For those of you who don’t know, “Boys’ Love”—also known as “BL”—and “yaoi” are the main terms that have crossed the Pacific to describe male-male homosexual relationships in anime and manga. The former is generally non-graphic content or subtly implied, while materials in the latter contain explicit sexual acts. And for many years, this subgroup of the anime world has had a single convention: Yaoicon. It’s held in no other than San Francisco, California, the gay pride capital itself.
This year, the luxurious Hyatt Regency near the San Francisco Airport was host to industry and fan panels, dealers and artists, videorooms, room parties, and mainstage events all designed to get your hands on good-looking guys and their “merchandise.” Where most conventions downplay or cover up the sexual parts of anime culture, Yaoicon celebrates it. Yet, it’s all for the female gaze: described by a male attendee as “if you took a regular con and took out all the guy stuff,” the US’s first hardcore feminist anime con spent the weekend showing that while sex sells, inclusion and freedom to love are the best policy.
BL and yaoi were historically written as “by women, for women” fantasy content whose audience is mostly female. The appeal is simple: by virtue of being homosexual in nature, the stories’ romantic relationships explore emotional and power dynamics, rather than gender roles—a reading experience hard to find in typical heterosexual story content. The genre also specializes in “all beautiful men all the time,” which has its own appeal as well. However, as time goes on, more and better content has attracted a higher percentage of male readers, because it, presumably, showcases a true male experience better.
As I arrived at the hotel, I found the convention’s attendee demographic reflected this: it was a majority women, with a large portion of gay men and trans women after, followed by a not-unsizeable contingent of hetero guys that like to show off their stuff for the ladies. Also of interest, but perhaps not surprising given the California location, the con is minority-friendly as far as race as well. Almost all the staff working information and registration were people of color, and there were many cosplayers of color too, mostly from African-American and Asian-American communities. Because of the openly sexual nature of the convention’s subject matter, the event also has an age minimum—18—which makes the convention operate more like horror conventions than the typical, family-friendly anime convention. Bring on the studded leather!
Unfortunately, the con has a reputation as a place of graceless debauchery (which some people don’t mind, admittedly), and the fact that the con swag bag came with condoms of various sizes didn’t help. But since it’s in San Francisco—arguably America’s most visibly gay-friendly city—I realized that that’s really just their way of being helpful. (In fact, their programming pocket guidebook was probably the most helpful thing I’ve even been given at a con, ever.) Much to my surprise, the con proved quite docile by day. The sexually-charged atmosphere it’s so infamous for is actually concentrated in a few bits of evening programming and room parties, which are not affiliated with the con at all.
The convention came under new management in recent years, and in attempting to make the con classier and friendlier. First of all, Yaoi paddles have been banned for quite some time. Secondly, the con is held in the swanky Hyatt Regency, which was also holding language certification classes and businessmen meetings that weekend. The space is clean and bright, boasting a skylight atrium with two cafes on its upper floor, and the programming space on its lower level. The con itself is only about 1,500 people a day, and the mornings are quiet. By afternoon, more attendees and cosplayers appear, with costumes getting more flamboyant and fun as the day wears on.
But out on the hotel floor, attendees were sophisticated but subdued; there were no squealing teens or running about, and most people knew how to avoid clogging hallways—all things that can be attributed to the age demographic. Costumes, too, while creatively rocking the leopard print, rainbow, and fishnets-with-leather, didn’t come close to breaking decency laws.
The dealers’ hall was shared with the artists’ alley, where everyone brought their BL specific wares. This was actually the place where the highest percentage of women were—operating the booths! The friendly atmosphere of the con, like many small cons, came out in full force here, with proud artists and dealers happy to chat for extended periods.
Unlike many cons though, there was a high volume of book dealers in the dealers’ section. (The swag bag came with a free graphic novel!) There were five separate small publishers selling gay erotica novels, graphic novels, and manga. Several of these were giving out information for those interested in submitting works to them for possible publication. Among the solicitors was Dreamspinner Press, which recently made waves in announcing they had come to a deal with a Korean business partner to translate and publish more than two hundred of their titles a year for the South Korean market. One of the most fun publishers was perhaps Northwest Press, which had an entire table of LGBT graphic novels in more American styles. The man behind the counter holding a plush unicorn pointed out that they had content both for readers and featuring main characters of trans, gay, lesbian and bisexual identities—all of which could be perused while sitting at their booth’s red velvet couch.
The rest of the dealers, meanwhile, were your more standard anime merchandise dealers with content catered for the event. No longer do you have to dig through boxes and boxes hoping to find that one Free! wallscroll, or go through a hundred booths to find the one guy with doujinshi—Yaoicon had it all, and easy to find.
The Artists’ Alley section was more differentiated as far as wares: there was a fairly even split between indie comic makers, print artists (including at least one who’s done work for Wizards of the Coast), jewelers, and plushes/clothing crafters. All in all, it was a tasteful setup with lots of free-candy bowls and smiles (and a couple of cute pirates).
As far as programming, typical fan and industry panels (all BL-specific) ran during the day, while three rooms of high-quality BL videos played, most titles offered by RightStuf or Viz. About a third of the video room offerings were clearly-demarcated as yaoi, but with a twist: since it’s an 18+ convention, they play throughout the day, rather than just stacked together during after-dark hours the way most conventions offer their hentai viewings. The audience was also much less sketchy than the typical hentai video room.
And while we’re on the subject of yaoi, let’s talk about the con’s signature events. This is the only convention I’ve ever been to where the Masquerade is at 4:30 PM—and that’s because they’ve got something bigger to attend to later in the evening. Each night of Yaoicon, there’s one late-night, mainstage event to kick off the room parties, and which nearly every badge holder attends if they can get in. On Friday, that’s Bishi Bingo, and on Saturday, it’s the Bishi Auction. Bingo is, well, parlor-style Bingo, but your prize is to undress your favorite male cosplayers, one piece of clothing at a time, to hoots and hollers and some performances from the guys too.
The Auction is exactly what it sounds like, but also so much more: For your viewing pleasure, hot guys in cosplay perform 3- to 5-minute acts that showcase what they have to offer potential dates. (The acts are screened beforehand and include acrobatics, skits, songs, and even raunchy poetry. The cosplay... is rather secondary.) With the help of a pair of fun-loving auctioneers (who were in nurse and doctor cosplay this year), the audience then bids on either a single man or a group of them, with the intent that the bishi you’re bidding on will spend the rest of the night with you as an escort. As the bidding goes higher—and in order to push it higher—each bishi strips down, layer by layer, until they’re in their underwear. The truly skilled bishis know how to pander to the crowd in this respect, and for this I’ll cite Gatsby’s tuxedo skivvies.
Bidding is done with real money, and actually gets up to over $1,000 at times. You can form groups to have better buying power, too—as the auctioneers so cheekily said, “We take up to four credit cards per lot.” For those who have less to spend, the show’s still quite enjoyable, and you can “tip” the performers during the bidding. I have no idea to whom the money goes, and, like most escorts, the con doesn’t seem to mind if you both end up liking each other enough to get lucky at the end of the night. But maybe those are rules you’re initiated into once you complete your purchase….
Either way, as an audience member, it’s definitely the sort of thing you’ll be more comfortable bringing your girlfriends to—not your guyfriends like I ended up with—but there were plenty of guys in the audience and the event held their attention too. All in all, there’s a little something for everyone, and the hosts keep it fresh. It was all in the spirit of fun, and it’s good to see a fearless celebration of the more “earthy” side of female fandom. I spoke to some of the male performers at the auction, who said it was a way to preen and have fun celebrating the intersection of cosplay and sexuality.
On the whole, Yaoicon was well-coordinated, mostly attempted to be tasteful, and, perhaps most significantly, emphasized respect and accountability. The event was smaller and brighter than I thought, but also more inclusive—a little San Fran gem for anyone who’s hunting for a different con experience. This convention easily showed that, while some conventions are struggling with discrimination and safe-space issues, when respect is given freely by all involved, fun is had, and everyone comes out ahead.