If you’ve ever been tempted to say “Romance is dead,” you should stick around and read this ‘cause you ain’t seen nothin’ yet. Boys’ Love romance will blow you away.
Boys’ Love (BL) is a multimedia genre that focuses on male relationships. BL stories range from the explicitly erotic to fluffy comedy, from gritty drama to some of the most emotionally charged romances you will ever see.
Although the genre comprises a wide range of expressions, it is the series and movies centering on romantic love that have captured the attention of the public.
We will take a very brief look at BL’s origins and then turn our attention to the modern renditions of BL as films and episodic series. In these media forms, Boys’ Love has blossomed from a barely known niche into a global phenomenon.
In the process, its emotion-packed storytelling has given gay guys something we previously lacked, a fully expressed vision of a world where we are normative and where our capacity to love deeply is unquestioned.
It’s given everyone else new ways to relive the excitement and joy of falling deeply in love for the first time.
[Sidebar] Let’s clarify something: the term “Boys’ Love” is not about kids. We use “boys” (and “girls” in the BL counterpart of “Girls’ Love”) in the same sense that we might say “meeting the boys for a beer” or “having a girls’ night out”). We are talking about older teenagers as well as 20- and 30-somethings.
Origins in Japan
Example of Boys’ Love manga style art
BL originated in Japan in the world of graphic novels (manga). It soon enjoyed a burst of creativity, finding expression in short stories, conventional novels, video games, and anime but largely remained a niche within Japanese culture.
The original Japanese creators — and consumers — of Boys’ Love works were typically heterosexual females. The explanation I have seen most frequently is that straight women enjoy fantasies about men being loving and vulnerable with each other in relationships that are not burdened with the misogyny, patriarchy, constrictive gender roles, and similar negatives that women often experience in their own relationships with straight guys.
These Japanese forays into the world of gay relationships were often very explicitly homoerotic; indeed, if they were movies, many would have been rated XXX. I find it interesting that straight women were so focused on the detailed sexual activities of the gay men they created for their stories.
As we will see, when BL moved to the screen (movies and episodic dramas), sex was toned way, way, way down and romance was dialed up to 11. From here on, when I use the term “BL,” I will be referring to modern live-action dramas and rom-coms, not to the still niche works created largely within Japan.
BL leaps out of the NICHE closet onto the international stage
BL remained a niche until the key year of 2014. That year, a company in Thailand produced and released a landmark romantic comedy-drama titled Love Sick: The Series. It was a sprawling saga with a huge cast that explored many romantic, platonic, and even hostile relationships over the course of 48 episodes, plus a 3-episode sequel set several years in the future (most BL series are more like 8-12 episodes ).
Unlike yaoi (the term for the original Japanese BL novels), Love Sick eschewed explicitness. We never see the boys do more than kiss, and even that is both rare and fleeting [“lips touch … wait one second … cut!”]. Love Sick and almost all of the BL series that have followed would be rated G (or perhaps PG because the boys occasionally burst out with an expletive, as do most of us when the hammer hits our finger).
Noh (Captain Chonlathorn) and Phun (White Phumphothingam), Love Sick’s principal romantic couple
The series set a pattern that would be repeated in many, many BLs (but not all!) over the years. Two lads are thrown together for some reason (often contrived and sometimes absurd) and they grow closer but must overcome some challenges before they eventually realize that they are in love with each other.
Love Sick’s key romance is between two boys, Noh and Phun. Some of their friends also end up having gay romances; others pursue straight relationships.
There are lighthearted moments mixed with dramatic stories of people misunderstanding each other, encountering obstacles preventing them (temporarily) from gaining the boy/girl they love, and so on. After all, if everyone matched up right off the bat, we would have had one very short episode instead of a big series that gave us love, laughter, tension, worry, and relief over dozens of hours of viewing, right?
Love Sick was broadcast on TV in Thailand (as well as released as a web series on Youtube, Netflix, and other streaming platforms). Surprisingly, considering that Thai society back then was somewhat conservative, it was a huge hit, at home and abroad, and birthed what has turned into a multi-billion dollar industry.
BL becomes a global success
Tine (Win Opas-iamkajorn, above) and Sarawat (Bright Vachirawit Chivaaree, below), the principal couple of 2gether
Did I really say billions? Yes, I did. I saw a statistic about one popular BL franchise, 2gether: The Series plus its sequel, Still 2gether. Combined, their 18 episodes have been viewed well over a billion times (it works out to nearly 70 million viewers per episode). There’s a lot of moolah to be made from that.
Every year, Thailand alone produces dozens and dozens of BL series, feature-length movies, and shorts. But BL production has spread to other Asian nations as well so we get dozens more each year from South Korea, the Philippines, Taiwan, Japan, and other countries.
Ten years ago, gay men were barely represented in TV and film … and when we were found, there was almost nothing that showed us finding romance and achieving healthy, loving relationships. Now our “problem” is the opposite: there is so much BL content that we can’t carve out enough time to actually watch all of it.
It’s a nice problem to have.
BL is an immersion in powerful bonds and deep relationships
BL series usually focus on friendship, love, and romance, not sex. Indeed, the typical BL series has the main couple slowly drawn together so their first kiss often doesn’t happen until the last, or next to last, episode (after waiting for it so long, fans explode with joy when it happens).
[Sidebar] I remember all of my first kisses. No, I don’t mean mine personally. I remember all of the boys’ first kisses in the BL series I have watched because I waited seemingly forever for them to finally kiss!
The focus on the deeply caring and romantic relationships of the couples is different from what we usually see in Western movies. I really can’t stress this enough. These are not dramas or rom-coms that could easily be slotted into Hollywood just by making the couple heterosexual.
BL characters aren’t usually driven by lust; we don’t see them urgently moved to rip each other’s clothes off like in a Hollywood film. Instead, we see them slowly develop an intense emotional bond with each other; then physical attraction and desire ensue later as the natural, eventual expression of that.
Mek (Ryan Peng) and Boss (Inntouch Chalermphonphakdee) finally have their first kiss in the Thai series My Engineer. They have the most delightful, adorable, and healthy relationship in all of the BL world
BL follows the adage that good things are worth waiting for: if our romantic leads take a long journey to falling in love and then expressing it physically, the anticipation will have made their (and our) reward all the sweeter. It may sound hard to believe but a long-awaited kiss between two people deeply in love can be much more exciting than quick simulated sex between a couple of people in lust.
What do you think? Is it more gratifying to:
- see a couple madly shed their clothes as they practically devour each other (to convey “true” passion) five or ten minutes after they meet onscreen? or,
- see two lads build a life-changing love over five or ten hours of viewing time and then share with us the moment of their first brief kiss?
For me, after that kiss, I think “Whew! I need a cigarette now … and I don’t even smoke!”
The slow buildup from emotional to physical connection can produce interesting results. I have read many comments from straight guys that typically go something like this:
My girlfriend made me watch this series and I thought ‘yuck’ but by the time Boy1 was finally moving in on Boy2, I yelled “Kiss him already!” and I was so happy when he did.
It’s not just the characters who fall in love; we, the viewers – gay and straight – fall in love with them also.
It’s all about the individual, not the gender
A key reason why a BL couldn’t be readily transformed into a male-female story, as I mentioned above, is due to the same-gender relationships of the story. But it’s not about the plumbing; it’s about how the characters are developed in BLs.
The Marahuyo Project goes beyond just boy-boy dynamics with the inclusion of an intersex character whose experiences and feelings are integral to the story
How often in conventional films and TV shows from America and Europe have we seen the primary tension between the female and male co-stars distill down to this: “Men! They’re impossible!” and “Women! Who knows what they really think?”
Why bother with extensive inner character development when you automatically have tension built into the relationship between the two leads due to “gender wars?” Just skip to the action and let the gender conflicts define the characters. Superficial friction is much easier to portray than inner experience.
BL doesn’t have that. Boy1 knows what boys are like, how they think, how they respond, how they perceive the world and their place in it. So Boy2 isn’t a mysterious creature to him, because he, too, is a boy.
Thus, BLs have to work harder to create non-gender tensions, to make the challenges in building the relationship entirely about the two individuals as individuals; there are no lazy shortcuts like letting opposite genders do the heavy lifting of creating barriers, potential conflicts, and misunderstandings between the leads.
And that gives us better, more interesting, and more complex stories.
The fantasy world of BL
A couple of things stand out about the idealized version of reality in which most BLs are set.
Homophobia barely exists, if it exists at all, in a particular film or series. Sure, one of the boys may get beaten up (we do need drama, you know), but it is because he is a soccer star of the “enemy” team, not because he is gay.
In Hello Stranger, a Filipino BL, their friends do all that they can to help the two boys in the middle find happiness and romance with each other
His straight friends and acquaintances are supportive of him. If in the first episode they were teasing him about being too lovey-dovey with Mary, later they will tease him exactly the same way about his new relationship with Mark. When he has a petty argument with Mark, they will give him advice about how to win him back. When he and Mark finally make their relationship official, they will all cheer and slap him on the back.
Sexuality is far, far more fluid than even the gender-fluid, non-binary, and other flexible or undefined attitudes we see more often now in younger people who prefer “not to tick any boxes.” Start-of-series straight BL boys usually flip seamlessly, without skipping a beat or questioning themselves for even a brief moment, from straight to gay relationships.
The boys seldom, if ever, seem to think about what provokes lust in themselves; that’s consistent with the typical BL focus on romance rather than sexual desire.
I don’t think I have ever heard a BL lead say something like “but I am not physically aroused by you or other guys.” In the BL world, it seems that if there is a strong enough emotional connection then physical passion must accompany it.
Indeed, it is common to see a boy resist physical expressions of love from his suitor, even those as innocent as a hug or kiss on the cheek. However, that hesitation always manifests due to uncertainty or doubt about the sincerity, depth, or longevity of his suitor’s love for him, not because of aversion to physical affection with another male, in and of itself.
When the boy is sure that his suitor truly loves him, and will continue to do so, a switch is flipped and he becomes physically responsive to his new partner. This is contrary to the lived experiences of most boys. In real life, it’s a common joke to hear a guy talking about his sexual adventure with someone for whom he has little emotional interest or affection and saying “It has a mind of its own” (hint: “it” is not referring to his heart or his brain).
The stars are fantasies also
BL series feature very attractive actors. That’s not surprising; Hollywood has been starring good-looking people for a century.
Choco (Lee Jae Bin) and Milk (Joo [Kim] Seonghyeok) of the Korean BL series Choco Milk Shake. Both are devastatingly handsome
But BL goes beyond Hollywood. In a standard movie, we might see a gorgeous female star paired with a male co-star who, frankly, doesn’t look so hot. Maybe he’s a dork, or out of shape, or old enough to be her grandfather. Even so, Hollywood studios will squeeze the unlikely pair into some kind of romantic or sexual dynamic.
BL series sidestep those awkward pairings. Because both leads are males, there tends to be a more egalitarian standard of beauty for them. We see two guys together and both of them look like models (in fact, many BL stars are models as well as actors).
That similarity adds authenticity to their relationship: we aren’t jarred out of the fantasy by thinking, as we often do with Hollywood’s mismatched couples, “Oh, please, he would never be able to get someone that hot!”
Is it realistic that the leads are so good-looking? Of course not. In real life, most of us are average (duh, that’s why they call it “average”). But BL isn’t supposed to be a depiction of real life; it offers us opportunities to slip into another world, where everyone is gorgeous and society accepts us as we are and true love (almost) always conquers.
So enjoy the fantasies (and the male pulchritude).
Ships & fans
I’m sure most of us can think of at least one onscreen pairing of actors that we found enthralling and wanted to see more of. BL fans are the same way. If they see Boy1 and Boy2 build a beautiful romance that is richly rewarding for the viewer emotionally — and a key part of that is the chemistry between the stars —it’s natural to want more, more, more. Give us a sequel! Or three!
When that becomes a popular idea with their fans, we call it “shipping” (as in “relationship”). If the characters Mark and Jonathan form a powerful romance that sweeps us, the viewers, off our feet, fans may start referring to “Mark-Jon” and loudly demand that the relevant studio produce a sequel furthering the ongoing romance of those two characters. They will fill online discussions and commentaries with their thirst for sequels, write fan-fiction fantasies about their imagined sexual intimacy, and so on.
But it often moves way beyond that. Let’s say that Mark and Jonathan were portrayed by the actors Jerry and Thomas. Many fans might begin to “ship” these two real people, not their characters. They will demand that JerTom make public appearances together. They will analyze their every public action in terms of trying to validate their hope that Jerry and Thomas really are a romantic and sexual couple. They will even get angry and try to start boycotts or cause other trouble if it comes out that Thomas has a girlfriend or Jerry is secretly married (to a guy or a gal, either way the ultra-fans will feel betrayed by JerTom).
ZeeNunew (Zee Pranich and Nunew Perdpiriyawong), co-stars of Cutie Pie, who are an actual offscreen couple, not just a ship
BL roles are acting jobs. Being half of an onscreen BL couple doesn’t mean the actors are gay. Some fans don’t seem to understand that acting is not equal to being: an actor playing a doctor does not actually know medicine and an actor playing a gay character does not necessarily enjoy romance or sex with other guys.
It’s the ugly side of BL and it isn’t unique to BL. In music, K-pop (a genre of Korean popular music) is rife with similar bad behavior by fanatical, jealous fans. I remember one guy who was interviewed about a female K-pop star whose boyfriend came to public attention; he spoke angrily to her directly via the camera: “We [her fans] love you. That should be enough. You don’t need anyone else!”
I find it sad that some fans want to deny romance and intimacy to the talented actors who have given us beautiful stores of romance and intimacy, simply because those actors are following their own hearts … the very thing we hope that their characters will do.
It’s easy to lay the blame for this behavior entirely on the fans … but the BL industry frequently piles up the kindling around their stars and then acts shocked when fans finally light a match (figuratively speaking, of course). Studios promote “fan service” by their actors who portray romantic couples.
Fan service
Fan service is what it sounds like: BL stars, as couples from their series, offer service to the wishes of their fans. That means the real people Jerry and Thomas above, not just their characters, link themselves together publicly. Maybe they give joint interviews on TV; or, they appear at BL conventions together; or, Jerry shows up on Thomas’ video blog and Jerry’s social media has photos of them enjoying a dinner out together.
Whatever it is, whenever they do it, their behavior is such that fans will almost certainly interpret it as though Jerry and Thomas may actually be a couple in real life. Maybe they hug – a little too long. Or Jerry lovingly tousles Thomas’ hair. Or they gaze intensely in each other’s eyes, seemingly oblivious to what is going on around them. You get the idea: you look at these two people and think “they are in love!”
On occasion, onscreen BL partners really do develop a romantic relationship offscreen. We’ve seen umpteen examples of that in Hollywood also over the decades. However, “on occasion” does not equal “always” or even “often.”
And I don’t recall any actors in Hollywood having their careers suffer just because fans were angry that they wouldn’t star together in their next film projects.
[Sidebar] Watching Boss Sermsongwittaya and Noeul Tangwai (who portray an onscreen couple) perform a song from their BL series, Love In The Air, can you be certain about their offscreen relationship?
[Click CC and/or settings to see English subtitles]
- Are they boyfriends?
- Or friendly colleagues who feel comfortable being playfully affectionate?
- Or talented actors doing fan service that leads us to think they might be a real couple?
Most stars seem to have mixed feelings about shipping and fan service. Obviously, a hugely popular ship can mean they will get a lucrative deal to work together on their next project.
On the other hand, it can mean crazed fans who may possibly pose dangers as well as a fickle public that might try to ruin their careers if they don’t satisfy the demands on their ship. And, of course, maintaining a ship successfully means giving up intimacy in real life lest fans discover that they are “betraying” the fans as well as their onscreen lover.
I don’t envy the actors as they try to find some kind of balance among these conflicting pressures.
Why do I like BL?
To answer that, I need to go way back. When I and many gay guys were young, we found literally nothing in film, television, or literature to let us know that we were okay, that our feelings were fine, that our futures had bright outlooks, or even that we had the most basic right just to exist.
Suddenly, Last Summer — starring Montgomery Clift, screenplay by Gore Vidal, based on the novel by Tennessee Williams
A 1959 film, Suddenly Last Summer, is a perfect exemplar. Based on a novel by a gay man, with a screenplay written by another gay man, and starring another gay man, the principal character of the film — you guessed it, a gay man — is never actually shown because he is simply too perverse for audiences, according to the studio and the censors. Instead, we learn that when he was out trolling for underage boys, he was literally torn to pieces and cannibalized by a pack of them. Yep, even with all that homo stuffed into the making of the film, violent death and perversion was the best we could get.
As years rolled by, gay people “progressed” from being objects of disgust who deserved punishment or death to become figures of comic relief for our heterosexual “betters” (that is, “real men”). Then the AIDS crisis hit and our portrayed stories were again consumed with illness, suffering, and death.
Finally, in the mid-‘90s to modern day, we got promoted to “almost normal.” We might be a co-worker or family member who wasn’t the constant butt of jokes about our tenuous masculinity or rapacious sexual appetites and we didn’t always die by the end of the show.
But we weren’t shown having serious emotional connections with anyone. Our lives were superficial, with little basis for even platonic deep relationships, much less romantic ones. They weren’t our stories; they were stories that included us to serve as props to enhance the real stories, the stories of the straight characters.
And it was always a f**king struggle to come out on TV or film. That’s what we did onscreen: we got assaulted, we had anguishing experiences in coming out, we smiled ruefully when mocked and belittled, and we died of terrible illnesses or murder or suicide, alone and unmourned.
Whoopee. No wonder the religious right is so afraid kids will be exposed to gays on TV and film and “turn gay.” Who wouldn’t be attracted by that destiny, amirite?
And then here comes BL
We see handsome guys enjoying their lives. They have great friendships. Their straight friends totally support them in finding love with other boys. They seldom need to come out, much less struggle with it; they just say “I have a crush on Mark” and their friends rally round to help them win Mark’s heart.
And they do win the heart of their chosen love … and it’s not just a fling. It’s a long process that ultimately results in a profound, powerful bond with the love of their life.
Of course, just as in real life, not every BL ends with “happily ever after.” Sometimes we are shattered with heartbreak but even then it is often tempered with a suggestion of hope for the future. The bittersweet tears that we viewers shed remind us that love is precious and we should cherish it when we find it.
[Youtube subtitles on this are ridiculous so click here to visit a page with a good translation]
In the Filipino BL series Gaya Sa Pelikula (“Like in the Movies”), Vlad (Ian Pangilinan) sings a song to his boyfriend, Karl (it’s the theme song of the series). In it, the lyrics say that this — their relationship — is the centerpoint of their world, their Kilometer Zero, and all distances are measured from their center; no matter where they go in life, they will always be able to find the way back to their center. And if they do, they will find love waiting.
You will have to watch the series to learn if Vlad and Karl find that center and sustain it or if their life journeys take them afar and we must hope that they someday find their way back.
[Sidebar] Watching BLs, I — and millions of fans — have melted at some of the most romantic lines I have ever heard, such as
You don't have to love me. Just keep your heart open for me.
and,
I knew what love is only when I met you.
and,
If you were my boyfriend, I would kiss your shadow.
In episodes that have a stunningly romantic line, you will see the comments filled (as in thousands!) with variations of “OK, I am officially dead now” or “OMG, I can’t breathe!”
As our episode ends ...
Heck, yeah, I love BL. It finally shows me who we should always have been seen as: strong and valued and loved and loving and happy and deserving of love and happiness. We needed this decades ago and it would have had a tremendous positive impact on gay boys, giving hope and guidance and encouragement as they developed into young gay men.
We have it now and I am grateful for it and generations of gay boys to come will be better for it.
So, to the actors, directors, producers, writers, and others who give us these compelling tales of openness, courage, and determination in the pursuit of love and romance, I say:
Thank you! Arigatou! Go-ma-wo! Xiè xiè! Khawp khun! Salamat!
And to you, dear readers, as you journey into the world of Boys’ Love, may your remembered smiles and laughter carry your hearts when your tears become too great to bear.
Resources & suggestions
Where to watch BLs
Many BL series and movies are available for free on platforms like Youtube, Vimeo, and Dailymotion. Paid services, such as Netflix, Hulu, etc, also offer many BLs.
GagaOOLala is a streaming platform that has a vast collection of LGBQT content. Link is on their Wikipedia page.
Note that some shows are available only in certain countries. To get around this geo-blocking, many people use a VPN so it appears that they are logging in from a permitted country. I personally use Surfshark VPN. It’s very easy to use (install their app and click to connect to a server in your desired country). A long-term plan (2 years) costs about $2 per month. A VPN also gives you more security and privacy online.
Curated lists of BL series and movies (some with links to watch)
Three BLs that I love that you can watch for free
2gether: The Series [13 episodes on Youtube]
It stars the impossibly beautiful Bright Vachirawit Chivaaree, who also happens to have more charisma or “screen magic” than any actor I have ever seen, including James Dean and Elizabeth Taylor.
Bright Vachirawit Chivaaree, Thai actor, singer, guitarist, and model
Just when you think you understand everything, about halfway through the series they throw a wrench in the works and suddenly the world flips upside down (but it’s a good twist and some things you thought were odd at the beginning make total sense now).
If you don’t fall in love with Tine (Win Opas-iamkajorn) and Sarawat (Bright), you need to see your cardiologist and make sure you still have a heart. Especially after the mid-series twist! I promise you will absolutely adore Sarawat then.
You need a VPN to connect to Thailand (or maybe other countries too?) in order to even see, much less watch, the whole Youtube playlist … and for some reason, the very last episode’s “Part 4 of 4” is missing but you can see all of episode 13 on Dailymotion (actually, all 13 episodes are on Dailymotion if you search for “2gether” and no VPN is necessary).
Gaya Sa Pelikula (“Like in the Movies”) [8 episodes on Youtube]
Vlad, an out and proud gay boy, had a bad breakup a while back and kind of messes up his life; today, he overslept and missed a flight but his apartment has already been rented to tourists for several weeks. So he needs a temporary place to stay … which ends up being Karl’s apartment.
Karl’s life and persona have been forced into the expectations of everyone else in his life and Karl is trying to figure out who he is, what he wants, and how to overcome his worries and self-doubt to become truly himself. Now, Vlad and Karl have to deal with not only their own issues, needs, and wants but with each other’s as well.
Vlad singing a love song to Karl in Gaya Sa Pelikula
Vlad and Karl’s budding romance is ever so charming and sincere and you will be rooting them on as they try to find their common center, where their relationship can thrive.
Not only is the story compelling and the writing tight and honest, the soundtrack is fantastic. GSP is one of the most widely loved BL series.
Keep your mind out of the gutter about Ian Pangilinan and Paolo Pangilinan, the romantic couple of Vlad and Karl – they share a surname but are not related at all (apparently it’s about as common in the Philippines as Smith is in the US).
Watch the end credits to catch an aphorism related to each episode, like “You are entitled to a love that lets you dance without fear or shame."
Choco Milk Shake [11 episodes on Youtube]
Whew! This is my all-time favorite. It is also one of the strangest BLs ever, with an odd premise that involves reincarnation and beloved pets. Just as you don’t need to believe in elves and wizards to thoroughly enjoy Lord of the Rings, suspend your disbelief and enter the incredible world of Choco Milk Shake.
The main characters of CMS: Uncle, Milk, Jungwoo, and Choco [top to bottom]
I was going to watch just the first 12-minute episode … almost 3 hours later, I had binge-watched the whole series.
The next afternoon, I watched it again. I was sure it couldn’t possibly be that good and that moving (maybe my water supply had been drugged the night before?!?). I knew I wouldn’t be emotionally affected much the second time; after all, I had just seen it so I knew all the plot developments, right?
Dead wrong. Once again, I laughed out loud and cried tears of sadness and wept more tears of happiness as the story played out.
No surprise, I watched it a third time three days later, again with waterworks flowing.
Even now, I need only think about certain moments in the series and I feel my eyes tearing up. If I keep thinking, I end up bawling like a baby.
No other show, BL or non-BL, has ever affected me this way. CMS is an extraordinary experience if you embrace its premise.
Note that CMS puts the end credits well before the end of each episode. So keep watching, otherwise you will miss the final minute or two of each episode.
BoysLove, a new Daily Kos group
I have created a DK group, BoysLove (plus the same term as a tag). Is anyone interested in participating in it, either as authors or as readers? My idea is that we can have stories like this about the BL genre in general; reviews of series and movies; discussions about the actors, writers, etc; announcements of upcoming series; and whatever else BL-related that you think of. Send me a Kosmail message if interested and maybe we can start publishing in the group after the holidays.
[Cross posted on Medium. Follow me on BlueSky (@Krotor.bsky.social)]
