Things I Think About: The danmei genre and why its particular take on male/male romance is so appealing to women

I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about fictional men this year. And watching them, in a mostly not creepy way. I’ve gone from a gal without celebrity crushes to a gal who follows C-drama actors on Instagram like a duck taking to water all because of a little drama on Netflix called The Untamed. I came upon it by accident, stopped in my scroll by an artist’s illustrative rendering of the main characters from a book/donghua called Heaven Official’s Blessing. I remember thinking this is very beautiful, whatever it is while I watched the donghua on Netflix. I Googled the author of the book the drama is based on and found this surprisingly glowing article from Vox. When the Netflix algorithm decided I’d be best served by watching The Untamed, a live-action drama by the same author next, I pressed play…and fell in love with the revelatory genre of danmei. Best described as a Chinese genre featuring two men falling in love amidst plot structures up to their eyeballs, danmei is comparable to Asia’s BL or Japan’s yaoi.

After watching The Untamed multiple times, I wanted to read the book, which was published online, like most of the genre, on jjwxc. Lucky for me, in 2021, a small press here in the US called Seven Seas Entertainment began to dedicate itself to printing all the top danmei novels in their official English translations. A rabbit hole was officially formed, and I dove in. Since then, I’ve been contemplating its hold on me. And not just on me, but everyone in its massive global fandom. I had questions. What was this captivating genre? Why was it different from the other queer love stories I enjoyed by American and English authors? Answering this last question has been something of a project for me these past several months, and as a writer, I can’t help looking at it from the perspective of someone desperate to understand both the compelling nature of male/male romance, and why the heck the stories themselves are so good.

It should be noted, I’m not a shipper. I’ve never in my life wished for two band members or friends or costars to get together. I may lack imagination but, in my opinion, who cares? I’d terribly annoyed if Mike Wheeler suddenly decided to dump Eleven for Will Byers. Not for any reason other than it would be so out of character. But the world of fan art disagrees. Whether a straight ship or a queer ship, it means little to me. Still, in my foray into danmei fandoms, I’ve noticed something that does spark my curiosity. Many female humans are obsessed with gay boys in love. And not in a that’s cute way that anyone would be with anyone in love, but in the way that has them buying merch at BTS levels, cosplaying all over the world, and running successful and surprisingly entertaining YouTube channels devoted to a single danmei author (Kicktor, I’m looking at you). I needed to better understand, because I was just as obsessed as everyone else. And still am. And it turns out the answers to both, why are these love stories so compelling and why are the plots so good, are terribly simple.

Plotwise, things are constructed from often speculative or historical tropes and in gorgeous settings and these writers are not just famous for creating pretty boys in slow burns. These women (danmei is overwhelmingly written by women) are not messing around and provide lushly layered stories that contain positively cinematic twists and turns. Using structures less common in the west but very common, like the four-act, in Asian literature and performance, these stories stand out from our Western heroes’ journeys by featuring a combination of action and character development at the heart of the stories, using twists and revelations as climaxes. And the magic lies here: to this structure, they add fantastic conflict. This is what, as a K and C-drama lover, I think Asia does so well—crafting stories in four acts, layering twist after satisfying twist, while pulling in conflict in a way that we Westerners are very familiar with.

The first time I finished The Untamed, I sat there stunned and thought about how I’d never experienced a plot like that. I was giddy over the way it all unfolded. Once I read the book the live action drama is based on (The Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation by Mo Xiang Tong Xiu), I realized I’d finally found a genre and type of storytelling that I loved. It’s led not just to my exploration of danmei, but a broad study of Asian literature and film that’s being helped along by my status as an MFA student in Creative Writing. It’s the plots, guys, the plots. I can’t express how satisfying they are.

Impossible to separate from the lush plots are the love stories, which when I first started to poke around on internet forums, I noticed involve rabid levels of obsession. And not just among romance readers. And as an all-genre reader myself, including romance, I had to admit I’d never been quite so captivated by male/male love stories, either (excepting Alexis Hall’s books, which iykyk). So, who are these fictional men and why do I love them beyond reason? Here’s the simple answer. In a male/male or female/female romance, the playing field is level. Any remotely tricky societal power dynamics and patriarchal constructs that play out in female/male romantic relationships are blissfully absent. The lovers are true equals. This is quietly but mightily captivating, especially when witnessed between two men. For a woman, which I am, and a woman whose sexuality involves attraction to men, there is something delightful in being able to identify with two male protagonists in love. There’s a sense of equality I’ll never experience otherwise.

I may sound like I’m speaking for women with some kind of authoritativeness, but I’m not. I’ve just mulled this over for a good while and am now clear that in my personal experience, the equal-footed dynamics of same-sex romance in the danmei genre are a big part of creating a cultural phenomenon out of it. I think for a certain type of female reader, there’s a relief, an ability to go all-in, that comes from who knows where. I love a good straight romance, but I’ve never felt as comfortable there as I do with the gays. For reasons that could be academically interesting to probe deeper into than just the felt sense of equality, I identify best with gay men in fiction written by women, and I’m not alone. If I’m any indication some women, regardless of sexual orientation, are happily comfortable on this kind of level playing field. I’m grateful there’s such a spectacular genre for us.

For me, this all comes together in a prefect storm of longing and pining mastery (my catnip, bread and butter, and secret sauce) buoyed up by plot intricacies that feel like they’re driven by deep character motivations. Our danmei couples usually have to weather trauma so intense that the best authors use it to transform the characters’ psyches into not only sympathetic characterization, but also sturdy vehicles for romantic tension. Keep in mind I have to read the English translations of all these novels, and there’s guaranteed to be something lost from the original Chinese. There’s a testament in there somewhere to both the skills of high quality translation teams and to the original material. Still, the extreme pining, the longing, the banter, and the romances formed on a level playing field of brotherhood plus something extra translate just fine.

When it comes to spice levels, it depends on the author. MXTX’s Heaven Official’s Blessing isn’t in the same sexual universe as Meatbun’s 2ha. And if you want realism in this aspect, you’re better off with other BL genres or Western authors’ depictions, for the most part, although I’ve only read a slice of what the genre has to offer since I can’t read Chinese.

I’m not only a fan of danmei novels and the donghuas and television adaptations made from them, but of Chinese dramas in general, and this is just personal taste. Why I love them is a lot about the things I’ve mentioned, the intersection of a very particular kind of romance plus unique and spectacular plotting. But there’s also a third factor that’s harder to describe. It’s clearly cultural. As an American, I’m no stranger to patriarchal misogyny, I mean, is anyone in this world? But I’ve lived half a lifetime in culture that feels adrift from spirituality, unmoored in having nothing to support the culture’s need for meaning and connection beyond indoctrinatized religion. That’s a big, empty space filled by any number of things, including but more than just sex, drugs, and rock and roll. Asian cultures, in all their various nuances and complexities, have several ages of layered spiritual foundation that goes beyond religious dogma. This seeps out everywhere from themes and tropes to deeply held ethics of manners and respect hierarchies and and endless penchant by its authors to play out the Japanese concept of mono no aware in extremely satisfying layers of moral grayness across the board. This type of characterization ability is glaringly absent in the overall culture of the Western world and has to be dug for.

For me, when I read a fantastic danmei novel like Priest’s Silent Reading or Tan Jiuching’s Qiang Jin Jiu, I’m lost in worlds that truly feel like fantasy, in romances that feel brutally and tenderly alive, and in story structures that none of the big five publishing houses would want to touch but that feel so much more satisfying than the often seen three act structure used in modern Western writing (how that structure mirrors a patriarchal ‘foreplay, fucking, orgasm, and quickly fall asleep’ perspective on sex I’ll save for another time). In danmei, the pacing, the length (a million words, no problem!), the tropes, the style and voice, are all very different from most of what’s being written in the cultural milieu of the West.

This is so refreshing. If a certain kind of woman identifies best with either m/m romance or m/f romance where the female lead has more masculine qualities, the danmei genre offers her so much in the way of structuring romance within literal battlegrounds in ways so complex it can make even a wonderful non-three-act series like Sarah J. Maas’s Throne of Glass seem like child’s play. That these stories are being written by Chinese women in their twenties and thirties is remarkable. That they’re being written for other women and are so far from whatever the common understanding of “chick-lit” is…makes them a gift that keeps on giving.

I think many women long for this level romantic playing field, we long to see men being soft with each other (whether romantic or not), and we really long to get lost in extremely complex fantasy worlds that aren’t framed by a Tolkein or Sanderson or Martin-esque male lens. If you’re a woman looking for the best in fantasy, you’ll definitely look to Asia at some point, and if you’re lucky, you’ll fall into the same danmei rabbit hole I did.