Imagining Gay Paradise: Bali, Bangkok, and Cyber-SingaporeMages of Manhood asks the question: How have gay/queer men in Southeast Asia used images of paradise to construct homes for themselves and for the different ideas of manhood they represent? The book examines how three gay men in Bali, Bangkok, and Singapore have deployed different ideas of “paradise” over the past century to create a sense of refuge and to dissent from typical notions of manhood and masculinity. For the disciplines of queer studies, gender studies, communication, and Southeast Asian studies, it provides (1) a “queer reading” of Walter Spies, a gay German painter who in the 1930s helped turned Bali into an island imagined as an ideal male aesthetic state; (2) a historical account of the absorption of Western notions of romantic heterosexual monogamy in Thailand during the reign of King Rama VI, providing an analysis of his plays, and the subsequent resistance to those notions expressed through an erotic, architectural paradise called Babylon created by a post-World War II Thai named Khun Toc; and (3) an account and analysis of the “cyber-paradise” created by a young Singaporean named Stuart Koe. The book examines their pursuit of sexual justice, the ideologies of manhood they challenged, the different types of gay spaces they created (geographic, architectural, online), and the political obstacles they have encountered. Because of its historical sweep and its focus on the relationship between gay men and ideas of Edenic space, it makes an important contribution to understanding gay/queer life in Southeast Asia. |
Contents
Plate 18 | 143 |
Transition A Murder for Paradise | 143 |
The Hope for a Better Age | 157 |
Postscript | 255 |
Notes | 261 |
301 | |
307 | |
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Common terms and phrases
aesthetic arrested Asian male Babylon Bali Balinese Bangkok become boys British called Chinese Chulalongkorn colonial created culture dance desire Dutch empire Europe European eventually Fridae Fridae.com friends gender German heterosexual homosexual ideal island Jackson Jane Belo Java Java-Bode kathoey kecak Khun Toc king later Lee Hsien Loong Lee Kuan Yew Lesbian letter leyaks live magazine magical male body manhood masculinity Mongkut monogamy mother Murnau named Nanyang Nation newspaper Nosferatu October painting palace paradise party Patpong photograph play police political polygyny Press prince promoting reported Rhodius romantic royal Saranrom sauna Scriabin seemed sexual Siam Siamese Singapore Singaporean Sintercom siwilai Southeast Asia Spartacus story Stuart Stuart Koe Tchampuan Thai Rath Thailand Thaksin Trans triple supremacy University Vajiravudh Walter Spies Walter Spies Archives wanted Werwie Western Winckelmann women write wrote young Zentgraff