ladybusiness | (Reply)

From: (Anonymous)

That whole "I don't consider myself gay. I'm just in love with you... I don't look at other guys that way" bit seems like a particularly boneheaded example of a trope frequently referred to in yaoi fandom as "Gay For You." As in, "gay for you and only you." The idea is apparently supposed to be that the gay-for-you partner genuinely is totally straight, but with that one crucial exception who just happens to be the love of his life. I think the subtext is that the fact that some Cupid's arrow-like bolt-from-the-blue thunderbolt of love is basically making the GFY person depart from their "normal" sexual orientation in this one case makes the whole thing more romantic and destined by fate, etc.

And yeah, since even now plenty of people in real life who ought to know better appear to think that bisexuality is at best just a temporary stage on the way to someone's admitting that they're actually gay, there are tons of m/m fanfics (at least in yaoi fandom) that never consider the possibility of bisexuality at all. Actual yaoi manga that acknowledge that some people are genuinely attracted to both men and women (as opposed to deluding themselves into thinking that they're straight until they meet a guy they fall for so completely that they can no longer deny "the truth," or some such thing) are still a pretty rare and recent development. "Hide and Seek," in which a flashy playboy candy store owner starts flirting with his stepdaughter's hot gay pediatrician and winds up getting a lot more serious about him than he expected, is about the only example I can think of that's been translated into English.

Marfisa