 Different critics and commentators have had very different views of BL.In 1983, Frederik L. Schodt, an American writer and translator, observed that portrayals of gay male relationships had used and further developed bisexual themes already in existence in manga to appeal to their female audience.Japanese critics have viewed boys' love as a genre that permits their audience to avoid adult female sexuality by distancing sex from their own bodies, as well as to create fluidity in perceptions of gender and sexuality and rejects "socially mandated" gender roles as a "first step toward feminism".