In the chapter on Asian Americans in my friend (and prolific epinion writer) Stephen Murray's book American Gay he recalls being attracted to the fierce masculinity of Toshiro Mifune before he (Steve, that is) knew he had a sexual orientation, and points to the widespread appeal, a bit, crss-race later of Bruce Lee. Lee and Mifune were paragons of masculinity, not delicate geisha boy-girls, and many so-called "rcce queens" (gay men not of Asian/Pacific Islander descent who are drawn to (eroticizes) Asian/Pacific Islander males) are "queens" in that they seek masculine partners, not androgynous, dickless, delicate flowers (as Richard Fung proclaimed some years back was the basis for rcce-aficionadi). "Queens" want men and "rcce queen" is one specialization of "queen."
In the very self-reflective The Rcce Queen Diaries, Canadian writer Daniel Gawthorp was a junior rcce queen in being attracted to Bruce Lee before he (Gawthrop) realized that there was an erotic element involved in his admiration. He wouldn't have known what to do if Bruce Lee had landed in his bed, and more wanted to be Bruce Lee than to have him.
Some are quick to diagnose "racial self-hatred" from recognized or from unrecognized desires to be one's erotic ideal, The cult of gym-toning is probably the most blatant (and often not racialized) example of trying to turn into what turns one on, to become what one desires. I think that heterosexuals less often conflate wanting to have and wanting to be, though I have seen a lot of evidence of heterosexuals who want to feel what their partners of a different sex feel (not just purchases of "Bend Over Boyfriend" videos, but more than a few experiments with same-sex partners!)
In interrogating his memories of growing up around Vancouver and gravitating to Chinese-Canadian schoolmates in a private residential high school, the sadomasochistic initiation of a Chinese-Canadian boy named Jackson troubled -- and continues to trouble -- Gawthrop. Gawthorp would like to conceive Jackson as a victim, but realized that Jackson was accepted by those who put him through a rite (of dropping candle wax on his naked body) that was, after, all an initiation rite. Gawthrop again wanted to be Jackson, but was not included with the boys, an inclusion that afterward encompassed Jackson...and continues to puzzle Gawthrop. (A hint I'd give him, it that it was not as tied into sexual orientation for the participants, including the "victim," as it was for the gayboy observer. Even in the immediate aftermath, it does not seem to have traumatized Jackson, who was sitting smoking and laughing with those who had just been tormenting him.)
Gawthrop's guilt about his desire for males of Asian/Pacific descent was also fueled by growing up close to what had been a concentration camp for Japanese-Canadians "evacuated" from the coast in pre-emptive acts by both US and Canadian officials following the Japanese pre-emptive attack on Pearl Harbor Dec, 7. 1941.
Gawthrop bears a heavy burden of the sins of the fathers, and when thrown into the candy store (a job in Bangkok), guilt about exploitation curdles the delight he'd like to take in relationships with Thai men. He does not date affluent Thai males, but tries to have equalitarian relationships with those who see him as a patron, a role with which he is very uncomfortable. I'd say he was prone to self-hatred. I don't mean to say that what he goes for and wants is more self-defeating than those many of us (straight and gay) believe we will be able to remake, rather than adequately analyzing who those whom we desire are beneath exteriors that attract us.
I'd venture the guess that some of those whom Gawthrop felt he was "exploiting" believed that they were "milking" the rich "farang" (using, as should be, not abusing). Those imbued with the sense--one that is particularly strong in Canada--that relationships should be equal with all needs openly expressed are confusing to Thai rent boys (and amateur who also operate in a patron-client mindset). Only the desperately poor do things sexually and romantically that they don't want to do--though what they think they are doing often differs from the romantic conceptions of the farang with whom the Thai is enjoying sex and otherwise being with.
I guess that I am less than sympathetic with the guilt the Gawthrop builds up before running away from the land where those whom huge psychically desires are very available.
The happy ending is not that Daniel reconfigures himself as a "potato queen" (someone eroticizing white people), but that he returns to Canada and has a relationship with a Laotian(-native) in Canada, believing that he has sorted out the real from the romantic. Quoting from Ian Buruma's The Mission and the Libertine (two dangerous types abroad!), he concludes that "the point of going East is not to find oneself, as so many hippy-seekers thought, but to get rid of oneself--or at least those aspects of oneself one does not like."
I sincerely hope that Daniel Gawthorp lives happily ever after, with the balance of frisson of distance/difference and confidence of being equalitarian in and out of bed. I thought that his book attempting to analyze (and criticize) his desires and reach a less guilt-wracked equilibrium made very interesting reading. I was particularly interested in the being/having dynamic of his eroticizing the Racial Other (mostly not problematicizing the Sexual Same(ness)... but that's another book for someone else to write, maybe me!)
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Yet another example of the Epinions censors blocking mention of the book's title!
Although there is rather a lot of self-criticism herein, I think that this book would not be publishable without gay pride, so hope that JPS246 will accept my more out-and-proud review for this year's Gay Pride Write-off.
Recommended:
