Type of Document Master's Thesis Author O'Brien, Amy Ann URN etd-11202008-150110 Title Boys' Love and Female Friendships: The Subculture of Yaoi as a Social Bond between Women Degree Master of Arts Department Anthropology and Geography Advisory Committee
Advisor Name Title Jennifer Patico Committee Chair Emanuela Guano Committee Member Megan Sinnott Committee Member Keywords
- Subculture
- Youth Culture
- Yaoi
- Women
- Gender
- Identity
- Sociality
- Thesis
- Consumption
- Cultural Anthropology
Date of Defense 2008-11-13 Availability unrestricted Abstract In this thesis I argue that the yaoi community addresses a gap in subculture studies through the ways in which women use the genre to socialize. Yaoi is a genre of Japanese animation and comics which focuses on romantic relationships between two men and is directly geared towards women. Through ethnographic research in the United States, I look at how the women I interviewed conceptualize their participation within the community and what yaoi means to them. The women within the yaoi community are not rebelliously opposing the mainstream as many subcultural theories suggest, but are instead carving out a social space for themselves and others who have a distinct taste for the yaoi genre.Files
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