Thanks for your thoughts. I actually have Brother (because I heard it was pretty explicit) so that is interesting to hear.

I need to run all my options as far as self-publishing or going through a publishing company is concerned. Luckily, I’ve got plenty of time to sort it all out.

Then you should probably be O.K.

Good luck with your work — when it’s complete, give us a shout-out over here.

Cheers,

Alex

As I understand it, this is a Japanese legal requirement — that, in Japan, you cannot show uncovered genitalia. When you see yaoi here in the U.S. with penises that have been obscured or even not drawn at all, this is the reason. Now, from what I’ve seen, usually the letter of the law is followed, but not the spirit. For example, you will often see drawn penises that leave nothing to the imagination, but will have a very thin, black line crossing it — technically obscuring it and thus keeping the work in legal compliance.

In the United States, there is no problem with showing adult genitalia — it falls under First Amendment protection — so long as the work is not “obscene”, which in the U.S. means that it would fail the Miller Test. For the most part, in this day and age in the U.S., so long as all your characters are adult, you don’t really have to worry too much about what you can show. Go take a look at the work of Class Comics to get an idea what gay comics publishers in Canada can get away with – and as I mentioned before, things seem to be more restrictive there.

Where you need to be careful — or at the very least aware — is if the characters you draw engaging in sexual activity are minors, and minors is defined as anyone under the age of 18. You can have two 18-year-olds do whatever you want. Throw in a 17-year-old and you could face prosecution for creating or “pandering” child pornography.

Whether cartoons and comics where no real children were ever involved should be considered child pornography is a subject of much debate. There are continued attempts on the part of Congress to make drawings of minors engaging in sexual activity illegal. The Supreme Court continues to act as the voice of reason* (PDF), but I would be remiss if I gave you the impression that creating such stories carries no risk. For a good example of the risks involved take a look at How To Keep Manga Fans Out Of Jail.

So the short answer (from my non-laywer, layman’s opinion — continue doing your own due diligence!)? So long as minors aren’t depicted, there are virtually no limits to what you can show. It is only if you want to show minors engaging in sexual activity that you are exposed to serious risk — and then, according to the current view of the Supreme Court, only if the material could be judged as “obscene” and/or is believed or promoted as actual child pornography.

Hope this helps! And good luck with your work!

Alex

* UNITED STATES v. WILLIAMS — this decision reflects the most current legal take on the relationship between comics and child pornography here in the U.S. It strikes down a challenge by the Eleventh Circuit to the PROTECT Act. The PROTECT Act makes it illegal to “pander” child pornography, whether or not any actual children are involved. The Supreme Court overruled the Eleventh Circuit and thus most of this decision by the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the PROTECT Act. You have to dig a fair amount to find the sanity. There is this line that offers some hope:

This was invalid, we explained, because the child-protection rationale for speech restriction does not apply to materials produced without children.

but it’s not until nearly the very end that we get this clarification:

Finally, the dissent accuses us of silently overruling our prior decisions in Ferber and Free Speech Coalition. See post, at 12. According to the dissent, Congress has made an end-run around the First Amendment’s protection of virtual child pornography by prohibiting proposals to transact in such images rather than prohibiting the images themselves. But an offer to provide or request to receive virtual child pornography is not prohibited by the statute. A crime is committed only when the speaker believes or intends the listener to believe that the subject of the proposed transaction depicts real children. It is simply not true that this means “a protected category of expression [will] inevitably be suppressed,” post, at 13. Simulated child pornography will be as available as ever, so long as it is offered and sought as such, and not as real child pornography.

If you have an interest in law or in what the limits are in terms of sexual depictions in comics, you will find the decision as written by Justice Scalia to be actually quite readable (even downright snarky in some places) and includes a handy legislative grammar lesson involving “operative verbs”. I actually would recommend folks giving it a read. Thought-provoking stuff.

On the topic of varying levels of censorship, it depends on the artist, and the Japanese/English publishers. Some artists choose not to draw genitalia, and some choose to draw it, but censor it themselves. Sometimes, the Japanese publisher censors it, but I think the only english publisher that censors this, is June. Be Beautiful has only censored one of their works due to a small Shota-ish scene, not the private parts.

An interesting thing I learned from DramaQueen, is that the Japanese version of their flagship title, “Brother” is censored. However, DramaQueen requested the original uncensored art from the publisher, and that’s why Brother is the most explicit Yaoi book in English. A US publisher actually wanted to release a more explicit version of Brother, rather than have it toned down, so think about that.

If you want to publish your own Yaoi graphic novel in english, you can be as explicit as you want because most OEL Yaoi is, at most times, even more graphic than Japanese Yaoi.

You can approach Yaoi Press, which specializes in Global Yaoi, they won’t give you complete artistic freedom, though. Check their website http://yaoipress.com/info.htm for their requirements for submissions. Tokyopop will publish tame BL. Yaoi House, based in Britain, also accepts English manuscripts, go to their website https://www.yaoihousebooks.com/site/submit.php for more info).

Hope this helped,

Oliver

Originally Posted By Alex WoolfsonWell, that’s certainly cool. One question, though. From what I’ve gathered from your blog, you’re based in Canada, right? (Think I read that somewhere…) Now, I’ve heard that there are major restrictions on certain kinds of “explicit” yaoi being allowed across those borders — in particular, the titles that are contained in Adult Previews (which I believe DramaQueen and 801 have to list in, at least sometimes). Have you ever talked to your comic book retailer about this? Would you be willing to talk to your comic book retailer about this?

I’d love to hear about how real a restriction this is — particularly because there is a risk that Yaoi 911™: Firsts will be exiled to Previews Adult should I distribute with Diamond…

Speaking of restrictions, I have been curious for some time about the various levels of graphicness (if that’s a word) of yaoi. Some titles show detail, some have the infamous little white dots over certain parts and other have the more graphic “bits” covered in what I like to call snow. Is this a restriction required for the US market or is this how it is published in Japan? If I were to publish my own yaoi graphic novel in the US, would I be limited by what I can show? Is there information somewhere that would point me in the right direction as to what is ok to draw/include and what is not?

Thank you, Oliver — that’s good information. So it seems like the Adult Previews stuff can get through — it just take a lot longer. Good to know.

And you could do worse than sticking with June, but you’d still be missing some nice titles, like the actually mature Seduce Me After the Show by Est Em…

Thanks again for checking that out!

I found out at my comic store today that the reason why Previews Adult titles are late is because they are detained at the US/Canada border. They said that it takes longer mainly because it is a comic shop issue (Maybe there’s less trust for comic shops?). What’s weird is, another comic shop just got a huge shipment of new Yaoi that should have been in stores two months ago! Obviously, there’s more strict regulations on Adult Previews stuff. Anyways, all the 18+ June titles are always on time. Maybe I should just stick to June-only titles?

I do agree with your concerns of economic censorship. We do have to protect those indie minded store owners who are willing to shelve books of all kind and manner. If they are aware of what the books contain, they will know where to shelve them.

I think it is balancing these two concerns — protecting the retailer and avoiding economic censorship — that presents the greatest challenge when it comes to age-ratings and comics meant for adults. We can protect the retailer by letting them know where an adult title should be shelved, but we have to do it in a way that doesn’t exile truly adult material from the mainstream — and a lot of that responsibility falls on the shoulders of the distributor and retailer.

The relationship has to be symbiotic here — the publishers protect the retailers by giving honest assessments and warnings about the content within a comic and the distributors/retailers need to reward that honesty by still buying and promoting these works. The truth is, it’s tempting to just slap on a “For Mature Audiences” on my book and be done with it — Vertigo titles use this description and certainly are not exiled in any way. But if there is frank sexuality inside, is that really protecting the retailer? Wouldn’t it be better for the retailer to know for sure whether a book is ok for late teens or really is just for adults?

As a publisher I want to and will protect the retailers interested in selling my books. I just don’t want to be punished for it. If we want to create a literary culture that allows for books for adults and have age-ratings to guide buyers and consumers, then distributors and publishers need to commit to promoting 18-and-over books. And that’s how we can avoid the mistakes of the film and gaming industries.

Insofar as the big boxes carrying Yaoi, Yuri or Josei? It’s a bit of a lose win situation. It will be a long time before we see the mainstream retailers feeling comfortable with sexuality of any kind really.

I wonder how true this is. Don’t get me wrong — I’m a big believer in the independent bookstore — but it certainly seems to me that the big boxes are willing to have lots of books with sexuality. (Everything from “The Joy of Sex” to whole gay fiction sections can be found at Barnes & Noble, yes? And I bought my first Robot at Borders — and that was shrink-wrapped and had a big “Parental Advisory – Explicit Content” sticker on it.) So I think there definitely is willingness on their part to stock and promote this kind of material.

Now would they have been willing to take a chance on Robot if they had to find it in a distributor catalog that consisted primarily of pornography? Probably not. The context a work is presented in is important. That’s why creators are hesitant to have their non-pornographic work appear in Previews Adult — and why it’s in the publishers interest not to label their mature works “18+”, even if it would be safer for the retailer for them to do so.

This makes me think of a conversation I had with my high school aged son about kids coming out in school. He says there is still some prejudice there but it’s probably nowhere near what took place in my high school days. I’m glad it’s getting a little easier. Or at least it seems that way.

I think things are getting easier for gay kids, which gives me hope for the safety and well-being of all people in the world who face discrimination. And I personally believe that media plays a large role in this transformation. From Philadelphia to Ellen to Will and Grace to Brothers and Sisters, folks are exposed to the lives of gay people in a way that slowly but surely diffuses prejudice. And I believe a big driver for the acceptance of these kinds of representations in mainstream media was the success of shows that were specifically meant for adults, such as Six Feet Under and The Wire, pushing the envelope.

When I was a gay kid just coming out, I remember attending a speech by an openly gay Boston city councilperson called “Coming Out, Creating Change.” One of his main points is that “Gays have nothing to fear from the truth!” — meaning that it was disinformation about who we really were that promoted hate and prejudice and that the more honestly and clearly the world could see us, the better off we’d all be. The bad guys want to keep the truth in the dark — the main job of the good guys is to be there to shine a light on it.

Art and literature for adults can enjoy a special freedom to do just that. But only if we’re willing to let it see the light of day…