Bara clarification

That is precisely what I was looking for when I asked for a more grounded explanation of what bara is. I had always understood bara to be a body type, and that's how we handle most of our tags, but the current wiki certainly doesn't describe it as such, instead focusing on more nebulous and subjective concepts. I do have some questions, but I may just ask those in private since they pertain more to individual user behavior. Other than that, I can't see any standout issues with the draft, aside from just how broad the applicable body types apparently are. My personal "grievances" are more with the "bear" and "hunk" examples, so I might just need to handle my blacklisting by artist.

Hmm well, I always thought that Bara is the art made to gays and usually is made by gay people (it isn't always the case) most differences with Yaoi or muscular male, is basically that yaoi use more "beautiful, fine" traits with their males while bara use more "tough, raw, manly" traits with their males, for saying that yaoi usually the muscles looks more "soft" than in bara or the face is more "cute".

For other hand, while bara must have muscular males, it doesn't mean all muscular males belong to bara, you can have a muscular male in your work but that doesn't mean you made them for the gays and you wanted to show a badass big dude or just a strong dude, what I use to identify when a muscular male is just that, is when the artist don't make the male body "shine", like yeah he is muscular but the body isn't the main "protagonist" or the body just show he is big but the muscles aren't that defined, I think a better world would be eroticized.

Other thing would be bara artist... Bara usually is by and for gays, but there are works where the artist is a woman and still their works show a strong dude that looks like they were taken out from a bara, big strong body that is desplayed, tough traits, veiny body and in cases even hairy. In those cases I also apply what I say and if the artist make them to be seeing, then I think it also apply as bara.

But I can't deny that seeing some works with the "bara" tag, there are some that don't qualify as bara, sometimes is used more as the "gay" tag because it show a couple but how they doesn't look like your usual yaoi (beautiful) they use bara that is more for "manly" dudes.

So in a nutshel: Bara, for me, are works that show muscular male be alone or in group with tough/manly traits (being be muscular, tall, hairy, veiny, old, raw lines, etc.) that is target is usually the gays. It differ from Yaoi by keeping away from the soft/beauty trait that Yaoi usually use on their works.

From my point of view bara is the art of muscular and gay men but for example as the author of golden kamuy makes muscular men but the author never perceives this as bara because his work is focused on a normal public (normal in the sense that it is for everyone, there is no term that defines that the work is exclusive like the term bara) the characters are not gay either, and their work always focuses on humor but... this is contrasted of course in the artists who are dedicated to drawing homoerotic art of the characters of said work and of course with the bara style (this applies to any work since just as golden kamuy has its bara tone so do other series).

It is necessary to emphasize that possibly those artists who draw muscular men and their art is not directed to a gay public probably do not take into account the term bara because obviously their art is not directed to that public, that is why it is important to know which artist we call bara. I have seen a lot of "bara" art where twinks appear and things that are not even related to the tag, such as a frequent uploader of bara, I also offer my help to correct those uploads :)

Damian0358 said:

That's a pretty good first draft! A lot of good examples highlighting some of the core styles, and a good base on which we can give feedback on.

For instance, bodybuilders are mentioned, but you don't give a contrasting group of people for the rounder musculature. Online, what you typically see is bodybuilders are contrasted with athletic strongmen, with one example being this old image drawn by coelasquid. Visual descriptives are nice, but also having a group of men one could point to could also help in terms of bara identification. The aspect mentioned in the image about triangular/rectangular-shaped physiques is another that could be useful for distinction. Help, maybe we should just include this image as a possible reference, as other wikis also have similar image references linked too.

I actually like that reference. It clarifies some differences even I didn't fully notice beforehand. I think I could include it somewhere along the "proportions are rounder" comment somehow.
The wiki to use a visual edited example is Medium and Large breasts. I also like the "expand" feature used there, maybe I could use that to hide the supplementary info about the history and why bara is a thing in the first place (everything unrelated to actual tagging).

The aspect where there's crossover between BL/bishounen/yaoi and bara styles makes me wonder what edge cases there are between these two, and what could be done to resolve them - perhaps introducing another tag like biseinen? That could run into its own classification issues though, but it would add another tag users who dislike all these styles can easily blacklist rather than be forced to deal with them not being tagged at all. Could also give us an opportunity to rephrase that one sentence in large pectorals.

I'm in favor of both creating more specific tags for more prominent styles and using a combination of these tags together if the artwork is heavily inspired by two or more of them.
For example, some Korean artists under the bara tag could use a biseinen tag as well. The posts with both bara and bishounen tagged that were already mentioned are good examples that could apply too. That way people who prefer either can search for it, and those uninterested can blacklist it.

Most recent male focus-related wikis or edits could use a second look or some tweaking as it's mostly a one-man show by yours truly. I'm not the most confident person when it came to creating them, but someone had to do it.
If I'm assuming right, that phrase does sound biased and should be edited to exclude the Fujoshi bit and make it sound more neutral for sure.

Damian0358 said:

Online, what you typically see is bodybuilders are contrasted with athletic strongmen, with one example being this old image drawn by coelasquid. Visual descriptives are nice, but also having a group of men one could point to could also help in terms of bara identification.

Would something like this be a useful addition to the other 2 body types?

blindVigil said:

Other than that, I can't see any standout issues with the draft, aside from just how broad the applicable body types apparently are.

Given that the bare-bones algorithm for bara also requires that these body types adhere to certain stylistic elements, do you feel that this draft could be improved by adding more info in the 2nd section (or paragraph, I guess) about how it is drawn? In other words, the stylistic elements typical of bara that set it apart from the more commonly seen styles of drawing men?

BaraStuff19 said:

you can have a muscular male in your work but that doesn't mean you made them for the gays and you wanted to show a badass big dude or just a strong dude, what I use to identify when a muscular male is just that, is when the artist don't make the male body "shine", like yeah he is muscular but the body isn't the main "protagonist" or the body just show he is big but the muscles aren't that defined, I think a better world would be eroticized

This ties into the stylization I just mentioned. Based on my observations, this is similar to how some straight male artists choose to sexualize the femininity of a woman's body. With bara, it's about gay male artists sexualizing the masculinity of a man's body. It's not about the character being a person but rather an object of lust.

Admiral Pectoral said:

some Korean artists under the bara tag could use a biseinen tag as well. The posts with both bara and bishounen tagged that were already mentioned are good examples that could apply too.

If anybody is wondering why this is possible, the primary characteristic of bishounen and biseinen is facial structure.

Whisky_and_Roses said:

Given that the bare-bones algorithm for bara also requires that these body types adhere to certain stylistic elements, do you feel that this draft could be improved by adding more info in the 2nd section (or paragraph, I guess) about how it is drawn? In other words, the stylistic elements typical of bara that set it apart from the more commonly seen styles of drawing men?

I think I could elaborate a bit more on those parts. Mentioning pubic hair, navel hair, and maybe even bandaids as common masculine features could be useful. But I don't want it to be much longer than it already is lol.

This ties into the stylization I just mentioned. Based on my observations, this is similar to how some straight male artists choose to sexualize the femininity of a woman's body. With bara, it's about gay male artists sexualizing the masculinity of a man's body. It's not about the character being a person but rather an object of lust.

Yeah that sounds about right. That's usually the main distinction from your regular macho-man to one drawn in the bara style like Barastuff mentioned.

I'll post the finalized draft here soon.

Finally done with edits after taking into account the feedback. If there's no complaints about it then I guess this will be our new wiki moving forward. Thank you all, the discussion and comments here helped a lot.
I'm thinking of changing some of the "external links" on the wiki too. Suggestions are welcome.

I don't see any substantial issues with this wiki proposal at all! Really the only thing that comes to mind is the integration of that comparison image I had suggested, since it is just an excerpt of a larger image, and would be uncredited as it were right now. While ideally we would also pair that with a link to the original source bare minimum, that would probably look a bit awkward. Perhaps tossing it in External Links would be better, like "Source for muscular body comparison"? That might be a bit awkward too, but it is the best I can think of.

Also, given you're keeping an optional section on bara's history and meaning, it seems a bit weird that you removed the actual meaning part from the wiki, the "The word "bara" literally means "rose" in Japanese. The term originally comes from the magazine Barazoku, Japan's first gay men's magazine." sentences.

If I may propose an alternate version:

Even though I didn't actually mean to remove that part, I really like the added context and explanation for the name and that last extra comment. It should definitely help the curious to understand why this tag is a thing in the first place.

I'm OK with adding the reference as an external link for sourcing purposes. I'm not sure if the picture itself is uppable (otherwise I could have linked to the post) so that seems like the best we can do for now.

I liked the new wiki draft you made here. Gives enough context for someone who doesn't know much about bara and it's objective.

The wiki has been updated. Still looking into which external links can add the most value or info.

Might I ask, about the 'history & meaning' text, what sorts of things are the "LGBTQ issues" mentioned as being present in bara but absent in yaoi works?

Also, the contrast between the genres got me wondering, is there a female equivalent to bara? That is, female homosexual works with a female target audience.

Nell said:

Might I ask, about the 'history & meaning' text, what sorts of things are the "LGBTQ issues" mentioned as being present in bara but absent in yaoi works?

Also, the contrast between the genres got me wondering, is there a female equivalent to bara? That is, female homosexual works with a female target audience.

In Yaoi-themed works, usually the characters aren't actually presented as "gay" and they sometimes even acknowledge being gay as weird or unnatural with comments like "What am I thinking, I would never actually fall for a guy!", "I don't like men, aside from you *wink*) or stuff like constantly pointing out that they're both men. With plot scenarios that force the characters into a sexual situation instead of the characters actually looking for it.
Of course, I'm no BL expert. This is from my own experience from when I used to read some years ago and the frustration I felt I haven't checked out anything new in years, so this may sound overly stereotypical and outdated, but I've seen these tropes discussed as well, so they're definitely not uncommon.

For a gay person this can be exceedingly annoying as it's implicitly telling you that you're not normal, and you just end up unable to relate at all to the characters.
The topic of Yaoi fetishizing gay men is one that comes up often and is quite controversial I found an interesting one that touches upon lesbian content for a female gaze as well.

Of course all those themes are not completely absent in bara as well, but they're much more toned down and way less frequent, especially more recently.

Also, the contrast between the genres got me wondering, is there a female equivalent to bara? That is, female homosexual works with a female target audience.

I assume so, but I'm not educated enough about the topic to answer this.
I did however find several interesting results from googling it. Reddit, Is Yuri queer and A Blog.
The answer is probably always going to be "it depends", but you can draw your own conclusions after reading about it yourself.

Admiral_Pectoral said:

In Yaoi-themed works, usually the characters aren't actually presented as "gay" and they sometimes even acknowledge being gay as weird or unnatural with comments like "What am I thinking, I would never actually fall for a guy!", "I don't like men, aside from you *wink*) or stuff like constantly pointing out that they're both men. With plot scenarios that force the characters into a sexual situation instead of the characters actually looking for it.
Of course, I'm no BL expert. This is from my own experience from when I used to read some years ago and the frustration I felt I haven't checked out anything new in years, so this may sound overly stereotypical and outdated, but I've seen these tropes discussed as well, so they're definitely not uncommon.

I think this is mainly bad writing. I read a few stories like that sure.

But the most I've read they've gotten to sex right a way and no mention that they were both guys, this is odd! Of course most of the ones i read are shota stories and my favorite artist/writer is a gay man that goes by the name Mitsui Jun online. So that may have been the difference.

Nell said:

Also, the contrast between the genres got me wondering, is there a female equivalent to bara? That is, female homosexual works with a female target audience.

Digging this up from my memory, so sorry for not having any articles to refer you to.

The answer is a clear “Yesn’t”. :P

Historically, the term “yuri” (lily) was made up to be analogous to “bara” (rose) and was originally intended to be by lesbians for lesbians. Unlike bara, it attracted a significant male readership too, though.

Nowadays, a lot of yuri content can be categorized into either “more erotic and less emotional” or “more emotional and less erotic”. One might think that most female readers prefer the emotional/romantic kind and most male readers prefer the erotic kind, but that’s apparently not the case. Back in the 2000s, the Yuri Hime magazine had the emotional/romance-type content. The publisher also created the Yuri Hime Wildrose magazine with more erotic content, which was intended for a male target audience. However, reader surveys revealed Yuri Hime also having many male readers and Yuri Hime Wildrose also having many female readers… and many readers buying both anyway, so in the end the two were merged. I guess this means that the overlap between the female and male target audiences is too big to consider them separately and in the end there’s not much difference between the lesbian female and straight male gazes. This is reflected in authorship too, with male and female authors drawing yuri content of all kinds.

On the other hand, there is some niche content that’s actually “by lesbians for lesbians”, which is generally drawn in non-moe art styles and focuses on realistic themes, especially LGBT topics and the LGBT community in Japan. AFAIK, it has a low male readership and I think it’s usually lumped with the yuri genre as well.

To elaborate a bit further on yaoi, Patrick W. Galbraith, in his 2011 article Fujoshi: Fantasy Play and Transgressive Intimacy among “Rotten Girls" (doi:10.1086/660182), discussed how the term yaoi only really emerged in the late 70s after Barazoku had become a thing. To quote:

According to Hatsu Akiko, to whom the term is often attributed, “yaoi” emerged organically at the end of the 1970s among members of the Ravuri (Lovely) coterie. It was initially used as a self-ridiculing assessment of all types of fan fiction/art, not just male-male romance. In December 1979, Hatsu and a small group of others compiled a collection of stories centered on male-male romance, though their focus was more on the sex scenes than the stories per se. They titled this work Rappori: Yaoi tokushu ̄ go ̄ (Rappori: Yaoi special issue).

See Hatsu Akiko. 1993. “Yaoi no moto wa ‘share’ deshita: Hatsu ko ̄kai: Yaoi no tanjo ̄”[The origin of yaoi was a pun: First time in print: The birth of yaoi]. June 73:136.

Around this same time, going into the 1980s is when yaoi really kicked off, mainly in the doujinshi scene, thanks to the fan popularity of stuff like Captain Tsubasa (which is also where the term shotacon really started seeing use, to the point where if shotacon hadn't been coined earlier in the 80s, we'd probably be talking about tsubacon instead). Akiko Hori ended up discussing some of this in her 2013 article On the response (or lack thereof) of Japanese fans to criticism that yaoi is antigay discrimination. If yaoi hadn't become the leading trend after the decline of shonen-ai in the 1970s, bara would probably have become the mainstream term (and thus what we call bara would probably have gained a different term instead).

kittey said:

The answer is a clear “Yesn’t”. :P

Is that so? While I was aware of yuri's shared terminological history with bara, the typical understanding of yuri is that of it being the reverse of yaoi. The Wikipedia article does do a lot to discuss the female contributions and crossover with the shoujo spaces though, the survey results you mentioned are there too, and even the issue of yuri's relationship with lesbianism too, so it makes one wonder what brought about the belief that yuri was "gay female media traditionally made by heterosexual men to appeal to other heterosexual men" despite its apparent origin in female works (besides, of course, the widespread nature of the fetishization of lesbian relationships by hetero men, meaning folks just defaulted to believing it was the case).

Thank you all for the detailed responses!

Damian0358 said:

[...] it makes one wonder what brought about the belief that yuri was "gay female media traditionally made by heterosexual men to appeal to other heterosexual men" despite its apparent origin in female works (besides, of course, the widespread nature of the fetishization of lesbian relationships by hetero men, meaning folks just defaulted to believing it was the case).

I doubt there's really much more to it than that... unless there's a particular reason to think so?

Males are usually the largest audience for any given form of visual erotic media, so my assumption has always been that yuri was traditionally by & for women, but catering to the largest audience would mean that mainstream yuri is today estranged from its origins and produced primarily for men. So I figured the idea of a bara-equivalent breakaway genre made up of the 'old guard' of yuri might have precedent.