JeeYeun Lee's essay "Why Suzie Wong is Not a Lesbian: Asian and Asian American Lesbian and Bisexual Women and Femme/Butch/Gender Identities" is an insightful take on the discourses surrounding lesbian and bisexual identity for Asian women, the conflicting, multitudinous stereotypes that often go along with them, and the resulting unique experiences of erasure that they face. Lee begins by recognizing the Orientalist image of the "Lotus Blossom Baby", one of many stereotypes of Asian women. It describes them as submissive, exotic and erotic objects of male desire and “leaves them more vulnerable to both violence and backlash” (Lee 121). This image is reinforced by stereotyping of Asian characters in media, the US sex industry that sells racialized
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The authors begin by examining the terrorist as a monster in Western discourses by looking at Michel Foucault’s formation of abnormals, in which monstrosity is associated with a sort of sexual abnormality. Puar and Rai also discuss the personality defect model of “terrorism studies” that posit terrorists as having a failed psyche that results from a dysfunctional family dynamic or a failed heterosexuality (that may often come from sexual repression, for instance). They connect these ideas with the heteronormativity that exists in society, stating that “queerness as sexual deviancy is tied to the monstrous figure of the terrorist as a way to otherize and quarantine subjects classified as “terrorists,” but also to normalize and discipline a population through these very monstrous figures” (Puar and Rai 126). The authors go on to say that the monster-terrorist image is not simply a way to categorize and denigrate the terrorist, but actually serves to uphold heteronormativity and instil patriotic values into the Western population as seen in media from an episode of ‘The West Wing’ and in examples of Sikh American community
The authors begin by examining the terrorist as a monster in Western discourses by looking at Michel Foucault’s formation of abnormals, in which monstrosity is associated with a sort of sexual abnormality. Puar and Rai also discuss the personality defect model of “terrorism studies” that posit terrorists as having a failed psyche that results from a dysfunctional family dynamic or a failed heterosexuality (that may often come from sexual repression, for instance). They connect these ideas with the heteronormativity that exists in society, stating that “queerness as sexual deviancy is tied to the monstrous figure of the terrorist as a way to otherize and quarantine subjects classified as “terrorists,” but also to normalize and discipline a population through these very monstrous figures” (Puar and Rai 126). The authors go on to say that the monster-terrorist image is not simply a way to categorize and denigrate the terrorist, but actually serves to uphold heteronormativity and instil patriotic values into the Western population as seen in media from an episode of ‘The West Wing’ and in examples of Sikh American community