last night, after cursing myself for not having snatched up the domain name sitonfacebook.com during the nascent years of online social networking, i lay in bed mulling over ponderous existential questions about modernity, identity, and the dying light of french theory. as a half-assed, largely incompetent student of literature and philosophy in the continental tradition, i have always held myself in unhealthy relation to french theory — and to dead white men more generally. Gilles Deleuze, for example, is my patron saint. aside from being a creative wordy genius after my own heart, he committed suicide by hurling himself through a window. defenestration? score! +10 points for theatricality. Michel Foucault, hero of literate transgender hussies everywhere, is second on my list of greats. Method of suicide: death by HIV (many speculate this was intentional, as he frequented the SF bath houses during the early years of the AIDS epidemic. in which case +10 pts for irony and biopower!)
Anyhow, as I rifled through my rolodex of heroes, it occurred to me that i have no asian intellectual icons of any sort, no Eastern locus at which my mimetic tensions gather. =P indeed furthur reflection made me realize that i have never had a male asian role model to emulate in any capacity — intellectual, affective, representational. not a single one. and not for lack of wanting and needing one, frankly.
As a self-professed slanty-eyed smartfag, i must say that a major part of my frustration with the Bear movement’s domination of the queer scene (aside from its tendency toward the same body fascism it originally deigned to move against) owes to the fact that the dominance of Bear social cartography effectively ensures that certain affective registers consequent to Oedipal sociality will for me remain unfulfilled. A distinctly Oedipal hieirarchy (and by that I mean the broader Oedipal model of family) is a de facto feature of the Bear scene — even the taxonomy of bodies reflects this: “Bear” (older bearded heavyset male) and “Cub” (younger slimmer bearded bear-to-be). The circulation of such a (hehe bestial) trope foregrounds a naturalistic sense of progression, a continuity between the young and the old, and what’s more, a mentor(ing relation)ship apart from pure sexual practice. Part of my own struggle with my sexual identity (and broader cultural identity as a child of immigrant parents) owes to the utter lack of such a relationship structure during my own coming-of-age. In the absence of a male ideal and a male homosocial mentor figure, I failed to develop a historical sense of my self and my world. Without a male ideal whose semiotic stability could organize my experience, my world has always lacked continuity. In many ways (and i don’t use this term lightly, as my mother was a violent postpartum nutcase) it has presented itself as something schizoid, devoid of coherence. while such may be the case, i’m under the impression most people operate without a crippling, persistent awareness of Althusserian/Lacanian ideological rupture. =P
At the risk of betraying my own desire to move beyond classical Western structures of affiliation and connectedness, i can’t help but wonder how different my life would be if i’d had access to not only to a stable family (and strong father figure in a distinctly Western aka classical Greek sense), but also to the parallel structure of mentoring and paternal care that has taken root in the queer community. I wonder sometimes if I am not deficient in some way for not being entitled to such mentoring? why am i not able to belong to a site of emulation, intersubjectivity, identification, paternal care? why is the absence of facial hair grounds for being disbarred from a community that prides itself on its ideology of inclusiveness and warmth? (reference: history of Bear movement, issues highlighted by Bear411sucks.com. addendum: i suppose the “return to nature” aspect of the bear-cub figure only “naturally” implies that hairless persons like most Asian men are ‘unnatural’, and hence undesirable)
While the Bear community’s emphasis on Western practices (loud gatherings at sports bars / community rugby tournaments / events that are traditionally attached to the working class) is perhaps somewhat removed from my own Asian domesticity (do not question authority / walk quietly through the house / do not make eye contact, let alone physical contact / to be loved requires deference, invisibility), the feelings, the affects, must fundamentally feel the same. To be embraced by a community and have your attachments be guided by that community’s very forms certainly must feel rewarding. These rewards are definitely experienced in a performative way – in the hundreds of Bear (which might as well be called Bear-For-Bear) websites on the web, the myriad Bear events (reference last weekend’s Chicago Bear pride), even Bear bars. Bear culture has even leeched into popular media (reference Cachorro.) Bear culture validates itself by making itself known — Asian ideology, on the other hand, demands that we blend in. Disappear. We demand a loss of faciality. Where eyes might meet I sometimes imagine an eraser.
For me, a gay Asian American male, to continually be rejected or marginalized by the Bear community on the basis of my lack of body and facial hair (note even the terminology! reference: Chaser) is infuriating. For me as an individual with a particularly violent and unstable family background, the rejection causes great pain and an even deeper sense of isolation. In many ways it simply recapitulates my early loss time and again.
The problem is not necessarily the Bears’ concern. They have their fun, and they have earned it. But what options are available for me? What gay Asian male – imagined by popular television or otherwise – could be a father figure to this 28-year-old spazzy recovered ivy-league meth-head who, posturing as intelligentsia , has largely gotten through life with strategies of avoidance, deference, and isolation? Why are others entitled to such relationships simply because they have more follicles in their face? That the Bear community has even failed its own (see account in The Bear Book volume II, in which a member of the community develops a disease that causes him to lose all his body/facial hair) is on paper ludicrous but in life potentially quite devastating for any h0m0 attached to this world of meaning.
My question is (as usual) an unproductive one. It may not even be a question. I suddenly find I am no longer able to ask one. But maybe this post would do better as something else entirely – something that is not so much a guided inquiry as an articulation of a need, as the identification of a void that greatly needs filling.
Asian-America, I am throwing down the gauntlet. I need an image of paternal care, empathy and instruction. it can be straight or gay, i don’t care. but I need it now.
(Mr. Miyagi does not count)
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jozjozjoz wrote:
Confucius say “No poop or face 50 RMB fine.”
Oh wait, that was Mr. T.
Posted on 01-Jun-07 at 8:02 pm | Permalink
pete wrote:
LOLZ! confucius say “No Bears or Mr T bust ass!”
Posted on 01-Jun-07 at 8:04 pm | Permalink
jozjozjoz wrote:
Oh man.
I don’t wanna see the aftermath of Mr T busting ass.
Posted on 01-Jun-07 at 8:13 pm | Permalink
Duy-Tan wrote:
very thoughtful pete.
good article!
Posted on 02-Jun-07 at 9:28 am | Permalink
Akrypti wrote:
May I suggest to you Prof. Kenji Yoshino. His books are fantastic. Also, if you’d like copies of all his law review articles, let me know.
Posted on 04-Jun-07 at 11:39 am | Permalink
J. Peter Siriprakorn wrote:
thanks Akrypti for the heads up! i found this while googling Prof. Yoshino
http://forum.wgbh.org/content/forum/2080-2006_02_02.mp3
Posted on 04-Jun-07 at 12:53 pm | Permalink
Efren wrote:
Interesting thoughts (once I warmed up my philosophy/social theory/sociology muscles).
I’m going to have to preface this (if only because this is what you’re trained to do) by having a lot of caveats. I came out in the early-mid 90s, during the height of the AIDS epidemic. When I was in your situation, we had no role models, mainly because either a) they were dead from AIDS, or b) they were so unpalatable because of their misogyny, racism, classism, etc., that we wanted no part of the old guard of queer Asian men’s groups.
Thanks to the internet, and also because of our ability to create networks because of this, a group of us queer Asians (both men and women) formed a communty in SF and LA in the mid90s, to much disdain and criticism from queer white folks, and other queer Asian men, primarily because a) we weren’t into white men, and b) we weren’t going to replicate all the -isms that affected the community then. This was a golden opportunity for us.
As a result, those of us in LA and SF created this incredible vibrant community online, but also in real time, having incredible house parties, social groups, and night clubs. Talk to a queer Asian in his or her late 20s or early 30s in SF or LA and mention Jaded, and most of them will have a wistful look in their eyes. We were able to build a strong community that thumbed our nose at the racist queer white community, our homophobic Asian community, and build a strong network of friends that for the most part, still connects us today.
To boil this down to its bare essence, really, if you want to find a role model, and you can’t find one—be one.
Be the role model that you want to see. Be the person that people want to emulate. Make those connections. No one’s going to make them for you, especially since so many of us are too damn scared to come out of the closet, and too damn scared of speaking up for ourselves. If you don’t do it, then frankly, it’s your own damn fault.
After my partner and I got married back in 2004 in SF, one of maybe 4 Asian-Asian male couples that did get married, we suddenly became the role models for the queer Asian men’s community in SF, which frankly speaks of how sad the community is. Too many of us are scared, and not enough of us have the balls to act. My partner and I do not feel that we should be role models, but because no one else is willing to speak up, those who do speak up end up having this mantle of responsibility, which is too great for any one person (or even a couple).
Peter, I may sound like a bitter old queen, but really, I’m calling you out. If you’re gonna sit there and bitch about how you can’t find a role model–frankly, it’s your own damn fault.
Posted on 08-Jun-07 at 10:18 pm | Permalink
pete wrote:
thanks for writing Efran
though my problem is that i have no desire to form an exclusive asian-american community. i’m tired of being caught up in that inclusivity/exclusivity dyad — the HEY WE ARE DISSATISFIED, LET’S JUST FORM OUR OWN COMMUNITY! ethos. i went through all of that while coming of age in detroit’s rave scene, where all the kids who felt different, who felt ostracized, who came from broken homes and broken hopes, were able to come together and create a space where they could be together freely. in the end it was an amazing thing, but simply living inside that bubble didn’t really change anything in mainstream culture. it just locked our perceptions into an us-vs-them attitude toward living.
i know what you accomplished in SF&LA wasn’t easy and it’s awesome that you did it, really fucking cool, but what i’m looking for is some deeper level of integration. also, i DO like white men. i have fortunately never felt hostility from asians who like asians, and i’ve never felt the need to be hostile to them. i guess i’m lucky in that respect.
i’m not sure what you mean by saying it’s my own fault for not having an asian role model made available to me — the implication here being that you can only blame the individual, and not mass media and sociality more generally. i think you pinpointed part of the problem, actually.
white america gets by on pointing the finger at institutions whenever things go wrong. it’s part of what (predominantly, but not just) white America has come to be known for — everyone is always freaking out about how the FDA has failed or the educational institution has failed or this/that bureacratic entity has failed. asians on the other hand tend to isolate the problem to individuals. i feel that’s counterproductive.
i don’t think there’s anything wrong with me expressing a desire for greater asian american representation in the media. i don’t think it’s wrong to expect a more egalitarian mass media machine. i don’t think it’s wrong to want a strong empathetic masculine father figure on t.v. in the place of the hundreds of white Dan Connors
frankly (and you pushed a button here) i don’t understand why anyone would say not having an available role model / icon in the public sphere is my fault, considering how terribly underrepresented we are in popular entertainment. does that absolve sociality in the way that we know it from any responsibility? i mean, of course i am something of my own role model. i felt that went without saying. i’m a fucking ivy league grad student for crying out loud. i rejected a crazy violent immigrant upbringing and family disownment so i could study what i love — which is clearly not math, science, medicine, finance. i’ve only ever met one other asian person remotely interested in continental philosophy, aesthetics, critical theory, and that person felt as rare as i did. yes, i’d like to form an asian-americans for the humanities! student group. but there are established channels i have to go through before i can really exert influence within the academy — namely, i’m not yet in a doctoral program. i’m working on it, it’s not like i’m sitting on my ass twiddling my thumbs. that has nothing to do with whether the forms of attachment that are widely available to the mainstream world are rightfully available to us; i’m doing the best with where i am at the moment. which is thankfully NOT in front of a friggin Calc III textbook, as my culture would have it.
if we don’t recognize what is missing for individuals, if we are constantly saying to individuals who actually raise their voices — HEY! IT’S YOUR OWN DAMN FAULT! — we’re just ignoring the fact that there is a problem in a more general social sense.
on a side note, have you been publishing these accounts of asian queer community building in the 90s? has it been documented anywhere? if i were an enthnographer i’d definitely try to help you compile some sort of historical record, if only because that helps to spread the word, and let’s the new wave of kids like me know that yes, something cool actually happened, even if it was momentary and isolated someplace ten thousand miles from here. my main question being: where is your legacy now?
Posted on 09-Jun-07 at 9:51 am | Permalink
Akrypti wrote:
I would have to agree with Peter on this one, Efren. I’m not understanding this “If you don’t have a role model, then become your own role model and also a role model to others as well” notion.
When we’re faced with conflict, pain, controversy, subjugation, or discrimination for no reason except we are who we are, then we stand up and oppose the oppressive wave. That doesn’t by default make us a role model. That makes us a fighter.
Peter is not saying here that he is not a fighter. If I understand his post correctly, he is simply lamenting the fact history has failed miserably at recording the stories of successful fighters of prior times. He wants to know the names and faces and stories of those fighters. He wants to empower and inspire himself with their narratives. He wants to know what they did right, so he can do it, too. He wants to know what they did wrong, so he can improve on it. He is saying after diligent and earnest research, he himself could not find these narratives. He wants to know if any of us have heard of any and could share. I’m not clear how he is at fault for asking these questions.
Posted on 11-Jun-07 at 1:52 pm | Permalink