What is Yaoi?

Yaoi:

Yaoi is a shortened version of "YAma nashi, Ochi nashi, Imi nashi" which means "No climax, no point, no meaning." Yaoi often makes sex seem more important than plot. It deals with male/male relationships, but is not always associated with homosexuality. Characters in Yaoi stories are often of the mindset that even if the person they love were female, they would still love them. Yaoi is a Japanese creation, and focuses largely on anime characters. It pays very little attention to character relations, pairing mortal enemies or siblings together at times.

Shounen-ai:

Literally translates as: "boy's love." This is used to describe stories that have plot emphasized more, and sex doesn't usually occur in these stories. The relationships are still male/male however.

The "x":

The x is used to describe a yaoi pairing. I will use the example of Gundam Wing, since that is what my yaoi fics page will consist of. The Gundam boys names are also numbers. 1=Heero, 2=Duo, 3=Trowa, 4=Quatre, 5=Wufei, 6=Zechs, and 13=Treize. The person in front of the x is the person 'on top' or the seme. The person behind the x is the person 'on the bottom' or the uke. If you see a '+' symbol, that means there may be friendship, or shounen-ai relationships, but no sex between the two on either side of the +.

Doujinshi:

These are fan drawn, professional quality comic books that have anime characters in romantic situations with other males. The pairings are mostly based on size relations. Whichever pairings look better, those are the pairings that will happen.

Fanfiction:

Western yaoi fanfiction has the characters paired more by their relations in the series, and whoever the writer feels would go good together. There can be PWP (Plot? What plot?) fanfics, or fanfiction series with many parts, that have very intricate plots.

Lime:

A lime fic is a fic that has sexual content, but it is not described graphically. There can be kissing, touching, and nudity, but there is no graphic description of the sex.

Lemon:

A lemon fic is, well, written sex. It can be very graphic, or not as graphic, depending on who is doing the writing.

(I myself am not really a fan of the more graphic lemons. I prefer limes, shounen-ai, or the less citrus-y lemons, and this is a kid safe site, so I won't post anything too graphic.)

Shota-con:

This is also something I am not fond of, and will not have on this site, but I should explain it, in case you ever come across it. Shota-con or Shota roughly translates as, "first sexual experience". So you can have what appears to be a ten year old having sex with someone much older. I think this really only happens in Doujinshi, because a lot of fanfiction writers are from western cultures that frown on that. DO NOT read these fics if the idea of underage sex is offensive to you.

(Most yaoi fic writers will label their fics with the ratings. They sometimes also use more conventional ratings, like PG-13 or R, and tell you if there is swearing or nudity or whatever, so you know what to expect.)