A word on androgynous beauty and the appeal of BL in shoujo manga

Let me begin by sharing an idea I have always had in rationalizing why something is
beautiful to me:
X does not have the title to bear the aesthetic characteristics of Y, and yet X, under
certain circumstances, bears those aesthetic characteristics of Y better than Y does.
And the more fleeting or unreal those circumstances are, the more I like X.
For example, maple trees are not flowers, and yet for a few fleeting days at the height
of their full glory in autumn, maple trees are more beautiful than any flowers (at least
to me). That is why I like maple trees better than any flower.
By the same analogy, Kamijo of the Japanese band Versailles is not a woman, but
when he is dressed for a public appearance, he is more beautiful than any woman (at
least to me). I cannot say I like his music, but if I were pressed to nominate the most
beautiful human being I have ever seen, I would put forth his name without
reservation.
Having said that, drawn human beauty moves me in a way that photographed human
beauty or even human beauty in the flesh cannot. (It is perhaps by the same analogy
that I get hungrier looking at drawn food than at actual food.) This brings me to
androgynous beauty in shoujo manga.
There are always what I call and in shoujo manga - you may
think of the former as l'homme manqu and the latter asla femme manque. I
personally feel that bishounen characters in shoujo manga are essentially young
women in drags - they are not so much female fantasies of the ideal man, but female
fantasies of what young women could have been, were they given the same social and
biological freedom of men and yet retain their feminine qualities.
This is where the only explanation of BL that has made sense to me so far comes in:
BL is a projection of romance where marriage, childbirth, family obligations, money,
social status and all the rest of it from your typical boy-meets-girl scenario do not
really come into play. There is no question of who is marrying up or marrying down.
There is no question of little mouths being borne unto this world to feed. There is no
question of who should look after elderly parents (typically the wife's responsibility).
There is no question of who is making more money and more successful career-wise
(always a factor if the woman makes more than the man in a relationship). That is
perhaps the appeal of male/male relationships in BL - all factors that are part of the
equation of heterosexual relationships are removed, and both persons in the

relationship need not compromise their identities and ambitions, whereas a woman in
real life typically gives more in a heterosexual relationship (in doing housework,
caring for elderly parents on both sides, putting career on hold to care for children,
going through abortions of unwanted children). If one understands the weight of
responsibilities and sacrifices of a woman in such a relationship and the subconscious
or overt apprehension of young girls or young women at those responsibilities, then
one may begin to understand the appeal of BL.
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