In the United States, it’s Black History Month (in the UK it’s October). For many Americans, it is a time to reflect on how they can better practice anti-racism in their own lives. Some will make a conscious effort to learn more about the history of black people in America or make moves to support the black community. One TikToker, Chris Zou, had other ideas though. Zou, a PhD candidate specialising in DEI (if you can believe it), decided that he would mark the month by making a video with a rather questionable slant. In his now deleted TikTok he encourages fellow queer Asian men to sleep with black men, essentially to ‘try it out’. The video has since been stitched by various other creators on the app sharing how far from the mark his comments were.
In the video, Zou makes a number of eyebrow-raising comments that, instead of showing solidarity with black people, serve only to fetishise them. Watching the video, even as someone who is not black, I felt utter disgust at how blatantly he was willing to speak about black people and their bodies as if they were objects only existing for his sexual gratification. I’m going to break down every point he makes in his now-viral video and explain just how fucked up his sentiments are.
The video (from a third party source):
1. Activism and allyship are transactional
In his opening statement, he reminds his audience (of 680K followers) that he told them to serve Asian people during Asian American History Month which falls in May. He then states that now it is their turn to return the favour to black men. While this statement is nowhere near the most egregious he makes in the video this sentiment does suggest that activism or allyship is transactional and seasonal. Heritage months such as Black History Month do not exist as the designated window of time in which you should extend allyship to marginalised communities – they are a reminder of the fact we should always do this.
His statement indicates that he views such occasions as a time to ‘return the favour’ of others practising allyship towards his own community. People of minority groups, both of racial and sexual minorities, must demonstrate parity and understanding towards one another, regardless of the time of year. He closes this opening gambit by expressing that in the month of May, he expects black people to demonstrate the ‘support’ he is laying down in the rest of the video.
2. You’re racist if you haven’t slept with a black person
In his next statement, Zou states that if his followers have not had sex with a black person then they are racist. While it is a sad but very sobering reality that the LGBTQ+ community (that both I and Zou belong to) has a significant issue with anti-black bias and broader racism, activism or support of queer black people cannot hinge on whether or not you have slept with a black person. He could have instead handled this point delicately and explained that if you have a preference against dating or sleeping with black people that it may be a good idea to interrogate that idea and ask yourself why you have such inherent biases. We all have unconscious biases, this is an inherent part of human nature, this does not mean we cannot or should not question them and work to dismantle them.
The way that he presents the fact that he has in fact slept with a black person is painfully evocative of the old chestnut ‘I have a black friend so I couldn’t possibly be racist’. Spoiler alert, some of the most brutally racist people associate with ethnic minorities, because racism isn’t always an act of avoidance but of subjugation, and in Zou’s case, fetishisation.
3. You should sleep with a black guy to satisfy curiosity
Zou continues in his video by asking his followers, who he assumes have not slept with a black person, if they’re ‘not at all curious’ about what this experience might entail. Sexual curiosity is a normal and human thing, but when applied to ticking different racial groups off your fuck-it list it’s downright creepy and racist. The tone of this statement assumes that a person would only engage in sexual acts with a black person because they have some kind of curiosity about how such liaisons would be different. This idea underpins a long-standing racist trope that black people, particularly black men, are somehow inherently different in how they have sex or treat their partners.
This idea has existed for centuries and is linked to eugenics. In the era of European colonial atrocities, many people in Europe and North America began to associate black men with a ‘wild’ and ‘savage’ sexuality that, hand in hand with the fetishisation of their bodies (more on this later), contributes to this idea of black people as a sexual other. These attitudes were used to justify slavery and the institutionalised discrimination against black people, casting them as somehow sexually aggressive and immoral. It was this understanding of black sexuality that was used to justify lynching black men for generations across the United States.
This historically entrenched idea manifests itself in Zou’s sentiments because he presents the prospect of sleeping with a black man as something akin to an experiment or something to merely do to say you’ve experienced it. I don’t think he actively seeks to perpetuate the abhorrent racism that his sentiments further, but his lack of contextual understanding is alarming and shows a concerningly poor conception of how the perception of one’s sexuality is used as a tool for oppression.
4. If you engage in relationships with black people, expect them to live in unsafe neighbourhoods
Chris shares his first experience of sleeping with a black man, explaining that the person he slept with lived in a ‘not nice’ neighbourhood and that he possesses basic and minimal furniture. He discusses how he questioned his safety going into the hookup. While this story may be true, that the neighbourhood this individual lived in wasn’t necessarily very safe, it reinforces the long-standing connotation that black Americans live in ‘the ghetto’. Generational poverty and lack of access to opportunities have kept many black communities in unsafe, poorly maintained areas across the United States, but this stereotype ignores the realities of racial inequity in America and the harsh truth that this is an issue perpetuated by a systemic history of white supremacy.
I don’t need to tell you that not all black people live in unsafe areas or that you need to question your safety if you seek to have a relationship (serious or casual) with a black person. Chris Zou could have used his platform to discuss the realities of wealth inequality in America, but instead chose to further perpetuate negative stereotypes about how black people live.
5. Black men are nothing more than their penis size
Zou states that he has heard from other gay Asian men, ‘Gaysians’ as he refers to them, that they have fears over sleeping with black men due to their penis size. Here we are at the inevitable conversation about why this stereotype is harmful. He makes an effort to try and state that this idea that all black men have excessively large penises is not true, even asking any black men watching who are not well endowed to send him photographic evidence including ‘the money shot so [he] knows it’s real’.
The idea that black men all possess very large penises is again one that originates with eugenics, but has evolved and maintained its standing as a mainstream misconception. The stereotype is also heavily perpetuated by the pornography industry, which continues to centre the value of black men on the size of their penis. Many people question why this stereotype, one that many would consider a positive, is even an issue. It is an issue because it reduces a whole and complete human being down to one bodily appendage. It centres their worth, their value, and their position as a sexual and romantic partner on the size of their genitalia. It is incredibly dehumanising. Zou, in his clumsy attempt to assuage his followers’ fears of a large appendage only reinforces this expectation that black men should be well-endowed.
Chris Zou at no point in his video makes an effort to talk about how black men can be kind, romantic, respectful, attentive, sensual, or considerate. He fixates solely on their penises. Further in the video he goes into uncomfortable detail about the differences in how black penises and non-black penises feel, further doubling down on his fixation with black men only for their genitalia. It speaks to an understanding that he has that black men exist to deliver size to him, and that he has no interest in the person that the stereotyped large penis is attached to. Even if you’re having a one-night stand (no judgement, have fun kids), at least acknowledge that the person you’re sleeping with is more than their genitals.
6. Asian men have different anatomy to other men
As he rounds up this hot mess of racial fetishisation he urges black men, then corrects to ‘all men’, to be gentle when penetrating Asian men. He talks about how ‘tight’ Asian men are. This actually reinforces a dominant stereotype in the Western world that all gay Asian men are submissive bottoms – another racialised and limiting expectation that places queer people of colour in rigid and unhelpful boxes. As a queer person myself I find all of these expectations to be incredibly reductive, race does not dictate what someone likes in the bedroom. The idea that it does reinforces the idea that Asian people are inherently submissive, a stereotype often praised by conservative white men who seek to marry Asian women, and limits the possibilities for Asian people. In a persisting climate of anti-Asian sentiment both within the gay community and more broadly, narratives that perpetuate narrow projections of queer Asian personhood are incredibly damaging.
The other aspect of this is that he singles out Asian people as being more ‘tight’ than other races, which is simply not true. Spreading sexual misinformation like this only serves to lead poorly informed young people who may view this content to believe that racial identity corresponds to biological guarantees. As a queer person in a biologically male body, I can tell you that regardless of race anyone sleeping with you should be gentle and communicative as a given. It is simply not okay to ignore a person’s discomfort during sex, regardless of the act in question.
Chris Zou in his TikTok showed that there is still an awful lot of work to be done in the gay community in regards to how we sexualise one another and still utilise racialised understandings to categorise people as potential sexual partners. There is a very real, very serious issue that persists in the gay community around marginalising black men or overtly fetishising them. This is exacerbated by a porn industry that continues to push a monolithic image of black sexuality as aggressive and only valid if the black men in question live up to a harmful expectation about their anatomy.
We need to continue to unlearn these racialised misconceptions that racial identity corresponds to sexual preference or role. Instead, we need to actually communicate on a person to person basis about what individuals themselves enjoy and are willing to engage in. Black bodies have been the location of intense scrutiny, politicisation, and overt sexualisation for as long as the Western world has encountered them. These misconceptions and expectations are deeply, and violently racist.
