Joel Kim Booster: Psychosexual Netflix special
2022 is definitely Joel Kim Booster’s year. First he made a big old gay splash with his summer gay rom-com on Hulu titled Fire Island, and now with this Netflix special, Psychosexual. The stand up special was performed in Los Angeles earlier this year and the gays have been waiting to see it drop on our screens.
We appreciated the celebration that Fire Island was (and is) for the gay community, so we were hopeful that Psychosexual would continue in that vein. And we were right… for the most part. While we didn’t outwardly love this comedy stand up performance, we want to acknowledge that while we are all queer around here, none of us are gay men – so we’re not really the demographic (we think).
Having said that, take our opinions with a grain of salt. However we believe in being genuine and honest, so here it is. Here are our thoughts on Joel Kim Booster: Psychosexual.
Major themes
Psychosexual felt a lot like something from gay media in the late 1990s or early 2000s. Circa Queer as Folk era where all images put forth about gay men were centered on partying, drugs, and sex. If this is what Joel Kim Booster was going for, then we’d say his mission was definitely accomplished.
He spends a lot of time talking about the kinds of drugs he likes doing, and gives personal anecdotes involving gratuitous drug use. He then attempts to engage the audience in his discussion, calling on gay men to divulge information about their own recreational drug use.
He approaches the issue of sex in much the same way. He makes it clear that he isn’t into monogamy, calls on folks from the audience to add their own stories to the fold, and goes on for a considerable amount of time about sex and sex related matters.
Sure, some of it is funny, but it definitely felt as if we’ve seen gay stand up comics do these very same moves for years now.
The ups and downs
At some point throughout the show, he says that he doesn’t want kids (not that this shocked us at all). However, upon asking that question, he then asks the audience if there were any gay dads in attendance. He (surprisingly, we thought) didn’t get a response. He took that to mean that no, there weren’t any gay dads in his audience. At this information, the comic exasperated happily.
What came out of his mouth next did shock us a little.
He said that he didn’t think gay men should be dads and that he felt it was unnatural. We definitely paused at this comment and took a breath. We really hope there actually weren’t any gay dads in the audience on that evening, because that was quite the statement to make.
It wasn’t all stereotypes and shock value statements though. Booster did spend some time discussing what he calls Asian fetishization within queer spaces. He says that, as a gay, Asian man, he has experienced it more than once, and it frankly grosses him out. To this, we wanted to high five him. We’ve seen it ourselves (and not just within male gay spaces) and we agree – it’s definitely a thing.
Booster did a good job of calling this behavior out, while managing to keep the tone of that segment light enough to keep moving forward.
Look, to his credit, at the end of the show he spends a couple of moments making it clear that he doesn’t feel like he has to represent the entire gay community because he’s in the spotlight. He is one gay man, and he likes what he likes. Those are facts and that is true.
He is a public figure though, and that also comes with some aspects of responsibility. People are going to look at what he does and what he says and make it about his sexuality before anything else.
Anygays, needless to say, we weren’t on our feet clapping with joy at this performance. Feel free to disagree with us! If you’ve seen this, we’d love to hear your thoughts. Drop a comment below and let us know how you feel.
Joel Kim Booster: Psychosexual is available to stream on Netflix now. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram for all queer stuff!
