DEVASTATING: Queer Literature Class Has No Yaoi Unit
By Ces Lodovico
When Samantha (CAS ’26) opted to take a queer literature class to fulfill her humanities requirement, she was over the moon at the prospect. Unfortunately, the class didn’t exactly live up to her expectations. She was nothing less than appalled when the syllabus had no sign of any of her favorite yaoi titles. “Who the fuck is Dorian Gray?” the freshman exclaimed. “All I wanted was manga about men absolutely ravaging each other’s holes. I don’t want to read a depressing short story after short story about depressed gay people with homophobic parents!”
Samatha, having expected works among the lines of classics such as Dick Fight Island (real series) was not impressed with the repertoire typically regarded as queer literature. “I don’t want any of this yearning bullshit. I want a morally questionable, fast paced, beautifully illustrated erotica of two men that I can then write about on Wattpad for other like-minded scholars. I don’t have the most popular titles in the #Yaoi, #BoyLove, and #AnalSexCreampieForMen tags for nothing! I’d never do anal though, that’s disgusting.”
On the topic of her allyship to the queer community, she responded with this:
“I absolutely adore seeing illustrations of a twink getting his ass pounded. Gay men are so brave! I’ve always wanted a gay best friend, but for some reason, whenever I ask them about their sex life, they stop hanging out with me. Weird, right? Like, I just want to know if you’re the one bent over, screaming their name, with desperation so pathetic it’s compared to that of a dog! Or, like, the man.”
When asked about the rest of the community, the enthusiasm was not as apparent.
“Umm, I know there’s lesbians? One of my friends from middle school was a lesbian! But we stopped hanging out because I thought she would get a crush on me,” she laughed. “Ew! Oh, also one of my friends is transgender and I’m a really good ally. He uses they/them pronouns! I feel like people adding they to their pronouns is such a cool trend.”