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This blog celebrates the beauty of Asian men by illustrating the depth and variety that is so often missed by those who make foolish statements like "All Asians look the same." It is primarily a photo blog, but I will also occasionally write comments related to Asian men and gay life as it relates to them.

Monday, January 08, 2007

à poil ("naked")



As this blog has developed, I have thought much on what I am trying to accomplish (motivation) and what is the best way to reach those objectives (methodology). For the former, my three primary motivations/objectives are (1) to contribute to the discussion concerning ethnicity and beauty, (2) to illustrate the beauty of Asian men in particular, and (3) to give myself a regular outlet for honing my creativity and writing skills.

As for the latter area of thought--methodology--I try to use that which will most efficiently and effectively accomplish my objectives. Though OYGA is still rather young (just under 5 months), I believe that I have begun to contribute to helpful discussions and hopefully to challenge conventional wisdom and the modern scourge of Abercrombie-ism. And this has naturally given me an outlet for writing creatively. However, in this focus, I believe I have inadvertently limited my success in the second of my objectives--to illustrate the beauty of Asian men.

I began to think that depicting naked men and explicit sexual activity would somehow "cheapen" the site and make it nothing more than a glorified porn site rather than a place for serious discussion.In some of my early posts, you can find a scattering of completely naked men. However, in conversations and through observation, I began to think that depicting naked men and explicit sexual activity would somehow "cheapen" the site and make it nothing more than a glorified porn site rather than a place for serious discussion (please note that I am not knocking porn sites! You can find plenty of them in my link lists). Also, I had some friends mention that they were unable to view my site at work because of the photos. So, I stopped using the naked pictures.

Unfortunately, this ended up prohibiting me from truly examining Asian male beauty, since I was limited in my picture selection and indirectly communicated that beauty in its pure form must be clothed (certainly not something I believe). And ironically, it probably limited me in my first and third objectives, as certain topics cannot be adequately illustrated and discussed without such pictures.

So, beginning today, I am going to strike out for a new balance. Recognizing the valid desire of some to avoid naked pictures as the blog is initially reached, I will continue to limit the first pictures to a PG-rating. And, unless otherwise indicated, all the pictures in the "Read more" section will also be non-nude.

But if you see the label à poil (French for "naked") on a post, that will indicate that there are naked pictures in the "Read more" section. I have already gone back to previous posts and added the label where appropriate. I trust this will be a welcome addition to the site and offer a broader platform from which I can speak on all topics.

As always, I welcome your comments about this or any other aspect of OYGA! And, to whet your appetite for what is to come, here is the first full à poil picture set...





























8 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think your decision to continue posting non and nude photos is wonderful. As you said, being able to post either way is the only way to fully express your blog and truly represient the true Asian male. I consider the "a poil" suffecient warning to those that elect to view your blog at work. Being one of the top ten fans of the Asian male form, this will ensure more frequent visits to see your udpates.

Anonymous said...

I was thinking on this earlier. I prefer sites like ClosCon that display almost exclusively non-nude, that reserve nudity for rare occasions.

Your Christmas post, with the Santa's covering the controversial bits, was pure heaven. Bravo!

Anonymous said...

I'm sorry. That's not going to work at all for me. Just the other day I was reprimanded by my boss for viewing non-nude Asian sites at work. I was written up and warned that next time he catches me I'll be let go.

That being said, I'm afraid I'll have to ask you to post lots more pics of NUDE Asian men if I'm going to be a regular visitor at work.

Anonymous said...

Again, I have to thank you for posting those pictures to showcase beauty of Asian men (though I am still not comfortable to look at this pictures in public, since I usually bring my laptop to connect to the net wirelessly in a cafe like Caribou or Argos).

As an Asian myself, I understand first-handed how GAM feel ignored and stereotyped in the mainstream gay community (here in the West). But the most severe situation is that "Asians descriminate other Asians." Most GAM in US do not want to date each other at all and cannot find anything attractive about other Asian men. But if you don't even think your own race is attractive, how can you expect other racial groups to think you as attractive? I have discussed this issue in some MySpace.com forum about why and how GAM descriminate themselves and then I found this is mostly limited only to GAM growing up in the West. They rarely have opportunities to see images of other sexy Asian men and grow up considering only white men are the norm of attractiveness. Then I think I should direct other GAM to your site. After seeing all the varieties and endless sexy and attractive (and mostly nude) Asian men on your website, I guess even the strict "potato queens" cannot deny the beauty of other Asian men. Maybe your website can make many other GAM more "sticky" (GAM who are attracted mainly ther GAM) and have increased self-esteem....

But then, if your website increases the number of "sticky rice", will that be a bad news for "rice queens"? :P

Michael said...

Michael,
Glad you are enjoying it!

Unknown said...

Garland,
Yes, I do think that I prefer to leave the emphasis on the non-nude pictures. Hopefully I will find a good balance. Thanks for the comments!

Unknown said...

Victor,
As always, I will do my best to accommodate ;-)

Unknown said...

Wellesley,
Well said. I think that it is likely that the entertainment culture of Hollywood exacerbates this problem, as almost all of the leading men, major "hunks" are white, with a few black and latinos who slip in along the way. But who is the Asian-American superstar? I guess we could say Keanu Reeves who had a Chinese grandparent, I believe. Beyond that, there are very few really famous Asian-American actors (that I can think of, at least....Pat Morita, Dean Cain, Rob Schneider, Garrett Wang [yes, I'm a Star Trek geek])...is this small handful of little-known actors really representative of the talents of the Asian-American community? I can't believe that. The only explanation is that there is a believe that, for whatever reason, Asian actors cannot "fit the bill" for the heroes, sex symbols, leading men.

And I'm not worried about the increase in "sticky" GAM's. Hopefully the thrust of this site is to help people learn to appreciate beauty in whatever form it comes. As one of my friends said, we need more "Equal Opportunity" gay guys :-)