Connie Lingus Advice Column

Editor’s Note: Ms. Connie Lingus is currently taking her annual vacation in Transylvania over Songkran to escape buckets of klong water thrown in her direction. She is traveling with her trusty companion, Bunlert, who is trying out his noodle recipes on the peasant sheep herders of the Transylvanian highlands. Ms. Anna Lingus, Ms. Connie’s younger sister has graciously decided to answer the flood of inquiries and total angst which usually flows in to Thai Guys at this time of year. All who live in Thailand must remember that North American and European gays have been braving the winter with the hope that Spring will bring forth that gorgeous hunk, who has been in hibernation through the winter months. Alas, the hunks usually do not emerge, but the bears do, and the poor dears of the North realize their winter wait was in vain and become extremely morose if not suicidal. Hence the flood of depression. But not all our letters have been down and out. One was extremely uplifting, a tale of love fulfilled, for once. And Ms. Anna has kept her reply brief, to say the least, because the letter says it all.

Dear Ms. Connie,

I was on a shopping trip down the main drag of Tegucigalpa (don’t you just love that name) with my friend, barb (she only writes her name in the small case because of some internal lesbian coda that I’m not privy to). We were looking for some hand woven throw rugs to accessorize my sofa back in Tampa Bay. As we were strolling along, I noticed some extremely dusky denizens with coal black eyes, leaning provocatively in the vestibules of the few shops we passed. The men of Honduras span an amazing variety, some very Indian looking from the mountains not far away, some of mixed race with a Spanish and African motif, and then the mestizo, who are mixed Indian and European with all of the variations, that mix produces. Even the Indians here are so dark and oval-eyed that if their ancestors did come across that mythical land bridge which connected North America and Asia millennia ago, their features seemed to have long ago evolved away from their ancient Asian lineage. They now have an appearance which is totally unique to them, big boned and brawny with pronounced cheekbones and large ears. Anyway, barb saw me surveying some of the more buff specimens squatting along our route. And I must add, in their tendency to wear loose white cotton pants without underwear, it is difficult to keep one’s mind on the weft and weave of local textiles. So on occasion in our perusal of the stalls, I might have become a bit tremulous and short of breath, confronting these roughhewn men of the forest, lounging provocatively along our route, their homespun stretched to bursting across his pendulous chichi. Granted I wasn’t as focused on our search for textiles as I might have been, to the point where barb, restraining herself no longer, berated me vociferously in front of one of these silent stallions, because she was sure “I was the biggest rice queen that had ever walked.” And what was I doing looking at these Indians for?

Ms. Connie, this was an extremely hurtful comment which rendered the remainder of our afternoon, tenuous to say the least. But it does get to the meat of the matter of my letter. When barb accused me of being an incorrigible “rice queen”, I protested vehemently. Our discussions thereafter over our next few days in Tegucigalpa did not advance our friendship. She could never seem to leave this designation of my sexual tastes alone, and I employed a few terms like”bull dyke”, “lipstick lesbian” and “labia licker” as well as other epithets which I used only to advance my self-defense. As you might understand, I had to defend myself against this denunciation, Ms. Connie, because I regard myself as being a sexual universalist. I do not restrict my tastes or attractions only to Asians as the term “rice queen” seems to imply. My tastes can be excited in the most unlikely places, even as I have demonstrated, in Tegucigalpa. I actually do not like this tendency of many gay men, especially the ones I know in Bangkok and Pattaya, where I spend half my year, to call themselves “rice queens”. I don’t like the expression, and for me it is a mindless designation that perpetuates stereotypes gay men and lesbians have been fighting to overcome for centuries. And now they too indulge in this vacuous “name-calling”.

Anyway, my forthright self-defense got barb all upset. She even accused me of being a “dyke-hag”, can you imagine? This was her twist on the expression “fag-hag” because she claimed that I only hung out with butch lesbians because of my insecurities over my masculinity. This almost made me hang up my Ralph Lauren khaki I had had especially designed for our expedition, along the lines of the outfit worn by Katherine Hepburn in “African Queen”. Barb would insist on shellacking her butch cut to effect a Bogart look which made us look an odd duo during our forays through the Honduran capital. But try as I may, I was unable to get barb to accept that my sexual tastes are not those of the “rice queen”. Would she believe that I truly do not like this tendency for gay men to designate their sexual tastes with such quasi-racist language? No she would not. She even brought up “Thai Guys” because she knows I am a subscriber, and claimed it is nothing more than a “cheap little rag that only down and out rice queens would buy.” This was too much, Ms. Connie. And all she did was laugh when I told her that Thai Guys was not for sale, because in Bangkok it is distributed free of charge. Her derisive cackle is still ringing in my ears.

I am at my wit’s end, Ms. Connie. Barb and I have been hanging out for over twenty years. She is one of my dearest friends. I put up with her silliness over her girls and their “Dykes on Bikes” motorcycle forays into the Everglades on “camping trips”, may I puke in Heaven. Did I make snide comments when she got pumped up because her softball team won the county women’s softball trophy. So why will she not accept that I, like some of us, resent being typified “rice queens” just because we have had Asian boyfriends on occasion or we subscribe to Thai Guys. So please help me with some arguments which will allow me to rescue the friendship I have with barb. How do you feel if someone calls you a rice queen, Ms. Connie? Do you accept that description or do you take exception to it?

Yours truly,

Mabel Stirrup

Tampa Bay, Florida

Dear Mabel,

Ms.Connie will probably reap the ire of her many loyal readers when she comes out emphatically against the expression “rice queen” to define yours or anyone else’s sexual tastes. We could all continue to giggle over our Tom Collins on a Sunday afternoon at Babylon and comment the hours away perusing the gorgeous asses of the boys gamboling about the pool, and never take this dialogue seriously. But it is a debate which Ms. Connie has often entered into. She takes particular exception to those who describe themselves as “incorrigible rice queens” often with a look of disdain for anyone else who might actually claim an attraction for men from other racial groups. “But oh my God, they’ve got hair”!!!!!

Expatriates living in Thailand are walking on extremely thin ice and any of Ms. Connie’s readers who are reading this from offshore should realize some important aspects of the local crowd who claim they live in Thailand because they are “rice queens” and couldn’t possibly live anywhere else. In Ms. Connie’s experience, few expatriates living here know a good “dialogue” over “issues” unless it involves punctuating their main points with liberal baptisms of beer over the heads of those they disagree with. There is an unfortunate expression of pride which many of local expatriates effect: “I am here and know so much” and you who only come to these sacred shores for a two week dalliance in December are not worthy of my attention, much less taking your observations about the local scene seriously. This attitude is especially prevalent among the crowd who can’t even order Tom Yam Gung or ask their maid to clean the shower stall in Thai, (and as a result have a spotless toilet but calcium buildup in their tubs). Nevertheless these wonders still claim to be resident experts on how to deal with the nuances of gay love in Thailand because they have some acquired facility with the special mentality of bar boys. And if asked the reason for their prolonged stay in the Land of Smiles, they will on occasion use that tired excuse of being “rice queens” which is supposed to end the discussion because they could not possibly satisfy their tastes anywhere other than Asia, and Thailand has to be “paradise”. But this also means they have to go with boys who are “potato queens” unless their tastes run to “rice kings” and then it is only a matter of time before their “rice king” goes home to “rice wife” and the “rice queen” has to start searching all over again for the next serving of “instant rice”.

Ms. Connie, after an extensive survey of the pulchritudinous Russets that float on aching knees along the sands of Jomtien, must correct their self-designation as “rice queens”. There is a regal aspect to being a “queen”. And the young things that swarm around these gargantuan spuds, should not to be called “queens” either, even if they self-describe as “potato queens”. Ms Connie would prefer to call those who formerly have described themselves as “rice queens” to use the more accurate designation “rice barges”. “Oh you live in Thailand because you only like Asian men?” “Yes, I am a total rice barge.” All of you then should respond when some visitor asks why you live in Thailand, “Oh I’m a rice barge.” Ms. Connie looks forward to the day when she can sit down in a prominent viewpoint on her stool at Panorama and overhear a gushing resident aptly say to the breathing query of a visitor, “Yes, I am a total rice barge”. This would mean that the gentleman keeps a number of young men fed, hauling them to and fro, from bed to bar and when finished, dumps them off at their pier in Nonthaburi to replenish their family coffers with the money they have received working for the rice barge. And neither should these boys be called “potato queens” for exactly the same reason. Rather it would be more accurate to call them “potato beetles” which are described in Ms. Connie’s Funk & Wagnall as: the Colorado beetle (Leptinotarsa decemlineata), yellowish, with ten longitudinal black stripes on their wing covers, with both the adult and larva feeding on the leaves of the potato…and are sometimes very destructive.” Carried to an extreme, the rice barge who persists in hiring crews of potato beetles without concern for the preservation of his ample foliage inherited from his maiden aunt, can become a tragic victim of “potato rot”, a fungus disease of the potato, which one can see amply represented on the Bangkok Skytrain on a Sunday afternoon. So Mabel, I hope this response will assist you and barb in realizing the silliness of these expressions, “rice queen”, “potato queen” etc. It was so much better in the old days when we could all communicate by coloured hankies in the right or left pocket of our jeans. Now we have “tops” who really should be “bottoms” but nobody cares, and “bottoms” who have to be bottoms because they can’t get up off their bellies, much less, get “it” up. Ms. Connie loves being gay. It’s just such an eternal hoot. I hope you and barb work out this tiny word game in Tampa Bay because Connie Lingus means well for all her “labia lickers”.