This is the latest intervention I’ve created. I’ve created an Instagram account, and it’s called “在室男孩-Boys in Boudoir.” This page is dedicated to all the gays in Taiwan, especially I want to reach out to the repressed, not yet come out, gays.
In Taiwan, we would call a man without any sex experience or not married as “在室男.” The literal meaning in Mandarin is “a man in the room.” So, I gave it a little twist, with a bit of feminine touch for this project’s title, with boudoir to let the audiences have a feeling to know it’s a page has feminine touch.
As a gay son in the tradition family which influenced by the traditional Chinese culture, I understand the struggle of how hard it is to be in this situation. Feeling nobody can understand me or cannot show my true identity to family, friends or public are all the hardship I’ve been encountered. In the traditional Chinese culture thinking, the main responsibility as a male is to carry the family name going, that is to say, a man should get married and have children, just like a heterosexual man. But it’s impossible for the gay man to do it, and some of them have even more pressure on them, because they maybe the first or even the only son in the family. So I want to use this page as a platform to let the repressed gays in Taiwan know that they are not alone, moreover, I hope through this page, they can find some healing from this page.
So, for this page, I would invite several gay men in Taiwan to share their story of how they grow up for being as a gay, and the struggles as a gay man in the family. At the same time, I would like to invite them to take a picture of their own in their bedroom to show their true identity when nobody can see them what they’re doing. For the ethical issue, I would ask them not to show their face or any feature that is going to be recognizable by others. I want to protect them but also, I want to let the public knows that there is a group of people in our society is still struggling to show their true identity to the public, or even to their friends and their dearest family.
As for the photo, I give them full credit to do anything they want, no matter cross dressed or even just show a hand. But I ask them to be creative and to take the picture that would be represent themselves, the different side of them, the side that they cannot or do not let the other people see it, the best.
I hope this page can be a platform to let the repressed Taiwanese gays to see there are a lot of gays just like them, to let them feel relate and they are not alone, and hope they can find some healing through this page.
