Representations of desires in some recent gay Asian-American writings

S. Murray

This article explores conceptions of same-sex sexual behavior and desires by American gaymales who grew up in Pacific Island or Asian societies. In the absence of systematic survey data, representations, which are not assumed to be autobiographical, by two South Asian émigrés to Canada (Badruddin Khan and Shyam Selvadurai), two second generation Filipino Americans (Joël Tan and Ricardo Ramos), a second generation Chinese Hawaiian (Norman Wong) and three men of Chinese descent born and raised in Southeast Asia (Lawrence Chua, Justin Chin, and T.C. Huo) are examined. The unsatisfying script of sexual submission of Asians to whites is particularly central, except for the South Asians. These books provide recurrent evidence of role distance, of switching roles (often without rewriting a dominance-submission conception of insertion-reception) and of some degree of reconceiving the (sexual) self.[Copies are available from: Haworth Document Delivery Center. The Haworth Press, Inc., 10 Alice Street, Binghamton, NY 13904-1580, USA]