Eastern orientations: Thai middle-class gay desire for ‘white Asians’

Abstract

ABSTRACTRomantic partnerships affect local ways of thinking about and experiencing the self amid rapid economic, social and political change. In evaluating social status, Thais are reconciling local mores, Western gazes, and Asian cultural flows that shape sensibilities, aesthetics and desires. I show how middle-class gay men negotiate romantic partner preferences with East Asians or ‘white Asians’. While there is a body of scholarship that addresses Western influences on Thai gender and sexuality, little is known about the impact of East Asia. Following Ara Wilson’s (2004. The Intimate Economies of Bangkok: Tomboys, Tycoons, and Avon Ladies in the Global City. Berkeley: University of California Press) ‘intimate economies’ and her (2006. ‘Queering Asia’. Intersections: Gender, History and Culture in the Asian Context N:14. Available online: intersections.anu.edu.au/issue14/wilson.html (accessed 15 March 2010)) call for studies addressing connections within Asia, I use macrosocial and ethnographic data to argue that Thailand’s geopolitical position, situated between wealthier and poorer countries in the region, constrains and enables new partner preferences. Specifically, there is a racialisation of Asianness and reorientation of desire away from Caucasian partners towards East Asian ones.