Evelyn. Politically aware, and tries to keep up with current events. Reblogged from so-treu
The Asian Men Redefined 2012 Calendar is our 6th issue of Asian Men Redefined. The calendar is photographed and produced by dannydan and it benefits Asian & Pacific Islander Wellness Center, the oldest non-profit HIV/AIDS services organization in North America targeting Asian & Pacific Islander (A&PI) communities.
Please help support everyone!
Available online at http:// www.asianmenredefined.com/
I cannot and will never directly support this calendar. This is a huge disappointment.
Every year, I’m always hopeful that this calendar will change its ways and evolve into something more informed. For those of you that don’t know, the API Wellness Center in SF sponsors this calendar as a fundraising effort. 12 Asian cis-males are handpicked to be photographed—-mostly semi-nude and in suggestive positions.
If you look at the past calendars, you’ll quickly notice a reoccurring theme. All of the men picked are muscular and well-toned. Now, there’s nothing wrong with having a fit body. The point of this post is not to criminalize or make an enemy out of these men.
Rather, I’m having a really hard time with the calendar’s bullshit title. I’m sorry, but what are we redefining here?
I get it. Historically, Asian men (especially queer Asian men), have been portrayed as feminine and asexual people. Especially in queer porn, Asian men have been typecasted as bottoms—-a role associated with femininity and being the “woman”. (Don’t get me started on how fucking problematic gay porn is).
Anyways, this portrayal of Asian men left a pretty bad taste in the community. So, the obvious counter-response was to talk about masculinity and assert it pretty hard. We started to see more men with rock-hard bodies, tattoos, and “edgier” looks. We started to see Asian-American men buy into frat cultures (saying “bro”, swag, etc.) and becoming more prejudiced towards non-masculine identities.
I cannot tell you the number of times I’ve heard my queer and non-queer Asian brothers be incredibly trans-phobic and violent towards non-masculine folks.
What we have now are men like Peter Le, Harry Shum Jr., Christian Thorn, and Immanuel as forerunners in the representation of Asian-American men. And as noted by many, these men are extremely popular and well-appreciated.
These men have become so popular that they are no longer the counter-narrative. They are now establishing what’s expected of Asian men and building the sexual norm. We see it with clubs like Rage, gay Asian porn Tumblrs, and frankly anything that’s sexually charged.
I would argue that calendars like Asian Men Redefined are not only unoriginal in their approach, but also incredibly harmful to the community.
For anyone that’s ever worked in HIV outreach, we never use images like these to help support HIV testing and empowerment. One of the greatest obstacles to HIV work is the fact that sexual empowerment and body positivity are at an all time low. Especially in the API community, HIV is rarely talked about because of the stigmas regarding sex and notions of beauty.
It’s been shown that when sex and body images are stigmatized, folks will be more apprehensive to get tested. And when folks don’t get tested, HIV becomes a silent epidemic and HUGE problem.
Calendars like Asian Men Redefined work against the very critical and revolutionary rhetorics invoked by HIV centers. When I was at API Wellness, our youth group members didn’t look like these men. They didn’t have sculpted biceps, rock hard abs, or that East-Asian baby-face.
Nope. The real people of the API Wellness Center look like you and me. We had a group diverse in their body types and physical representations of their identity. And you know what? All of us recognized that we were beautiful and supporting of each other’s sexual habits. Because of this loving atmosphere, our members were passionate about HIV work and helped us to recruit more folks to get tested and become empowered.
Calendars like Asian Men Redefined don’t redefine anything.
This is old news, an unoriginal rehash of yesterday’s talk about how muscles, skin, and tight asses are somehow the real representations of our community. That somehow, a revolutionary and counter-culture action like REDEFINITION is supposed to be upheld by what’s already consumed in pop-culture.
It’s because of images like these that API organizations are struggling to increase their numbers and userbase.
Here’s a suggestion: why doesn’t the API Wellness Center make a calendar of actual redefinitions of Asian-Americans? As suggested by my good friend Joseph, a calendar of grad students, activists, working class folks, poets, writers, artists, and etc. would be fucking awesome, hot, and quite sexy.
It’s because of calendars and photo projects like these that I started the Dytry Talk Project. I am so sick and tired of seeing the same Asian cis-male bodies being portrayed as the standards I have to live up to.
Fuck. That. I am perfectly happy with my thin arms, somewhat bubbly belly, hairy legs, scarred back, and sun-kissed face. I am beautiful and I am a sexy as fuck Asian-American. And you are too!
Now, don’t get me wrong. These men are beautiful and I am definitely appreciating how great they look. However, the calendar is based on everything that’s so difficult about Asian-American body positivity and sex positivity.
I wish this calendar would JUST BE REAL about what it is: philanthropic jack-off material masquerading as a pin-up calendar.
You really want to help the API Wellness Center, especially after their funding was cut?
How about directly donating the 20 dollars (16 for the calendar, 4 for shipping) to the organization? There. They get the entire 20 bucks from you and you can write it off as a charitable donation. Everyone wins.
If you want to help The Center directly, here’s the donation link: https://co.clickandpledge.com/sp/d1/default.aspx?wid=34677
You can even pay via credit card and make the payment in memory of someone. I think that’s a much better and much more informed alternative than paying for a trash calendar like this.
Do not support this calendar. Make a direct donation if you want to donate money and help offset the budget cuts to API Wellness Center. Thank you.
YES TO THIS WHOLE COMMENTARY!
oh fuck yeah. although minor side note, rage is in fact not full of asian men such as depicted above. >_>
and yeah, this a lot. nothing is being redefined here; a calendar centered around this is an effort to be included in the same misogynistic and heterosexist ideals and privileges that white men enjoy. try redefining masculinity and asian masculinity as something non-oppressive instead.
-slowly starts clapping-
(italicized+bolded is what I thought stood out the most)
