Christy Chung

Section 3

Week 10 Blog

19 November 2015

Boyung Lee’s article explores how the Confucian regard of the body affects the way Asian American communities regard sexuality. In many Asian American cultures, sexuality is considered a taboo and is rarely spoken about. This can be extremely harmful as it trivializes sexual minorities and fosters homophobia within the community.

 It was interesting to learn about the Confucian idea of the body. A woman’s body and sexuality is considered the property of a man. If a woman does anything like fail to give birth to a son or is talkative, she can be severely punished. I found that these ideas were extremely unfair and backward. Lee mentions a 20/20 report in 2003 that revealed every year, hundreds of Asian American women are seeking hymen reconstruction surgery before getting married in fear of dishonoring their families. It upset me to learn that so many Asian American women are still living under these teachings.

I was also intrigued by the Korean tradition for a mother to give her daughter a silver knife as a symbol of purity for her wedding gift. While I initially found it an endearing tradition because it symbolizes protection, Lee further explains that it is also intended to be used for self mutilation or even suicide in the case that the daughter is widowed or raped. This tradition powerfully reveals how truly harmful it is to treat sexuality as a taboo.

My question is –What can we do to demystify the body and sexuality within Asian American communities?