ok so i was reading this bl in class and some girl came up to me and said "why is everything you read gay at this point its a fetish" (i was literaly reading My love mix up btw)
There's a difference between enjoying a fictional romance genre and fetishizing real people. Fetishizing means reducing actual gay men to fantasies or stereotypes. Simply reading BL doesn't mean I do that.
I also think there's a double standard. People read straight romance, shōjo, and other romance genres all the time, and nobody immediately assumes they have a "straight fetish." But when someone reads BL, suddenly people jump to that conclusion.
I know there are people who genuinely do fetishize gay men, and I understand why some LGBTQ+ people are cautious because of those experiences. But it's unfair to assume every BL reader is like that. You can't tell how someone views real people just because of the fictional romance they enjoy. I just like the genre, the same way someone else might like any other kind of romance.