Okay, I'm more than willing to be the first person to freely admit that this post might seem like it's meant to incite negative reactions, but that's honestly not my intent in posting this.

The truth is, that in the wake of the last update to "Yurika's Campus Life", I posted a comment addressing one of my major pet peeves in manga- the idea that lesbians simply "haven't met the right man."

https://dynasty-scans.com/forum/topics/1004-yurika-s-campus-life-discussion?page=28#forum_post_523619

Now, I bring this up because another longtime user responded that the point of the MC's father doing this was because he was the bad guy and someone we shouldn't like. However, after thinking about this, my reaction is still one of frustration, since the manga depicts this approach as actually working on the women around Yurika.

All of this being said, I'm using this as an example because it's a series posted on Dynasty... But the simple truth of the matter is- after reading countless doujin and manga- that there's a lot of male mangaka who remind me of the Jason Lee character 'Banky' from the film "Chasing Amy", and that kind of world view depresses me...

In the end, I'd like to believe that my comments- as a whole- reflect my belief that there's a place for Het, Gay, Bi, or whatever else in fiction, and that being a fan of one doesn't make you an enemy of one or all of the others. I mean, one of my first OTPs was Ulquiorra/Orihime, and before that Maggie/Nenene (from ROD the TV).

Finally, as a 35 year old straight man, I can't help but view a lot of this as male wish-fulfillment, in the same way that I'm able to look back on bad 'erotic' fiction/comics I came across (on the internet) as a teen...

Ultimately, we need to find and correct the source/cause of this idea that it's somehow possible to "tame" someone so that they and their sexual preference is turned into something other than what it is.

last edited at Jan 27, 2020 10:41PM

Yeah I mean, the pop-culture trope of men being able to seduce lesbians is horrible and gross and literally causes rapes intended to 'fix' lesbians, that's far from unfounded. And cishet people can be really bad at writing queer themes sometimes, I wouldn't disagree with that. I don't think I understand enough of the references here to talk about those at all, and I'm not sure a callout on a specific user being in it helps the post really.

I have the feeling that I may have already visited this thread back in January and then completely forgot about it in a matter of days.

I thought this was going to be about writing all lesbians as really into penetration or having to have a "male role" in the relationship.

Lol I would love to see a compilation of more tropes. @rainbow8, those are good ones.

When the series is full of subtext or clear yuri but the main character is a guy so people can "relate" or just pretend that his harem is fooling around. Or when they make it with teens only so we have the famous "experimentation" phase where is fine.

When you make a subtext series but the characters are over preoccupied about bust size, so they can appeal more to men? Also too many boobs jokes and a character with big ones who's constantly getting touched but it's fine because they're all girls ??? No!

I will need to check this for veracity but I doubt that most male mangakas could make adult life Yuri without making it hentai.

I think they often make main characters who are overly clumsy, overly innocent or very cheerful but naive... I feel like these kind of characters would go out with whoever is nice to them despite their genre anyway, so some stories don't feel like very Yuri to me...but maybe this is a problem with Yuri in general and not just something men would do, I feel like I'm not reading a story with lesbians but just a story of two people falling in love and everything is fine and dandy and then a third girl shows up and is like :0000 oh no!

I mean, I would looooove to live in a world like that... But we're not quite there yet so I don't like to ignore these elements in Yuri, I wonder if women ignore this more than men or vice versa

I know that when I started reading Age 15, the panty shots and, I dunno, "straight to weird sex"-ness of the plot, had me guessing that Asagi Ryuu was male. Which Baka-Updates tells me he is.

OTOH simple raunchiness isn't a solid indicator, hi Mira.

I never understood why does it matter if author is male or female. And honestly I find that kind of obsession and stereotyping pretty harmful. Both can be bad writers or use bad tropes. While I understand where the assumption that male writers are worse at writing lesbian stuff comes from, that doesn't mean any female author will be good at it by default. And honestly, it's a very annoying double standard where people blame everything on author being male as soon as they learn it and excuse author's mistakes when they learn they're female. The best example is Mira and Ayanero. They both have very similar fluid heavily, over the top sex, but people never complain about Mira or assume she's a guy, while people constantly criticize Ayanero for being typical "straight guy fetishizing lesbians" and how their sex is totally unrealistic (I read comments saying they're female, Baka Updates says they're male, so I'll refrain from picking 1 side). I feel like because Mira is commonly know to be a girl and her name is easier to read as female, she doesn't nearly get as much criticism.

last edited at Jun 17, 2020 4:22PM

It doesn't matter that much, besides author use pen name and we never really get to see them most of the times but it's fair to criticize or point out differences just for the sake of discussion, however, as you said... When people get obsessed about it, that's a problem (as any harmful/ill spirited obsession honestly).

I never stopped to check if my favorite yuri works or shonen works are made by a girl or a guy but I know they're differences sometimes when you stop to think about it.

HOWEVER .... I would welcome a topic like this but deleting the "straight authors" part just for the sake of further discussion

last edited at Jun 17, 2020 4:48PM

At one level it doesn't matter, a work is a work. That said, one can observe trends. And if someone told me "X is a bad work of yuri", I would guess different kinds of badness if I knew the author was male or female.

A male author wrote Sasameki Koto and I loved it. End of discussion.

Ignoring the male/female, I'd be up for discussing bad tropes in yuri mangas in general. Or even just tropes that we personally don't like.

last edited at Jun 17, 2020 5:32PM

Let's not forget abot Kishi Torajirou, a male author who blessed us with Virgin's Empire.

One trope that I don't usually like is when the tomboy character turns out to secretly want to be girly. And her whole character arc is just putting on makeup and skirts.

last edited at Jun 17, 2020 6:06PM

I haven't read Virgin's Empire so I have no opinion about whether it's good, but one glance at it makes me think "this was drawn by a man".

Tropes: I wouldn't say it has to go away, but I am personally tired of "oh no we're both girls" "can girls even do this?" If I ever write my relevant NanoFate fanfic, it will involve them getting Midchildan sex-ed, so they'll both know "yes girls can, and this is how". There's still room for doubt of "will she like me in puberty?" or "will she like girls at all?", but exactly zero "oh no this is weird".

I suspect there's more crotch-to-crotch tribadism in manga and porn than in reality.

Going to or being enrolled in scholastic education is a pretty major one.

Going to or being enrolled in scholastic education is a pretty major one.

Being enrolled in scholastic education? Like being in school or college? That's the majority of manga / works geared towards a younger audience though. Well I guess for yuri specifically there is an entire history of school girl lesbians being the only acceptable lesbians which has led to most yuri even now being set in schools. So fair point.

I never understood why does it matter if author is male or female. And honestly I find that kind of obsession and stereotyping pretty harmful. Both can be bad writers or use bad tropes. While I understand where the assumption that male writers are worse at writing lesbian stuff comes from, that doesn't mean any female author will be good at it by default.

For me I'm more interested in whether a female author is not straight. As you've said it's not like a female author (with or without lived experience) will be good at it by default, but I do like when I find an author whose style I enjoy and who is not straight herself. It lends a different type of enjoyment, one where there might be a higher degree of relatableness. Like it makes me happy knowing the mini community of lesbian mangaka with Inui Aya, Morishima Akiko, etc. exists, because there's a real life component to that, knowing people like me exist and are producing something awesome. It is also nice when people pull from their own experiences to add some small detail that really enhances the story's realism, and sometimes being not straight plus a good creator makes it easier to find and express elements like that.

But of course if it comes to enjoying stories in general, I'm pretty much on the same page with that perspective. Male and female artists both have and do create fantastic and not so fantastic yuri works. Empathy and/or research can go a long way towards making a story free of poorly written tropes even without personal experience.

I suspect there's more crotch-to-crotch tribadism in manga and porn than in reality.

I suspect the same. It also makes me roll my eyes when a cookie-cutter porn/nsfw manga uses the cookie-cutter guide for how two females have sex: strip at some point, play with nipples/breasts making the touched party unbelievably aroused, tease clit, have oral sex to make both parties climax, and then through crotch-to-crotch/mutual fingering/etc. have both parties finish at the same time. Don't forget the exaggerated, repeated shouting of "It's so good" or "It feels good right?" plus dramatically announcing "I'm going to cum~!".

I'm mostly okay with some other tropes, it takes a lot to for me to be bothered by stuff.

However, I'd say what really gets under my skin are: "bury the gays" trope (mostly happens in het stories with gay side characters), slapstick gays (their romantic inklings to any character is a joke butt, played for laughs), childhood trauma as reason why one is gay or engages in lesbian affairs, and straight men as "the enemy" of lesbian relationships.

I'd say I'm glad that such tropes have been fading away into non-existence as time goes by.

As for Yuri, I haven't been way too deep in the Yuri world to be honest, to make judgments about the genre's straight authors. From what I gander, most use nom de plume for their work so it's really hard for me to say if they are 'straight' or something else, unless they explicitly say. But since we're talking about literary fiction in general, I would say it's safe to bet even queer authors could get it wrong sometimes.

Slapstick: poor poor Kuroko. (Railgun)

Don't forget the exaggerated, repeated shouting of "It's so good" or "It feels good right?" plus dramatically announcing "I'm going to cum~!".

It's just not hentai without the shouts of "iku iku IIKUUUUUUUUU!!!".