In this week’s reading, we have Daniel C. Tsang’s “Notes on Queer ‘N Asian Virtual Sex” and Kieu Linh Valverde’s “Social Transformations form Virtual Communities” for this week’s theme of Digital Age and Cyberspace. The piece by Tsang truly caught my attention like no other article assigned this quarter with an introduction including the sex life of the author their partner, something personal and seen as too taboo for most of society today still, especially something unexpected in professional academic materials. But, this idea of virtual community in cyberspace for a “sexual underground” was a perspective that just as unique and attention grabbing with their syntax. It is interesting to read about queer folks and how they commnitcate and interact online, This is nothing new, especially to people of this generation, who practically live and breathe through technology, but the authenticity and honesty of this “computer nerd,” as they called themselves, is quite refreshing. It highlights this sense of fear that they have in the lies other queer men hide behind in order to satisfy their sexual desires. They even go on to challenge sexality as a consistent, biological identity and said, “our sexualities are ephemeral to be changed with a stroke of a key. These are social constructs, not biological essentialisms” (Tsang 119). I appreciate this because gender is a social construct and who is to say that it is anything when online when we do not have virtual genitalia. This is a very good point that was made about “coming out” online but in reality everyone can hide behind the anonymity of these profiles on these online boards. And with all the statistics from each ethnic group, he even used to it to say something about that intersection with ethnic identity and sexual orientation.
In the article, something that interested me was this idea of bisexuality being an identity held by Asian folks but is question and critiqued amongst the name. It was said that many on the board are gay rather than bisexual. There was also this idea of being less threatening to come out as bisexual but insist that they truly are not going through a phase and are actual bisexuals. What are the differences in the number of various sexual orientation identities within the various Asian groups due to? An idea that I have is culture and the nuances between how each of the Asian ethnic groups are treated, but just for being queer, but the type of queeerness and intersection with their ethnic representation.
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