Hyperreal homoerotic love in a monarchized military conjuncture: a situated view of the Thai Boys’ Love industry

Narratives of “coming out” among self-confessed members of the Filipino LGBTQ community

“…Social media influencers advocating LGBTQ rights, along with the portrayal of homosexuality in television series and print media, collectively exposed the participants to various aspects of queer identity. For instance, the prevalence of boy love series/dramas in Thailand creates a safe space within a heterosexual society, showcasing the possibility of same-sex desire and fostering discourse on same-sex relationships (Zhang & Dedman, 2021). Although boy love series originated in Japan, they have become an integral part of popular culture in Thailand (Lacap, 2023).…”

The shackles of gender still exist: Chinese women authors’ consciousness in boys’ love fiction

“…As of December 2021, JLC had hosted over 80,000 BL fiction stories and had 50.95 million registered users, with female users accounting for 91% of the total. 2 Existing studies have discussed BL works from Europe, America, China, Thailand, and Japan (Pagliassotti, 2008;Feng, 2013;Mizoguchi, 2015;Chiang, 2016;Zhang and Dedman, 2021), including BL comics, novels, movies, and TV dramas (Martin, 2012;Wong, 2020;Ng and Li, 2020;Xu and Tan, 2021). When discussing the cultural attributes of Chinese BL fiction, researchers have mostly regarded it as a modern or postmodern counterculture against Confucianist cultural norms (Chang and Tian, 2021), while paying less attention to the possible remnants of the patriarchal traditional culture and clan system.…”