"They were just telling positive gay romantic stories that took joy in their relationships and their ups and downs, and you don't often see that," he says. If it's a girl-girl, boy-boy, whatever."Īustralian fan Brad Nguyen likes the genre because it goes beyond the token "coming out" story. I want everyone to be happy and find their person. From my perspective that might be a little more exciting as a girl to watch. "As I fall in love with them and their story, I don't really see them as gay or not. "First of all, the guys are pretty hot usually," she says. In fact, the target market is primarily young women.Īmerican boys' love fan Gretel Gonzalez says she is drawn to the chemistry between the characters, regardless of their sexual orientation. The soapies are not promoted as queer shows. In homage to its Japanese roots, boys' love is often referred to in Thailand as 'Y,' a shorthand for the Japanese word Yaoi which itself is a play on the Japanese phrase "yama nashi, ochi nashi, imi nashi", meaning "no climax, no point, no meaning".
Keiko Takemiya's manga serial Kaze to Ki no Uta, first published in 1976, was groundbreaking in its depictions of sexual relationships between men ( ) "I think everyone can accept … Thai society has changed in the last two years since Together With Me started," he says.
Max Nattapol Diloknawarit, who plays a protagonist in the popular series Together With Me, has also witnessed a change in Thai society since the boy's love sensation took hold. "Now young gay men can hold their hand in public and don't really need to hide their sexual identity," he says. He says the steady stream of boys' love television shows and feature films are triggering fundamental changes in Thai society.
This seems to be unthinkable 10 years ago," says Thai political scientist Poowin Bunyavejchewin. "I think male-male romance or male-male homoerotic relations has now become a new normal in Thai pop culture.
In recent years the genre known as 'boys' love' has spread fast across South-East Asia and is reaching cult status in some parts of the West, despite the anxieties of conservative parts of Thai society. Listen to the interview Why are Thailand's same-sex romantic dramas gaining a global following?