Intersectionality, or Being a Fetishized Queer Asian Woman
Asian women have a particular experience in being objectified and fetishized (“Sucky sucky fi dollah!”), and queer Asian women even more so. Type “Asian lesbian” into Google and you get – porn. Loads and loads of porn. Type in “White Straight Man” and you get – decidedly not that.
As a queer Asian woman who started her career with nude pictorials in Playboy and on her website, has had an appearance in porn (in 2011, Vivid released a video of Tequila having sex with two other women that Tequila has stated was unauthorized), and finds power in “appearing,” Tequila has held a unique position within the public gaze.
In 2010, at one of her last public performances, she appeared onstage at The Gathering of the Juggalos and had rocks, urine, and feces thrown at her by angry fans. Nathan Rabin wrote a firsthand account of the event in A.V. Club, describing how Tequila
“had a role to play… she was the heel, the bad guy, the villain you love to hate. …For Juggalos, Tequila represented even more: She became the proxy for every hot girl who ever accepted Jager shots at a crappy bar from them but went home with a slick douchebag in a tight Ed Hardy shirt.”
The headliners of the event had mixed views on her upcoming performance. Violent J suggested it was “funny as shit to watch some dude get hit with a dead fish or pelted with piss, and… Juggalos should feel free to behave however they see fit” but that all performers should be treated with the same regard as other more popular Gatherings artists. Shaggy 2 Dope stated, “I’m tryna fuck that bitch so don’t be fucking it up for me.”
As things started to go south, Rabin states that “In a desperate bid to win over the crowd, Tequila responded to angry cries of “Show us your tits” by removing her top.” The night ended with one spectator attempting to climb onstage and another grabbing a trashcan, ostensibly to throw at Tequila, and the Juggalos “chas[ing] Tequila back to her trailer and smash[ing] the windows.”
Her music aside, it could be argued that Tequila’s assault (because it is assault, whether she “showed her tits” or not) was influenced in large part by societal views on sex workers and queer Asian women. The “okayness” of physically and verbally assaulting Tequila, as with women, people of color, and people with “other” or “dirty” sexualities is a social standard that many in the American public believe in, and has even been upheld by our very own president.
As I’m sure many of you, dear Readers, already know, being a minority is not easy in this world. When the assaults are not physical, they are still emotionally damaging, and dare I say – can affect your mental health.
Let’s get this clear: Hate Speech is not okay. Anti-semitism is not okay. But neither is Sexism, Heterosexism, Ableism, or any other bias.
Author: Nina K
