#also i feel like tumblr's understanding of yuri is very conflated with moe girls doing cute things anime

[quetzalpapalotl]

Ok, I calmed down. I am not trying to say that no yuri is catering to straight men, far from it. Yuri is kind of an ambiguous term, unlike BL where you can have a show about a gay relationship like YOI still not be categorized as such, yuri can sort of be considered any story with lesbian themes."

"Yuri" has its origins in stories written by women for women codified, and it's true that these motifs were later co-opted by men for men (but even then I wouldn't accuse lesbians who enjoys these stories of fetichizing lesbianism ffs). But that doesn't mean women suddenly stopped altogether. Not only is yuri broad, but it's alive and transforming. Yuri manga today looks very different than it did 10 years ago. It has a complex history.

So to say things like that all yuri is written by men, that there are no butches in yuri, that there aren't yuri that try to portray the reality of being a gay woman, to say that wlw have "settled" with voyeuristic portrayals shows that you don't really know what you're talking about. Which is fine. You don't even need to be interested in yuri. But it makes you unfit to have this conversation. And to swat a whole foreign genre that you don't know much about because it doesn't speak to your specific experience is really what bothers me.