My coming out as a kink enthusiast began with an Instagram post: a video of me, tied shibari style, struggling with my constraints. It was a raw, unfiltered and gently pornographic expression of my BDSM lifestyle.

The reaction was mixed I got admiration, shock and even suggestions on how to monetize the video. It might have seemed like a reckless unveiling to my peers and family, especially as an Ivy League-trained Chinese American journalist who spent her 20s fighting for a career in a notoriously competitive industry. Why would a woman with so much privilege risk her reputation for this? some of them wondered.

Its because I was tired. Id spent my 20s curating and maintaining a facade of the type of perfection that kept me in a constant state of anxiety. I was determined to start my 30s with a new type of confidence. If I cant have fun now, then when?

That video changed my life. It was my fuck you to the unspoken rules imposed on Asian American women to conform and remain palatable, especially to the white gaze. Coming out as a kinkster was also my rebellion against the model minority myth that I remain a quiet, harmless and conventional Chinese girl. Tired of keeping my head down, I wanted to exercise my expression of ethnicity, queerness and kink unapologetically.

Riding the high of self-celebration, I launched a media consulting agency for the adult industry and shared more free BDSM content online. I didnt intend to become an adult performer; I just wanted to celebrate the body Id worked so hard for with the world because, for the first time in my life, I felt genuinely beautiful, powerful and sexy. And with that newfound perspective, I began organizing kink events centering the Asian American and Pacific Islander community.

In the past, I found most kink and play parties through word-of-mouth advertising, friend referrals and Instagram. Many promoters championed these events as diverse havens for progressive sexual exploration among people of all sexualities, ethnicities and genders. To my disappointment, however, my experiences in supposedly diverse kink spaces were often isolating and demoralizing. I was frequently one of the few Asian people in the space.

I experienced interactions that ranged from disrespectful and racist under-the-breath remarks to being handled as an exotic novelty by non-Asian attendees. Theyd often reduce me to antiquated stereotypes (if one more white person asks if Ive watched Kill Bill, I will scream) or a vehicle in which to fulfill their fantasies. And when they learned that I lean submissive in most of my BDSM dynamics, it got even worse.

It didnt matter if these were private house parties or large-scale kink parties; the vibe was always the same. My acceptance as an Asian woman was conditional either I be the walking fetish for white people, or I erase my Asianness and assimilate.

And so I decided that if there wasnt a space for Asian kinksters to feel at home, then Id create my own: a space where we can be our genuine kinky, deviant and fabulous selves. Together, wed explore our sexuality without the constraint of stereotypes or the oppressive gaze from outside the community. My ultimate aim was to build intentional spaces where our racial and sexual identities are openly celebrated and respected. Its about reclaiming our sexuality by tearing down the submissive stereotype forcibly imposed on Asian women.

The first event I threw, in the fall of last year, was called Fever a cheeky nod to the racial fetish yellow fever, which refers to non-Asian people who fetishize Asians. The subversiveness was empowering to me, and I was inspired by the way other marginalized groups reclaimed words that were traditionally associated with racism, homophobia and sexism.