Call Me By Your Age
Written by NAthan Joe
Illustration: Daphne Zheng
Age 28. An older caucasian gentleman messages me on Grindr. The main message reads: Kiwi guy (older) who really enjoys the company of Asian guys here [1]. It would be great to chat with you. It’s not anything out of the ordinary, and as soon as I politely decline his advances, he backs off equally politely. It’s a non-event, but underneath the pleasantries is a familiar sense of revulsion on my part. It feels so played out, so obvious, so reductive. But, more than anything, his message offers me nothing other than an attempt to sell himself (or buy me) on the difference between our ethnicity, age and (presumed) nationality. As far as attempts at digital seduction go, I’ve received worse (and probably done worse) but it inspires an eyeroll nonetheless.
The erotic gap between younger and older men is well traversed terrain in the queer community, both acknowledged as common and normal to some but frowned upon in other circles. Yes, even amongst the most bleeding heart of liberals it can inspire a sort of pithy derision or furrowed brows of suspicion. After all, what is a younger man doing with an older man? What could either be getting out of it? In the free market of sexual desire, what have you got and what is it worth?
Celebrated film Call Me By Your Name contains a relatively mild example of this age discrepancy. Elio, aged 17, and Oliver, aged 24, engage in a romantic rendezvous against the backdrop of 1983 Italy. And while the film (and book) doesn’t feel compelled to address the “problem” head-on, a select vocal minority have. Yes, some critics [2] would have you believe that Call Me By Your Name is a deftly performed piece of propaganda, normalising toxic behaviours in the queer community. It’s an interesting take that strikes me as an intentional misreading of the text, but it’s a reading that opens up a wider, trickier conversations about love and sex, illuminating real anxieties and fears surrounding our feelings towards intergenrational relationships.
Elio’s love interest, Oliver, played by the strapping Armie Hammer, is an all-American student of his father’s, visiting abroad. It should be noted that Mr. Hammer is and appears much closer to 30 in the film. Suffice to say, Mr. Hammer also has a much higher net worth than the average guy on Grindr, regardless of age. With someone so classically handsome, is age even relevant?
Age 24. I find myself on my knees in front of a man with a striking resemblance to Wolf [3] from Outrageous Fortune. He comes. I swallow. He tastes surprisingly sweet. It’s not a lush summer romance, simply an indiscretion on Grindr, but it’s not an unpleasant experience either. After all, he’s a silver fox, to put it in layman terms. Beauty makes everything sweeter.
Elio, played by Timothée Chalamet, the protagonist of Call Me By Your Name is a 17-year-old-boy, son of progressive types, speaking both Italian and American-English. He plays the piano and reads a lot. He is “wise beyond his years” one might say. Precocity is often used as an excuse (or explanation) for younger characters reaching out to older lover-mentors. It’s a justification for both parties. I’m not like boys my age, the younger paramore ruminates. The older party is, thus, a sort of reflection of how the youth feels “on the inside.” At worst, it is a defence of sexual grooming (see: Lolita). At best, it is two people for whom age is just a number (see: Harold and Maude).
I’m now older than both characters in Call Me By Your Name. If anything, Oliver is the one I should be identifying with, yet I find myself trapped in Elio’s skin. His yearning is my yearning. A thought: that someone might ever call me daddy is ludicrous. Another thought: that I ever imagined remaining a boy forever.
Age 20. I find myself in the front passenger seat of a stranger’s car, somewhere behind the Christchurch Airport, down some discrete backroad. The older white man I’m with makes sure to tell me about his Vietnamese wife and daughter. He solicits a blowjob from me, matter of factly. His beer belly presses softly against my face as I attempt to push him past the finish line. Afterwards, he remarks that he doesn’t do this often. Sometimes he just gets this itch, you know? A reminder: I’m no Elio and he’s no Oliver. I brush my teeth thoroughly when I get home, attempting to wash the taste of cliché from my mouth.
Who remembers Milo Yiannopoulos? [4] Once infamous as an alt-right troll, he was effectively cancelled by his own community after casually suggesting that the sexual dynamic between older and younger men was normal in the gay community. Ironic for him to be finally discredited for standing up for the one thing he seemed genuine about. For standing up for a subject truly worthy of discussion. The mere mention of older and younger men inspires accusations of pederasty.
Most young queers are desperately seeking guidance and approval. There is a forwardness to older gay men - at least those who seek out younger men. A potentially sweeping generalisation. Why might an older gay male be drawn to a younger gay male, particularly across ethnicities? A more sympathetic understanding might contain the multitudes of understanding instead of the immense gap in differences I fixate on. To be a gay Asian male in a western context is to understand your place in the sexual food chain. Do older gay white men seek out younger gay asian men with compassion or exploitation? Will there be a day I crave youth as a specific attribute in a lover or partner? The thought makes me uneasy.
Pedagogical eros. Of relating to teaching and sexual desire. I have never mixed mentorship with sex, but it’s a power dynamic I can understand the appeal of. To seek approval inside and outside the bedroom. To receive approval. The hot professor is a trope for a reason, and I’ve always found the word ‘tutelage’ salacious. To be under his tutelage.
What does Oliver teach Elio? Love and sex. Are there two subjects a young man is more eager to learn about and discover than love and sex? In gay male circles, these mentorships go as far back as the Ancient Greeks. It’s a historical case that is overused at this point. Less commonly cited, however, is that this occurred all over the world, including in Japan between samurai warriors. Is that to suggest a sort of dignity to the process? A tradition of homoerotic education running deep within our most respected cultures, or does the normalisation of homoerotic grooming simply have historical precedent?
The term daddy. A term of sexual endearment. But also a term loaded with all sorts of Freudian connotations. Culturally, we are simultaneously critical of older men and also quick to lavish them with these sexual frameworks. Variations include: sugar daddy (someone to be bought by) and baby daddy (someone you’ve procreated with).
How different would Call Me By Your Name read if Elio cried out “daddy” as he and Oliver made love? And what if Elio’s own father heard this illicit moan escape his son’s lips? What if Elio was Asian? What would it take for this fantasy romance to curdle like sour milk? Instead, what Elio and Oliver whisper into each other’s ears are their respective names. These sweet nothings evoke Walt Whitman’s seminal A Song of Myself, celebrating themselves as one unit:
I celebrate myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.
It’s deeply romantic. The stuff that fantasies are made out of. Harmless, I think to myself. The same critique of Call My By Your Name as being a dangerous fantasy for the queer community, also strikes me as an unfair damming of an already small pool of romantic queer narratives. Shouldn’t we be allowed sumptuous summer flings and problematic romances too? But are some fantasies more dangerous than others? Do some fantasies teach us secret lessons?
Age 28. I watch a porn clip entitled: ASIAN 19YO SWIMMER CANCELS FLIGHT TO GET BRED BY ME [5]. The ME of the title is white Pornstar Austin Wolf, a certifiable daddy, who has semi-amateur sex with strangers which he records for his 4myfans [6]. At the time of my “research” this clip is at 220,951 views on Pornhub. The partner for this particular scene is a younger asian male (the 19 year old swimmer as indicated by the title). It’s a striking scene because of their difference in stature and body types; the scene’s erotic appeal is built on a study of opposites. Large versus small. Older versus younger. Manly versus boyish. White versus other. That he’s also a pornstar highlights this fantasy material. The pornographic imagination allows us to indulge in fantasies that might not be permissible said out loud. Fantasies found only in the remains of our deleted histories or the dark corners of our psyches.
To want so badly, so strongly, something or someone that goes against one’s principles is a fascinating cocktail of desire - the entire bedrock of transgression. Perhaps I have something of a hidden Catholic in me, where I equate desire with sin, making me a superb self-flagellator.
Elio and Oliver’s relationship remains pure because it feels free from the sexual marketplace of desire. They are far away from the world of bartering face or dick pics. There is no mention of AIDS/HIV; Italy is a safe haven away from politics and sickness. There is no need to mention race; their shared whiteness is a blessing. It is intergenerational love minus the taboo. No, not even his family disapproves in the end, despite the heartbreak and tears Oliver leaves behind. Call Me By Your Name sands down the sharp edges of transgression and fills the age gap between its characters with love. True love makes this age gap tolerable. Desirable even.
In real life, queer narratvies are very rarely this romantic. Is this a contentious remark? Our love stories are often contrived - the products of online dating or dating apps - moreso than our heterosexual counterparts. Serendipity is an elusive concept. The discrepancy between fantasy and the real world is jarring, an upsetting jolt to a pleasant dream. Does discomfort over Elio and Oliver’s relationship come from a deep disappointment towards the society we actually live in? A jaded cynicism that accuses even the most romantic and genuine seeming relationships of hiding something insidious. That beneath this affection lurks some ulterior motive.
To throw moral judgement on Call Me By Your Name is not just an act of social criticism. Like the closeted homophobe too eager to scream faggot, the moral critic reveals too much of his hurt in his finger pointing. An accidental confession masked as a critique.
To defend Call Me By Your Name, then, is a similar act exposing oneself. I cannot talk about Elio and Oliver without revealing my own intimacies. I cannot talk about Call Me By Your Name without defending the very act of dreaming. With each word, I paint myself a moral nomad, a drifter through these vast and complicated plains of desire, desperately in search of things I ought not to.
[1] The most troubling part of the message is mostly a semantic one: his description of himself as Kiwi implies he is white, implicating my Asian-ness as a reflection of my lack of kiwi-ness.
[3] Played by actor Grant Bowler. Apologies for implicating him in a sexual anecdote of mine.
[5] https://www.pornhub.com/view_video.php?viewkey=ph5cc05be1ab41d
[6] Like Onlyfans, it’s a social media platform pornstars use to sell independently produced clips.