Back Boys-Love-Fandom German Fujoshi Spanish Fujoshi French Fujoshi ID Yaoi fandom Italian 腐女子 Japanese 부녀자 (동인) Korean Fandom de yaoi Portuguese Fujoshi Vietnamese 腐女 Chinese
Boys' love (BL), a genre of male-male homoerotic media originating in Japan that is created primarily by and for women, has a robust global fandom. Individuals in the BL fandom may attend conventions, maintain/post to fansites, create fanfiction/fanart, etc. In the mid-1990s, estimates of the size of the Japanese BL fandom were at 100,000 to 500,000 people. Despite increased knowledge of the genre among the general public, readership remained limited in 2008.
In Japan, fans of BL are referred to as fujoshi (腐女子). Translating literally to "rotten woman" or "rotten girl", the term originated as a pejorative for fans of the genre, but was later reappropriated by BL fans as a self-deprecating identity label. The term fudanshi (腐男子, lit. "rotten boy") later emerged to describe male fans of BL.