Engagement with Female-oriented Male–Male Incest Erotica: A Comparison of Sinophone and Anglophone Boys’ Love Fandom

ABSTRACT

Boys’ Love (BL) is a global by-and-for women genre of youth culture focused on male-on-male sexuality and romance. Incest relationships are not uncommon in BL yet there is no research on what kinds are of most interest to the audience, and with which sub-demographics, and none offer an intercultural comparison. We address this lacuna analyzing data from the largest BL audience survey to date in both Anglophone (N = 1715) and Sinophone (N = 1922) regions. CATPCA reveals a strikingly similar component structure across the two cultures with a preference hierarchy descending from non-blood relationships, blood intergenerational, then brothers. For both regions, it is the avid fans who tend to consume incest material while, for the Sinophone, it is the less socially empowered who appear most engaged: women, the other-gendered, and the nonheterosexual. Moreover, Sinophone fans are more concerned about legal issues than are Anglophone. Other subtle cultural differences suggest Sinophone BL fans focus on family rules and roles and the Anglophone on the intimacy of brotherly bonds. As young women have increasing opportunity to create and consume sexuality explicit material geared to their particular tastes and needs, our study provides important information to inform debates about the forms, functions, and legislative context around pornography.

Declaration of Interest Statement

The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare that are relevant to the content of this article.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Anna Madill

Anna Madill is Chair of Qualitative Inquiry in the School of Psychology, University of Leeds, UK. She is a Fellow of the British Psychological Society and of the Academy of Social Sciences. She co-founded and chaired (2008-11) the BPS Qualitative Methods in Psychology Section, is on the editorial boards of Qualitative Psychology and Qualitative Research in Psychology. The authors’ online fandom survey can be found in Chinese at http://www.sojump.com/m/3989081.aspx and in English at https://leeds.onlinesurveys.ac.uk/blfandomsurvey. Anna’s projects include research funded by the British Academy on Boys’ Love manga. She tweets @UKFujoshi and her work can be found at https://leeds.academia.edu/AnnaMadill.

Yao Zhao

Yao Zhao completed her doctorate in the School of Psychology, University of Leeds, UK. Her thesis is titled ‘Understanding Yaoi/Boys’ Love Chinese Fandom’ and she was supervised by Professor Anna Madill. Yao was born in Kunming in Yannan Province in South West China and obtained her Bachelor of Science in Psychology at the Australia National University.