It depends where you are, if there are other guys around your more likely to be welcomed I think... I remember seeing a few guys on aarinfantasy which is a yaoi/shounen ai focused forum, and I can't recall them having any trouble, but then I'm not really active there.
Hmm, on the one hand there are some really twitty fanbrats - on the other sometimes those fanbrats grow up and out of it and exploring deeper in the m/m fanbase helps them to do so.
I've also found that IRL, although their not exactly sensitive, guys that have a lot of exposure to yaoi and are... accepting of it's presence even if they don't like it, while they might crack a lot of jokes about it are more likely to be accepting of actual GBLT issues.
So I do think it assists with reducing heteronormativity.
It's not perfect - but even yaoi itself has some progress...
>Or does it even matter? Yes it does matter. Encouraging people to think about the issues that their writing about and increasing understanding of those issues is always a good thing.
>Why is there such a struggle between non-homophobic het fen (they just prefer het, but back GLBT IRL) and a lot of slash fen?
Because people are twitty and the fuckwad theory of the internet rules all... D:
>Also of note is that many yaoi fanbrats tend to be misogynist, which could complicate things.
Some are; Some I think get a little carried away. Het pairigns aren't immune to misogynist statements either - especially when they clash with another het pairing.
You also have to remember that although yaoi has a lot of shitty romance scenes - a lot of it is duplicated in a genre I call, shitty shoujo...
Most of the problems and cliches in yaoi - are also common to romance in general - which is also why some women are drawn to it - they want to be able to read their trashy romance, but when it involves women they find it a bit harder to enjoy... It's a complicated tightrope, and it must suck if this is an actual issue that you face in real life.
I uh, find it easier to tolerate bad writing in a m/m pairing than I do in one that contains women, because I identify with women more... Although, I do read gen, het and yuri/femslash pairings.
Um, this means I come off as more of a slasher in fandoms where my OTP may be het.
Finally - um, yaoi /is/ all about the sex - Boy's Love is the catch all term for it now in Japan, where as the word yaoi is associated only with explicit sex scenes if in a magazine or novel series or explicit m/m doujinji really, as far as I understand.
There are some stories that focus more on the characters - although there are no guarantees.
Seme and uke and strict roles are pervasive across the BL genre in Japan, but there are some amusing parodies and things that are changing it. There is also the fact that strict roles are pervasive across all of Japan's writing, which makes it frustrating sometimes when reading about women...
Um, I think that a key word "switch", will help you find more even pairings - where they swap between roles.