Are Female Paraphilias Hiding in Plain Sight? Risqué Male–Male Erotica for Women in Sinophone and Anglophone Regions

Bibliographic Data

ID21292292
AuthorsAnna Madill (0000-0002-9406-507X, University of Leeds, corresponding author), Yao Zhao (0000-0003-0613-8708, University of Leeds)
Year2022
Volume51
Issue2
Pages897-910
Publication date2022-02-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueArchives of Sexual Behavior (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0004-0002 • E-ISSN: 1573-2800
PublisherSpringer Science and Business Media LLC (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1007/s10508-021-02107-4
PMID34811651
OpenAlexW3195604164
LanguageEN
Citations received6
References cited40

Female-oriented male–male erotica is a genre of popular culture often know as Boys’ Love (BL), yaoi, and danmei. It is one of the largest by-and-for women sexual subcultures and a global phenomenon. With the largest data sets in the field, we ask: Which risqué sexual content do Sinophone (Chinese-speaking) and Anglophone (English-speaking) participants particularly enjoy in BL and does this differ between cultures?, and Are there sub-demographics in Sinophone and in Anglophone culture who enjoy particular forms of risqué sexual content in BL and do these forms relate also to enjoyment of particular storylines and concern with legal issues? The material studied meets the DSM-5 definition of the paraphilic, and little is known about paraphilias in women or in the general population. Using Categorical Principal Component Analysis we explored one 15-response question from our Sinophone ( N = 1922) and Anglophone ( N = 1715) BL fandom surveys: Which risqué sexual content do you particularly enjoy in BL? We also tested for associations with seven demographic and other BL content-related questions. Notably, the component structure was nearly replicated between the two independent samples, in order of strength: BDSM Specialist, Mechanoid/Animal Sex Specialist, Underage Sex Specialist, and Minority Paraphilia Specialist. In both samples, it was the avid BL fans and/or those who liked explicitly sexual stories, a largely overlapping demographic, who most engage the risqué content, while, for the Sinophone, this included also more non-heterosexual and/or other-gendered people. We conclude that women’s paraphilias have been largely overlooked because they might be expressed more commonly through fantasy than action, that their mass expression has awaited both the means and the market force, and that current conceptualization of, and assumptions about, paraphilias is overly modeled on that of men

Demographics · Paraphilia · Population · Sexual behavior · Sexual orientation · Sociology · Demography · Gender Studies · Psychology · Psychopathy, Forensic Psychiatry, Sexual Offending · Sexuality, Behavior, and Technology · Social Psychology · Stalking, Cyberstalking, and Harassment