Depends on the place and context. I don’t know as much about the Chinese market for these things, but in a lot of cases for Japanese/Korean titles in this genre there’s a number of fascinating elements that combine to make it appealing.

It’s about beautiful men and can focus on them a lot, for one, but it also offers vectors to discuss and engage with dynamics and/or social things which women are discouraged from expressing. A lot of the time, one of the couple in Boy’s Love (for example) is intended to be a bit of a proxy stand-in for the female reader. They’re more often the viewpoint character, and they get to be more vocal about sexual desire for men than a woman may feel comfortable writing a female character expressing.

They also can engage with some kinds of stories about bigotry that can intersect with women’s problems in sympathetic ways; and, if you’re trying to deal with something that’s really sensitive or traumatic as a woman, then having male characters go through something similar can give the appropriate level of emotional remove.

Also, pretty men kissing!

Like, I’ve been reading CLAMP stuff again and wow those are pretty men!

I’m not a woman, mind you, but I’ve been reading this stuff for, like, 15+ years and these are my (incomplete) conclusions.

I wholeheartedly agree.

…so what about the minorities in those red states who are stuck there because of their financial or familial situations, and who lack the power to influence politics?

Wouldn’t work out. World’s too complicated for simple answers like that.

Leaving, even if it would produce a viable nation, would involve leaving a lot of people in the lurch. There’s people in conservative states who need the counter balance of blue states to slow down their government’s trend to self destruction and fascism.

Even though it’s increasingly frustrating with how feeble that resistance is, it does keep things like banning gay marriage in the “difficult to pass” territory and not the “a few compromises” one.