Actually the term “shounen ai” is referred as stories/mangas about pedophilia. Even in Japan, ppl do not refer to BL works w/o smut scenes as “shounen ai” but mangago does. It’s one of the few websites that has a shounen ai category. But basically to explain, the stories categorized as shounen ai are most BLs w/o smut or it’s only implied and not shown. There is another term called Shoujo ai which is the same except it is GL. Shounen ai and Shoujo ai are outdated terms for fluffy non smut BLs and GLs. Shounen ai is for non smut BL and Shoujo ai is for non smut GL :) I hoped that helped. If not I can’t explain more.
I was searching a bit when I saw this question and first I want to say that apparently BL is more of and overall term that includes shounen ai and yaoi. Shounen ai focused more on the relationships and struggles the couple goes through, and while yaoi can also do that, it has or is gravely bassed on sex. But yaoi doesn't have to have a story at all and can just be sex. So no, I wouldn't say that it is exactly yaoi without sex. And answering that, shounen ai does not include lesbians. And just to add on, also while reading I had found that shounen ai is a term used in Japan that means real life pedophilia. And shojo ai is used for the same thing but involving under age girls instead of boys. Honestly, I'm getting really confused with all the info because it also said that BL was the official name of the genere, countering what I said earlier about it being an over all but the last piece was by someone who knows what their talking about so ;-;. I know this is confusing and long but I hope it helped a bit. Sorry.
Shounen Ai literally translates to “loving young boys” in Japan. It’s an outdated term and that’s why people in Japan and most websites don’t use this term. Shounen which refers to young boys and ai which translates to love. It’s the same with Shoujo ai. Many websites don’t use the term shounen ai or Yaoi because they’re both outdated terms that we don’t use anymore. That’s why on most websites, they’re only categorized as BL :) I hope that cleared it up
Is Shounen Ai only Yaoi without sex or it also contains Yuri stuff without sex?? I am a bit confuse....