{"id":2109839,"date":"2025-10-23T05:16:13","date_gmt":"2025-10-23T05:16:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2109839"},"modified":"2025-10-23T05:16:13","modified_gmt":"2025-10-23T05:16:13","slug":"why-love-is-blind-season-9-was-so-hard-to-watch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/why-love-is-blind-season-9-was-so-hard-to-watch\/","title":{"rendered":"Why ‘Love Is Blind’ Season 9 Was So Hard To Watch"},"content":{"rendered":"

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By<\/span> many<\/span> accounts,<\/span> the latest season of Netflix\u2019s \u201cLove is Blind\u201d has been one of the messiest yet. And as <\/span>unserious as every couple<\/span><\/a> has been, there\u2019s one whose dynamic was particularly difficult to watch. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Yes, I\u2019m talking about the super-uncomfortable storyline involving an Asian male contestant, Patrick Suzuki, and a white female contestant, Kacie McIntosh. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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If you\u2019re not up to speed, here\u2019s a quick summary: Suzuki and McIntosh formed an emotional bond in the show\u2019s \u201cpods,\u201d where contestants can talk to each other and form a connection but can\u2019t see each other. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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In Episode 5, Suzuki hesitantly reveals that he\u2019s Asian, and McIntosh seems shaken but willing to continue the experience. When the two meet face-to-face for the first time, Kelcie calls off the engagement almost immediately, telling the show\u2019s crew that she doesn\u2019t believe her attraction toward Suzuki can grow. It\u2019s painfully obvious that this is largely because of his race.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Part of the pain of witnessing this trainwreck is that I sympathize with Suzuki: When I was younger and dating, I treated my Asian identity as a handicap. I didn\u2019t grow up around other people of Asian descent, and in high school, the only girls who liked me tended to be obsessed with anime. Besides that clear fetishizing, I wasn\u2019t getting much action. When I came out as queer at 19, I found similar attitudes prevalent in the gay community and on apps, where it was normal for people to write \u201cno Asians\u201d on their Grindr profiles.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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In college, I found empirical evidence that validated my experience. One 2014 OKCupid <\/span>study<\/span><\/a> revealed how Asian men and Black women were the two groups least likely to get responses on dating apps. Although it might be tempting to dismiss this trend as \u201cpersonal preference,\u201d sociology says otherwise. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cIndividuals have a right to their preferences, but preferences are shaped by what we see in society, and if all members of a particular group are having a similar experience, it\u2019s something bigger,\u201d says Grace Kao, a p<\/span>rofessor of sociology at Yale University. In other words, if a majority of Asian men experience similar obstacles when dating, no matter how different we might look and be from each other, then there\u2019s clearly an overarching narrative about us coming from outside the house.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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While Asian men are victims of a long American tradition of dehumanization \u2014 and while I sympathize and deeply understand Suzuki\u2019s predicament \u2014 I also refuse to believe that we\u2019re completely powerless in this situation. To me, taking our power back begins with how we genuinely perceive ourselves. <\/span> <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Two things can be true at once. The treatment Asian men face in the dating scene can be unfair, and we as Asian men are sometimes complicit in perpetuating that unfairness by preemptively rejecting our own Asianness.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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Even more jarring than McIntosh rejecting Suzuki was how Suzuki talked about himself and other Asians, using the self-deprecating language I\u2019ve heard other Asians use growing up. One of the first jokes Suzuki made after revealing his race to McIntosh was that he had no body hair and was smooth like \u201ca baby seal\u201d \u2014 marine mammals that are decidedly<\/span> not<\/span><\/em> sexy.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cIn the process of revealing his race and ethnicity, he telegraphed an enormous amount of insecurity and lack of self-respect,\u201d Kelly H. Chong, professor and chair of sociology at the University of Kansas, says of Suzuki. \u201cThat is not a good look for any person, whatever race, ethnicity, or gender, because as we know, people are attracted to people who are confident and comfortable in their own skin.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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While I think it\u2019s totally fine to poke fun at yourself with members of your own community, making these types of jokes for the white gaze (or on TV, for everyone to witness) only serves to degrade us. Suzuki also flexed that he had been called \u201chot for an Asian guy\u201d and mentioned how, despite his race, he was just a \u201cnormal\u201d Colorado guy and was \u201cmixed,\u201d minimizing his Asianness at every turn.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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While this bothered me, Chong says that we have to be careful not to simply place individual blame on Suzuki. \u201cHe is a product of his environment and the history of psychological colonization of Asian people,\u201d she says. This resonates. Two things can be true at once. The treatment Asian men face in the dating scene can be unfair, and we as Asian men are sometimes complicit in perpetuating that unfairness by preemptively rejecting our own Asianness. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Case in point: Suzuki and Anna Yuan, the other Asian contestant on the show, both admitted that they had only pursued white partners in the past. When we are actively rejecting each other, why would we expect the dominant culture to find our value for us?<\/span> <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Instead of continuing to perpetuate this idea that proximity to whiteness validates both our attractiveness and our relationship value, we have the option of studying how other racial minorities have turned the tide. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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In the \u201960s and \u201970s, for example, some Black Americans chose to de-center white aesthetics and beauty standards through a global \u201c<\/span>Black is beautiful<\/span><\/a>\u201d movement. Among their core tenets was a desire to embrace Black identity and art, focus on self-love and push for representation. By changing how they spoke about themselves and their community, they started to change how they and the world perceived them \u2014 and influenced other groups, including Asian Americans<\/a>, to start celebrating their own histories and identities as well.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The branches of this movement have manifested in abundant ways, and we all get to witness how Black culture and pride influences every single aspect of American art and lifestyle \u2014 and is co-opted by other races.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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I don\u2019t mean to say the experiences of Asian immigrants are equivalent to those of Black Americans, many of whom descended from enslaved people robbed of their identities and bodily autonomy. Our fraught histories in this country differ vastly in levels of disenfranchisement and privilege. Still, it would be enlightening \u2014 as Asian Americans continue to struggle with self-acceptance outside of the white gaze \u2014 to examine the power of reclaiming and redefining our physical existences and expressions. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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And so, it\u2019s my generation\u2019s task to keep shifting our narrative. That involves learning about our history and changing the language we use to talk about ourselves. Someone else created a perception about us \u2014 we don\u2019t have to perpetuate it.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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To Suzuki\u2019s credit, there was one moment in the season that offered a glimpse into a potential breakthrough. He did form a connection with Yuan, the other Asian contestant. The two seemed excited about each other\u2019s heritages, and seemed open to changing their usual \u201cpreferences,\u201d which, for Suzuki, may have largely been about who he saw as \u201cthe standard\u201d growing up in a predominantly white Colorado town.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cThe biggest predictor for who you date is your environment,\u201d Kao says. \u201cLet\u2019s say you\u2019re Asian and you live in a town that\u2019s 90% Asian. The [chance] of finding an Asian partner is very likely.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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In other words, the more we expose ourselves to positive images of a group of people, the more likely we are to be attracted to them. This made me realize that, in order to find pride in who we are, we have to start by finding each other. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Ideally, we\u2019d have the option to be around people who look like us but also to forge an identity we can be proud of when we\u2019re <\/span>not<\/span><\/em> around the people who look like us. When we create our own stratosphere of sexiness, so to speak, I\u2019m certain that confidence will lead to plenty more wins for our community far beyond dating. It\u2019s time we take control of how we talk about ourselves, tap into our collective power, and decenter the white gaze once and for all.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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