One of the biggest genres I discovered in my youth was the availability of smut manga. Have you ever heard of harlequin romance novels? This is a cross of harlequin romance novels and graphic novels except the romance may or may not be as weak as you’d like it to be since most smut manga tend to be one shots. Still, smut is also referred to as Lady Comics and it would be released by shoujo manga publishing companies, but westerners tend to label these manga as josei.

You may not realize it but anime like Amai Choubatsu and Honey x Honey Drops (OVA) are based off of smut manga. Also yes, smut series do contain themes like rape and being taken advantage of, yet can you completely hate Lady Comics?

Speaking of being taken advantage of and rape, these can be major themes in yaoi manga as well which are generally made more for the female population than just the gay population! Yaoi is a subset of the shoujo/josei genre. Unlike BL, yaoi explicitly contains sex between two boys. Sometimes it’s really graphic and sometimes it can sweet, but you can bet that girls love yaoi regardless! From the likes of Ten Count to series like Kuroneko Kareshi, how can you not get excited anticipating all of it?

Here is a new genre that even I just found out existed in the manga world. Gender bender and smut have combined into some sort of very ecchi combination of smut and yaoi! Here, we have male main characters who suddenly find themselves transformed into women for some reason or another. And then they have lots of sex with other men! Is it gay? Is it straight? Does it even matter?! This steamy combination of gender bender and smut—and possibly yaoi?—is sure to have you just as confused and excited as you feel just reading about it. There are quite a few titles available on Renta! if you are curious about the genre. Now, the question is: if you enjoy this genre, does it make you a fujoshi/fudanshi? Maybe all that matters is that you’re ecchi!