Amporn Jirattikorn
Asian Studies Review, 2025
Abstract: The article explores Japanese fandom of Thai boys’ love (BL) TV dramas, a genre that depicts homoerotic relationships between male characters. Thai BL has gained significant popularity among Japanese viewers in recent years, particularly among middle-aged women. Focusing on this demographic, the article examines how these fans engage with Thai BL to navigate age-related social norms, resist ageism, and reclaim their lost youth and desires. Central to the appeal of Thai BL is the concept of alternative civility, which the article introduces as a framework for understanding how gender, age, and emotion are negotiated through media. While traditional civility in Japan emphasises emotional restraint, conformity, and moral discipline, alternative civility allows for affect, multiplicity, and emotional expression without judgement. Thai BL offers a vision of love and identity that transcends normative constraints, depicting queer relationships not as marginal or transgressive, but as ordinary and celebrated. This resonates deeply with middle-aged Japanese women, who find in Thai BL a liberating space to explore non-normative attachments and ageing identities. Their engagement also takes the form of maternal care, expressed through nurturing and emotionally invested responses that reflect a negotiation of ageing and emotional fulfilment often overlooked in everyday life.
About the author: Amporn Jirattikorn was a HYI Visiting Scholar from 2022-23.