Race vs. Queerness in the Modern Sexual System

Though not always, race and queerness often have a binary relationship in the modern sexual system. The two sides to this binary include hypervisibility, often in the form of racial fetishization, and invisibility in the form of desexualization. Racial fetishization has sexcual and non-sexual undertones. Fetishization involving sexual undertones includes the fetishization of Black men for the stereotype of large penises, the fetishization of White men for perceived attractiveness, and the fetishization of the submissive Asian men stereotype. Fetishization including non-sexual undertones includes gay males’ obsessions with both Black female and White female celebrities/pop divas. Artists such as Beyonce, Nicki Minaj, Lady Gaga, Madonna, and Cher all have their sexual expression exaggerated in portrayals of them in the media to cater to that “sultry feminine queen” trope that gay males have an affinity for and are likely to consume. On the other side of the binary, desexualization happens often times to Asian men who have not had the social and historical contexts to be as visible as other groups have been able to in terms of their sexual expression.  [Satveer]