Can reading BL or GL (yaoi/yuri) "turn you gay"?

A quick note on terms: BL (Boys’ Love, sometimes yaoi, and in Chinese danmei) is fiction about romance between men; GL (Girls’ Love, yuri, or baihe) is fiction about romance between women. Both are hugely popular genres with readers of every orientation.

People love BL and GL because they’re well told, because the aesthetic clicks, because the emotional tension is satisfying — none of which is the same as being “turned.” Do people take up sword fighting because they love martial-arts fiction, or start committing crimes because they binge thrillers? No. Enjoying a genre and being drawn to particular people in real life are separate things.

Why “reading it turned me gay” doesn’t hold up

• Orientation is not a subject you can be taught. The mainstream medical and psychological consensus is that sexual orientation arises from multiple factors and is not dictated by any single comic or drama. The WHO removed homosexuality from its disease classification back in 1990, and China’s CCMD-3 completed de-pathologization in 2001. If it isn’t an illness, there’s nothing to “catch.”
• The order is often reversed. Some readers were already quietly drawn to the same sex, and it was in BL or GL that they first found resonance and language for it — so they read more. The feeling led them to the stories, not the other way around. A story helping you recognize yourself is not the same as a story creating you.
• Most readers know the difference. Whatever their real-life orientation, people are generally clear about the line between fiction and reality. Loving to watch two characters fall for each other, and wanting that life yourself, can be entirely independent.

If this is making you anxious

Sometimes the real jolt isn’t “will this turn me gay?” but “I’ve noticed I might actually care about the same sex.” If that’s you, that’s okay too — it isn’t the result of being led astray by anything; it’s you slowly getting to know yourself. You don’t have to rush to label anything, and you don’t have to decide anything right now.

Read what you love — no one’s rushing you

Read the stories you love — they won’t change who you are. If reading them stirs up new curiosity about your own feelings, that’s a signal to treat yourself gently, not an error to be corrected. To understand where orientation actually comes from, see orientation basics; for “is homosexuality an illness,” see this piece; and for “can orientation be changed,” see this one. Take your time — no one is rushing you.