Eng-Beng Lim, Brown Boys and
Rice Queens: Spellbinding Performances in the Asias, New York, NY: New York University Press, 2013, 256 pp., $26.00 (paperback).
The experience of alienation--or, at the other extreme, fetishization by "
rice queens" (10)--has taken its toll on gay Asian men in terms of self-esteem.
The stereotypical view of a
rice queen is reflective of the way API men are viewed in the larger gay community.
Maybe
rice queens, "chubby chasers," and my mad attraction to short guys are deter mined in part by genetics too.
In this respect, Potato Queen treads mostly familiar territory rather than venturing across borders in the way that The
Rice Queen Diaries successfully does.
population, and gay Asian-Americans maybe ten percent of that number, the demand is higher than the supply to satisfy both sticky
rice queens and other
rice queens.
I think you're creeped out by the kind of
rice queen who views you in that colonial-imperialistic way where you end up fetching slippers and walking on his back.
I commend you for running Jim Nawrocki's excellent essay, "
Rice queens and the men who love them," (March-April, 2002): It is hoped that this essay will help elevate the discussion beyond the usual Asian Study's vilification of all
rice queens, or the exclusive gay male PAPI [Philippine, Asian, Pacific Island] groups who often portray
rice queens as the sole source of their problems with stereotyping.
IN contemporary gay vernacular, a "
rice queen" is a gay man, usually Caucasian, who prefers to date Asian men rather than men of any other race.
Brown boys and
rice queens; spellbinding performance in the Asias.
The low status of these
rice queens among their white peers compounds their lack of attractiveness to the Asian men, while also leading the latter to painful self-questioning of their own sexual and social worth.
racism, such as that of "
rice queens" who desire Asian men