was uncensored, and some of the BL left the lightsabers in. But it was a whole new experience for me to see manga I enjoyed finally become available in English.

I’ve also purchased hundreds of BL as eBooks. In fact, that’s usually how I find new keepers — I read the eBook on Kindle, and if it really touched me, I see if it’s available in paperback, and order it. The reason why I do this is because when you buy an eBook, you do not actually own the book. You are buying a license to read the book, and Amazon can revoke access to that book at any time. Given the attacks on LGBTQIA works and the FOSTA-SESTA laws, I don’t know if my eBooks will be available in the future. So I buy the keepers to own them forever.

Why women like boys’ love

In a nation where patriarchy remains strong, Boys’ Love homoerotic manga and other fictional media give women and girls a world of escapism from societal constraints (Kawano, 2025, par. 1).

Patriarchy has long forced women into specific roles, specific stereotypes, and has devalued women’s emotions, experiences, and skills. Being a straight woman in a M/F relationship can be fraught with issues related to patriarchy, especially with ideas where women must be subservient to men, titillate them, and please them.

Patriarchy also hurts men. Men, too, are forced into roles they must perform in order to be considered masculine enough, with a slew of responsibilities assigned to them in order to fulfill the parts society has designated for them.

Enter boys’ love.

Predominantly written by women, readers are also overwhelmingly female. BL is more than just double the eye candy, as these tales of romance between beautiful androgynous boys release women from a judgmental gaze and create a world that frees them from the constrictive social norms of reality (Kawano, 2025, par. 5).

Although the BL characters are men, the storylines are written according to women’s romantic desires and sensibilities. The characters have the heart of a girl in the body of a boy, which thoroughly removes any body shaming issues for readers (Kawano, 2025, par. 20).

I think I agree that BL removes the “constrictive social norms of reality.” Whenever I read BL, I find it deeply romantic and sweet, and have a hard time imagining men in my life ever offering the same level of romance I see in the manga I read. I also reflect on the men I’ve dated, and they don’t fit the bill, either.

I’ve had quite a few men tell me that I’m intimidating because I’ve accomplished so much in my life, have the education that I do, and that I’m a professional writer. Men see that I do not depend on them, and I think that shakes them up a bit because it doesn’t fit what they have been taught about how to treat women in a relationship. It endangers their role as protector and provider as well.

Several studies suggest that boylove offers a gender-neutral emotional space that allows women to explore sexuality and emotional intensity without being confined by traditional roles. In an article published by Savvy Tokyo in 2022, BL was described as an imaginative space where women could detach from the heteronormative expectations often placed on them in real life. When women are not participants in the romantic narrative, they are free to appreciate the story without internalizing roles of submission or dependence.

Boylove stories often present emotionally rich, idealized relationships that challenge societal constraints turning them into deeply romantic and moving tales. The male characters frequently embody tenderness, empathy, and vulnerability traits not traditionally associated with masculinity, and which female readers often find refreshing (Luongrielle, 2025, par. 4-5).

There are so many BL stories that have affected me emotionally, tugged at my heartstrings, and made me tear up. The men depicted in BL openly express emotions, even with weeping and tears. It is refreshing when the men around you are taught to suppress emotion and live stoically.

Why I love BL

You can kind of get an idea of my feelings about BL where I discussed why women like it above. But to add to that, I find all the men in BL manga to be beautifully depicted. They are absolutely gorgeous, the true embodiment of bishounen. Skin is smooth and unblemished (unless there is a scar or traumatic injury with a significant story behind it). There are no wrinkly bits or bumpy bits or overly hairy bits. Even genitals look beautiful, which feels awkward for me to write!

Besides the beautiful men, as I wrote above, I find the stories to be deeply romantic. While there can be toxicity in BL (dubious consent, for example, or icky age gaps), for the most part, there comes moments where the partners are deeply sympathetic to each other and show the utmost care and dedication to each other and their relationship (an example of this would be Cosmetic Playlover, where the romance starts out shady and dubious but blooms into something beautiful).

If the BL manga makes me cry, that’s an added bonus.

BL recommendations

If you are new to BL, want to give it a try, or already a reader but just want some recs, here you go:

• Secret XXX, Therapy Game, Therapy Game Restart by Meguru Hinohara
• Daisy Jealousy by Ogeretsu Tanaka
• After We Gazed at the Starry Sky by Bisco Kida
• Lullaby of the Dawn by Ichika Yuno
• Cosmetic Playlover by Sachi Narashima

Conclusion

I’ve been reading BL, first in secret, then openly, since 2012. I have come to love the deeply romantic relationships, sensual and sexy depictions of beautiful men, and the lack of traditional gender roles seen in heterosexual relationships and the patriarchy.

I continue to collect both eBooks and print copies of BL manga and have a vast library of works that I absolutely love. I also feel privileged to have a working relationship with TOKYOPOP, a major BL publisher, where I reviewed their manga first for The Beat, and now for this website.

BL is a great way to look at romance and sex through a completely different lens, and feels refreshing every time I open a new book.

If you read LGBTQIA works and are comfortable with nudity and sex, I recommend giving BL a try. They have something for every taste, varying from fantasy to sports to slice of life, to dark romance and light and sweet. I’m sure you’ll find something you love.

References

Kawano, K. (2025, July 8). Boys love, the genre that liberates Japanese women to create a world of their own. Savvy Tokyo. https://savvytokyo.com/boys-love-the-genre-that-liberates-japanese-women-to-create-a-world-of-their-own/

Luongrielle. (2025, July 17). Why do so many women enjoy boylove stories?. KbizoOm. https://kbizoom.com/why-women-like-boylove/