Cosplay experiances in Thailand: Gender and Sexuality

By Daddylion. 13/02/12, 02:13 pm

So... so far I've been cosplaying in Thailand for 8 months, as I mentioned, will be moving to NZ next week. I've been asking around, both here and with my friends from other countries, mostly more western countries. From what I can see cosplaying in Thailand seems a lot different from here and everywhere else. The two biggest differences being this...

1. Male crossplayers... I've asked cosplayers from many countries, they all say male crossplayers are a rare breed. Here, they're everywhere and looking fabulous! Some I couldn't tell its a guy till I got very close and heard his voice. Some are just for comedic value, but still, while there's less of them than female crossplayers, they do make up a significant portion of the cosplay community.

2. Yaoi fanservice. There's a lot of that here from cosplayers... from the last con I've been to, the fanservice came predominantly from the male portion of the cosplayers. Surrounded by cheering yaoi fangirls. Most of those guys, from the ones I know, are straight, though not all of them are. Girls do yaoi fanservice too, but unless its a private photoshoot, they tend to be much more mild. Guys tend to play around at cons more I think.

Other than that, the differences are that the cosplay community in Thailand is very large, and is becoming increasingly competitive, but the focus on this is not on that....

Anyway I kept thinking, is it because views on gender and sexuality is very different from Thailand than in countries like the US and NZ? Or is it more of an asian/western thing. I don't know what cosplaying is like in Japan or Taiwan or China etc. I don't know if there there is a lot of yaoi fanservice and male crossplayers too or not. Or maybe thai yaoi fangirls are just more rowdy and got the guys to service them more?

Another possibility... all my male cosplay friends yaoi because of me. I spread the disease! hahaha

Anyway I just thought I'd share this tidbit on here. Hope it's ok.

By Pura. 13/02/12, 02:24 pm

I've seen the occasional male crossplayer around ... But mostly in NZ the cosplayers are female. So male cosplayers in general are a bit rare here (at least compared to the female cosplayers). Most of them wouldn't cross play either. If they did it would be as a joke. I'm not sure why ... I s'pose in NZ there's lots of "males are supposed to be all manly" IDK, I think it depends on what sorta crowd you hang out with for that kind of thing, haha.

As for yaoi stuff ... I'm quite happy that there isn't much. I like yaoi, but in public it's kinda embarrassing. Because Armageddon isn't an anime convention, most of the people there are male, older and there for the sci-fi part (although don't let that put you off, lol, there's nothing wrong with it). And anime/manga/cosplay isn't very big in NZ, so a lot of the time the public sees cosplaying as weird and if someone was acting all fanservicy it would give us a very bad name. (Don't worry, when an Armageddon is on, people are all like, "Oh, that's really cool" if you just say 'oh, we're dressing up for the Armageddon convention' |D).

The media here loves to take the piss out of cosplayers ... I'm not sure why, but we get quite a lot of "geeks, freaks" etc story headtitles around Armageddon |DDD. (most of us ignore the media who are the events)

Also, if there were screaming/making out yaoi fangirls etc here then I think a lot of us would not want to be associated with them. We're more relaxed and chill here in NZ, rather than hyperactive Razz

. And I don't think the guys here would want to make out with each other because of the same "manly man" thing mentioned above, haha.

By Kitten Slave. 13/02/12, 02:53 pm

By Daddylion. 13/02/12, 02:58 pm

Hmmm maybe. But in Thailand when a guy crossplays or said he's considering it, girls will cheer, and other male crossplayers will support them too. They don't ofte get made fun of, so maybe that's part of why we have so many? My Bleach cosplay group has both a male Orihime and a male Matsumoto. There are also other guys who are famous for their crossplays here.

Well, yeah i suppose it is embarassing hehe. Maybe guys here are more shameless? hahaha. But mainstreaming, that's an interesting idea. In Thailand as i mention the cosplay community is huge and competitive, though not 100% mainstream, it's still pretty close. ForThe Thailand National Cosplay Championship, the money for first prize is enough to pay for a year of your college tuition here. Cosplaying is quite lucrative here, with many cosplayers branching out into selling their skills in prop making and tailoring outfits.

And this large cosplay community, is almost entirely anime/manga/game oriented. Though for none cosplay, there's a large number of slash fans, it does feel like yaoi for the more japanese oriented media is more accepted all around within the circle than slash seems to be. Maybe that is a part of it?

We get some bad media here too for cosplayers, but mostly it's from when there's drama within the community, because as the community got larger, the more problems there are like any community in the world (as the population increases, so does the crime rate usually right?). Recently there was even drama between our cosplay idols, where one claim to receive death threats from another group of famous cosplayers.

And lol no, none of the guys here make out with each other, they just pose like they're about to and get really really close. We're not that far gone yet, plus thailand is still a little bit conservative, we get complaints even from Princess Leia like outfits being worn cause it's too revealing. And yaoi fangirls, like i said, they only do yaoi shoots mostly in private sessions, there's very little yaoi fanservice coming from female crossplayers at cons.

One of my male cosplay friends, one who has yaoi-ed A LOT, claims that he's willing to take yaoi photos, but only with other guys (he's straight btw). He said if he plays around with girls it will ruin their reputation. I find that to be quite interesting.

It's quite obvious that Thai girls have more more to lose here, that's why a lot of fanservice comes from the guys maybe? While in NZ guys are more afraid of losing their own reputation?

For me, my own cosplay group is going to have to tone down on the yaoi at this point since we got in trouble at the last con (it was a Valentine's Day theme, usually there was only a bit of yaoi here and there, this time everyone got extra extra rowdy so there was literally yaoi everywhere, it's usually not like that... and the yaoi like i said predominantly came from the guys... and there was hardly any het romantic ships anywhere too) and will now take to doing more private sessions than going to actual conventions. We weren't the only group that was doing it though, like i said, yaoi was everywhere.

But i promise, once i get to New Zealand, this will never happen. I'm not that shameless, especially when the crowd is less forgiving. Here it's very easy to get carried away.

By Kitten Slave. 13/02/12, 03:12 pm

Haha, Well, I think that because our community is a bit smaller, everyone here kinda knows everyone else. There is not too much back biting, and everyone here aims to help each other out a lot more.
I can see how with much larger sums of money up for grabs things might get a bit more competitive, but everyone here has proven (for the most part) to be more supportive of each other, helping one another to grow in skill.

It might also have to do with the normality of it there versus here.
In a way, its not that I have no shame, but I can be a bit wild once I crawl out of my box, I enjoy attention, and doing slightly crazy things to get attention amuse me. I would probably stop if too many ppl jumped on the bandwagon.
Also, like I mentioned, with my face I could never do it seriously!

I do however purge rather ruthlessly any photos from facebook that could be considered even slightly risqué as this could be problematic if certain people saw it. So I guess it does have a degree of social acceptance that is different between cultures.

Most of our "bad media" has mostly come in the form of the public not quite getting what is going on. though for the most part civilian here are really just rather curious and tolerant of this "interesting hobby".

I think here is depends on the circles you frequent - some can be quite conservative, while some can be quite shameless as you put it.
Ill be the first to admit that I get carried away on a regular basis. Everyone knows it, and thankfully many folk on here are pretty forgiving once they have given me a quick smack and told me to reign myself in.

Dont worry too much about the Yaoi/Yuri/doing the right thing, just go with the flow. Try and read the mood around you, and like we said, we are not very competitive here in comparison to Thailand I think - we are for the most part, a rather loving community who share a common interest.

nodnod

By Daddylion. 13/02/12, 03:59 pm

Kitten Slave... well unfortunately like I said, we got in trouble for the yaoi at the last con hehe. There will probably be less now, and it's usually not THAT rampant, except it was a Valentine's Day theme, which got everyone into a rather fiesty mood hehehe.

hahaha in Thailand conventions, a guy in a maid's dress is totally normal. But you bring up a good point. Thai guys have a look that allows them to pull off more female cosplays than westerners from what I can see...

Here's some pics of the more serious male crossplayers in Thailand

Oh and this is Ne, he's a crossplayer from my own Bleach cosplay group.
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/204/dsc01644l.jpg/

Sorry i can't get the thumbnail thing working somehow sad

Some of these guys are actually known mostly for their crossplays within the community. That said there's a lot of people who crossplay regularly who will never look the part too and does it as a joke. There's plenty of both here.

It's good that there's not a lot of backbiting there. Here it all depends, there are many cosplay groups and some groups are nice and all know each other and are very close, but some aren't.

hehehe now i kind of want to know what you look like. But yeah, I think we do it for attention too. And lol, my facebook profile picture is one of me doing a Renji/Ichigo yaoi kiss scene... we didn't kiss though, we relied (very heavily) on camera angles and the talents of our very very wonderful photographers.

Oh and did i mention about photographers here? Soooo many, especially when we do yaoi, the photographers crowd around us like we're celebrities. Whenever our Bleach group goes to a convention together, photographers will be all around us, and we have to stand still and pose until our arms start to ache from being still for too long.

We also have 'Cosmode Thailand', which is a cosplay magazine. Cosmode photographers will be set up their own photo areas at every event, taking photos of cosplayers. A lot of us really want to get into the magazine hehehe. I haven't yet but a number of my friends did already.

hehehe interesting hobby indeed. And it's good to know you guys are forgiving. And that it's small enough to be mostly friendly :)

By Pura. 13/02/12, 04:48 pm

Yeah, I think it also helps that a lot of asians can get away with looking feminine. All of the male cross dressers I've seen here are obviously male.

One of my favourite cosplayers comes from Thailand and I have yet to be able to tell if they are male or female ... I'm taking a guess at female, but I really have no clue xD. I've seen some other cosplayers around who I can't tell their gender (and I've seen people ask them, but they've replied with 'why does it matter?' xD). Oh, and a cosplayer who said they were male actually turned out to be female.

Yaoi poses here are something that is done by very close friends only ... I know of a few people who have had yaoi photoshoots Razz

It would be nice if cosplay was more known in NZ, but it'll probably take a larger number of years for it to happen. Anime is something I find most people know about, but not everyone is in to it (or view it as being childish). I don't think a majority of the older generation know what anime is though.

And with cosplay, when I meet new people I'll say something like, "I like to sew costumes" rather than saying cosplay directly. P:

By Rolly. 13/02/12, 06:46 pm

A note on the yaoi and yuri poses at cons...
Do be aware here that Armageddon is a family event, therefore I think anything PG-13 is frowned upon, or could get you removed from the con venue. That's why I think there's hardly anything like this in NZ compared to Thailand.

I find the NZ community is more chill and close with each other than most other communities.
I've heard from other CNZers that some NZ cosplayer or /cgl/ person tries to stir drama up on /cgl/, and someone else would just post and say stop it/why are you trying to cause drama, etc... am I making sense? xD

My words are not flowing very well today, excuse me if my post seems to sound a bit awkward. xD

By kyokyogirl. 13/02/12, 07:05 pm

...yup we're all pretty laid back here. And everyone knows everyone through someone...

Random note on male crossplayers: I would be very pleased to see a NZ guy take up the challenge seriously. But it would take a hell of a lot of courage in this society for a guy to do it. Which is a shame.

I can't say I've ever seen much yoai fanservice here (at conventions)...though maybe I'm just not in the right place at the right time.

By Highlander. 13/02/12, 07:33 pm

There is definitely a feeling that dressing up in any form is weird. People just are totally lost. I talked to a couple of people at work about historical recreation today. Totally clueless. I mean doesn't everyone have an expectation of what people in medieval Europe were like. Maybe not an accurate one. But these two had no clue what you would do once you got dressed up. Yet everyone know about Maori performance groups. Message it's normal for Maori to learn about and practice there culture. But not Europeans, not Morris dancers, or medievalists, although Irish and Scottish dancers are more accepted. And now you want to talk about a part of Japanese culture (which arguably was founded in western sci-fi conventions) and references a largely unknown part of Japanese culture. Or maybe referencing those kids activities comics and computer games. Now is a good time in history because I can buy american comics firmly aimed at adults, with little to do with super heros. But most people just don't know.

However at armageddon the public expect to see many people in costume. The whole convention is billed as a fun pulp culture expo for the whole family. The many kids that come for the games stands help pay for us to have our sci-fi and anime guests and panels.

As for cross playing I think that females can do lots of things in 'fun' that guys would worry would label them 'perverts', even inside a cosplay community. There are a few guys which could cross play. Many would just look stupid, also a undesirable result. And then again the number of male cosplayers is lower, not rare, but lower, and possibly many are less active. So you do tend to have females do the male roles, cause otherwise there would be fewer male characters. But few western males would want to cosplay females. Since there are few of us and many males we like to do it's natural to just stick to the males. I probably relate more to a sword wielding honorable character myself than a female. But there are females I love and would love to see someone else do them.

Of course there are other activities, that a woman won't do because they would be leered at, but which guys naturally seem to do in western cultures and it's considered in fun.

And of course I am often judged by my age too. I'm told shouldn't do certain things, eg. cosplay because of my age. From what little I see of american cosplays there are older cosplayers that are admired for their skills. Not that you don't see older cosplayers at Geddon too. The base of cosplayers is only going to get wider as the community grows. Whats the ages like in Thailand.

So I guess NZ society is full of double rules, and situational rules. That is if anyone can even agree on what those rules are. You just have to learn them, and watch what the people around you seem to think is acceptable.

Finally surely Yaoi in NZ is popular because of the pretty boys, and the romance? Gross generalisation. But two things that would appeal to some girls, but very few guys.

By Daddylion. 13/02/12, 09:20 pm

Pura: yes, i suppose that's a large part of it too. Hahaha i have the same problem telling the genders of people here some times, though usually you can tell once you hear their voice. Or get close enough to see an adam's apple.

I think yaoi is done by friends mostly too, but in my case not always the closest ones.

Yes, i imagine it would. I notice anime and such are not as known there and from the Sailor Moon dubs, I figured it's most definitely seen as a child's thing hahaha.

Rolly: Don't worry about it. I get that it's family orientated there. It's very different from here.

Here since there are so many cons, we have many types of cons. Only some of those cons are family oriented, and no one will try to act up in those anyway. Security is also tougher in those events. Usually family oriented cons are held at department stores and usually isn't a strictly otaku thing but they also use it to promote toys and such. There are also charity cosplay events at these things usually.

In Bangkok most cons are aimed at the teens to mid-twenties crowd. It's very rare to find children at these cons even if occasionally some show up. Some cons you even carded for, particularly the very doujinshi oriented cons (on top of a large cosplay community we also have a significantly large community of doujinshi artists and circles). It's usually at these more adult events that people are more likely to act up.

As for the drama, we all try to stop it, and some people do stop once they get told off... it's just that with such a large community, it's now always easy to get to everyone, and even if you just told off one group for the drama, there's always newbie cosplayers coming in bringing their own baggage to the community.

And just to be clear on teminology

Yaoi Fanservice: I understand that yaoi usually means explicit boy on boy, but in Thailand the term covers all boy on boy, even the cutesy ones. When I say yaoi fanservice, I don't mean anything explicit, often times it's just guys standing very close and looking couply, picking each other up princess-style or like a romantic scene where they're about to kiss (none ever actually kiss), sometimes they just look at each other very intensely just to give a yaoi feel or rest their head on each other's lap. It's only when they start doing more than that that we really get into trouble.

Also, while i call it yaoi, in Thailand we actually use the term "Y" and there's "Y-boys" and "Y-girls", the first of course being boy on boy (yaoi) and the second being girl on girl "yuri". You get yuri too, but so far I haven't seen as much of it around. Like i said, girls are tamer than boys and i have yet to see a male crossplayers do a yuri photoshoot.

By Kitten Slave. 13/02/12, 09:57 pm

Damn, now you see those male crosplayers (here they can also be referred to as the slang "traps") are actually able to pull off pretty.
I have made my way into the illustrious hall of fame at CosplayHell (this is actually a badge of honor, since that was in a way the intention).

You will find that here photographers are rather pleasant. There are a few professionals, who often double as the event photographers (Sylvie, JP, Hide are the ones I can remember) and they will either ask, or you can set up a photoshoot with them if you want.
There are quite a few others who will take a picture or two, as well as your general congoers who will want to snap a shot with their iphones and a small child, but I dont think it comes even close to what you describe.
The idea is to enjoy the con, and while most people ask if they can take a photo (and are respectful if you say no), there are of course a few random snappers, but they are usually harmless.

In NZ it tends to be a mix of things - go and enjoy the con, see the stalls, show off your costume, meet up with folks you generally only see once or twice a year (and then chat to online for the rest). Its a meeting event that ends up being more about the people and your fandoms, so I like to think that most people are out to enjoy them selves.

That said, some of them do kill them selves a bit getting their costumes ready, and I fear the con loses a bit of its luster for them chuu~!

You know who you guys are (take care of your selves)!!!

whee

By Daddylion. 13/02/12, 10:25 pm

kyokyogirl: it's a shame that male crossplaying is not as big in NZ, that the ideas of masculinity there are a little less forgiving than here (from what i can see). I do hope there are some guys who are brave enough to do it :)

Highlander: It is very interesting how different things are there. Yes i suppose if even medieval costumes are a weird thing then japanese must be positively alien. Being here I actually forget that cosplaying is one of those 'interesting hobbies" hehe. Like i said, the cosplay community here is quite big. And while not everyone get that anime are not all 'for kids', there's probably still more people who get that it's more of a teen/adult thing than there are in NZ.

It does sound very different there :)

Yes i can imagine that guys here have an easier time cosplaying, and my friend in Brazil also said male cosplayers tend to be harder to find in general there as well. I'm not sure of the ratio between male and female cosplayers in Thailand though, i beleive that there's probably more female cosplayers overall, but it's still not that much of a difference. There's a lot of guys who cosplay here.

hehe i can understand that part, girls get away with some things more than guys, but alternatively guys get away different things than girls. But the things guys do, that girls will be leered at for... well i think that's also part of why here there's yaoi fanservice from guys than girls, cause guys do it for the hell of it... like 'gay chicken'. And it's 'gay chicken' that will get them lots and lots of female attention.

I'll reply to the rest later, i have to go...

By Daddylion. 15/02/12, 03:21 pm

Ok, continuing from last time, I'm sorry this is getting so long btw but i love reading your replies and discussions... I really hope someone continues to reply on this thread.

Highlander: The age in Thailand for cosplayers is mostly 15-20 I think, for me being 23 I'm already considered one of the 'older people'. There are of course younger cosplayers, (though few) and older cosplayers too, some being 40 and such. A lot of the more 'professional' cosplayers are older too, some cosplay idols being 30 and such... of course some people completely refuse to tell you their age and when you tell them your age they just say they're 'definitely older' and not tell you anything else hahaha.

Alot of cosplayers who are older here are veteran cosplayers, and they're the ones who help set up the cons themselves and give advice to the newer cosplayers and such. No one ever tells them they shouldn't cosplay... but it's different for people who are older and new to cosplaying, because there's a feeling like, you're behind the kids.

hehehe I don't mean yaoi appeals to guys here or that all girls here are into it, I'm saying that the female fanbase for yaoi is big enough that many guys within this large community knows what it is, knows the archtypes and vocabulary and some know to use it to their advantage or enough to play around. Some guys want to 'play yaoi' with a cute female crossplayer as a chance to get closer to them, some will succumb to the will of the yaoi fangirls cheering at them and get lots of attention.

Some guys don't yaoi at all, but will just have 'uke poses' where they try to look cute and vaguely feminine. That's very popular with yaoi girls as well. Moe/Kawaii culture is very very strong in Thailand, especially since our cosplay culture comes more directly from Japan than anywhere else (I assume in NZ it's more western oriented media cosplays, like at ComicCon in the US?). Chances are a very cute, pretty and vaguely feminine male cosplayer is more appealing here than the manly sword wielders you might have in NZ.

Kitten Slave: lol, I know what a 'Trap' is.

Lol, so that's what you look like hehe :) I've seen worse, but mostly online. There's a lot of deliberately bad cosplays of Sailor Moon from what i can see. I saw one in Thailand too.

Well most people who take our photos are con goers snapping shots of us, in fact most of them are, but they come in dozens when you have a large cosplay project (like my group with 13 bleach cosplayers) or when you do a fanservice shot, actually they come in dozens with anyone cute or with a flashy costume... basically those people snapping photos with their phones, added with the more professional photographers there make up a large crowd, the larger your cosplay group the larger the crowd around you will be... like i said, when we go as a bleach group all together, we have to stand and pose till our arms hurt.

Very very rarely do we have con goers who said they want a photo WITH us, with them in the picture (children or otherwise). Mostly they will want a photo just of us as characters. They're more likely to request a certain pose than to ask to be in the photo with us. I don't know why hahaha. It's not like any of us mind.

The way things go with photos is this, we'll be standing around talking... a photographer will come up and ask if they could get a picture, so all of us will pose. Then 4 more photographers will see us posing and come to take a photo, so we keep posing, and the first photographer will see we're still posing and snap more shots from different angles, then others will do the same, then more photographers will see the group and want a photo, and random congoers will want a shot too and then the first photographer will start to say "Can we have a different pose now?" and then we'll change pose and then the same group that already has a photo (or 5) might decide they want a photo of the new pose too, and they'll photograph us until they get enough and go photograph someone else but new streams of photographers who's only just noticed us will keep coming in.

And we so we cosplayers wait and pose until all of the photosnappers eventually fade before we can start moving like a human being again. It's not as bad when you cosplay alone though, when you go as a group it takes forever for them to stop photographing.

Random snappers? Are you talking about people who photograph without your permission?

Well, I think cons in general are about people enjoying themselves aren't they? Just it's still very different between here and there... but not all of us are competitive with our cosplays and causing trouble and vying for attention. But you know, the larger the group the easier it is for people to end up clashing any way you look at it right?

By Highlander. 15/02/12, 06:18 pm