I find this OFFENSIVE BEYOND BELIFE!!!! I have no sexual interest in asian men so I am racist????

No. We’ve not said that. However, we would ask you why you don’t have any sexual interest in Asian men.

I have absolutley NO sexual interest in WOMAN either so does that make me SEXIST???

No. It makes you either gay or asexual. But attraction to someone by their gender (male/female) is not the same as attraction to someone by skin colour. I think gender is generally a biological thing (with a bit of cultural and social overlay), but attraction to skin colour is cultural and social. It’s not biological. People are not BORN attracted to white, brown or yellow people.

I am sick to death of being told by the straights that i dont fit in there and now im being told by the gay community that i dont fit in there because im not interested in sleeping with other races!!!!! ENOUGH!

Actually, we’re not the gay community. We’re a handful of people interested in opening up discussion, and also making the gay community a safer place for gay men of all skin colours and cultural background.

I’m sorry that you don’t fit in. That’s how many of us feel – which is why we want to make our community a friendlier place to hang out. Perhaps fitting in is also opening your eyes and ears, rather than feeling excluded right away. On the other hand, if you are as angry and aggressive as you seem, we probably don’t want you hanging around that much, but the invitation is open for dialogue and growth.

As it says elsewhere on the board, we don’t consider it racist to not want to sleep with men of other races. Boring, perhaps, but not racist. But people can express that preference in racist and unwelcoming ways. That’s what we’re against.

(Andy, on behalf of the SRS team)

So, check out this post on the blog, I Am Yellow Peril, which talks about how Lin’s popularity could increase the changes of gay Asian men getting laid. The post has gone viral.

And the blog looks great too, I’ll have to read more posts.

Happy New Year. I was on Huffingtonpost and read something that led me to the following discussions online around sexual racism. I’m posting them here because I think it’s useful to collect such links and it’s always heartening to see the topic being discussed. I apologize if any of them have been posted before.

This was the post on huffingtonpost: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/phillip-m-miner/gay-suicide_b_1186183.html

He writes at one point,”I know I’m not so supposed to mention this for fear that I might be misquoted by social conservatives, but queer people are frequently and impressively mean to one another.”

He touches on racism and included a link that led to the others I found below.

http://www.terrylevine.com/2011/03/the-queer-case-of-racism-in-the-gay-community/ .html

http://thenewgay.net/2010/08/why-am-i-not-attracted-to-black-men.html

http://thenewgay.net/2009/09/the-racial-cop-out.html

http://metroweekly.com/news/opinion/?ak=5613 (Sexual racism is at the core of what many gay men believe to be ”preferences”)

http://www.bathhouseblues.com/Body_vs_Race.html

http://www.bathhouseblues.com/GWM_GAM_2.html

I’d like to say kudos to Archie comics for its completely normal treatment of a gay interracial relationship. They could have easily had two gay, white characters but they went another way. Little decisions like these are what, in my opinion, what it takes to end the sexual racism that exists. I think it’s a positively subversive move and one that should be applauded. It’s really great. I love that Clay looks like me, if I were a cartoon, I’d look just like him in that cover pic. Hopefully, they’ll have gay friends of all colors. If you’re so inclined, I encourage you to contact them and let them you know you support what they’re doing and that you’d like to see more of it in the future.

Check it out: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/07/archie-comics-wedding-fir_n_1187741.html

Contact info:

Archie Comic Publications, Inc 325 Fayette Ave. Mamaroneck, New York 10543-2318 Phone – 914-381-5155 Order Fax – 914-381-4015

‘After many profiles I saw saying: no blacks, no asians and observing the behaviour of many white gay males when it comes to partner choice I have questioned some about it on the internet. Many claim that they are not being racist. They see the ethnically motivated partner choice as a preference, just like preferences for skinny or heavier men.Many of them say they do not hate black or asian people and have many friends with these backgrounds. In general they can not show pics of themselves with these friends, cant tell any names and I rarely see white males socializing with other ethnicities in clubs and such (unless they do have a preference for another race). I tested the validation of the preference argument on the net by adding to “no jews”next to “no blacks and no asians”. The response was overwhelmingly agressive and directed to “no jews”. People have called me antisemetic because I stated I dont want to sleep with Jews. They would not accept my statement it being merely a preference It seems that if you don’t fancy Jews, you are antisemitic. If you dont fancy blacks that doesn’t make you racist. Strange, because in my opinion it is equally valid not to date someone because of his convictions/beliefs as dating someone because of his physical appearance. In many cases too, Jews are genetically and often physically different from your average Swede or German so in that way there is somewhat of a racial difference. What do you think? I will delete nasty hurtful responses. This was an experiment revealing a double standard’.

Alan and Tommy are great photographers and artists, and here, with no mention of race at all, they’ve got a fun selection of sexy photos of mostly Asian guys and a hot black guy, that aim to challenge a different stereotype…

When I saw the images, I just assumed that they were gay men, but I see now that it does NOT state that. But that’s another thing that I like about their work (and check out their profile of hot men over 50): it’s a celebration of different types of beauty – does it matter if it’s gay or straight or what race it is?

Check out their work here.

“I think it’s great to address the issue of sexual racism however I think the issue is larger and that we should be looking at sexual oppression. What about the fat phobia, femme phobia and misogyny that is expressed in the example “No Fats, Fems or GAMs”. Also, I feel that merely couching people on how to express racism in a more palatable way “Looking for slim, fit, masculine guys. Usually prefer men of [caucasian, latino, black] background”, still isn’t dealing with the root causes of racism.”

In response to an online survey, “Would you or have you dated someone outside your race? – Relationships -Dating, marriage, boyfriends, girlfriends, men, women, friends, attraction … – Page 27 – City-Data Forum“

Nimchimpsky wrote: it’s kind of hard to be of color and NOT be willing to date outside your race in the gay community. Being gay already limits our options, having racial preferences would only serve to limit further. Actually more emphasis tends to be placed on race when it comes to selecting partners in the gay community, psrticularly among gay males. A strong tendency to date within one’s racial group often co-exists alongside a strictly-defined racial hierarchy for those who choose to date outside the group, where white gay men dwell at the top and black and Asian gay men the bottom (no pun intended). The racial issues present in the heterosexual mainstream are often magnified quite starkly in the LGBT community.

Also, found a PING comment from April 2011, where ‘sexual racism’ was referenced in a blog about ‘desire, film and gender’. The blogger says:

‘I tried online dating when I was younger only to abandon it in exasperation. I’ve never been a fan of online dating; mainly, because it is bleak. It strips the process of  dating & getting to know someone down to the bare essentials: it makes dating much like grocery shopping. This effect makes it easier for people to be very biased, if not outright racist (I don’t like Asians, Blacks, Whites, Arabs, etc.). It seems anything goes if one employs the defense of  a highly “personal” sexual preference and under the cloak of the Internet’

Check out more here.

Comments, anyone?

Alexander Chee, a talented American writer who I met years ago, has got an article out in Out magazine where he comments on a tumblr blog called “Douchebags of Grindr”.

Check it out here.

It was brought to my attention on facebook by Sylvia Tan, the talented editor of Fridae.com.

The content and arguments in the article are not new – but it’s great to see it in a prominent magazine like OUT, Alexander inserts himself into the story talking about some of his experiences (great – so it’s not just a diatribe) and the article is talking about Grindr, which rather updates are old complaints about gaydar profiles and the like.

An excerpt:

“If your profile reads “I block more Asians than the Great Wall of China!” you’re not only racist, it’s even weirder than that: You’re looking for a fellow Asian hater to date. You’re using the disguise of a semi–socially acceptable way to say you’re a racist and looking to hook up with other racists. That’s fine. Just change your profile to RACIST, SEEKS SAME instead.”

By Daniel Lee, it’s passionate and articulate, and I like the way that he calls out sexual racism both in the larger community and by gaysians ourselves…

http://metroweekly.com/news/opinion/?ak=5613&fb_source=message

Some excerpts:

• “gay men have become unapologetic sexual racists, gender purists and enforcers of a gay male body culture on par with the oppressive beauty myth that women have endured for decades, as manifested in the phrase, ”No fats, no femmes, no Asians.” We gay men have seen it, or used it (or a variation of it) in endless personal profiles, but nonetheless, the disqualifying mantra is the un-critical acceptance of racial, gender, and body-biases often rationalized with the subsequent phrase, ”Just a preference.”
• Our sexuality and our sexual desires are not static. Someone who claims to only be into ”butch” men could very well find himself unbearably attracted to a more effeminate man. Perhaps not as feasible, but not impossible. And that’s the point: it isn’t impossible, so why go shutting out the possibilities with inane disqualifiers?

Check it out.

fab Magazine from Toronto is an old friend of mine. Alex Rowlson published this article about sexual racism in its pages called “Not just a preference“. It’s sharply-written and smart: “Words can beat people down, but it’s within our power to change how we frame our desires, and even to change our desires to create more inclusive screwing.”

Over on The Sword (NSFW), a site that reviews gay porn, a writer has gone off (i.e. reacted badly) over Alex’s article. Each of his arguments could be lifted from my old blog entry and article where I rebutted the kinds of things that we heard in the early days of SRS. He gets it wrong from the first sentence, imagining that Alex’s article equates having a preference to being racist, which of course, it doesn’t. The interesting thing about his rant, which I see, oops, is written by the editor of the site, Zach Sire, is that it seems to have given rise to some healthy and energetic debate. I’d refer Zach and other readers to this site… but the conversation seems to be going quite nicely without us!

Meanwhile, another porn website points to both articles. I like Fleshbot (NSFW) and its writers – they have a real healthy and positive view about celebrating men of all colours and ethnicities, and they’re writing in a milieu that actually counts, one that gay men are viewing and one that has daily conversations and images about sex. Their posting simply points out a hot Asian guy getting f*cked and then casually refers readers to the other articles.