Yaoi, also known as boys' love (BL), is a genre of fictional media originating in Japan that features homoerotic relationships between male characters. It is typically created by heterosexual women for heterosexual women and includes a wide range of media such as manga, anime, novels, and fan works. The term "yaoi" is commonly used in the West as an umbrella term for Japanese- influenced media with male-male relationships, while "boys' love" and "BL" are the generic terms for this kind of media in Japan and much of Asia
. In the West, yaoi is used to refer to manga that features sexual romance between men, specifically created by and for women
. It is a subset of manga/anime that centers around romantic relationships between two men, and it can vary from just romance to actual NSFW (not safe for work) content
. The yaoi fandom consists of the readers of yaoi, and individuals in the fandom may attend conventions, maintain/post to fansites, create fanfiction/fanart, etc
