What are the border lines between attraction and fetishization?
that featured two men — one white, the other Asian — swapping Grindr profiles and seeing how it changed their experience on the app. “No one’s taking the initiative in saying hi to me,” the white guy tells the camera, shocked by the decrease in messages he’s getting. “Kind of a rice queen here,” a guy messages him. Another shares his racist assumption that all Asians “are good at bottoming.
I’ve encountered this same lack of sensitivity in real life too. After months of wondering about it, I finally mustered up the courage to ask my friend with benefits at the time, a white guy, if he had dated a lot of black guys before me. The answer was yes. “What?” he asked after I sighed, his voice shaky. “I like black guys and black guys like me.” It felt like I was in that scene inwhere Chris discovers his white girlfriend’s old pictures and sees a plethora of former black boyfriends.
Much like that Grindr video, pop culture has steered clear of conducting a deep dive into the fetishization of, Chiron falling in love with a person of color from the same community and brand of hardships as him. The artistic decision was an understandable one. The sameness of Chiron and Kevin was a refuge, allowing for a common understanding that never had to be spoken. I felt this same comfort with a former black partner.