Posting about some of the manga I read. I read manga in Japanese.


Apparently the pseudo-Japanese term "fujin" has been going around as a gender-neutral term for "BL fan". In Japanese this would probably be taken to be wordplay from 婦人(fujin), which means a woman and therefore gender-specifc, because 腐女子(fujoshi) is a play on 婦女子(fujoshi) and they also use 貴腐人(kifujin) for women who are BL fans, because it's a play on 貴婦人(kifujin), which mean a lady.

腐女子(fujoshi) is noted for being problematic because (fu) meaning "rotten" can seen as BL fandom reinforcing homophobia. The defense is that it's supposed to be just a self-deprecating in-joke about the shippers themselves, so it is hanging around, but if someone wants to be sensitive about things like gender, fu- isn't a strong foundation.

The Japanese use BL好き(zuki) as an ungendered term for BL fans. It's normal Japanese, basically BL-lover, like 猫好き(nekozuki) is cat-lover or 読書好き(dokushozuki) is reading-lover.


You must log in to comment.