This is just my spin on things. This has a bit of a feminist
slant and may refer to other series.
Women in a lot of series (anime or not) are treated like window
decoration
or relegated to stereotypical roles/behaviors, which make them tend
to stay
in the background. They're almost like ghosts rather than complete
charas.
(Things are different in shoujo manga/anime, but we are dealing with
shonen
shows.) Not too many women want to identify with a main heroine
who's a
twit, someone who's horribly dependent/helpless, someone who doesn't
get any
airtime to flesh out who they are or depending on what the show,
constantly
flashing various parts of her anatomy for no understandable reason.
My
feeling is a lot (not all) of the guys who create shows have the
worst time
figuring out how to create a good female character or may actually
prefer
airheads, helpless rescuees, and women who only live for their men,
or it's
simply not a priority. A girl/woman in a show is often simply a
guy's
girlfriend, helper, wife, sister or mother. Keeping that in mind and
keeping in mind that most yaoi writers are women, why on Earth would
we want
to write more of the same stereotypical m/f stuff when it's already
so
prevalent?
I think the relationship between the guys is made much more
important
whether it be as friends or rivals. In GW, you see the guys
interact more
realistically with each other. They tease, yell and joke with each
other.
Lets take Heero and Duo, they actually fight together, play
together, go to
school and really talk to each other. You could actually get an
idea of
what it would be like if the two of them WERE together and my
conception of
what it would be like is that it would be sweet. Take Trowa and
Quatre,
it's easier to figure out how they'd interact IF they were a couple
rather
than Dorothy and Quatre, who only meet for a short time and in an
adversarial match. (I'm just saying it's easier. I'm not saying a
Dorothy+4 can't be done, it's just a lot harder and less to work
with.)
Also, there's a chance to write about relationships that doesn't
just boil
down to the archetypes like the knight in shining armor coming to
save the
princess in the tower.
Perhaps in a way, it's a justice thing where the men in the
stories have to
go through a lot of what the women have to go through, being
vulnerable and
not always in control. This could explain a lot of the "pregnant
men" fics
out there. It's also a way of laughing at them when they're totally
thrown
for a curve. "This can't be happening!" the men yell when they find
out that
they've got a bun in the oven. So, in a sense, it's a bit of
voyeurism
spiced with just a drop of revenge. Which explains why a lot of Gw
yaoi/shonen ai is humorous where a pilot finds out something just
isn't
right.
A few women do like the really androgynous type of guys, though my
preference is for regular hunky guys though not quite as beefy as EW
Trowa.
(That's a bit much.) But then some people like the Dragonball Z
guys who
are on the extra beefy side.
As for who's on top or who's on the bottom, it depends on a lot
of other
things. I chalk it up to personal preference for the reader/writer
and
leave it at that. I prefer reversible couples (a term for having
either
partner being able to do both) simply because there's way more stuff
to
write that way.
Also, there might be a bit more of a charge since there's a
slight air of the taboo, whether it be from the yaoi aspect or the
voyeuristic aspect. It makes it a little more spicy.
I think that's why people are so polarized about Relena. Some
women don't mind fantasizing about being her (adored princess who
gets her butt saved by a team of good-lucking bishonen and a couple
of good women as well) while other people prefer the people who fight
(and in the case of Une and Heero, nearly get sent to another
dimension or Treize who makes the entire journey) for what they
believe for their ideals. I think that it's a difference of mindset
that is not a superficial one.
Used with permission, © 2000 Joyce K. Wakabayashi. Visit her page where all her wonderful fics are archived.