OK, Cupid. Send Me No White Boys, Please
Sexual racism and the liability of blond and blue-eyed.
I once met a gay, white American tourist at a bar in Bangkok who, like so many before him, made everything about race. Unsurprisingly, once he had my attention, he felt compelled to share the racial dimensions of his sexual inclinations.
As he leaned in, I braced myself for more of the same old, same old:
“I love black men.”
“I’ve never been with a black man.”
“I’ve always wanted to be with a black man.”
“Is it true what they say about black men?”
I’d been hearing the song and dance of gratuitous racial profiling and sexual objectification since leaving the United States years earlier to live abroad in countries where black wasn’t just a minority but a true rarity (first Argentina, then Australia, and finally — at the time — Thailand). However, the gay, white American tourist’s variation on the oh-so-familiar theme came with a twist.
“I’m into Asians and black guys,” the farang said to me as if he were the first white person ever to utter those words. Then, the kicker: “I’m not attracted to white guys at all.”
