The Yuri Garden's 2020 Survey: Report

Welcome to the Yuri’s Garden second annual survey report! For those who missed it, the Yuri Garden officially turned three years’ old on February 13th and, to celebrate, we carried out another annual survey. It closed on March 13th.

The Garden has bloomed beautifully over these past three years, and it will hopefully expand even more in the years to come. If you’re bored or in desperate need for something sweet or positive, we have plenty in supply~!

I hope this year’s report provides some entertainment in these dark times.

(P.S. If you want to read last year's report in full, you can find it here: https://forum.novelupdates.com/blogs/the-yuri-gardens-2019-survey-report.2337/)


INTRODUCTION
There were 16 questions in total: 12 multiple-choice and 4 free-answer questions.
There were 19 participants; most answered all of the multiple-choice questions.
This year, analysis according to potential LGBT+ status was included for consistency, but could not be used to compare results.
As before, I’ll run through a question at a time to compare data.


WHO ARE THE YURI GARDENERS?
This section consists of 4 questions that were intended to gather data about who our members look like as a group. It examines age, gender, sexual and romantic orientation, as well as how many of our members consider themselves to be transgender.
All single-choice questions in this section included a “Prefer not to say” option, so that anyone who changed their mind about providing the information could “uncheck” their answer later.
The gender and sexual/romantic orientation both included the option to check “Other (Unspecified)” or to write in your own option.
The data from this section will be used to analyse the data in the next section.


#1: How old are you?
There were 19 responses. This year, I remembered to make sure that the categories didn’t overlap.



The raw data is as follows:
Under 18: 2 (10.5%)
18-24: 10 (52.6%)
25-29: 5 (26.3%)
30-34: 0 (0%)
35-39: 1 (5.3%)
40+: 0 (0%)
Prefer not to say: 1 (5.3%)

Removing the “Prefer not to say” in order to consolidate the provided data, the results are:
Under 18: 2 (11.1%)
18-24: 10 (55.6%)
25-29: 5 (27.8%)
30-34: 0 (0%)
35-39: 1 (5.6%)

Because I made a mistake with last year’s age categories, I don’t feel confident in comparing the data.


#2: What’s your gender?
There were 19 responses. This question included the options of “Man”, “Woman”, “Non-binary”, “Other (Unspecified)”, and “Other (participant may write in)”.
Last year the options for “Man” and “Woman” were written as “Male” and “Female” but, as many people like to reserve male and female for sex instead, I attempted to avoid any possible confusion by using other terms.



The raw data is as follows:
Man: 5 (26.3%)
Woman: 12 (63.2%)
Other (Unspecified): 1 (5.3%)
~Woman: 1 (5.3%)

Last year there were 9 male respondents, 5 female, 1 non-binary, and 1 “Other”. Participants were 56.3% male and 31.3% female.

Compared to last year, fewer men responded and many more women did. As the options for participants who identify differently have changed this year, I can only say that there is a relatively stable number of participants choosing “Other” options.

Women make up the majority of respondents this year; men account for a little over a quarter.

To protect participants’ privacy and to make analysing easier, I will combine the 1 “Other (Unspecified)” respondent and the 1 “~Woman” respondent into a single category of “Others” from here on out.


#3: Do you consider yourself to be transgender?
There were 19 respondents. The options were “Yes”, “No”, “Unsure” and “Prefer not to say”.
This year the question was phrased differently to take into account the fact that some people may have a more complicated relationship with the term “transgender”. (Some agender people, for example, consider themselves transgender, and some do not.)



The raw data is as follows:
No: 17 (89.5%)
Yes: 2 (10.5%)

Last year 13 participants selected “No” (81.3%), 2 selected “Yes” (12.5%), and 1 selected “Unsure” (6.3%).

The percentage of non-transgender participants is higher than last year’s, however, the number of participants selecting “Yes” remains the same.
This data does not appear to suggest a decrease in transgender Gardeners, but does suggest an increase in cisgender (or other) Gardeners.


#4: What is your sexual/romantic orientation?
There were 19 responses.
The format of this question didn’t change much from last year: participants could select as many options as necessary (to account for split attraction/multiple labels), preferences based on gender (whether sexual or romantic orientation) were combined, and the Ace spectrum and Aromantic spectrum were stand-alone options.


The raw data is as follows:
Heterosexual/Heteroromantic: 5 (26.3%)
Gay/Lesbian/Homoromantic: 3 (15.8%)
Bisexual/Biromantic: 7 (36.8%)
Pansexual/Panromantic: 2 (10.5%)
Asexual/Ace Spectrum: 4 (21.1%)
Aromantic/Aro Spectrum: 1 (5.3%)

Last year’s was as follows:
Straight/Heteroromantic: 9 (60%)
Gay/Lesbian/Homoromantic: 2 (13.3%)
Bisexual/Biromantic: 3 (20%)
Pansexual/Panromantic: 2 (13.3%)
Asexual/Ace Spectrum: 2 (13.3%)
Aromantic/Aro Spectrum: 1 (6.7%)

There has been a decrease in the number of participants identifying as Heterosexual/Heteroromantic, and a large increase in the number of participants identifying as Bisexual/Biromantic.

Last year Heterosexual/Heteroromantic was the most common orientation; this year it’s Bisexual/Biromantic.

This year 4 participants identified exclusively as Heterosexual/Heteroromantic (21.1%).
14 did not identify as Heterosexual/Heteroromantic at all (73.7%).
Last year, 8 respondents identified exclusively as Heterosexual/Heteroromantic (53.3%) and 6 did not identify as Heterosexual/Heteroromantic at all (40%).

In addition, of this year’s men, 3 identified exclusively as Heterosexual/Heteroromantic (60%).
Of this year’s women, 1 identified exclusively as Heterosexual/Heteroromantic (8.3%)
Last year 88.9% of men identified exclusively as Heterosexual/Heteroromantic, and 0% of women identified exclusively as Heterosexual/Heteroromantic.

It’s likely that the decrease of exclusively Heterosexual/Heteroromantic participants and the increase of non-Heterosexual/Heteroromantic participants is due to fewer men and more women participating.

Overall, 15 of 19 participants (78.9%) have the potential to identify as LGBT+, with 4 out of those 15 (26.7%) choosing to identify as something other than “Woman”.


OPINIONS AND PREFERENCES
In this section, 8 questions about participants’ personal feelings, opinions and preferences were asked. This year, the topics included the languages of GL being given preference, the types of GL being favoured, favoured sites, and attitudes towards BL and GL crossover.
Results are analysed according to gender and potential LGBT+ status to reveal possible trends. Some results are analysed further according to other data.


#5: What kind of (i.e. language of) GL do you read?
This question was intended to ask about the original language that the GL the participants read was in. Due to my rush to get the survey out in time, I couldn’t think of a less ambiguous way to phrase the question, and ended up relying on the list of answers that were provided to guide participants.
Unfortunately, one participant appears to have misunderstood my intention and provided an invalid answer. This will be removed in the raw data.
(For those wondering, “cerpen” appears to be the Indonesian term for short stories.)
There were 19 responses.



The raw data is as follows:
Japanese GL: 15 (78.9%)
Chinese GL: 16 (84.2%)
Korean GL: 11 (57.9%)
Western/English Language GL: 11 (57.9%)
Other: 0 (0%)

Arranged by gender, the results are:
Men: 4 (80%) read Japanese, 4 (80%) read Chinese, 2 (40%) read Korean, and 1 (20%) read Western/English
Women: 9 (75%) read Japanese, 11 (91.7%) read Chinese, 7 (58.3%) read Korean, and 8 (66.7%) read Western/English
Others: 2 (100%) read Japanese, 1 (50%) reads Chinese, 2 (100%) read Korean, and 2 (100%) read Western/English

Of potential LGBT+ participants, 12 read Japanese (80%), 13 read Chinese (86.7%), 9 read Korean (60%), and 10 read English/Western (66.7%).

All languages are widely read in the Garden, but Chinese is the most widely read, with Japanese coming just behind.
Western/English language GL appears to be significantly more popular with women than men.


#6: Do you read published sapphic fiction? (Such as “The Dark Wife” by Sarah Diemer)
This question sought to find out how many participants read traditional published fiction focused on woman/woman relationships and with what frequency.
There were 18 responses. There were three options, with only the option to choose one.



The raw data is as follows:
Yes: 2 (11.1%)
No: 10 (55.6%)
I’ve read one or two but don’t seek them out: 6 (33.3%)

Arranged by gender, the results are:
Men: 4 (100%) said No
Women: 2 (16.7%) said Yes, 6 (50%) said No, and 4 (33.3%) said that they read one or two but did not seek them out
Others: 2 (100%) said that they read one or two but did not seek them out

Of our potential LGBT+ participants, 2 (13.3%) said Yes, 8 (53.3%) said No, and 5 (33.3%) said that they read one or two but did not seek them out.

Published fiction seems to be of little interest to most Gardeners. Men do not read it at all.


#6: If you had to pick between Japanese, Chinese and Korean GL, which would be your favourite?
Similar to a question in last year’s survey, this question sought to discover which country’s GL was the most popular, if participants were forced to choose just one. Last year’s version gave only the option of Japanese and Chinese; this year’s allows Korean to compete.
There were 19 responses.



The raw data is as follows:
Japanese: 5 (26.3%)
Chinese: 13 (68.4%)
Korean: 1 (5.3%)

Arranged by gender, the results are as follows:
Men: 1 (20%) prefers Japanese, and 4 (80%) prefer Chinese
Women: 3 (25%) prefer Japanese, and 9 (75%) prefer Chinese
Others: 1 (50%) prefers Japanese, and 1 (50%) prefers Korean

Of our potential LGBT+ participants, 3 (20%) prefer Japanese, 11 (73.3%) prefer Chinese, and 1 (6.7%) prefer Korean.

Last year, Japanese was the preferred genre, with 66.7% of participants preferring it.
In addition, Chinese was heavily preferred by women while Japanese was preferred by everyone else.
Last year, 80% of women chose Chinese, and only 20% chose Japanese; on the other hand, only 12.5% of men preferred Chinese and 87.5% of men preferred Japanese. 100% of “Others” preferred Japanese last year.

It seems that Chinese has become the most popular among both men and women.


#7: If you read original English language GL, which site do you prefer to read on?
This question was intended to find out which site was most favoured by participants, if they were forced to choose a single site. This question also included the option to write in another answer; unfortunately, participants who used this option did not specify a single site.
As the information they provided is still of some interest in the scope of the question, I will provide a version of the original data that includes them and a version that excludes them.
There were 18 responses.



The raw data is as follows:
Scribble Hub: 9 (50%)
Royal Road: 4 (22.2%)
Wattpad: 3 (16.7%)
Fanfiction sites: 1 (5.6%)
Others: 1 (5.6%)

Removing the unspecific answers, the data is:
Scribble Hub: 9 (56.3%)
Royal Road: 4 (25%)
Wattpad: 3 (18.8%)

Arranged by gender:
Men: 4 (80%) preferred Scribble Hub, and 1 (20%) preferred Royal Road
Women: 4 (36.4%) preferred Scribble Hub, 3 (27.3%) preferred Royal Road, 3 (27.3%) preferred Wattpad, and 1 (9.1%) preferred others
Others: 1 (50%) preferred Scribble Hub, and 1 (50%) preferred fanfiction sites

Of our potential LGBT+ participants, 7 preferred Scribble Hub (50%), 3 preferred Royal Road (21.4%), 3 preferred Wattpad (21.4%), and 1 preferred fanfiction sites (7.1%).

Unsurprisingly, Scribble Hub is the most popular English original site. Wattpad was favoured only by participants who were both women and LGBT+.


#8: How do you feel about GL containing BL (boy x boy) side or background couples?
This question and the immediately following one were based on a conversation I once had with @Nyann about the crossover between BL and GL.
The aim of this question was to investigate how GL fans felt about GL that also contained BL subplots or elements, such as the main characters having a male friend with a boyfriend or there being a mini romantic subplot between two minor male characters. An example of this is “Tamen de Gushi”.
There were 19 responses.



The raw data is as follows:
Happy! I wish this happened more often: 2 (10.5%)
It’s nice: 6 (31.6%)
Not bothered: 9 (47.4%)
I’d rather they didn’t: 0 (0%)
I hate it: 2 (10.5%)

Arranged by gender, the results are:
Men: 4 (80%) were not bothered, and 1 (20%) hated it
Women: 2 (16.7%) were happy and wanted to see more of this, 5 (41.7%) thought it was nice, 4 (33.3%) were not bothered, and 1 (8.3%) hates it
Others: 1 (50%) thinks it’s nice, and 1 (50%) was not bothered

Of our potential LGBT+ participants, 2 (13.3%) said that they were happy and wanted to see more BL in GL, 5 (33.3%) thought it was nice, 7 (46.7%) were not bothered, and 1 (6.7%) hated it.

In last year’s survey, it was found that 55.6% of men didn’t care about or read any BL, 11.1% thought that BL was okay, and that 33.3% of them hated BL. No participants who identified as “male” claimed to like BL.
Conversely, 60% of women liked BL and 40% thought that it was okay. No participant who identified as “female” claimed to dislike BL.
From this year’s data, this trend seems to apply somewhat to BL even when it appears within GL.

There were still very few participants who actively wanted to see more BL in GL.


#9: Should BL include more side/background yuri couples?
This question aimed to discover participants’ opinion on whether there should be more GL couples in BL, e.g. BL characters having sisters with girlfriends, or containing romantic lesbian subplots with minor characters. An example of such a BL is “The Reader and the Protagonist Definitely Have to Be in True Love”.
There were 19 responses.



The raw data is as follows:
Yes!: 7 (36.8%)
No!: 2 (10.5%)
I do not know: 3 (15.8%)
I do not care: 7 (36.8%)

Arranged by gender, the data is:
Men: 4 (80%) didn’t care, and 1 (20%) said No
Women: 7 (58.3%) said Yes, 2 (16.7%) didn’t know, 2 (16.7%) didn’t care, and 1 (8.3%) said No
Others: 1 (50%) didn’t know, and 1 (50%) didn’t care

Of our potential LGBT+ participants, 7 (46.7%) said Yes, 1 said No (6.7%), 2 (13.3%) didn’t know if they did, and 5 (33.3%) didn’t care.

Interestingly, although there was a tie between those who wanted more GL in BL and those who didn’t care about it, only women made up the group who wanted more.
A little over half of women would like to see more GL in BL.

I will also compare the attitudes towards both types.

First, by comparing people’s attitudes towards BL in GL (on the left) with their opinion on having more GL in BL (on the right):
Those who were happy and wanted more BL in GL: 1 (50%) didn’t know if they wanted more GL in BL, and 1 (50%) didn’t care
Those who thought BL in GL was nice: 3 (50%) wanted more GL in BL, 2 (33.3%) didn’t know if they did, and 1 (16.7%) didn’t care
Those who weren’t bothered by BL in GL: 4 (44.4%) wanted more GL in BL, 1 (11.1%) did not want more GL in BL, and 4 (44.4.%) didn’t care
Those who hated GL in BL: 1 (50%) did not want more GL in BL, and 1 (50%) didn’t care

To chart the opposite way (opinion on more GL in BL against attitude towards BL in GL):
Those who want more GL in BL: 3 (42.9%) thought that BL in GL was nice, and 4 (57.1%) weren’t bothered by BL in GL
Those who don’t want more GL in BL: 1 (50%) wasn’t bothered by BL in GL, and 1 (50%) hated it
Those who don’t know if they want more GL in BL: 1 (33.3%) was happy to have BL in GL and wanted to see more of it, 2 (66.7%) thought that BL in GL was nice
Those who don’t care about having more GL in BL: 1 (14.3%) was happy to have BL in GL and wanted to see more of it, 1 (14.3%) thought that it was nice, 4 (57.1%) weren’t bothered by BL in GL, and 1 (14.3%) hated it

Overall, a positive attitude towards BL appearing in GL did not necessarily translate into wanting more GL in BL, and vice versa.
However, no one who wanted more GL in BL hated having BL in their GL.
No one who wanted more BL in their GL appeared to have strong feelings about having more GL in BL.


#10: Do you generally prefer fluffy or realistic yuri?
This question was to find out whether participants prefer reading fluffy GL (lighter, more romance-focussed, escapist) or realistic GL (containing obstacles that real life LGBT+ people might face, for example). It was based on the observation that people can be very split on this matter.
There were 19 responses and three options: Fluffy, Realistic, or “I like neither”.



The raw data is as follows:
Fluffy: 14 (73.7%)
Realistic: 5 (26.3%)
Neither: 0 (0%)

Arranged by gender, the results are:
Men: 3 (60%) prefer Fluffy, and 2 (40%) prefer Realistic
Women: 9 (75%) prefer Fluffy, and 3 (25%) prefer Realistic
Others: 2 (100%) prefer Fluffy

Of our potential LGBT+ participants, 12 (80%) preferred Fluffy, and 3 (20%) preferred Realistic.

Fluffy was the preferred type by all participants by a landslide.


#11: Do you prefer plot-focused GL, romantic GL, or sexy GL?
This question was to investigate what type of GL participants favoured, if forced to choose just one type.
There were 18 responses. The options were: Plot-focused (a yuri with a plot outside of the romance that it focuses on a great deal), Romantic (a yuri that makes the romance its primary and sole focus), and Sexy (racy and lewd yuri intended to arouse).



The raw data is as follows:
Plot-focused: 10 (55.6%)
Romantic: 7 (38.9%)
Sexy: 1 (5.6%)

Arranged by gender, the results are:
Men: 4 (100%) preferred Plot-focused
Women: 5 (41.7%) preferred Plot-focused, 6 (50%) preferred Romantic, and 1 (8.3%) preferred Sexy
Others: 1 (50%) preferred Plot-focused, and 1 (50%) preferred Romantic

Of our potential LGBT+ participants, 8 (53.3%) preferred Plot-focused, 6 (40%) preferred Romantic, and 1 (6.7%) preferred Sexy.

Plot-focused was the clear winner.
Plot-focused was the unanimous favourite of men, while women were split between Plot-focused and Romantic.
The only participant to favour Sexy was a woman.


WRITTEN ANSWERS
This year, four free answer questions were asked. These were:

• What is your current favourite GL? (can list multiple if you wish)
• Which non-canon GL pairing would you love to see together? (includes crossovers and crackships; please name what they're from)
• 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?

#1: What is your current favourite GL? (can list multiple if you wish)
There were 13 responses to this and, as expected, everyone had very different favourites. This question was really asked out of curiosity, to see how much overlap there would be.

Ones that were mentioned by two or more people include:

• Mage & Demon Queen
• Liberta
• Mistress, I Was Wrong
• The Transmigration Missions are Not Scientific
• Kidnapping Bai Yueguang (拐走男主白月光［穿书］)

#2: Which non-canon GL pairing would you love to see together? (includes crossovers and crackships; please name what they're from)
This was the hidden fun-time question, so congratulations (I hope) to the 12 people who responded!
The purpose of this question was to collect responses that will be used for a fun surprise that will be revealed (hopefully) soon-ish.
Unfortunately, some people listed multiple when this question was intended for only one, and some people forgot to tell me which series the characters were from. For the multiple, I’ll pick one of your options; for the unspecified ones, I’ll do my best to track them down.
Some of these responses look a little bit outside of my abilities, but I’ll try my best~!


#3: What do you think are the main issues within or facing the yuri community right now?
This question seeks to gain feedback from the community about issues hindering them, whether from within or without.
Generally, the issues brought up this year were:

• Not enough translations/content available in English
• The prejudice that continues to be held against GL – in particular the incorrect stereotype that it’s sexualised lesbian porn aimed at men
• The yuri fanbase being small/not vocal enough about their love for GL
• A lack of activity from yuri fans this past year / People becoming more inactive

#4: Are there any improvements you'd like to see in the Yuri Garden?
This is a straightforward question seeking feedback about the Yuri Garden and what changes or improvements members would like to see in it.
The results are:

• Some people have requested more activity and interaction between members
• One person asked that the Yuri Garden’s Recommendation Directory, which lists all the yuri that has ever been mentioned in the Garden, be updated
• Multiple people have requested that we hold more writing competitions

I completely agree that it would be good to see more activity in the Garden again, and events to entertain members are probably the right way to go.
Unfortunately, I’m not able to hold more writing competitions, as our annual writing competition that runs across the summer already takes up a great deal of my time and energy. I wouldn’t be able to sustain even two or three more, and I’d honestly worry that we’d have fewer entries rather than more if we held them more often.

I do have ideas for other events and will run another survey to ask for suggestions as well – but more on that later, back in the Garden.

I am aware that the Recommendation Directory really does need updated. It may be a little while before it is, though, as I’ve been looking into ways to make it more accessible to newcomers (there have been a few complaints that its current format is overwhelming).


CLOSING THOUGHTS
Once again, there are some surprising results this year that completely counteract the stereotype about yuri and its fans.
The number of women reading yuri appears to be (based on the surveys alone, of course) increasing, the number of men (for reasons unknown) decreasing, and Chinese yuri is soaring into stardom.
In addition, men are not primarily reading GL for porn, as the stereotype suggests.
The love of plot-focused yuri could potentially explain the popularity of Chinese GL, as they’re known for containing a sturdy plot that their romances take place within.

Even though the make-up of the Yuri Garden currently looks like this, these are just facts and not an indicator of who should be reading yuri. Men are more than welcome in the Garden, and so are straight women.
Yuri is a many-faced beauty which offers a little of everything for all people. If you’d like to try some out and you don’t know where to start, the Yuri Garden is an excellent place to come and ask questions!