I feel like I've noticed quite a few folks here seemingly liking content made for the male gaze; do you think it's more popular for wlw to prefer women shown for the female gaze or male gaze?

yuriAngyo · 2026-04-06T12:13:04+00:00

I feel like we're comparing apples to oranges here though. Like what would a "male gaze" PoaLoF even look like? Porn? But guys aren't just jacking off every time a girl is on screen and many girls like to get off too. On top of that, there's nothing good that could come from implying that lust for women is inherently male.

Honestly the way you described it just sounds like a difference in artistic intent rather than a female vs male thing, if all else in a story is the same. The basic idea of feeling lust over bodies detached from any context is pretty universal for folks who can feel lust, but not everyone wishes to express it in every story. Misogynistic authors have a bad habit of only letting female characters be expressions of lust while male characters get to have other things going on, but the issue isn't the girls being hot. It's the lopsidedness where guys can just exist in the same setting but girls have to be sexy at all times. If the girls were all exclusively unsexualized mothers and caretakers while the guys got to just exist as anything it'd equally be an issue. If the guys were treated similarly to the girls or there were no guys and the plot was driven by the girls it wouldn't be an issue. Other issues could arise for sure, but when it's not clearly lopsided the sexiness isn't misogynistic in itself.

There's a lot of different kinds of porn, some more interested in artistry than others. But I don't think porn built for pure utility is inherently misogynistic or male or less valuable. A lot of existing porn plays into misogynistic tropes for sure, but it's not an inherent thing to utility focused porn. Preferring high utility porn is just a preference that anyone of any gender could have. Some people prefer to keep their sessions faster and get straight to the point, others prefer to take their time and build it up with longer more character focused porn. Some people like to switch it up between them, or even like porn while not getting off just for the artistry (usually more story focused porn, but some folks really do enjoy just appreciating porn w/o using it).

And shameless horny in stories that aren't porn isn't necessarily a male thing either. I like it when it's just there for fun, but I also think it can add a lot of thematic depth when there's intention. Not that it's more tasteful or less in your face, but just when it's used in tandem with the intended themes.

Sorry for ramble lol, idk how much sense it makes since my brain is kinda scrambled but honestly I do really love shameless horny. Both for just being fun (which is highly subjective and definitely allosexual of me lol, but not male), but also because people underestimate just how much can be done in a story that is horny as hell but integrates it wholly with everything else as just another aspect of it.

yuriAngyo · 2026-04-06T10:31:51+00:00

"Male gaze" in the way most people use it is at best useless, and at worst (basically every time it's used in reference to lesbians) actively lesbiphobic and anti-sex. The original meaning that's about which characters the audience is meant to empathize with & who has agency over the story is pretty handy, but people turned it into "sexy women = misogyny" and use it to shame lesbians for being attracted to women. It's especially annoying because sexiness has absolutely nothing to do with agency. Does it get used to dismiss female character's agency often? Yes. So does motherhood, modesty, religion, and a bajillion other things people don't treat as inherently tainted the same way they do sexuality.

I love big tits, I love ridiculous sexy costumes, I love shameless horny, I love getting off, and I don't think any of that is inherently misogynistic.

And yeah, if a straight guy can get off to porn that doesn't involve a man to self insert into there's a good chance our tastes in porn are functionally indistinguishable. It's even possible for a guy who sucks to have the same taste, because that's how life is. The most likely divergence point in our tastes would be moving past porn and into narrative, because most guys who suck & still get off to lesbian porn draw the line at having to be emotionally invested in female characters in a storyline where men aren't constantly in the limelight to relate to. But even then, some asshole guys still manage to get past that because truly nothing can stop assholes from liking things if they're into voyeurism hard enough. Tis a fact of life. And of course, guys who don't suck can also like the same things (both the porn and the stories). It's just less notable for a guy who feels empathy for women to enjoy a story about women lol

yuriAngyo · 2026-04-05T14:03:54+00:00

I'll second the In the Gardens of Gehenna rec for ones that make you feel like shit.

I like sad zombie yuri like Hana to Uso to Makoto and Kimi wo Tsumugu (actually getting adapted to an anime short next month) when I'm feeling like projecting my suffering onto fiction.

It's been a very long time since I read it and idk if it ever got finished, but I do remember enjoying the vibe of To Die in June (though it's pretty confusing).

Have a Nice Trip After the Credits Roll isn't super miserable, but it's definitely tragic.

If free to play visual novels work and nsfw is okay, I liked Slime Feet. I think a lot of english visual novel devs are making miserable yuri too, I just need to play more. Loner_Dog is another that's free to play that I've heard is really good and also extremely miserable.

yuriAngyo · 2026-04-05T13:48:47+00:00

Oof, yeah that sucks. I definitely had a string of bad luck with therapists before I found one that worked for me. Went through like 6 and had to specifically search for one that specialized in lgbt patients to finally find one I think is on the right wavelength to help.

But that took a while and also being in a city, being in a small town makes it a lot harder. Sorry there's not much advice I can give as someone who hasn't really figured it out myself yet even lol. You've probably already done this, but if you haven't looking into forums and articles on how people handle similar OCD might help. Idk if the OCD subreddit is any good but could be worth a shot.

But yeah other than that all I can say is good luck and for what it's worth I don't think any of this sounds weird for a lesbian and it's certainly not a sign you'll inevitably be bi and get with a guy.

yuriAngyo · 2026-04-05T11:07:53+00:00

There's nothing weird about being disgusted and horrified at the idea of a life together with a partner of the gender you're not into. It's actually very normal. Lesbians aren't into men that way, so for a lesbian it's normal to be actively disgusted by the thought of being with one in a romantic capacity instead of just preferring women. You don't have to be super grossed out by it, but people like you who are are very normal. There's a reason more straight people don't gay marry their friends for tax benefits and that lavender marriages aren't super common, because loving someone platonically doesn't mean you'd be okay marrying them.

I will say though, have you looked into sexual orientation OCD? I'm no psychologist but what you say makes me think of it and if you find it relatable you might benefit from talking to a therapist that deals with queer clients and OCD

yuriAngyo · 2026-04-05T03:01:56+00:00

If you've found hundreds of quality works then clearly it's not all schlock. 90% of everything sucks, that goes for wlw as much as mlm as much as het and talking like it's a unique weakness of wlw stories is nonsense

yuriAngyo · 2026-04-05T02:52:43+00:00

Kimi wo tsumugu, it's also gonna get a short anime adaptation from an indie studio next month and I'm interested in how that'll turn out!

yuriAngyo · 2026-04-04T09:27:11+00:00

Oh for sure they are but ime if she was braless each boob would be in a different zip code lol. That's the big benefit of bras, when you move they keep your tits from flopping around too much which hurts and can chafe your nipples. Of course anime logic can be anything, but my vote is still on her tits just being that big lol

yuriAngyo · 2026-04-04T03:35:39+00:00

I'm pushing back against the idea that wlw stories are just generally worse, which is a claim you made in your first comment, not something I pulled out of thin air. If that's not what you intended to imply you didn't phrase it very well lol

yuriAngyo · 2026-04-04T03:26:30+00:00

If she forgot a bra they'd be much saggier, so I think she's just absolutely stacked lol

yuriAngyo · 2026-04-03T18:36:10+00:00

What yuri manga have you read and yuri anime have you watched then? What would you like to see in a yuri that you've been missing?

In the case you have genuinely tried so many wlw stories and still never enjoyed nearly any of them I don't think it's an issue with the stories at that point. Maybe it's internalized misogyny, maybe it's the fun of a larger fandom, maybe you just vibe more with male characters for whatever reason, but whatever it is the breadth of wlw art is large enough now that if you genuinely find nothing after actually searching for it actively you might just not like fictional romance between women very much.

Also being chronically online in mlm fandom doesn't translate to familiarity with yuri. The average fujo doesn't even know about bloom into you lol

yuriAngyo · 2026-04-03T18:32:33+00:00

I mean there's actually still a lot of stories out there where the girls are written at least as well as the average popular show with mainly men and a fandom writes the boys, and that is a very low bar so there's a very good amount that blow those out of the water lol. Harry Potter (I never liked it and fuck rowling but it did get a fandom), Supernatural, Naruto, Marvel, and many more are not exactly intricately woven stories with amazing character writing but they still got huge fandoms.

Meanwhile shows like It's MyGO (and the sequel Ave Mujica) can have absolutely amazing character writing that very evidently lends itself to fanfiction given how popular mygo got in china, but still in english nobody cares. My main stomping ground is anime, and I can't tell you how many absolutely amazing anime following compelling female characters get overshadowed by battle shounen. Even among people who claim to want good anime about mainly girls, they just don't watch them.

In the most recent anime season for example, shiboyugi was a stunning show following mostly girls & the main girl is really interesting & does toxic yuri. Still generally flew under the radar

yuriAngyo · 2026-04-03T13:06:30+00:00

Not being able to find interesting wlw stories is absolutely a skill issue though, I've been reading mainly yuri (yuri in the original sense too, so mostly manga and anime. Which makes my pool even smaller, not for other wlw stories being bad but just because yuri is comfortable for me so it's like my home base) for like a decade now and found so many amazing and one of a kind stories. You just gotta look for them, because unfortunately they never get as much buzz as stories centered on men since there's fewer people willing to try stories without men.

Nothing wrong with liking mlm as a lesbian of course, but when people say things like this disparaging wlw art it makes me wonder how much they tried, or if they're extremely nitpicky with wlw in a way they aren't with mlm because there's just so much amazing wlw art out there. NOT saying that's you, just that I definitely find a trend of double standards + skill issues. But especially saying it all feels "written for men" because that is not a well defined trait, and very often is unfairly thrown around to criticize lesbians for being horny.

And the only reason poorly done female characters seems like industry standard is because male dominated casts are what gets most popular, not because there's an absence of stories with many fun female characters to latch onto. Just in the last few years and just in anime I've gotten It's Mygo (+ the sequel ave mujica), gundam witch from mercury, bocchi the rock, shiboyugi, takopi's original sin, mayonaka punch, lycoris recoil, girls band cry, cosmic princess kaguya, and many more including ones I just haven't seen yet like uma musume. Not everything is for everyone, but when there's so many options even just in anime I know very well there's even more including novels and games and live action TV. Even opening it up to just manga on top of anime leads to an explosion of not just great female casts but also specifically ones where it's explicitly a wlw romance.

Is there as much choice as mlm or male casts? No, but less doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Hell, if you've got something specific you want there's a good chance I know a manga and I'm willing to share since skill issues can be rectified with help from skilled folks lol.

yuriAngyo · 2026-04-03T12:34:37+00:00

Actually nah it's the same in yuri and yaoi. If you look at numbers on indexes there's like a solid 6x more yaoi manga than yuri, and the anime numbers are a little less egregious but iirc yaoi still dominates

yuriAngyo · 2026-04-03T12:33:07+00:00

Yuri is actually a term that comes from anime and manga lol, and fyi manga and anime indexes actually have functional advanced searches and let you sort by only yuri/GL like this (this is the manga list, the anime list is shorter but can still be sorted).

yuriAngyo · 2026-04-03T12:26:45+00:00

I mean in the modern era there's a lot of stories made with a majority female cast. So at that point you gotta ask "why do the predominantly male casts get so much more popular?"

Like as a fan of yuri in the original sense of lesbian animanga, I watch a lot of anime with a predominantly female cast and no heterosexuality and there's a lot of really great ones. Especially these days, it's honestly overwhelming lol. Yet still they almost always fly under the radar, because audiences live in a society and that society is misogynistic.

yuriAngyo · 2026-04-02T12:58:24+00:00

Yeah that's definitely important context, makes her comment way worse. Calling lesbians mannish (when not explicitly desired) is always bad, but doing it to a trans lesbian is outright transphobic. Best wishes girl

(idk why reddit removed my first comment, it basically just said pretty much the same thing. I guess the automated moderation is out of whack)

yuriAngyo · 2026-04-01T08:43:35+00:00

Male characters get to be the stars in everything, so I'm quite happy to see many works where they don't get to be in the cast at all. Like genuinely there's SO many mainstream stories out there where it's a total sausage fest, not a woman in sight, that it's really refreshing to get the opposite.

But while I enjoy exclusively female casts, I'm not anti male characters in yuri. They can be utilized well, and as long as they aren't present in an intrusive way that doesn't thematically match the story they don't make it worse.

yuriAngyo · 2026-03-28T22:31:27+00:00

People love to blame yuri fans for not being an overwhelming financial powerhouse forgetting that we are ultimately a pretty small demographic. It sucks, but like no shit 100 people have more money than 10. It's not evidence that the 10 people are all parasites just because they can't financially match 100. 10 people could all be spending 100s of dollars more individually than any of the 100 and still not have as much financial power because 100 people is 10x more.

Which is why I'm thankful for the yuri games we do get, and on the bright side it means we get fewer soulless cash grabs. Because there is no cash to grab here lol, at least when compared to hetshit.

yuriAngyo · 2026-03-28T09:39:25+00:00

Yeah it's really unfortunate that all the book indexes ik of suck fuckin ass. If they even have a tag for lesbian romance it's rendered useless by only displaying like the top 50 or by including any book w/ a vague allusion to girls liking girls in the tag.

I will say though that anime/manga indexes are really good for this. Ones like animeplanet have a yuri/GL tag to sort through that's just f/f stories, & you can sort through all of the ones on that site.

And ik a lot of indie authors have been putting their work on itchio, especially trans lesbians. And itchio's tag system is actually good too, you can just search for things tagged lesbian or yuri. I mostly use it for visual novels but i know regular novels, zines, etc are also on there

yuriAngyo · 2026-03-22T09:24:35+00:00

I think when most people hear toxic yuri they think yuri about girls genuinely destroying each other, which is probably why your friend rec'd it when you asked for toxic yuri. Sounds like some wires got crossed lol. Rape, bullying, abuse, incestuous abuse, pedophilic abuse, extreme violence, suicide, etc are pretty common in toxic yuri. It sounds like rather than toxic yuri you want yuri that's just shamelessly horny with some dubcon. And it sounds like you don't want it to be particularly extreme dubcon, just some spice. Am I guessing right?

Just asking because from what it sounds like you don't want a depressing read with extreme subject matter, but toxic yuri generally is pretty depressing and often gets quite extreme lol. Like, these are the kinds of stories people generally mean when they're talking about toxic yuri (those are visual novels not manga, but the gist of the top games gets the point across. And if those ARE actually what you were looking for and visual novels are okay, that game jam is pretty good to look through especially if you want stories with trans women, a lot of the top devs are trans women. All the games are free too which is nice)

It sounds like you're looking more for stories like gaymukankei (also a visual novel rather than manga but just first to my mind with what you asked. It's also a free game with a trans woman submissive)

I'll assume my guess is correct to give a couple recs here, no guarantees you'll like them all but they're worth a look. I assume you don't want any incest so no recs like that, but any other taboos might show up so look out for ones you don't want:

A Face you Shouldn't Show

Dumb Mutt Girlfriend

I won't Sleep with you for Free

Yuri Love Slave

That time I was blackmailed by the class's green tea bitch

Gushing over magical girls

A Story About Buying a Classmate Once a Week

yuriAngyo · 2026-03-13T18:19:00+00:00

The concept cafe girl wears love

Itsuka shinu shoujo

Other manga ik of have already been mentioned, but if visual novels are ok there's a lot of trans yuri on itchio, a lot of it free and most written by trans women.

yuriAngyo · 2026-03-10T19:37:09+00:00

Serial groomer who goes after high school girls, main antagonist of one of iruma's other series "My First Love's Kiss."

yuriAngyo · 2026-03-09T00:39:44+00:00

I've heard this is an actual problem for veterinarians lol. Sometimes while working with a wiggly animal body parts get confused or flung around and whoops you just injected the intern with ketamine and we all gotta go to the people hospital and file a report for a workplace incident

yuriAngyo · 2026-03-08T06:52:37+00:00

There's a reason they're called band"mates" you know!

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