Intimacy Beyond Sex: Korean Television Dramas, Nonsexual Masculinities, and Transnational Erotic Desires.

In the twenty-first century, Korean television dramas have gained transnational popularity in a phenomenon called Hallyu. Believing that these Korean television dramas accurately portray how Korean men are in real life, some white women from North America and Europe travel to Korea as Hallyu tourists to form intimate relations with Korean men. This essay is based on the data I gathered through ethnographic field research in 2017–18, during which I interviewed and observed these Hallyu tourists. Some of my Hallyu tourist informants claimed that they traveled to Korea because they were motivated by the nonsexual depictions of Korean men in the television dramas. They viewed Korean men as the racial, ethnic, and nonsexual others who would provide them with alternatives to sex-based intimacy. I examine my Hallyu tourist informants' desires for Korean men through the theoretical frameworks of nonsexuality and racialized erotics. I argue that some of my informants' erotic desires for nonsexual Korean men reinforce Orientalist stereotypes about Korean men's sexuality. By examining the racial and sexual politics of some white female tourists' erotic desires for nonsexual Korean men, I demonstrate the indivisibility of nonsexuality from race. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]