Comedian Joel Kim Booster says he will always be a ‘bit apart’ in the LGBTQ community due to ‘perceptions’ of his race
The comedian has opened up about racism in the LGBTQ community due assumptions about Asian men
By Steve Brown
Comedian Joel Kim Booster hates being ‘excluded’ by the gay community because of ‘perceptions’ of his race.
The openly gay comedian has been making waves on The Late Late Show with James Corden as well as Netflix and Comedy Central and although he is proud of his Asian heritage, he has opened up about racism in the LGBTQ community.
While speaking on the Advocate’s podcast LGBTQ&A, he said: “Sometimes you interact with someone whose entire view of your self-worth is wrapped up in fuckability.
“No matter how I force my body into a shape that’s more in the zeitgeist of gay male desire, I will always be a little bit apart from that world because of my race and because of perceptions about my race.
“I’ve accepted it, but it is tough sometimes to be introduced to somebody and just have them look through you and you know exactly why.
“I’m not attracted to everybody that I meet,” he concludes, “but I still am able to treat people I’m not attracted to with respect and humanity.”
He also wisely made the point that people who write ‘No Asians’ on their Grindr profiles is due to them assuming that all Asian men cannot have a ‘big dick’, be masculine and muscular.
He continued: “The inherent assumption in ‘I’m not attracted to Asian men’ is that we all look the same or there’s an innate quality about Asian men that you cannot separate.
“Let’s be real, that’s the thing behind ‘No Asians’. Saying ‘I like a guy with a big dick who’s masculine, who’s muscular, who’s XYZ.’
“All of the things that are not associated with Asian men typically in terms of the stereotypes we see in the media and elsewhere.
“But there are Asian men that exist who would check those boxes. I feel this weird relationship to my dick. I love my penis.
“It is great and gorgeous, but there is this moment every time before I whip it out that I think, ‘Am I the first Asian penis that this person is going to see in a hook-up? Am I gonna measure up? Is this going to meet expectations? Fall below expectations?’”