I was trying to explain my annoyance at danmei that have the protagonist states something akin to "I'm not gay, I just like him." I don't see this line anywhere in shonen ai or yaoi, but I notice it often in danmei. My friend interrupted me with a word. Demisexual. I thought about it for a bit. All the characters that I'm thinking of are basically asexual until they meet that one guy. They've been virgins who haven't even wanked until they meet "him" ... They're actually demisexual! I don't know why this is blowing my mind, but I had to share it.
:/ I'm not well read in the intricacies of Danmeiology. Interesting idea nonetheless. From a quick google search, Danmei is something like "the pursuit of beauty". Not 100% sure if that just means hot guy X hot guy, or if I'm just completely butchering the genre.
The physiology on this subject has expanded extensively in the last few years. It’s interesting to me because sexuality isn’t as cut and dry as western culture has made it out to be. There were civilizations in that past that believed there were many more genders as many as six or more.
You haven't read the older yaoi and shonen ai manga cos that shit is full of that mentality. Though in those cases they're trying to convince me it's "straight with exceptions" whereas I see a lot more danmei (and CN het novels aimed at women) who are obsessed with "pure love" (aka cp with no romantic or sexual experience outside of that pair)
That would be a good concept, but I don't think that in China they have the concept of things like "demisexual", so what those authors are thinking I have no idea...
I thought it was too, but after researching through google today, it's apparently china specific, so it is different from yaoi/shonen-ai in that it's more how chinese view male homosexuality. I'm pretty sure this line does exist in shonen ai and yaoi. I don't know how often because I don't read homosexual manga/novels.but it does get referenced in fujoshi/otaku talk.
demisexual is a person who does not experience sexual attraction unless they form a strong emotional connection with someone. It's a novel - someone's imagination so it's not goin to be actual reality so the characters wouldn't actually have that much connection with real people so basically novel people are idealistically demisexual
Thinking back on the straight seme/ straight uke tags that exist, trust me, there's lots of 'I'm not gay, I just like you' in yaoi manga... As someone who is actually asexual, if I ever make an exception for a person, it would be a man, because I'm heteroromantic. I'm not even interested in reading yuri, let alone interested in being with a woman. So it doesn't make sense to me to fall in love with someone regardless of gender, except if you're pansexual or bisexual, cause then it's obvious. But demisexuals still have a clear leaning (ok, they can still be biromantic or panromantic I guess). Not to mention in those yaoi manga, the characters are rarely as pure as in danmei, so the straight seme or uke have been with women before. We all agree that they're actually bi. And those guys with no experience who suddenly fall for a guy and want to smex him, yeah, they're gay, just deep in the closet.
All those 3 basically mean "Gay Romance", the only difference is that danmei is the Chinese term for it, while Yaoi and Shounen Ai are Japanese terms. (technically speaking, nobody in Japan uses Shounen Ai as it referred to a specific type of yaoi involving underage partners. They generally use either Yaoi or Boys' Love) In this context though, the OP is using Danmei to refer to BL of Chinese Origin as opposed to BL of Japanese Origin.
I think it's really easy to assemble a headcanon for what the characters are! In many cases, it's not officially endorsed or written by the authors, so it ends up being headcanon nonetheless! Furthermore, the characters are fictional. The counterexample that I can think of is sort of "traps" in Japanese anime. It's easy to put together a headcanon that maybe the trap is actually transgender! However, the reality of the situation is that probably the authors were not thinking that hard... and in truth transgender people are nothing close to anime traps... That doesn't mean headcanons are bad though! I have a lot of headcanons for everything!
That's why Quickly Wear the Face of the Devil is so great. I mean, the main character says he's gay and that he has never been attracted to women. He's straightforward about it. As for the whole "I"m not gay/lesbian, I just love YOU" thing, that is not just in danmei, yaoi, BL, boy's love, yuri, etc. That is a common trope in romance novels and other media for women. The character type "I've never been in love in my entire life..." isn't rare at all. Why? No ex-girlfriend/boyfriend drama. Almost guaranteed to never be unfaithful (because they aren't attracted to people in general) Virgin And, of course, it makes the romantic partner more special since he/she is the only one.