A Brief History Of The Yaoi Paddle
Although I routinely visit the hentai porn mines to return with spanking artwork for this audience, I am not otherwise well-plugged-in to greater anime fandom and culture. That’s the only explanation I can offer for how I missed the entire Yaoi paddle phenomenon, back in the aughts when it was a thing. (In truth, I didn’t quite miss it entirely; there’s one post with a photo from a con, and my readers explained what was going on. But, mysteriously, I never followed up.)
Yaoi, apparently, is pronounced “Yowie!” which seems fitting enough. On one level, it’s the name of an entire genre of female-gaze male/male romance manga. How it came to be wood-burned on paddles that sold like hotcakes at anime conventions? That’s a somewhat complex and murky story, but the video above includes footage of people lining up to get spanked with the things. So much so, apparently, that before long the cons had to ban yaoi paddles, due to attendees with a primitive (or entirely missing) notion of consent having taken to smacking cosplaying strangers who were not into it. And that, boys and girls, is why we can’t have nice things, you understand?
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