A Deep Dive into Attachment: Exploring the Psychological Impact of Boys’ Love

Characters on Readers

Ariola, Joana Joy P.

Palabrica, Dennisse Shane P.

Panlaqui, Mary Rose N.

Pulido, Samantha

Santos, Augustine Nyl P.

Bachelor of Psychology, 3H
 Rationale of the Study

The study "Deep Dive into Attachment: Exploring the Psychological Impact of Boys'

Love Characters on Readers" addresses a gap in literature, investigating attachment dynamics

between readers and Boys' Love (BL) characters. Despite BL's rising popularity, there's limited

research on the psychological effects of these relationships. The research aims to understand how

readers emotionally connect with unconventional BL portrayals and their impact on self-esteem,

empathy, and identity. It also considers variations across demographics and cultures. This

nuanced exploration seeks to contribute insights to academic discourse and societal

understanding, bridging the gap between fiction and its transformative potential on readers'

psychological well-being.
 Research Background

The rising prominence of boys' love media has garnered increasing scholarly attention in

the last two decades, leading to numerous exploratory studies concentrating on either the media

itself or the fan community (Galbraith, 2009). "Boys' love" serves as a comprehensive label for

Japan-specific media, primarily anime and manga, which explore the romantic relationships

between two men, often in a sexually explicit manner. This representation of male

homosexuality extends across various mediums, including video games, movies, series, and both

original and fan-created visual (fan art) and textual pieces (fan fiction) (McHarry, 2011).

Originating from shōjo manga in the 1970s aimed at young women, which initially depicted

romantic encounters mainly between heterosexual couples, boys' love evolved to include

representations of male homosexuality, capturing the interest of female enthusiasts (McLelland

and Welker, 2015).

The increasing popularity of narratives centered on male homosexual relationships

contributed to the emergence of this genre, later divided into two subgenres: shōnen-ai,

emphasizing emotional aspects of romantic love between men, and yaoi, presenting male

homoeroticism explicitly (Welker 2015, 42). Boys' love narratives amalgamate both traditional

elements, such as forbidden love, and genre-specific themes like "rape as an expression of love."

These narratives mirror the conventional, albeit problematic, tropes found in heterosexual

romantic literature, with the distinction that the love depicted is between two men (Mizoguchi

2003, 56). Typically, boys' love stories portray characters experiencing love at first sight,

followed by challenges like sexual orientation concerns, coming out, or past negative

experiences dominating the narrative. Themes like relationship anxieties, terminal illness, rape,
incest, and other dramatic elements are common in this genre (Madill 2011). The representation

of psychological traumas in boys' love stories holds special significance for fans, as we'll explore

in this section. The visual portrayal of these stories, whether in manga or fan art, reflects a

distinctive aesthetic and idealized design (Madill 2011). Initially, these stories featured European

protagonists in idealized foreign settings, but this trend has shifted in the last two decades, with

romantic encounters now often situated in a Japanese cultural context (Bollmann 2010, 43).

The core of the narrative fiction experience lies in emotion (Frijda, 1989). Scholars argue

that effective stories must both evoke and resolve readers' emotions (Brewer & Lichtenstein,

1982). Consequently, references to objects or events triggering primary emotions—such as

surprise, fear, happiness, and disgust—are considered captivating (Schank, 1979). However,

certain emotional responses, like valence (positive or negative emotions) and arousal (intensity

of emotion), may vary in their connection to literary appeal (Lang, Greenwald, Bradley, &

Hamm, 1993). Regarding emotional valence, it seems logical that readers would favor stories

eliciting positive responses, like happiness or pleasure. Individuals often turn to media content

to regulate their moods, opting for joyful music or comedies to uplift their spirits, for instance

(Carpentier et al., 2008; Knobloch & Zillmann, 2002). Based on this research, stories

incorporating references to positively valenced content may be attractive because they have the

potential to improve a negative mood or sustain a positive one.

 References

Brewer, W. F., & Lichtenstein, E. H. (1982). Stories are to entertain: A structural-affect theory of

stories. Journal of Pragmatics, 6, 473–486. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0378-

2166(82)90021-2

Carpentier, F. R. D., Brown, J. D., Bertocci, M., Silk, J. S., Forbes, E. E., & Dahl, R. E. (2008).S

kids, sad media? Applying mood management theory to depressed adolescents’ use of

media. Media Psychology, 11, 143–166. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15213260701834484

Frijda, N. H. (1989). Aesthetic emotions and reality. American Psychologist, 44, 1546–1547.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.44.1

Galbraith, Patrick W. “Moe: Exploring Virtual Potential in Post-Millenial Japan.” Electronic

Journal of Contemporary Japanese Studies (2009): n.pag. Web. Accessed 12 Jan. 2016.

Madill, Anna “Visual and Narrative Creation of the Erotic in ‘Boys’ Love’ Manga for Girls.”

Conference paper, International Human Science Research Conference: Intertwining

Body-Self-World. St. Catherine’s College, University of Oxford. 27-30 July, 2011.

McHarry, Mark. “(Un)gendering the Homoerotic Body: Imagining Subjects in Boys’ Love and

Yaoi.” Textual Echoes. Special issue of Transformative Works and Culture 8 (2011):

n.pag. Web. Accessed 12 Jan. 2016.

McLelland, Mark, and James Welker. “An Introduction to ‘Boys Love’ in Japan.” Boys Love

Manga and Beyond: History, Culture, and Community in Japan. Eds.

Mark McLelland, Kazumi Nagaike, Katsuhiko Suganuma, and James Welker. Jackson:

University Press of Mississippi, 2015. 3-20. Print.

Mizoguchi, Akiko. “Homofobikku na homo, ai yue no reipu, soshite kuia na rezubian.”

[Homophobic homos, rape due to love, and queer lesbians] Queer Japan 2 (2000): 193-

211. Print.

Schank, R. C. (1979). Interestingness: Controlling inferences. Artificial Intelligence, 12, 273-

297. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0004-3702(79)90009-2