Because many asked for it.

Take your time, it is a shitload of text.


______



Why I like yuri


I remember , before the summer break of 2011, that I was a real fan of het(Straight pairings), I had various pairings I liked and I was a fan of it. But my interest went downwards even before the break.

Somewhere in February, I was really obsessed with NaruSaku, along with other het pairings, but NaruSaku was one of my most favorite pairings, although I failed to call it my OTP. Dunno why, but that’s not the thing I want to talk about yet.
So in February, I was really obsessed, I just started liking the pairing and it brought me into fandom. It stayed on top of my interests list, until May.

I became less obsessed with it, as if my obsession was over, and I regulary said that to other people. I tried to find my way back into the pairing, but I failed to do so. Not because I didn’t like the pairing, but because it wasn’t interesting for me anymore. Even though I wasn’t really that much of my interest, I still shipped it. Still do.

That was the hetero-side of the story so far until the summer break. The yuri part needs some backstory.

I always have been friends with boys, the only female friend I ever had was in other town, therefore I did not see her much. I never fell in love with a boy, I was a complete tomboy. Maybe that’s why I had this struggle:

When I was young, I had struggles with my sexuality. That young? - Yes. For certain reasons I’d rather not discuss(No, I have not been raped), I was kind of wondering if I was lesbian or heterosexual. I tried portraying myself as a lesbian, I even said to myself that I was a lesbian to test how I felt with it, but it didn’t feel quite right. After long pondering I came to the conclusion that I am heterosexual and have no feelings for girls whatsoever. It’s a conclusion that still is right. No, my liking for yuri does not mean I am turning lesbian, for people who are interested in that answer.

But this struggle had kind of influenced what I like and wanted to like. As in: “I don’t want to be lesbian!”. When I started watching anime and I saw scenes that indicated lesbian interaction, I tried to suppress the feeling to like it and made myself feel disgusted with it. I had this with NANA, when both Nanas shared a kiss. It was hard for me to not like it, and because the anime hinted more and more lesbian stuff, I dropped the anime. A thing I regret now since I really liked it. All to suppress the feeling to like a single kiss.
Of course, I had this with more anime, therefore I did not want to watch anything lesbian-related, probably since I always thought that liking lesbian interactions would make me a lesbian myself, which I wasn’t.

The start of liking yuri started when I entered the K-ON fandom somewhere mid-June, I was looking at fanart. Some were innocent, some were… A bit more, like Mio and Ritsu hugging eachother. I liked that, too, just as I liked their interactions in the anime. At episode 20 of K-ON!!(The second season), I felt a jolt of electricity going through me when they hugged eachother, mainly because I thought they were going to kiss, but I liked the hug, too. Maybe that’s where I started liking the pairing. Anyways, when I was looking at fanart, I started liking the pairing more, and I started to ship it. Mitsu officially became my first yuri pairing, but I still was more interested in het than Mitsu.

Why? Because my real obsession came when I watched CANAAN.

CANAAN, how can I describe it? The anime was so magical to me, and just 13 episodes changed what I liked in anime and such. And two characters especially interested me the most; Canaan and Maria. Those two characters changed what I liked.

Let’s just start with the beginning, remember that I was still more interested in hetero at this moment.

On April 30th, I had bought an anime magazine and I subscribed on it. The next time I got the magazine, a poster of CANAAN was at the front page, which I didn’t know, but ah well. When I looked at it, it looked like Canaan was a boy and the position was kind of hot, so I thought: “Oh, that could be a nice pairing,”. When I flipped the page to the index, a different poster of Canaan could be seen, and this time Canaan extremely small boobs were visible, so I was shocked to find out she had boobs. I flipped the page back and indeed saw a small line of breast, confirming she was a girl. I was like “Holy shit!” and went to the page where they reviewed the anime. When I looked back at the second picture, it gave me a whole different idea of the series than was told there. Either way, I was interested and watched it. And holy shit.

I have never, ever, cried that much about an ending of an anime, I have never felt so unsatisfied with an ending as then and I had never thought I could like a pairing within 13 episodes.

The first three episodes were fine, and I really liked it so far, but the angst began at end of episode 3. I was angsting two episodes long and was so happy when Canaan and Maria made up. I already started liking the pairing a bit, and somehow the idea I had in my head about lesbian pairings did not even appear in my head once when I watched CANAAN. Through 7 episodes, I started liking the pairing more and more, and it all exploded when I watched episode 8.

That magical episode is what really made me love this pairing, the episode was filled with pairing moments, from when Canaan woke up to the so-called confession by Maria. Especially the ‘confession’ is what made me love this pairing. She sounded so sincere, and Canaan cared so much for her, I couldn’t do anything else but to start fall in love with the pairing. When Canaan held Maria’s hand at the end of Maria’s ‘confession’, my heart fluttered, and I was in love with a pairing. At that moment, I was 100% sure CanaanxMaria was going to be canon. I just had to wait three episodes and they would become canon. I was already plotting on how they would become canon.

Unfortunately, they didn’t.

The ending disappointed me for many reasons, but the most disappointing reason was that they didn’t become canon ánd never saw eachother again. That is what truly upset me. I cried for weeks, and whenever I heard the opening song again, I started angsting over the ending again.

Somehow, the angsting is what made made me love this pairing even more.

Since I was so confident that they were going to become a canon pairing, I was truly upset when they didn’t. I didn’t understand certain choices made by both of them back then – which I do now – so that made my love for the pairing become even bigger and bigger. And after a while, I loved it so much that I could even call it my OTP, something I could never do with NS even with my obsession for it, and I called CxM my OTP after just two weeks. Unbelievable, now that I think about it, but it was true that I loved CxM more than I had ever loved NS.

And to believe that the doubt of liking yuri because of turning lesbian myself didn’t even appear once when watching CANAAN, unbelievable.

And that’s where the turn for shoujo-ai appeared.

I longed for romances between girls, good endings this time for both girls, I started looking for more shoujo-ai, and het slowly faded to the background. To me, shoujo-ai was far cuter than het, just the interaction between two girls made my heart flutter. And after a while, I understood what made het boring for me, I understood why I liked yuri more.

Angst.

Het is considered so… Normal, so normal that it became boring after a while, it had no psychological angst like being accepted in society, unlike yaoi and yuri, which aren’t always accepted. That’s what made it not boring at all, aside from the fluff bomb, that was also a factor. Mid-August, I was truly a shoujo-ai fan by heart.

But that was just shoujo-ai, non –explicit, as for the yuri part…

When I found confidence to actually look at shoujo-ai, I still had those feelings I had at the beginning about yuri, but now only for the explicit parts. I was afraid, afraid that it was disgusting and would really make me a lesbian. But out of curiosity, I tried a CxM lemon.

Something I will never regret.

Aside that it was very hot, it was also really cute, mainly because it still included my OTP. But I really liked the smexy parts, so I tried more yuri lemons, completely forgetting the frightens of being a lesbian myself. Because at the end;

I was still heterosexual.

No change happened when I was with girls myself and I didn’t long for girls or something, I stayed the same, and I still found heterosexual bits in myself. Therefore completely confirming that I will not become a lesbian when I like yuri. And then I went loose.

When I confirmed that, I started liking yuri with all my heart, from the fluffy to the explicit bits, I liked it all, especially the angst in shoujo-ai stories. Within no-time, I became fully obsessed, and het was fully erased out of my system, I simply didn’t like it anymore. And I don’t mind that, because I can say with all pride that yuri is far better than het, in my opinion of course.


Maybe something funny to know is that I was a yaoi fag when I was 11, and only yaoi, not shounen-ai. Give me gaysmex, not gay fluff, fluff is only for lesbians. :3
But I could’ve never grown out into a shounen-ai fan, I disliked fluff between gay men, so if I went for yaoi instead of yuri, I would’ve never liked the shounen-ai bits.



______



That was the story on how I started liking yuri and growing out into a full yuri fag, I hope this finally ends some questions about it, although I do not mind questions. If there are more, feel free to ask.