“Is It Alright With You That I’m Asian?”
12.02.2022 - 04:21
/ starobserver.com.au
By Gene Lim“Is it alright with you that I’m Asian?” The message popped up on my white friend’s Grindr notifications. It broke his heart to think of the experiences that would make someone second-guess themselves on such a fundamental level. I just shrugged.
“Most Asians know that gay men greatly prefer white guys – even other Asians. We’re used to the rejection.” Despite my mate’s protestations about how fucked that was, it’s true. While shocking at first, many of us simply resign ourselves to that fact and find a work-around.
There are even figures to back it up – in 2019, Kirby Institute researchers found that Asian men (alongside Aboriginal men) were rated as the least attractive ethnic group among Gay and Bi Australian men. “No Asians” and “No Rice” are probably what we think of when sexual racism is mentioned. But these preferences reflect larger trends in a person’s upbringing, their social circles, and the media they consume.
Jokes about all Asian men being ‘bottoms’, and depictions of us as feminine, waifish and submissive all contribute to racial stereotypes that stick like – well, rice. These stereotypes are a liability in a community where these traits are usually deemed unattractive. While there’s nothing wrong with being any of these things, there’s a lot wrong with thinking that every member of such a diverse group thinks, looks and acts identically.
For me, understanding why other men had such a distorted view of me helped me recognise that this was a them problem –not a me problem.Understanding sexual racism doesn’t make it any less painful. Some of my oldest participants have dealt with sexual racism for decades – the kind that was unabashed, unapologetic and deliberately hurtful. For them, hearing “I’m
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