While I was going through the regular late night blog(s) reads I came across a posting by Queer Kid of Color about a new ad put out by Gay.com, and the question of whether or not the picture is sexualizing people of color. He opened the question to his readers, of which there were/are many varying ideas on the ad, I also posted my initial thoughts on the piece.

It seems really clear to me that the piece is fetishized the person of color, and the much of that is based on the text the ad uses: "he wanted to show me exotic places." That sends off a red flag in my head. We've seen many different cases where the sense of the exotic is used to fetishized people of color. I think that my brain has become wired to automatically go to this point whenever I see "exotic" and "gay" used in the same context.

However, I did not want to rush to judgment on this one. I read (and continue to check entry) for new comments, and some of them have a point. Some people said that the use of "exotic" as in traveling to an exotic country. The only problem with this perspective is that it is not a travel ad. If it was they would have included other things that would point that out or make it clear that it is encouraging traveling to exotic places. Also it is important to keep in mind that along with being a site that offers LGBT news Gay.com is very much an online dating service and social network. If they are making an ad about their site it would be about something that relates to their site not a gay travel agency.

But back to the text, which I think is the biggest thing wrong with this ad, removing it from the ad send a completely different image.

The image with the text is the original. The other is one that I edited in Paint. The message is clear in the first imagine, there is apparently something exotic within the image; however, in the second any issue of race or ethnicity, beyond basic observation, is a mute point. It is simply two people in a relationship. Romantic, yes, but rather clear. The text clearly changes what the image is trying to get across.

I made the point of mentioning that while the ad might have missed the mark it isn't done with malice, merely a hint of naivety. It's cool that they are putting ads that show some diversity in the community--this hasn't been the first time that they have; however, we all, as a community, need to get over the exotic and sexualization of skin color.