Tuesday Aug 29, 2023

Aidan Park: You Can’t Be Too Yay! On This Show

“My life is like a frickin’ Dickens novel,” says Aidan Park, comedian and author of “The Art of Being Yay.” Born in Korea to an unconventional family, Aidan learned to spin the dramatic and often tragic events of his early life into comedy gold. Growing up gay under the ultra conservative values of Korean culture and the Baptist Church, he was subject to a lot of shame-based programming and he admits he still has trouble determining what is actually right and wrong versus what he’s been gaslit into believing.

Thankfully, this concern with morality proves at the very least that Aidan is not a sociopath. His handwriting reveals him to be talkative, fast-paced, a bit arrogant but still concerned with being respectful. He and Bart discuss Korean culture’s deep preoccupation with reverence toward elders which is woven into the nuances of the language. But of course, Botox has made it almost impossible to determine anyone’s real age anymore.

In an effort to distance himself from the abusive men in his life, Aidan initially played into his feminine nature. Most people, he insists, love masculine men with a take-charge attitude. He learned to embrace his own naturally dominant masculinity thanks in part to Mike, with whom he shared a relationship most of us would be lucky to experience once in our lives, until Mike’s untimely death.

Join the discussion as Aidan explains the difference between true freedom and mere rebellion, what he’s like in bed when he’s not so sexually frustrated and why he identifies the husky as his spirit animal.

Quotes

“I rebelled against that when I was 15. I thought, ‘Screw that. Screw that. Screw that.’ But that's not actual freedom. That's just rebellion against the Right.” (13:28 | Aidan)
“I actually disowned my masculine part of myself, for many years actually, because my only examples were about my grandfather, who beat my grandmother. So I had no real good male role model. So I kind of identified more with my feminine, thinking the men are evil and abusive, and I'm not going to be that guy. So I actually almost put on a more feminine energy. But as I started exploring myself, I discovered I had this whole part of me that I wasn't honoring. I brought that in, and I learned that I can actually be a good man.” (18:11 | Aidan)
“I work out all the time. You know? I do Orangetheory fitness. Oh, that seems painful to me. It's painful, but I do it. Because you can only masturbate so many days, you gotta go to Orangetheory. I work out. I think, ‘Wow,’ but I seem sexually frustrated.” (20:09 | Aidan and Bart)
“I'm a young widow. I was with a guy. And I loved him, loved him, loved him, loved him. Five years. Michael James. Oh my God. He was the love of my life.” (20:43 | Aidan)
“If you're lucky, you get a love like that once in your life. And I'm very lucky to have had it.” (21:50 | Aidan)

Links

Connect with Aidan Park

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aidanparkshow/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Aidanparkshow

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aidanparkshow/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/AidanParkShowYT

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