Interview with Rick Lee

Source: Online Education

What I find interesting is the pie chart: the top 3 horny countries are China, South Korea and Japan. Anyway, here's an interview awhile back with Rick Lee of Asian-Man.com, a website detailing his sexual escapades:


Q: What's your background? Born in the US or overseas? Where did you grow up? How was your upbringing? How were your early sexual encounters prior to the site?

A: I am Chinese not born in Asia. I would say I come from a traditional background and like most Chinese from my generation, I went to school, got a career, made good money and always looked for entrepreneurial opportunities to become self reliant. As far as how my sex life developed, I had my first girlfriend when I was 12 years old and by then I already had a good idea of what was sex. But I didn't lose my virginity until I was 15. I had numerous crushes and "hook ups" throughout my teens and my early 20's and had always been sexually active. As time progressed and after being in couple of serious relationships, I started exploring some clubs in California and I started to find out there were people who were basically as sexual as I was. And it was at one of these clubs that I met someone who introduced me to the swinger's scene. By the time the internet came, I already knew what I was looking for so I started to meet a lot of women online. Some were regular women and some were swingers. One thing led to another and I then started to organize sex parties and became known for it, in fact Playboy TV did a show on it was back in the days. I started to coordinate events for women who had websites to provide them with men to perform with them and it was just a matter of time before I started showing up having sex with women on camera. My first time ever on camera was with a girl from Mississippi who pulled me aside at a webgirl party and started giving me a blowjob for fun. The cameraman was nearby so he took some pictures and those became my first published pics ever online. That was December 1998.

Q: How did you get the idea to do this? What motivated you to do this?

A: I originally kept a handwritten sex journal to keep track of how many women I had been with and the experiences I had with each of them. When the internet came, I switched to keeping this journal online primarily for my own convenience and not necessarily so that people would read it. And with time, that journal became Asian-man.com. But the primary reason for the site was the fact that I rarely saw any straight Asian men in the adult scene, being videos, swinging scene, or at the clubs they I used to go to. So I thought since I already led a sexual lifestyle that I should put some pictures online to at least show something that other Asian guys could relate to. That way I thought the majority of Asian men (straight) would at least have some representation of their sexuality.

Q: What did you want to accomplish with the site?

A: I wanted to show straight Asian men having sex since all the Asian men online or on video at that point were gay, pretty much without exception. I also wanted to show something straight Asian men could relate to, not just the videos but the lifestyle itself.

Q: How did you get started? What sort research, planning and logistics did you have to do?

A: No research was done, as the site was never really meant to be a commercial enterprise. I did it as a hobby and always treated as such.

Q: Did you have ties in the porn industry when you started your site? If not, then how did you develop them?

A: Technically I did. I used to organize sex parties on the weekends for women and couples and one of the guys that I met was very experienced in the amateur video industry.

Q: You say wanted to film your sex life, not necessarily promote a porn site. Are all of these women paid performers?

A: Yes, I've enjoyed recording some of my encounters. In fact, the first time I got a camera was when I was 17 and I started recording my girlfriends back then. However, none of my more private videos are published anywhere. The women that are published need to sign model releases and as such they get compensated for allowing me to post their videos or we trade rights for the content so they can use it on their sites as well. There are a few that don't show their faces where no model releases were necessary.

Q: How do these women feel about what you’re doing and the direction of the site?

A: Models like the exposure, non-models prefer I keep things private or not have content published for long.


Q: How does one meet these women?

A: I am sure there might be a few who are willing to meet random guys, but the great majority of these women are not prostitutes so no one is supposed to be "meeting them". One of the things I get annoyed with the most is people offering me money in order for me to introduce them to women.

Q: What sort of responses have you gotten?

A: Overall, the great majority of Asian men and women that write me are very supportive of what I've done.

Q: How did Asian-man.com change your life?

A: My original intention was not to become well known. So over the years as popularity of the site grew, I started finding myself uncomfortable about revealing too much of my real self to the public.

Q: Do your friends and family know, and if so, how have they responded?

A: Some of them do, some don't. The ones that do know have been supportive to point. They know who I am as a person and they would not like to see me get involved long term.

Q: What direction are you headed with the site?

A: What I wanted to accomplish with the site has been done already, so I really don't have any major plans. I've never been interested in commercializing the site too much so things like making DVDs, shirts, etc. will never happen. I do want to have an Asian performer do the videos to keep it updated. But in a way is not important anymore since there are other Asian men performing now and no longer are we Asian men exclusively gay when it comes to adult videos. Also, I must admit that although I have tried to emphasize my lifestyle so other Asian men will perhaps emulate it, it seems that this point gets lost. Most people see the site as a porn site and omit the fact that Asian-man has always been about a lifestyle, so that is not very encouraging to me. Most people think I started the site to get laid and make money, in fact I get hate mail from Asian guys if you can believe that.

Q: You said you’ve retired. Who is the person that’s the “lead” in your films now?

A: An old friend of mine and one of the original guys who use to help me with sex parties.

Q: If one wanted to follow in your footsteps, what’s it take to start, grow and maintain a site like yours?

A: I think in order to start a site like this, one has to be already living a sexual lifestyle first and foremost. Guys that start sites to have sex seem to fail all the time. And in our case (Asians), it should be an Asian guy that already gets laid and has sex appeal as I think people having sex on camera need to be have sexual chemistry. If a site shows a guy that looks like he is paying to have sex with a hot girl, then it will defy the purpose. Aside from that they should learn the basics about programming and e-commerce.

Q: You were a guest speaker at Darrell Hamamoto’s Asian American Studies course. Could you tell us more about that experience? How did the students respond?

A: Students responded very well and they understood the reason that I was there and the point of Darrell Hamamoto's quest to portray Asian Americans in a sexual way.

Q: You also participated in a documentary. Could you tell us more about that?

A: The documentary was about the quest of Darrell Hamamoto to make a sex film with Asian Americans. I helped find the female performer for the actual sex film and I spoke about the Asian Americans in the adult industry and about some of the challenges Asian men face in the Western world due to stereotypes.



Q: What do you think is the state of the Asian male image these days? Is it getting better? How do you think the Asian male image can be improved?

A: Well, at least in adult videos we have a few guys that perform so that is very positive as it defies stereotypes. However, as a whole, Asian men still have a long road ahead to reach parity with other minorities. We are still considered the least sexual of all men by the majority of women (including some Asian women) and the stereotypes persists.

Q: Any advice you want to give other Asian men?

A: Do the best you can to improve yourself as a man. And as a byproduct you will be helping the image of other Asian men. Also, don't let other people define what you are, we are the ones that should be doing that.