Why Are Gay Asian Men Still Underrepresented in Porn?

2020 was marked by an attempt to protest, once again, against racial discrimination worldwide, especially with the international expansion of the Black Lives Matter movement. A lot of companies, even within our adult community, took the opportunity to question their business practices and the state of the industry. Most of the brands showed (more or less) an intention to develop a higher sense of fairness and equality moving forward.

Even with the social acts of violence against Asian people all over the world, something is still going largely unremarked – discrimination against Asian gay men, not only in broader society, but also in porn.

Jkab Ethan Dale is an American Asian gay pornstar and influencer. The top model is one of the most active militants from our industry, he recently opened his heart and spoke his mind about this situation.

“Being gay and Asian is difficult, Asian men receive a lot of offense in the gay community,” Jkab said. “Something very hurtful is that sometimes, it even comes from other Asian people. For example, I have heard (both from white men and Asian men) that they wouldn’t sleep with an Asian men, or, that they would be very particular with what type of Asian they would sleep with; that the Asian guy would have to be “extra super hot” compared to an average person of any other races”.

This statement is disturbing. According to research by FS magazine, in 2016: 79% of Asian men and 75% of south Asian men have experienced racism on the gay scene. The global feeling is that even after 5 years, nothing has really changed.

“When surfing myself for gay Asian porn, I was often left disappointed that I couldn’t find anything,” said Danny Zeeman, Zbuckz network founder. “That’s why in 2003, I started my first gay Asian paysite, Japanboyz.com, and was able to bring uncensored Japanese content to the western markets: The site was an immediate success and I continued to build our brand around producing and partnering with unique Asian porn stars and producers both in the US and Asia, leading ultimately to our purchase of PeterFever.com.”

According to Dale, the lack of representation within an industry that feeds the sexiness and attractiveness of society’s standards is a big problem and leads to heavy consequences for the Asian community.

“It simply feels that we are disposable, that we are not necessary,” Jkab said. “Obviously, the porn industry is clearly white-centered and white-focused. I do think that the gay adult industry and the gay community has some kind of hierarchy, and sadly, Asian men are at the bottom”.

In early 2021, Jkab reached a milestone, for the first time he performed the first Sean Cody “Asian on Asian” scene.

“It took so many years to happen! I was proud and very happy that a major studio would finally take a step forward and film a porn scene featuring two Asian men together,” Jkab said. “Before this, it felt like we weren’t valuable enough by ourselves and needed another race to make us marketable” regrets the pornstar.

“Of course there is a market for Asian men in gay porn!” Zeeman said. “Asians account for 60% of the world’s population. It’s shocking to me that in this day and age we don’t see more Asian men in more gay porn. Some of it I think is due to Asian men feeling they aren’t good-looking enough, which is due in large part to the culture of the porn industry.

There has still never been an Asian man awarded for their work in gay porn by any of the industry award shows. So, while I do think the industry is big enough to allow more Asian men in gay porn, the biggest struggle has been with both studios and industry leaders refusing to give Asian men any recognition,” he added.

Unfortunately, the stereotype against Asian gay men is still very vivid and feeds the stigma.

“In the productions, we should be able to do everything that every other performer is doing from topping to be submissive and not pigeonholed to be a stereotype or token,” explained Jkab.

This controversial topic is often silenced by the media or industry peers:

“One of the most surprising thing that I’ve seen working in this industry is that some Asian men want to remain silent and don’t want to talk about the difficulties,” Jkab said. “I find this very disappointing. It seems that even some Asian content creators have some kind of internal hate. While it is sad and difficult, we should all talk and work together, to deal with this issue. I want my peers to feel empowered by their differences instead of perpetuating this self-hate.”

“On another hand, I’ve had the great pleasure to work with Cody Seiya on a recent scene for Sean Cody and I was thrilled,” Jkab added. “He too wanted to share and talk about this struggle and it made me feel more hopeful to see that more people from our community want to bring awareness and express themselves so we can be more than just a category token. This minority status is also feeding a tension between models who think they should fight for a spot whereas Asian models should support and help each other to face obvious racism and discrimination.”

“My recent experience with Sean Cody was such a wonderful experience, I am very proud of it and it’s also very meaningful; it started a dialogue, a step in a hopeful direction, in a nutshell: An opportunity to be a tool for a change,” Jkab said.

You can follow JkabEthanDale on Twitter @jkabethandale  and learn more about Peter Fever at PeterFever.com.