Girls who like Boys who like Boys – Ethnography of ... - Yuuyami.com

It’s not something that’s immediately describable about
“nihon no koto teki” …that’s the best way to describe it – I
would say “japanization” but that sounds stupid and
western and I hate that term. Subtle violence […] There is
something bitter-sweet about it.
If I attempted to translate “nihon no koto teki,” in the way Yuri uses it, to a
stranger, I would roughly call it “Japanese-style concepts.” The concept of a
very delicate and balanced interplay between dominance and submission,
power and vulnerability, beyond the sexual, is what Yuri likes to read most.
This can be found, in fact, more frequently in yaoi than in slash, though there
are blurrings and parallels between similar concepts in both. In my own
experience of slash, these power structures can be delicately described and
balanced in a manner that is “Japanese-style,” but these fics are the exception.
Western themes in traditional slash stories that deal with similar concepts are
usually centered around concepts of BDSM and Domestic Discipline, or
concepts of someone who is a top versus someone who is a bottom, all of
which are by and large more focused on the sexual. Harry Potter is not the
only fandom which unites both yaoi and slash writers, but it is, at this point,
certainly the largest. HP slash does not necessarily have to be, but frequently
is, slightly different from traditional Western slash. To Yuri, this “delicate
something” she is looking for is quite intangible, an emotional and visceral
reaction – “you feel it more than you can actually think about it.” It comes as
no wonder that, as a fan of Japan, she would use the Japanese language to
convey these images, and that I could equally understand her implied
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