I've been pretty conflicted about my enjoyment of visual novels and their target audiences. its no secret that your average straight vn is targeted towards men, eroge has always been seen as something men indulge in more than women. As the years go on i think this market is somewhat being challenged with the amount of women openly expressing themselves with the eroge media and consuming it alongside men. Markets would explain this away by the boys-love market, which targets women as their main contributors. Personally the only BL vn i'd played before recently was DMMD and sweet pool when i was too young to be playing them. it wasnt until many years later that i got back into visual novels but only straight ones. about 4 months back i decided to delve back into BL and i have a lot of thoughts on compairing my experiences between the two demographics. I'll separate them into sections because theres a lot to go over! 1: Fetish/Sex 2: Story/Soundtrack Quality 3: Adversity Forcing Creativity

Fetish/Sex:

Fetish does not always equate to straight up sex. Things can bring out sexuality and fetish without being straight up porn. Examples of this would be Shiki's outfit in togainu no chi or leak's outfit in lamento. The main character being restrained or punched can be an example of this, small inconspicuous actions that make your stomach twist in joy despite being mostly innocuous would count under this fetish/sexuality umbrella. sometimes even a sountrack can leave you feeling this way. BL vns have mastered the art of saying a lot with very little in the psycho sexual nature of their games. Little reminders here and there of sexuality and its existence in everything no matter how blatant or reserved it may be. straight vns totally lack this. The most sexuality youll get from them is a panty flash or cleavage shot here and there, appealing but not really capturing the essence of what bl vns seem to do so well. Nothing is sexual in normal vns unless blatantly spelled out to the viewer, and is mostly reserved for the sex scenes. To try to compare what i mean ill create a hypothetical. Imagine if straight vns had little peeks here and there at the love interests feet with socks on as she removes her shoes. Maybe a cg of sweat running down the nape of a neck. perhaps an antagonist who wears latex attire? Perhaps the characters are put in a situation that requires collars of some sort for tracking. All of these are examples of subtle fetish/sexuality sprinkled in. I LOVE the character kau in togainu no chi. His apperance is so shocking and unforgettable. he is the embodyment of someones fetish but his purpose is useful in the plot, his reason for existing is justified and the thought of his torture makes you scared but wanting to read more into this sick world. Im tired of working towards a sex cg in normal vns and when i finally get there its vanillia misionary with handholding. IM A GROWN ADULT!!!!!!!! WHAT IS THIS!!! some of these games man they could only make mormons blush what is going on here.. Im sorry but if youre an adult with any idea of what goes on in the world of sex you know almost every person alive has some sort of weird special thing that tickles them pink, thats just how we're wired. It does not make sense to me that in 90% of these eroge games its a nothingburger. Why do i have to read BL to be able to see the main character get beat up by the love interests? Do straight eroge just view women as too fragile?? Why is there no dominance or submission? Perhaps from the companies perspective you can just market boring sex to a much wider audience and thus they dont want to limit themselves but i mean BL goes balls to the walls with this shit. A keen reader might say "inui! what about euphoria! it sounds like just the remedy to what youre complaining about!" my rebuttle would be "why must i subject myself to poop and vomit to get a crumb of sexuality in a straight setting?" Here you go, the sexuality youve been asking for in a straight vn :D and its DOO DOO INSIDE!!! thanks man but i would much prefer a nice middle ground of the girl getting beat up why do i have to see doodie and vomit? why is it black and white all or nothing?? I dont have to make this sacrifice with BL of course id just choose a BL at that point!! FMDM comes in with the sexual sadism expressed by minato towards the girls and its GREAT! WHY IS THIS RARE???

Story/Soundtrack Quality:

I go on and on literally all the time about nitro chiral soundtracks and how theyre all bangers but this is actually relevant here! It's pretty rare for me to enjoy a normal vns soundtrack but its happened with yotsunoha and little busters for example, but even then they really do not compare to N+C stuff. An overwhelming majority of the vns ive played have soundtracks made to be not too distracting filler noise in the background to ignore while you listen to the characters speak. Something i noticed aswell was the discrepency in stories between normal vns and BL vns, i mean most of your normal ones take place at school or baito and follow mostly the same story save for some quirks here and there or some conveluted "true end" that has some semblance of a plot twist. Why can there never be a straight vn that has the plot/setting of togainu no chi? lamento? hell even paradise where the characters are stuck on an island and the love interests go insane would be more interesting than what we usually get and thats a pretty well used plot. These crazy plots and immersive world building create situations that challenge the characters and bring out some really great characterization depending on how they respond to it all. With these school vns i mean what they go to school and fiddle around? Ive been graduated from school for so long i do not feel like revisiting that non stop. When a straight vn actually manages to do something different its revered as this special rare gem in a sea of doodoo, examples of this would probably be vns like saya no uta or fmdm. Why are these the special exceptions to the genre they should be the status quo!! Adults are consuming this media at the end of the day, it must have some level of competancy and quality that respects its consumers as adults who have media literacy! We can handle complex stories and characters with interesting plots WHILE also gooning!!! Why do great stories have to be separate from the eroge vns? we as humans exist in this perfect balance of sexuality and imagination in our day to day lives. BL vns have proven time and time again this sort of thing is able to coexist with sexuality.

Adversity Forcing Creativity:

The most concise way to explain this is by referencing the horror classic silent hill. It's iconic thick fog that went on to become a horror trope and cultural icon of its own began from a problem the team faced. When creating the game the rendering distance was horrific, scrambling to come up with a way to fix this issue they settled on submurging everything in a thick fog to hide the town as it rendered in, keeping the eerie atmosphere while hiding its technological setbacks. They say humans are their most creative when forced in these situations to overcome. I believe BL vns are already at a disposition when it comes to selling their games. The market for straight vns targets single straight men who on average have a higher amount of disposable income to splurge on not only the game but also merch. BL vns target the women market which make less money AND have higher standards when it comes to the type of eroge they consume. This is the "adversity" they must face, to REALLY convince their smaller and less earning player base to buy the game. They are forced to hold themselves to a much higher standard to woo their consumers. Sometimes all it takes for a guy to buy a vn is just a girl with big tits on the cover LOL. Not so much a bad thing, but i think its made straight vn companies get a bit lazy in their productions. Regular vns know they can pump out some slop and if the love interests make you horny enough youll buy it, no need to push the envelope of the medium.

Will anything change? I mean probably not. Most vns are still only produced in japan and trying to get such a deeply mysoginistic society to budge when it comes to sexuality and women combined its just not something i can really see happening. BL gets away with what it does because its two men engaging in these activities, society more readily accepts men beating eachother or brutalizing themselves in the name of sex because women are seen as more gentle less sexual creatures. This is why so many women express themselves sexually through BL, its separating yourself by using a male self insert to experience this type of sexuality seen as unfitting of your sex. Am i a little pretentious when it comes to expecting my visual novel porn to be of higher taste and quality? Yes! Im picky and annoying about it too. OF COURSE i will continue to play both types of vns on the search for my little gemmies in the rough because i am not a weak hearted QUITTER! i am a FULL TIME PERVERT!