De-facto, of course, yaoi has always done its own thing in these regards to some extent. I mean, if standards were applied the same as other genres I should think most of the stuff that gets tagged "smut" in yaoi should be firmly in the R-18 section (or previously on old Batoto, not allowed on the site at all), but generally that's ignored. I tried explaining this state of affairs to an admin once and it became clear very quickly that, well... The admins of these sites... I don't think usually read BL very much. And clearly had no idea what I was on about. Just as well, I suppose.
All of which is to say, I fully support removing the "smut" tag from this, but I'm not going to be the one to do it. XD