2AM's Jo Kwon clears up gay mors & nfirms fah to Ga-In | allkpop

Contents:

• 2AM'S JO KWON CLEARS UP GAY MORS & NFIRMS FAH TO GA-IN
• FORMER JYP TRAEE WAS KICKED OUT FOR BEG GAY AND LOST THE OPPORTUNY TO BUT WH 2AM, 2PM

2AM'S JO KWON CLEARS UP GAY MORS & NFIRMS FAH TO GA-IN

Origatg 1960s Japan, where  was known as “yaoi, ” BL typilly picts two men a homoerotic relatnship. Some LGBTQ activists have acced BL stori of fetishizg and appropriatg gay culture. Wily regnized as South Korea’s first openly gay K-pop artist, the sger and actor Go Tae-seob, who the stage name Holland, starred a BL drama last year and believ that the growg visibily of BL books, TV seri and movi is a posive step.

Bdette, who also intifi as gay and is a longstandg BL fan, said the genre will shake up nservative views on genr and sexualy South Korea. “Whether you are a heterosexual woman tryg to ject your sexual tonomy to the world, or you are a gay man who wants to see posive reprentatns of male-male romance, BL n be ed, ” he said.

Andrew Ahn’s father once told him that there were “no gay people Korea.

FORMER JYP TRAEE WAS KICKED OUT FOR BEG GAY AND LOST THE OPPORTUNY TO BUT WH 2AM, 2PM

In a culturally nservative muny, where gog to church and buildg a fay were heavily emphasized, Ahn felt his gay inty kept him “om beg able to participate Korean culture. ” Then, he started equentg GAMeBoi, a weekly Asian Amerin gay party at Wt Hollywood’s Rage Nightclub. He learned to embrace beg both Korean and gay, so much so that he directed “Fire Island, ” a groundbreakg queer Asian Amerin rom- released last year.

Beg Asian Amerin and LGBTQ+ n feel lonely, wh stutns such as ethnic church often disavowg non-heterosexual relatnships while tradnal LGBTQ+ spac such as gay bars n be unwelg to people of lor. “Fdg plac like GAMeBoi, where beg queer and Asian do -exist … It’s not like a 1, 000-year-old Korean cultural rual, but I uld create a new rual, ” said Ahn, a recent Friday, hundreds packed QT Nightlife’s monthly K-Pop Night at Micky’s, a Wt Hollywood gay club a block or so east om the old GAMeBoi posed for selfi a pk Barbie box wh dis balls hangg overhead. ” (Michael Owen Baker / For The Tim) Even historilly gay neighborhoods like Wt Hollywood or San Francis’s Castro district, Asian Amerins have long been ignored or fetishized, seen as feme and weak.

In 2019, then-Wt Hollywood Mayor John Duran argued that he did not appropriately touch a member of the Gay Men’s Chos of Los Angel bee “he’s a skny Korean kid wh pimpl on his cheek.