The Yuri Garden's 2019 Survey: Report

To celebrate the Yuri Garden's second birthday back in February, I decided to hold a fun survey to investigate the general make-up of the Yuri Garden and the opinions of our members on several matters~! Real life unfortunately prevented me from writing up this report until now.

This is of course not a particularly scientific survey, and it ideally reflects only the opinions of Yuri Gardeners rather than every yuri fan on NU and NUF (though I highly recommend you join us if you are one~!). The results are, however, quite interesting.

If you're interested in seeing a more general investigation into the yuri fandom, someone else attempted an international survey a few years ago. You can read the full data results here and the researcher's report on it here.

This report was written up in 1 sleepless night and proofread by my long-suffering girlfriend.

Data Results

This is a breakdown only of the questions that did not require written input.
18 people responded to the survey overall. 2 people left every question blank, so those forms will have to be discarded.
The maximum number of respondents for each question is therefore 16.


Age
I unfortunately forgot to make sure that the age brackets didn’t overlap in this question, so the results aren’t quite as accurate as I’d like. Nonetheless, there were 16 responses.



Below 18: 4 respondents (25%)
18-25: 6 respondents (37.5%)
25-30: 6 respondents (37.5%)
Nobody picked to group themselves with the 30-35 age bracket, and no respondent was above the age of 35.


Gender
There were a full 16 respondents.



Male: 9 respondents (56.3%)
Female: 5 respondents (31.3%)
Non-binary: 1 respondent (6.3%)
Other: 1 respondent (6.3%)

Overall, 56.3% of respondents were men and 43.7% were not.


Trans Gardeners
There were also a full 16 responses to this question.



Not transgender: 13 respondents (81.3%)
Transgender: 2 respondents (12.5%)
Unsure: 1 respondent (6.3%)


Sexual/Romantic Orientation
This question was multiple choice in order to reflect real orientations. Personally, there’s nothing I hate more than surveys that make me choose between picking “Asexual” or “Bisexual/Pansexual”… Especially since neither is true to my orientation at all. I hope the format of this question was satisfactory for everyone.
I realise that I misspelled Heteroromantic as Heteromantic in the survey. I also realise that I should have simply used “Heterosexual” instead of “Straight”.

There were 15 responses.



Straight/Heteroromantic: 9
Gay/Lesbian/Homoromantic: 2
Bisexual/Biromantic: 3
Pansexual/Panromantic: 2
Asexual/Ace Spectrum: 2
Aromantic/Aro Spectrum: 1

8 respondents identified as Straight/Heteroromantic exclusively and 6 respondents did not identify as Straight/Heteroromantic at all.
None of our women identified as Straight/Heteroromantic at all, and 8 of our men identified exclusively as Straight/Heteroromantic.

8 respondents altogether have the potential to identify as LGBT+, 3 of whom did not pick to identify as women.
I take this into account only because all of our women are potentially LGBT+ and most of our men aren’t, so trends that appear to reflect a difference in gender could in fact reflect a difference between LGBT+ and non-LGBT+ people.


Chinese vs Japanese GL
There were 15 responses.



Japanese: 10 (66.7%)
Chinese: 5 (33.3%)

1 woman preferred Japanese yuri and 4 women preferred Chinese.
7 men preferred Japanese yuri and 1 man preferred Chinese.
Of our non-binary/”Other” participants, both preferred Japanese.
Overall, Chinese yuri seems to be the favourite of women, while Japanese yuri appeals most to everyone else.

Of those who could potentially identify as LGBT+, 4 preferred Chinese yuri and 4 preferred Japanese yuri.
Potential LGBT+ status does not appear to create a preference for one over the other.


Liking or Disliking Futanari
There were a full 16 responses.



Liking: 3 (18.8%)
Disliking: 6 (37.5%)
Neither like nor dislike: 7 (43.8%)

2 women liked futanari, 1 didn’t, and 2 had no opinion.
1 man liked futanari, 4 didn’t, and 4 had no opinion.
Of our non-binary/”Other” participants, 1 didn’t like futanari, and 1 neither liked nor disliked it.
There appears to be no correlation between gender and liking or disliking futanari.


Of those who could potentially identify as LGBT+, 2 liked futa, 2 did not, and 4 neither liked nor disliked it.
Possible LGBT+ status did not increase the chances of liking futanari.


Opinion on BL
There were 15 responses.



Like it!: 4 (26.7%)
Hate it!: 3 (20%)
Think it’s okay: 3 (20%)
Don’t care about it/Don’t read it: 5 (33.3%)

3 women like BL and 2 thought it was okay.
3 men hated BL, 1 thought it was okay, and 5 either didn’t care and/or didn’t read any.
Of our non-binary/”Other” participants, 1 liked BL.
Somewhat following the stereotype (which does not hold true in the greater world of NUF), no woman hated BL and no man liked it. There were also no female respondents who didn’t read BL.

Of those who could potentially identify as LGBT+, 4 liked it, 1 hated it, and 2 thought it was okay.


Is futanari x female and futanari x futanari yuri?
I included this question because a yuri fan complained that tagging futanari x female and futanari x futanari novels as yuri or shoujo ai – as NU does – is wrong and misleading, as per the categorisation systems of certain other websites. NU tagging this way predates the Yuri Garden, but I thought it was worth asking about.

There were 16 responses.



Yes: 6 (37.5%)
No: 4 (25%)
Sort of: 2 (12.5%)
Depends: 3 (18.8%)
Only futanari x female: 1 (6.3%)

4 women thought futanari was yuri and only 1 woman did not consider it so.
2 men thought futanari was yuri, 3 thought it wasn’t, 2 thought it depends, and 2 thought it was sort of yuri.
Of our non-binary/”Other” participants, 1 thought it depended and 1 thought that only futanari x female counted as yuri.
Overall, our female participants were more certain of the yuri status of futanari than men and they favoured it to be counted as yuri.

Of those who could potentially identify as LGBT+, 5 thought this was yuri, 1 that it isn’t, 1 that it depends, and 1 that only futa x female counted.
Being a woman made participants much more likely to fully accept futa x fem and futa x futa as yuri than potentially identifying as LGBT+ did.

People who liked futa all agreed that it was yuri.
People who disliked futa were split: 1 thought it was yuri, 2 that it wasn’t, 2 thought it was sort of yuri, and 1 that it depended.
Those who were ambivalent towards futa were also split: 2 thought it was yuri, 2 that it wasn’t, 2 that it depends, and 1 that only futa x female counts.
So liking futanari increases the chances (to 100% in this survey, but unlikely in a wider sample) of considering futa x female and futa x futa to be yuri, whereas disliking it or being ambivalent towards it does not correlate towards having a particular opinion of it.


Is “gender bender yuri” yuri?
16 full responses.



Yes: 9 (56.3%)
No: 1 (6.3%)
Sort Of: 3 (18.8%)
Depends: 3 (18.8%)

1 woman thought this was yuri, 3 that it was sort of yuri, and 1 that it depended.
7 men were prepared to accept this as yuri, 1 refused it, and 1 man thought it depended.
Of our non-binary/”Other” participants, 1 accepted this as yuri and 1 thought it depended.
Interestingly, men were more certain of the yuri status of this kind of gender bender than women. Men overwhelmingly accepted it as yuri. While no woman entirely discounted this as yuri, they largely refused to label it completely yuri.

Of those who could potentially identify as LGBT+, 3 thought this kind of gender bender was yuri, 3 that it was sort of yuri, and 2 that it depended.
Gender seems to have more effect on accepting gender bender as yuri than potential LGBT+ identity.

Of those who said yes to futa’s possible yuri status: 2 thought that this kind of gender bender was also yuri, 1 that it wasn’t, 2 that it was sort of, and 1 that it depended.
Of those who said no to futa’s possible yuri status: 3 thought that this was yuri and 1 that it was sort of.
Of those who thought futa was sort of yuri: 2 thought this was yuri and 1 that it depends.
Of those who thought that futa being yuri depends: all 3 thought this was yuri.
The participant who thought than only futa x female counted thought that this gender bender type depends.

(A different presentation of this in case the above version is too confusing:
Gender bender is yuri vs futa is yuri:
Depends: 1 futa x female, 1 sort of, 1 yes
No: 1 yes
Sort of: 2 yes, 1 no
Yes: 3 depends, 3 no, 1 sort of, 2 yes)

Believing that one is yuri did not strengthen the chances that a participant would think the other was yuri.


Final Comment on this Part of the Results
Yuri Gardeners are (not surprisingly to us) not simply all straight men. While there are slightly more men than other genders, there is still a sizeable chunk that are not men: our make-up is largely straight men and non-straight women.

Most of our members are people who can feel attraction towards women in some way. Although not represented here, we do have the occasional straight woman in the Garden.

We also do not fit the stereotype of being rabid BL-haters. Most are ambivalent towards it.

More people were for counting futanari x female and futanari x futanari as yuri than not, and the majority of the women of the Garden supported it as such. Combining those who accepted it fully as yuri with those who accepted it partially or who were on the fence, there is more of an argument for allowing futanari yuri in the Yuri Garden than for excluding it. I will therefore NOT change the Garden’s definition of yuri.

As always, gender bender yuri is controversial.


Input Answers
Three questions of this sort were asked in this survey:
What is your ideal yuri scenario?
What do you think are the main issues within or facing the yuri community right now?
Are there any improvements you'd like to see in the Yuri Garden?


There were 9 responses to the first question, and not a single answer overlapped. I had a little bit of an ulterior motive for asking this, so thank you to everyone who responded~! If it all goes well, you’ll see what I had in mind soon.

There were 9 responses to the second question.
Something that everyone agreed was a problem is the lack of translators who are willing to translate yuri. Several people also pointed out that there’s a lack of yuri stories being written full stop, and a lack of diversity in those stories.
A few people mentioned the general lack of interest in yuri and the tendency for yuri to be misunderstood as a genre.
There were also complaints about the habit of yuri authors of including het romance interests to create unnecessary drama.

The final question received 8 responses. Issues raised here will be discussed directly in the Garden.