Hahah - I come into yaoi from the direction of the Mills and Boons/Harlequin romance novels (at least the Hebrew equivalent of those...I went to a Kibbutz Boarding school there wasn't much else to do at night... I can find an excuse for still keeping shelves them if I try really hard ^^;;). I confess that the Sheikh theme is my second most favorite (the first is by far trashy pirate romance, Regency comes third). So I am VERY aware of how Japan is not the source of all that is recklessly unrealistic... and I AM a history geek too so I can usually spot anachronism from a mile away yet I happen to... not care and even LOVE it the more silly it gets.
Saying that - I DO on occasion ruin my own manifesto by reading something more accurate and coherent in the plot department and manage to *gasp* enjoy it! @_@ It never is clear cut. I just don't hate it when it falls off the reality cliff...
It is not a matter of plots over prawns - I like a plot... it just doesn't need to make very much sense or sit accurately in any single geographical or historical setting.
The whole NO BLOND ARABS things confuses me though because, first, they are a minority but not THAT rare in the middle east. People just don't stop and gape at a blond Arab as if it was a spectacle where I come from. I spent the morning talking to a university friend from Kuwait asking if there really aren't any blonds in the gulf and she assured me there exist. I know for a fact that green and hazel eyes are VERY common amongst Arabs, Blue eyes amongst druze, blond hair along the entire Levant... And the Khalifs are gone now but everyone confuses them with Sheiks who are SUPPOSED to be pure blood but often AREN'T because before the invention of genetic tests... who was going to say otherwise.
I was even going to start about the prevalence of albinism in Afro-Asian population which in mild form gives the appearance of blondness...
And then I had to slap myself really hard because, GODDESS, I was RATIONALIZING and I promised I never EVER get into this kind of mindset about the trash I read. I promised it to myself in boarding school!!!
It is like orientalism - the sands seen through romantic glasses wrapped tight in fantasy with a few fetishes sprinkled on top! The Sheik is blond because the writer wanted him to be and because the readers cream their panties about the concept BECAUSE it isn't at all like reality.
no subject
Saying that - I DO on occasion ruin my own manifesto by reading something more accurate and coherent in the plot department and manage to *gasp* enjoy it! @_@ It never is clear cut. I just don't hate it when it falls off the reality cliff...
It is not a matter of plots over prawns - I like a plot... it just doesn't need to make very much sense or sit accurately in any single geographical or historical setting.
The whole NO BLOND ARABS things confuses me though because, first, they are a minority but not THAT rare in the middle east. People just don't stop and gape at a blond Arab as if it was a spectacle where I come from. I spent the morning talking to a university friend from Kuwait asking if there really aren't any blonds in the gulf and she assured me there exist. I know for a fact that green and hazel eyes are VERY common amongst Arabs, Blue eyes amongst druze, blond hair along the entire Levant... And the Khalifs are gone now but everyone confuses them with Sheiks who are SUPPOSED to be pure blood but often AREN'T because before the invention of genetic tests... who was going to say otherwise.
I was even going to start about the prevalence of albinism in Afro-Asian population which in mild form gives the appearance of blondness...
And then I had to slap myself really hard because, GODDESS, I was RATIONALIZING and I promised I never EVER get into this kind of mindset about the trash I read. I promised it to myself in boarding school!!!
It is like orientalism - the sands seen through romantic glasses wrapped tight in fantasy with a few fetishes sprinkled on top! The Sheik is blond because the writer wanted him to be and because the readers cream their panties about the concept BECAUSE it isn't at all like reality.