Engendering the Subaltern Subject: The Sexual Identity of Gay Asian Men

We live in a world wherein we are controlled by our society. Society dictates what can and cannot be done, what is right and wrong, what is to be accepted and what is to be shunned. In our world today, we feel the need to conform to the norm, to feel as though we somehow belong, that we are a part of something bigger – that we belong to a community. In our world today, we are also encouraged to set ourselves apart from everyone else, to be our unique; our own person, but being different is something that is not generally accepted, the very notion that society brings forth, that we need to be our own person, society also contradicts because you can only be so different – it is as if there is a certain level of difference that can be tolerated, and anything beyond that comfort zone is deemed to be wrong.

Today, it has become evident that more people have gathered the courage to defy society’s comfort zones and rise above them. Now, we see an increasing number of homosexuals that are becoming more open about their sexuality, but the question there is, are they coming out of the closet explicitly? Or is it simply an implied action? In the Philippines, we have local scenes that vividly showcase homosexual pride. We see this through the pubs that welcome gay acts to perform every now and then, the parlors whose staff consists primarily of gay stylists, even through the media we see how homosexuality is showcased through the rise of gay showbiz personalities such as Boy Abunda and Vice Ganda. All these examples do in fact show that homosexuals are given great respect in these fields, and that they have been accepted by the majority of the masses, but these people, they have come out to us in a different way – there was no profound declaration of their sexuality, they simply showed it to us through