One Foot In, One Foot Out
Room for Squares
Gay Asian Males, do we really exist? This week, I set out to find the juncture between two vastly varying cultures. One, steeped in old world traditions and the other, more a product of free modern thinking. Ultimately, I expect I’ll find the GAM at the crossroad between East and West, but as I travel along that route, I hope to get a better understanding of why we’ve proven so elusive until now.
As a whole, it is safe to say that gay culture deals a lot in sex. I mean, sex sells, it drives, it motivates and it even sometimes helps sway the outcome of major political elections. We watch it, we read it, we sniff it, we feel it and we taste it. To put it simply, we gays are big on sex. We Asians, on the other hand, mmm...not so much.
I can’t even remember the last time anyone in my family so much as mentioned the word "sex". Come to think of it, that’s probably because it doesn’t exist. There is no Chinese equivalent of “sex” or “fuck", and if there is, it’s probably so slang that it hasn’t even trickled its way into wider acknowledgment. Instead, we have phrases that mean “make love” or “get on the bed". For some reason, saying to your partner, “Hey, let’s get on the bed together” just doesn’t carry the same effect as... say, “Fuck me".
No, sex is very sanitized in Asian culture. And because of this, anything even remotely counter to that will automatically be rendered as unsafe, unnatural and dangerous. It becomes the subject of whispered conversations, of knowing winks between depraved individuals...the stuff that’s not to be spoken of in the company of morally upright adults and definitely not in front of children. For these reasons alone, homosexuality remains widely misunderstood. And one thing that all cultures have in common is a fear of what they do not understand.
All of which makes being a gay Asian American male a uniquely challenging experience. I’m not saying that other cultures don’t have it tough because, simply put, I don’t know much about them. I can only speak of what I do know and what I know is that “gay” and “Asian,” like oil and vinegar, don’t mix. One requires you to be sexually experienced and adventurous, whereas the other demands your entire attention be applied to respect, reputation and family. It’s almost impossible to reconcile the two.
Perhaps that’s why Asian representations of the fabled homosexual are so sparse. The gay male is often depicted a feminized and sexualized eunuch in Western culture, but things aren’t much better in the East. Take your pick from the catty hair dresser, the catty fashion designer or overly catty best friend, all of them recent portrayals of gay men in Asian television. Clearly, imagination is no expense when it comes to popular caricatures of gay men. When you have no positive frame of reference, you’re forced into hiding, and in doing so creating for yourself a disjoint between two wildly different personas lodged within the same person.
The taking on of one identity absurdly assumes that you will renounce the other. Or at least that’s how it’s supposed to be, given the current requirements. But maybe the situation isn’t as extreme as I’m making it out to be. Maybe we’re making a new blueprint, one that enables you to have one foot in the door while the other is out painting your stomping grounds red. Maybe this way, we can finally have dinner at home with family and still make last call at Chaps.
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