First, let me say there are a sizable amount of brainrotted pooners (and I didn't try to argue there weren't), but simply add that with yaoi it isn't that simple as there are factors why a lot of women don't see alternatives that speak to them.
Maybe you misunderstood, but I was specifically referring to other anime (not written smut, I have a lot less experience with it) as romance alternatives to yaoi. And the majority of straight romance anime is aimed at weeaboo moids salivating over big titty lolis and cute demure waifu material. As a woman looking for appealing romance in the anime sector you simply don't have much options, so yaoi has become popular. From there the yaoi gooner pipeline is set up.
This doesn't make it right or better, but a reason as to why.
I'm not trying to argue about women's romance in general being less degenerated or whatever, but was specifically referring to what brings women to AAP.
If you're autistic about my phrasing about women and rape then I have news for you: enjoying a fictional story where you're ultimately in control or roleplay with a partner where you can say the safeword anytime is not rape. And my argument was being yaoi is the separator that makes it "safe" to enjoy for many.
The keyword is that women are still ultimately in control of the situation.
Historically it was shunned and unbecoming for women to show any kind of sexual desire or initiate anything, you'll be immediately labelled a whore. Women want to be desired and have an "excuse" to enjoy sex. A fantasy of this kind plays into those desires.
@Lentil Soup mentioned great points.
There are a number of Romance anime that aren't just harem wish fulfillment for men; there have always been anime that are specifically targeted at women. I don't know why you're at such pains to say there aren't. Even if this were the case, what's stopping women from writing their own romance manga? Are women incapable of the creative act?
You want to sidestep Literotica, yet if anything this is the pitfall the majority of porn brained pooners fall into. A word you'll frequently run into when reading pooners posts on reddit is "fandom", now perhaps I'm incorrect here, but I've always associated the word "fandom" with western fiction as opposed to things like anime or manga. Shows such as Supernatural, Sherlock, Doctor who, and popular young adult book series such as harry potter, all of these had huge fandoms back in the heyday of tumblr, and within these fandoms was a strong current of MLM shipping.
Now I've never watched any of those shows , but I have read the harry potter novels and watched the movies, so I think I can safely say there are numerous straight romantic pairings you could place Harry in(at least 3 of which were directly hinted at throughout the series). Why then when I go to AO3 do I find this?
And scrolling a few posts down I find this tag.
I then clicked on a Mature rated story and was able to access it without even creating an account.
Then I got curious about the male sex symbol and low and behold it stands for M/M.
An astute observer will note the story captured in the screenshot above is about the Anime series Naruto. Now shocking as it may be, I am a bit of a weeabo, and infact Naruto was my favorite anime during my adolescence, so I am quite familiar with the shipping antics that went on within said community during the 2010's. Aside from the clearly hinted at, and eventually canon, couplings the most popular shipping pair I can remember was NarutoXSasuke. There is no indication throughout the entire series that either character is gay, in fact it's explicitly shown that they don't see each other in such light TWICE via comedic scenes.
Both Harry Potter and Naruto were aimed at young adults, and both were to greater or lesser degrees popular with young women. I participated in both of these "fandoms" and I can tell you in the majority of cases the M/M ships were orchestrated by women. Now lets set aside the moral quandaries of writing sexual stories about young adults and ask the more relevant question to this discussion; Why does a HETEROSEXUAL woman need to couple two straight characters to feel safe consuming/self inserting into porn? The answer is she doesn't need to other than to fulfill a fetish.
It's A Fetish.
Now lets take a step back and think about this from a parents perspective. You walk into your sons room and find him watching porn, open and shut case right? Flip the scenario, you walk into your daughters room and find her reading something, perhaps you ask what it is she's reading, and she simply replies "a harry potter fan fiction", are you going to press further? I doubt many parents would, even if you did are you going to slog through multiple pages just to get to the spicy bits? Even less likely in my opinion. Unless you're up your kids ass investigating every aspect of their internet browsing you're not likely to realize your daughter is consuming fetishistic material until she blind sides you by telling you she thinks she's really a man.
Again, I don't know why women on this website are at such pains to split hairs over this. When it comes to things such as gambling addictions, alcoholism, drug abuse, or any other such affliction we can all acknowledge that the men and women who've fallen victim to their own vices have essentially the same problems; yet when it comes to pooners and troons suddenly we need to draw pedantic distinctions in what I can only assume is some myopic effort to preserve a worldview in which men are disgusting perverts and women are pure damsels who poon out for more complex or legitimate reasons.
I've said it once, I'll say it again; you do young women no service denying their afflictions.
As for your promulgation of the feminist historical view I can only say you are retarded. A serious student of history will look at a marxist treatment of history and a feminist treatment of history and find similar faults; those being lazy and intellectually dishonest research, narrative driven framings which conveniently eschew the mountains of evidence that contradict such framings, and an inability to situate one's self within the mental, moral, and religious worldviews of the subject(s) at hand that is to say always and ever viewing things from a modern lens.
All of the above is why I have consistently argued with TERFS on this website, and why I will continue to annoy the retarded harrpies that insist on promulgating their mypoic and quite frankly retarded opinions.