[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"doc-detail-151470-en":3,"doc-seo-151470-105":30,"detail-sidebar-cat-0-en-105":91},{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":6},0,"success",{"doc_id":7,"user_id":8,"nickname":9,"user_avatar":10,"doc_module":4,"category_id":11,"category_name":12,"doc_title":13,"doc_description":14,"doc_content":15,"file_id":16,"file_url":17,"file_type":18,"file_size":19,"view_count":4,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":20,"is_downloadable":20,"audit_status":20,"page_count":21,"language":22,"language_code":23,"site_id":24,"html_lang":23,"table_of_contents":25,"faqs":26,"seo_title":27,"seo_description":14,"update_tm":28,"read_time":29},151470,8796095462418,"Noah","https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/avatar/80000253c1241d02b47?x-image-process=image/resize,m_fixed,w_180,h_180&k=1778826106357471780",8,"Research & Report","Female Representation in the Thai Boys' Love Industry - The Intersection of Privilege and Oppression","Traditionally, Boys’ Love (BL) narratives, a female-centred subculture, have been praised as spaces for challenging heteronormativity and reimagining masculinity. Yet women are often reduced to flat side characters or villains, while internalized misogyny remains underexplored. Focusing on Jittirain’s 2gether and Fish Upon the Sky—later revised after online criticism—this research studies how antagonism is built, revised, and negotiated through intersecting positions of gender, sexuality, and authorship.","Feminist Encounters: A Journal of Critical Studies in Culture and Politics, 2026, 10(1), 31  \neISSN: 2468-4414  \nResearch paper  \nFemale Representation in the Thai Boys' Love Industry: The Intersection of  \nPrivilege and Oppression  \nTanasineee Chaimongkol  , Gritiya Rattanakantadilok *  \nPrince ofSongkla University, THAILAND  \n*[Corresponding Author:](Corresponding Author: gritiya.r@psu.ac.th)[ gritiya.r@psu.ac.th](Corresponding Author: gritiya.r@psu.ac.th)  \nCitation: Chaimongkol, T., & Rattanakantadilok, G. (2026) . Female representation in the Thai boys' love industry: The intersection of privilege and oppression. Feminist Encounters: A Journal of Critical Studies in Culture  \nand Politics, 10(1), 31. [https://doi.org/10.20897/femenc/18174](https://doi.org/10.20897/femenc/18174)  \n[Published:](Published: March 23)[ March 23](Published: March 23), 2026  \nABSTRACT  \nTraditionally, Boys’ Love (BL) narratives, a female-centred subculture, have been praised as spaces for challenging heteronormativity and reimagining masculinity. Paradoxically, women within BL narratives are often depicted as flat side characters or villains, while internalized misogyny has received limited scholarly attention. Jittirain (pseudonym of Jittinat Ngamnak), the author of 2gether—marking Thai BL as a global phenomenon—mobilises aspects of female identity by portraying Thai women as antagonistic figures. Consequently, two of her Thai BL works 2gether and Fish Upon the Sky that later underwent revision due to online criticism after the broadcast of their TV series adaptations, form the focus of this study. This research examines how female antagonism is constructed, revised, and negotiated through intersecting positions of gender, sexuality, and authorship, and how these constructions shape women’s sense of belonging within BL narratives. Through comparative analysis drawing on intersectionality, feminist translation, and narrative analysis of literary and audiovisual adaptations, this study demonstrates that “female villainy” is not a stable category but is negotiated by the various agents involved in the production and consumption of BL. It further reveals language and narrative structure functioning as sites of both the reproduction and attempted subversion of misogynistic norms—efforts often constrained by translation practices and commercial imperatives.  \nKeywords: Thai boys’ love (BL), female villainy, intersectionality, feminist translation, sense of belonging  \nBoys' Love (BL)1 has gradually shifted from a marginalised interest (Supawantanakul, 2023) to a form of cultural soft power, a change that became more visible following the international success of series such as 2gether the Series (Chaiyong, 2021; Prasannam & Chan, 2023) . The impact of Thai BL media is not uniformly positive due to the continued reliance on heteronormative practices. Potentially influenced by Confucian philosophy (Kwon, 2021), BL has roots in Japanese women's subculture (O’Brien, 2008) and has been proliferated by largely female creatorsand consumers in East and Southeast Asia. Consequently, BL narratives are often filtered through the female gaze while remaining embedded in heteropatriarchal norms. This can be observed in the persistence of seme–uke dynamics, where dominance and submission between male characters mirror conventional gender roles, leading to problematic and misleading representations of gender and sexuality norms (Bauwens-Sugimoto, 2011; Zhou et al.,  \n1 Boys’ Love (BL) is a media genre centered on romantic and homoerotic relationships between male characters, originating in Japan and formalised as a genre label in 1991 by the Japanese magazine Hakuyashobo (Fujimoto & Quimby, 2015) . The genre later became a transnational phenomenon through the online circulation of pirated doujinshi translations (Baudinette, 2019) . In Thailand, BL is commonly referred to as 'Y', an abbreviation of 'yaoi', a term initially associated with fan-produced comics (Prasann","cbCairFIOvQrcN2I","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCairFIOvQrcN2I","pdf",454063,1,15,"English","en",105,"# Abstract\n## Research focus and paradox in BL\n## Case selection and textual revisions\n## Analytical framework and key findings","[{\"question\":\"What is the central problem this study examines in Thai Boys’ Love narratives?\",\"answer\":\"The study examines how women are represented—often as antagonistic figures—and how such depictions relate to privilege and oppression within BL storytelling.\"},{\"question\":\"Why are 2gether and Fish Upon the Sky used as case studies?\",\"answer\":\"They were revised by the author after online criticism following TV adaptations, allowing the study to analyze changes in antagonistic female representation.\"},{\"question\":\"Which theoretical approaches guide the analysis?\",\"answer\":\"The study applies intersectionality and feminist translation, combined with narrative analysis of both literary and audiovisual adaptations to trace how “female villainy” is negotiated.\"}]","Female Representation in the Thai Boys' Love Industry - The Intersection of Privilege and Oppression | PDF",1787841237,38,{"code":4,"msg":31,"data":32},"ok",{"site_id":24,"language":23,"slug":33,"title":13,"keywords":34,"description":14,"schema_data":35,"social_meta":86,"head_meta":88,"extra_data":90,"updated_unix":28},"female-representation-in-the-thai-boys-love-industry-the-intersection-of-privilege-and-oppression","",{"@graph":36,"@context":85},[37,54,68],{"@type":38,"itemListElement":39},"BreadcrumbList",[40,44,48,51],{"item":41,"name":42,"@type":43,"position":20},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",{"item":45,"name":46,"@type":43,"position":47},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/","Document",2,{"item":49,"name":12,"@type":43,"position":50},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/research-report/",3,{"item":52,"name":13,"@type":43,"position":53},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/female-representation-in-the-thai-boys-love-industry-the-intersection-of-privilege-and-oppression/151470/",4,{"url":52,"name":13,"@type":55,"author":56,"headline":13,"publisher":58,"fileFormat":61,"inLanguage":23,"description":14,"dateModified":62,"datePublished":62,"encodingFormat":61,"isAccessibleForFree":63,"interactionStatistic":64},"DigitalDocument",{"name":9,"@type":57},"Person",{"url":41,"name":59,"@type":60},"DocShare","Organization","application/pdf","2026-08-27",true,{"@type":65,"interactionType":66,"userInteractionCount":4},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":67},"ViewAction",{"@type":69,"mainEntity":70},"FAQPage",[71,77,81],{"name":72,"@type":73,"acceptedAnswer":74},"What is the central problem this study examines in Thai Boys’ Love narratives?","Question",{"text":75,"@type":76},"The study examines how women are represented—often as antagonistic figures—and how such depictions relate to privilege and oppression within BL storytelling.","Answer",{"name":78,"@type":73,"acceptedAnswer":79},"Why are 2gether and Fish Upon the Sky used as case studies?",{"text":80,"@type":76},"They were revised by the author after online criticism following TV adaptations, allowing the study to analyze changes in antagonistic female representation.",{"name":82,"@type":73,"acceptedAnswer":83},"Which theoretical approaches guide the analysis?",{"text":84,"@type":76},"The study applies intersectionality and feminist translation, combined with narrative analysis of both literary and audiovisual adaptations to trace how “female villainy” is negotiated.","https://schema.org",{"og:url":52,"og:type":87,"og:title":13,"og:site_name":59,"og:description":14},"article",{"robots":89,"canonical":52},"index,follow",{"doc_id":7,"site_id":24},{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":92},[93,97,101,105,110,115,120,123,128,131,135],{"id":20,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":46,"category_name":94,"show_sort_weight":95,"slug":96},"Story & Novel",90,"story-novel",{"id":47,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":46,"category_name":98,"show_sort_weight":99,"slug":100},"Literature",80,"literature",{"id":53,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":46,"category_name":102,"show_sort_weight":103,"slug":104},"Exam",70,"exam",{"id":106,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":46,"category_name":107,"show_sort_weight":108,"slug":109},5,"Comic",60,"comic",{"id":111,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":46,"category_name":112,"show_sort_weight":113,"slug":114},6,"Technology",50,"technology",{"id":116,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":46,"category_name":117,"show_sort_weight":118,"slug":119},7,"Healthcare",40,"healthcare",{"id":11,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":46,"category_name":12,"show_sort_weight":121,"slug":122},30,"research-report",{"id":124,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":46,"category_name":125,"show_sort_weight":126,"slug":127},9,"Religion & Spirituality",20,"religion-spirituality",{"id":126,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":46,"category_name":129,"show_sort_weight":126,"slug":130},"World Cup","world-cup",{"id":132,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":46,"category_name":133,"show_sort_weight":132,"slug":134},10,"Lifestyle","lifestyle",{"id":136,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":46,"category_name":137,"show_sort_weight":106,"slug":138},19,"General","general"]