​​Just because a gay man created something does not mean he necessarily made it with the intent of being "good" representation or necessarily realistic. It also doesn't mean that he is representing all gay men equally.

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• People of any gender or sexuality may publish in both genres:

  • GENGOROH TAGAME stated in 2015:

  • "When I look at gay art in comics as a critic, I get really anxious about that division precisely because the simplistic way of dividing it is that BL represents more romance, narratives, thinner body types, more effeminate characters. And then so-called “gay manga” would be just more diesel, big guys and more hardcore sex, etc. But what happens when the creator is a woman doing more hardcore work? Is that considered gay? Is it BL just because she’s female? Is it about the audience, or is it about the creators? So those are definitely things I think about a lot as a critic. Furthermore, going back to the gender of creators, that’s problematic as well because sometimes BL creators– and I’m speaking just from personal acquaintance with some of these creators– may be biologically female or identify on the page as heterosexual women, but sometimes they’re actually lesbian or transgender. And then sometimes it’s the case that a woman will draw sort of muscle-y characters and then take on male pen names for publication in gay media. Which is also very… not problematic, but just raises questions, just how do we start to categorize? There are anecdotes from the editors of gay magazines who see these submissions, see a male pen name and assume that they’re men, write to (the artist), want to meet, when they meet, it’s a shock! (laughs).  (TCAF, 2015)

  • Yarou Festival (https://yaroufes.info/), a festival for Gay Comics also doesn't exclude women from participating:

    • FAQ "Is Yaro Festival for men? Is it for women?"

      • "We do not operate in a form specifically for men or women. Nor is it a specific sexuality event.
        In the past, 90% of the participants were men, but there are many women who participate in the circle, and the number of men and women is evenly divided. We hope for your reference."

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• Many queer men view BL and geikomi as equally valid genres:

  • "These four men understood BL and geikomi as interconnected. They all variously argued that both BL and geikomi represent equally valid yet fantastic depictions of "gay identity" (gei aidentiti). For this reason, the four men saw no need to sharply disassociate BL from geikomi when discussing their consumption of gay media. Yoichi, whose consumption of both BL and geikomi is highly casual, explained that to conceptually separate the two genres made little sense; he stated, "They are both manga, two sides of the same coin... They have gay guys in them, even if they look different... so they're gay manga." This admission was despite the fact that Yoichi was a firm believer in the primacy of hardness and despite his denigration of soft masculinity." (Baudinette)

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• Geikomi is generally associated with being more sexually explicit while BL is mostly associated with romance:

• Web Host Note: Please be aware that these quotes and notes are from around 2014-2017. As time has passed there has been less and less division between what are known as BL & Gei Komi. How individual creators categorize their own personal work is not set in stone and can vary a lot. While you may outwardly view a piece as Gei Komi the creator may think of their work as BL. Looking at a work you assume may be a BL could be categorized as 'Gay (Gei) Manga'. This is why it can be reductive to attempt to segregate narratives and visual styles as exclusively made for or by either Men or Women.

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• Many anti-BL and anti-fujoshi critics share the opinion that only cisgender gay men should be writing about gay male characters. The problem with this is that the gay male experience is not universal. Gei Komi or "Bara" (The outdated term still used by Anglo fans) comics made "by gay men for gay men" largely focus on a hyper-masculine perspective and contain more overt sexual elements. Fumi Miyabi, a Gei Komi mangaka even states, “the manga has to be erotic, and it can’t not include sexuality… they’re just not meant for more vanilla content” (Massive - 189). Gay men who want more romantic content have to find it via BL manga

   

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• "Throughout interviews, [the men] argued that the depictions of masculinity in geikomi were "extreme" (kageki) and further understood this extremeness as highly desirable. This was an opinion shared by other young gay men I met during fieldwork: they viewed geikomi positively (even if they did not necessarily consume it) because it conformed to their preconceived notion that desirable gay masculinity is both "hard" and "violent," (Baudinette).

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• "For many of the men with whom I spoke, Japanese masculinity was becoming soft; they saw an increasing focus away from hard masculinity since such gendered performances were supposedly no longer popular among young women. That is... viewed as a curse that was somehow weakening or diluting contemporary Japanese masculinity. Most of my interlocutors viewed the bishōnen's rise in Japan negatively and positioned Ni-chōme as an important space of resistance where hard masculinity remained prominent and respected." (Regimes of Desire - Baudinette)

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• “In the yaoi ronsō women who depicted and looked at men having sex with men were criticised for discriminating against gay men. However, compared to gay manga drawn by gay men for gay men, BL manga cannot be said to be more abusive. In both gay and BL manga, the men depicted are not necessarily gay as in having a gay identity. Thus, the reason why BL manga were criticised by a gay man cannot only lie in their depictions of gay men since, in that case, gay manga should equally have been the focus of critique. Satō feels uneasy about women watching what he regards as depictions of gay men—he wants such depictions to have limited access. He wants depictions of homosexuality to remain in a closet, viewed only by an inner circle of gay men. However, limiting the audience to those who regard themselves as gay men inevitably limits the opportunities for young and possibly isolated gay men to find gay characters with whom to identify, which is a reason why it can be seen as fortunate that BL manga are popular and easily available.” (Lunsing)

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• "Yaoi/BL, being produced by women for women, is more likely to reflect an understanding of gay intimacy premised on an ethics of care when compared to the models of gay intimacy emerging from within mainstream gay male culture.[40] This suggests that yaoi/BL is the sort of subjugated knowledge that may have something valuable to contribute to the re-envisioning of gay intimacy, especially if coupled with the point, made above, that yaoi/BL was born as a reaction to the formulaic constraints of marital heteronormativity. To paraphrase Halberstam (2005), yaoi/BL “culture constitutes…a counterpublic space where white [heteronormative and metronormative gay] masculinities can be contested, and where minority [gay] masculinities can be produced, validated, fleshed out, and celebrated” (Zanghellini, p. 128).

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• "These conventions of the yaoi/BL genre are as removed from those of standard Western gay male pornography/sex as they could be. Indeed, I would argue that ‘activity/passivity,’ rather than ‘dominance/submission,’ provides the most accurate conceptual framework for understanding much (if not all) yaoi/BL work. This does not necessarily contradict the observation that producers and consumers of the genre ultimately assert “the right to imagine sex which is not politically correct: that is sex which derives its interest from imagining power differentials, not equality” (McLelland, 2005, p. 74). The reason is clear: power asymmetries do not necessarily have to lead to relationships of dominance and submission." (Zanghellini)