As part of a continuation of work on transcultural fandom begun in my dissertation, I've been thinking about yaoi (primarily in the context of 'derivative' (二次創作 niji sousaku; i.e. 'transformative') doujinshi) in terms of how we talk about it in a fan studies context, as well as how it reflects some of the ways we think about fandom itself, and I wanted to play a bit here with an idea that made it as far as a footnote in the final dissertation.

Despite what we know - and perhaps what we think we know - about yaoi in an English-language context, it's a term that isn't as transparent as it seems at first glance. If you're a fan, then you probably know that it's an acronym of sorts that derives from what's become a kind of coda to purveyors of m/m manga: yama nashi, ochi nashi, imi nashi. This has been translated in any number of ways; Akiko Mizoguchi (2003) described it as "an acronym for the Japanese phrases that mean 'no climax' (yama nashi), 'no punch line' (ochi nashi), and 'no meaning' (imi nashi)." [1] William W. Kelly's 2004 anthology, Fanning the Flames, defines it in a glossary as "No Climax, No Resolution, No Meaning." [2] Mark McLelland (2003) defines it similarly as no climax, no point, no meaning [3], while recently Jeffrey Angles (2011) has defined it as no buildup, no foreclosure, no meaning. [4]

This cursory overview of some of the ways the term has been defined suggests that, if nothing else, we can all agree that "imi nashi" indeed means "no meaning." But what of the others? 

"Yama nashi" literally means "no mountain" and, in the context of yaoi, clearly refers to something that heightens, as it were; hence, "climax" and "buildup" in the above definitions. And yet, "climax," in particular, seems singularly unequal to the term in Japanese, particularly insofar as, in English, "climax" refers to the culmination of the 'yama' state, not that state itself. In this sense, Angles's translation of 'yama' as "buildup," attuned as it is to the intrinsically sexual nature of yaoi narratives, seems the superior translation. 

So, "no buildup."

"Ochi nashi" clearly is more complicated to grasp: "punch line," "resolution," "point," and "foreclosure" are all offered, and each does capture one facet of the term "ochi," which literally means "fall" (v. ochiru). However, juxtaposed against "buildup" in the sexual sense, it seems like "climax" would be better suited here than even "resolution," insofar as it captures the denouement of the 'yama' state. In other words, what goes up must come down (pun kinda intended); in the case of male orgasm, which, of course, is a prominent feature of many a yaoi story, this is true in a very literal sense.

Thus, "no climax." The 'no's are significant, and I'll return to them below.

As mentioned above, "imi nashi" unambiguously means "no meaning." BUT, what does "meaning," well, mean?

It's here that I want to turn to my aging little footnote for an explanation, because this is where I think the truly transformative potential of yaoi (and slash - m/m and femme - as well) lies. In it, I was attempting to argue that our understanding of fandom (transcultural fandom, in particular, but I think the argument can be made for fandom studies broadly) has been at least partially predicated on a Freudian understanding of pleasure and play as fundamentally unproductive activities. But what do I mean by this, and what are the implications for fandom studies?

Let's look first at Freud, who famously touted the superiority of vaginal orgasm, achieved in intercourse, over the "masculine, immature and inferior" clitoral orgasm. It should come as no surprise that only one of these - the vaginal - can in any way be conceived of as meaningful in a reproductive sense. The clitoral orgasm has as much autoerotic potential as that achieved through male masturbation, which has itself been wrapped up in a popular, if not historically accurate, understanding of the biblical censure of 'spilling seed' [5] as the masturbatory act (biblically speaking, it actually refers to the act of pulling out before orgasm; the effect, however, of preventing reproduction is the same). That the same is true of f/f or m/m orgasm goes without saying. 

Thus, productive orgasm - orgasm that does something - is valued over the fundamentally meaningless un(re)productive orgasm. Put differently, this is precisely the kind of orgasm that has "no meaning" (imi nashi).

So what we have in the acronym yaoi, at least in theory, is three-pronged rejection of reproductive sexuality-as-narrative. Typically, yaoi are less about traditional courtship - open dating, presentation of gifts (let's call this 'yama')  of undying love, marriage (say, 'ochi'), and children ('imi') - than about the clandestine, the forbidden, the happenstance. While gender roles within yaoi may reflect a heteronormative bias - sometimes to an almost parodic degree - the narratives themselves, unless they are firmly situated within a fantasy context, frequently do not. In this sense, they've been understood almost as wish-fulfillment on the part of women seeking to subvert, however symbolically, their own gender constraints; but I'd argue - and I have to confess that, at this point, this is more subjective than anything - that they're also appealing because they're intrinsically 'not' - not my gender, not my experience, not me. They are outside me, and, as such, I'm invited to enjoy them - unproductive, immature (self) pleasure - more than I am to identify with them. They invite my gaze through their utter repudiation (no buildup, no climax, no meaning) of anything that could ever produce anything other than pleasure on the part of the viewer.

So, what does this have to do with fandom studies? Stay tuned (the kids are demanding food of some kind, and my own decidedly heteronormative trappings say that I'm supposed to cough this up); it will involve the phrases "does something" and "yaoi as a heuristic," as well as an appearance by Hannibal Lecter.

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[1] Mizoguchi, A. (2003) "Male-male romance by and for women in Japan: a history and the subgenres of Yaoi fictions," U.S.-Japan Women's Journal 25: 49-70.
[2] Kelly, William W., ed. (2004) Fanning the Flames: Fans and Consumer Culture in Contemporary Japan. Albany: SUNY Press.
[3] McLelland, M. (2003) "Japanese Queerscapes: Global/Local Intersections on the Internet," in Mobile Cultures: New Media in Queer Asia, Chris Berry, et. al., eds, Durham: Duke University Press: 52-69.
[4] Angles, J. (2011) Writing the Love of Boys: Origins of Bishonen Culture in Modernist Japanese Literature, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
[5] Specifically, Genesis 38:9, which reads (NIV), "But Onan knew that the offspring would not be his; so whenever he lay with his brother's wife, he spilled his semen on the ground to keep from producing offspring for his brother." Of especial interest here is that Onan's act was generalized to the German Onanie (masturbation) from which the Japanese term for masturbation - onanii (オナニー) - derives.