Hello, hello, my lovely Misfits,
And welcome to another blog where I will just gush like a crazy person about all the random things I love about BL, the fandom, the fans, the community and our boys. And today’s topic fits really well to this month, since it is Pride month after all. And Pride is something I want to talk about today.
You see, I have been in the “Snogging Boys Business”, as I like to call it, for a looooong time. I started searching actively for boys kissing on television for as long as I can remember. I always found two boys kissing so much more fun and interesting and when gay content slowly trickled into mainstream media I was chuffed. I was the proud owner of an online magazine for exactly kissing guys for a few years and it didn’t take me long to notice something within the other people that surrounded me in the fandom.
And that was the utter shame a lot of the girls and boys felt about even admitting that they liked to see two guys kiss. It went even so far that people were scared that if colleagues would find their online activities that they might even lose their jobs. Everything was highly hidden and secretive and it really was a closed community that didn’t really want people to know that it existed.
And even today I think we can still agree that a lot of us are too ashamed to come out of the closet, so to speak. And I can understand it. It is a bit of a weird thing to admit to and in a way it’s also very personal and private. But what makes me a bit sad is that there actually shouldn’t be even a reason why we feel guilty in the first place.
I mean, we don’t do anything illegal here. We like television that is at the most maybe a bit racy, but nothing that would really shock anyone in German early evening television. We are not hurting anyone and our entire community is based on the belief that everyone should love who they love. So we are really not doing anything wrong here.
But I would even go further when it comes to shame in our community. I think if we look at the actors, the production companies, people working in the business… They all have behaved at times like they were a bit ashamed of being in this particular genre. Actors have not been seen as serious actors if they acted in a BL and were pretty much just seen as pretty boys being pretty. It always had something slightly off about it. I mean, we even had a huge problem with homophobia within the industry where openly gay actors were not casted as it would not give hetero girls enough space to dream up their own relationship with the actor. To which I just wanna say: Most of us just want our actors to kiss each other. We are not really into getting involved ourselves there. But that’s just a side note. Lol.
But yeah, this entire feeling that we as a community or genre are doing something slightly wrong or seedy has always been with us, but it’s something that I slowly but surely can see changing. And it’s a freaking awesome feeling.
If we look at our community now we see more and more fans coming out, showing their faces, talking about their love for guys kissing and they are not afraid of just saying that this is what they like. We get more and more open production members and actors who are saying they are part of the queer community or who are really strong allies and are hell bent on supporting the LGBTQ+ people in their country and all over the world.
I think all these pictures of Bangkok Pride have definitely shown the difference in attitude over the years. I can remember when Tul and Max were praised and celebrated so much when they did a Pride photo shoot with flowers, rainbows and all the works a couple of years back. It was a huge deal back then for them to be so vocal about it. It was definitely not the norm. But if you look around now you see every year more and more actors and people from the industry standing up for Pride, posting pictures or even educational content. And it really makes me so, so happy.
Because again, we have nothing to be ashamed of. Might it be a bit weird that we love what we love? Well, maybe. But we don’t hurt anyone, we don’t bother anyone and it makes us happy. Should that in itself not be enough already?
I definitely think it is and I hope that I will see the day come when our community doesn’t have to hide anymore. Where we can just enjoy what we enjoy, while every person can love who they love. So get your rainbow flags out, stand up tall and be brave.
I am a BL fanatic and there is nothing wrong with that.
First posted on BLDA
Your Heart's Content 