A blue suit, dinner reservations, and maybe even flowers. Growing more anxious as the night progresses, John desperately tries to find alone time with Henry amidst all the unfamiliar faces competing for his attention. Between the deafening laughter, offhanded comments, and quiet sobbing, John is left wondering how and if he can still make his feelings known before the night is over. Perhaps it was those unattainable expectations that led me to a moment in my life where I fell for a friend and was forced to re-evaluate my perception of boundaries and romance. Initially, this script was a way to process my feelings, but I soon realized it was a story I don't see often explored in mainstream media - a coming of age film about two gay Asian American friends and how they view relationships and connection.
Penny Wong: could Australia accept a gay Asian woman as PM?
Sexuality and human rights: an Asian perspective.
In Asia, the lesbian and gay rights movements are clearly dominated by activists, who tend to think in terms of a binary opposition homo- vs hetero- and clear-cut categories. Based on "Western patterns," the approach is practical, the arguments based on minority rights. On the contrary, "Asian values" put the emphasis on family and social harmony, often in contradiction to what is pictured as "lesbian and gay rights. Asian gays have to negotiate their freedom, lifestyle and identities in an atmosphere of heterosexism, and not the endemic violent homophobia prevalent in many western countries. In Asia, one's identity relates to one's position in the group and sexuality plays a relatively insignificant role in its cultural construction. That Asian gays often marry and have children shows the elasticity their sexual identity encompasses. Fluidity of sexuality does not really match the Western approach in terms of essentialist categories that have a right to exist.
Portraits of naked young men hang along the stairs to Ma Baoli's office. Inside is a shirtless picture of Ma himself and the seven other founding members of Danlan. Ma, who still goes by the alias "Geng Le" on the forum, had been a policeman in the northern Hebei Province for almost 20 years. He was forced to quit in , when it was revealed that he had secretly moderated Danlan at night. In just a few years things have changed.
The question everyone asks when they know you are writing a book about Penny Wong is whether she will ever be prime minister, and if not, why not. The simple answer is that she is in the wrong house — the Senate — when prime ministers must sit in the House of Representatives. The better answer is that she has never aspired to the job. Many people have urged her to consider it over the years, including some of her closest allies and friends.