One of the hardest parts about writing my 2008 Participations article on boys’ love manga fans was leaving out all the rich qualitative data that I received in my open-ended questions. Since the article is now long since published, and other scholars are continuing to research BL audiences, I thought it might be useful to present the qualitative data I gathered in case other scholars would like to use it in any way — perhaps for historical comparison. This data was collected from the 2005 English-language survey of 478 BL readers reported in my article. The answers are to two open-ended questions on the survey:
16. Any other reasons why you like boy’s love manga? If not, please go ahead to the next page. WhyILikeBL
43. Is there anything else you want to say about boy’s love manga, its fans, or why you like it? OtherBLComments
I hope that you’ll find the comments interesting! Please note that although I did not change any spelling or punctuation in the comments, I did in a few places eliminate information that could have identified the commenter, and those edits are noted with [BRACKETS AND ALL CAPS].
References:
Dru Pagliassotti, Reading Boys’ Love in the West. Participations, 5(2). November 2008.