Joel Kim Booster: Comedy & Sexual Stereotypes
Podcast Transcript Season 3 Episode 43
Interviewer: Liz Goldwyn
Illustration BY Black Women Animate
The following is a transcript of the interview from the episode:
Liz Intro:
Hello, and welcome to The Sex Ed podcast. I’m Liz Goldwyn, your host and the founder of The Sex Ed, your #1 source for sex, health, and consciousness education. On our website TheSexEd.com, you can read original essays written by our network of experts, watch live talks and videos, listen to past episodes of this podcast, and sign up for our weekly newsletter. You can also follow us on Instagram @TheSexEd.
The Sex Ed is postively orgasmique to be partnered with GUCCI for your listening pleasure on this season of this podcast. That’s right, oh yes, GUCCI baby! We’re so grateful to GUCCI for sponsoring this episode and helping us answer everything you wanted to know about sex, but were afraid to ask.
Today, I’m speaking with the hilarious and talented Joel Kim Booster. Joel is a comedian whose stand-up has been seen on CONAN, Netflix, and Comedy Central. He is also the co-host of SINGLED OUT on Quibi. Joel writes for the animated show BIG MOUTH and THE OTHER TWO amongst others. We sat down before the COVID-19 outbreak to talk about about growing up in an Evangelical household; his leaked nudes; his thoughts on the fertility industry as an adopted child; and the Jane Austen anal sex joke that he has tattooed on his body.
Liz Goldwyn:
Thank you so much for being here with me.
Joel Kim Booster:
Thanks for having me.
Liz Goldwyn:
I have been watching so much of your stand up.
Joel Kim Booster:
Oh, I'm sorry.
Liz Goldwyn:
Are you playing in LA anytime soon?
Joel Kim Booster:
Yeah, I mean I do little shows here and there when I'm in town, but I'm mostly touring right now. So I've been gone every weekend in 2020 and I will be gone until mid-March, I think, is probably when I'm like... my next weekend free.
Liz Goldwyn:
What's it like being on the road as a comic?
Joel Kim Booster:
I mean, it varies. It depends on what kind of show I'm doing, what city I'm in, the number of shows. It all depends on so many different factors. I was just in Madison, Wisconsin, and it was one of the best weekends, I think, of my entire career. And it was at a really great comedy club and it was exhausting, but it was good. And sometimes it's colleges, and sometimes it's like rock venues that are just one-off shows that I don't have to really do much work for. Then sometimes it's comedy clubs in Missouri, who no one knows who the fuck I am and cares to come and see the show. So it just depends.
Liz Goldwyn:
So you're like playing to a few people or?
Joel Kim Booster:
I mean, at this point, usually the clubs do a pretty good job of bringing people out. But it just is a mix of people either coming to see me or just trusting the club and wanting a night out.
Liz Goldwyn:
You're from the Midwest, you're from Illinois.
Joel Kim Booster:
Right outside Chicago.
Liz Goldwyn:
Yeah. Because people have such a lot of assumptions about what the middle of America is like. I'd say your jokes and your routine is pretty progressive and liberal. How does that land across? Do you notice a different in audiences or?
Joel Kim Booster:
Yeah, I mean, yeah, there's always a little, there's like slight differences. I don't think it changes too much. I don't adjust my material depending on where I am. And there's always like little jokes. Like I have a few jokes about like the police and like I know that there are certain cities where they will land better than others. So there's little things like that, but I still do the jokes. I would say by and large I wouldn't do any joke if I didn't think it was funny and if it weren't broadly funny. So yeah, I don't think that there's like... I don't think about it. I don't really go into it thinking too much about how the region is going to affect my set pretty much.
Liz Goldwyn:
What about colleges? Like is there more pressure to be politically correct?
Joel Kim Booster:
No, I don't think so. The challenge with colleges I find is more about the gulf between me and them in terms of life experience. Like I'm writing about my life and like a lot of it is about like sex and dating and like they're not having sex and they're not dating in the same way that I am. And the other thing is I think it... at least when I'm playing a comedy club, I'm generally speaking, doing comedy for people who are comedy fans who watch standup comedy, who are fans of standup comedy and have a vocabulary for like what that is. When you're doing colleges, there are of course like young comedy nerds in colleges that are coming to see the shows. But a lot of them are just like showing up because it's something to do and they're not watching. When I was growing up I was like up late watching Comedy Central, Premium Blend, people's stand up specials, Margaret Show, that kind of stuff, Dimitri Martin.
I think like kids, not kids, but young adults are absorbing comedy through like TikTok and memes and the Internet and it's such a different language I think than what I do. So there is like a barrier I think sometimes in like just teaching them sometimes like what standup is through doing it for them. Because it's like quick cut YouTube videos is what they're watching like that's who my competition is when I'm doing the college circuit, is like these YouTube and TikTok stars and they're great, they sell out stadiums. I mean that's who they're familiar with. There are people that I've never even heard of that will outsell me like five to none because they have millions of YouTube subscribers.
Liz Goldwyn:
I like when you ask your audience's questions during your standup, there was one video I was watching and you were saying, "What city has known for the best sex clubs?" And your answer was Amsterdam. Mine would have been Berlin.
Joel Kim Booster:
Yeah. That's the big pushback I get a lot. Literally for the joke, it's just it matters that it's Amsterdam, because that's where the story is.
Liz Goldwyn:
Because you can smoke weed.
Joel Kim Booster:
No, that's where the story is.
Liz Goldwyn:
That's where the story is.
Joel Kim Booster:
yeah, and that was just like a transition. But yes, I've gotten numerous emails and DMs from people who are rapping hard for Berlin is the world capital of sex clubs and I agree. I'm sure that is true. I have not made it to Berlin myself yet.
Liz Goldwyn:
Really?
Joel Kim Booster:
Yeah, not yet.
Liz Goldwyn:
Oh I think you need to go on a sex tour Berlin.
Joel Kim Booster:
Yeah, I'm sure it's fine. I just generally don't test very well with German men.
Liz Goldwyn:
What do you mean test well?
Joel Kim Booster:
Like sexually, there's a lot of sexual racism in Europe in general and there's like places in Europe where I think it matters less and there are places in Europe where I think it matters more. So like I'm not convinced I would have like a great time in Berlin sexually, so I'm not like dying to go there.
Liz Goldwyn:
Where you have the best times sexually?
Joel Kim Booster:
Like South America for sure.
Liz Goldwyn:
Mexico.
Joel Kim Booster:
Mexico. Where else? Australia is a big one because there's a lot of us there. I'm trying to think of where else. The UK is like pretty fun because it's a pretty international city. I haven't made it back to Asia much. Although the only place in Asia I've been is Tokyo, which is like a fairly like not, I wouldn't say buttoned up isn't like the fair thing but it's nice. It was nice to having sex in Japan because it felt like freeing to know that I wasn't like someone's first Asian guy that they were having sex with. Or like there is this like pressure. I think sometimes when you know that you are representing a minority in bed that is often maligned that like it's like, "Oh well, I hope my dick is as big or bigger or is it smaller than what they expected or bigger what they... Does it meet the stereotype that they have? Does it not meet the stereotype that they have?" It's like a lot of stuff that I've would rather not be thinking about while I'm having sex. So it was really nice to just like have sex with Asian guys and know that it was just like I was just anothe r person and not have to be worrying about like the pathologization of my sexuality in their eyes.
Liz Goldwyn:
Do you remember the first time that you were conscious as a kid? Like that there's a certain penis size that was ascribed to you? Like either both as a man and because of your racial background?
Joel Kim Booster:
I mean I literally, I don't know if I could tell you the first time because Asians have small dick jokes are in the DNA of like, it's like the most basic joke. It's like the first thought joke that I think everyone has about Asian men in this country, in the West certainly. So I probably as long as I have been aware that like certain dick sizes are better than others. I think I've probably been aware that the expectation is mine is going to be smaller. I think like that's just like the thing that we all grow up with. So yeah, I think that's just like, I don't know. I can't remember the... I don't know if there was an aha moment or like there certainly wasn't any trauma moment where I heard it for the first one was like what? Because I think it was in every comedy.
Liz Goldwyn:
I mean I was just doing an interview before this and we were talking about the idea that most people with vulvas grow up thinking they smell or they taste bad. It's just like a thing that you're conditioned with from the time that you're conscious of being self conscious about your genital odor. Whenever I talk to men, I'm just always curious like do you have some recollection of like on the school grounds, school yard or whatever of like that there's some standard that you have to live up to?
Joel Kim Booster:
No, well, I think the other thing is, because I was homeschooled, I never had that traditional locker room moment. Like the first time I remember being in a locker room naked with other guys was when I played basketball in high school, like pretty late. So at that point I think there's a lot of anxiety when you're in middle school about that. I remember a lot of my guy friends telling stories about that. But I don't know, it was just always like it's the American Pie joke. It's the Long Duck Dong joke. Like it's just been in American comedies surrounding Asian men for so long. And it's so weird. I've had sex with too many people to count at this point and I have like a nice penis and they're out.
Liz Goldwyn:
No complaints.
Joel Kim Booster:
Like recently, all of my nudes have leaked onto the Internet.
Liz Goldwyn:
Really? Have they?
Joel Kim Booster:
Oh yeah, over Christmas they ended up on one message board. I think they're still up on another one and the reviews are good, like nobody's shitty about them. And yet even though like all these people, all these strangers on the Internet had been been picking apart like my dick pics. I'm like I'm still, every single time I was just on a gay cruise and every time I was in an orgy situation, I was like, "Oh no." It's not forward in my brain. It's just like always that little like itch because like I'm still going to the orgy. Obviously it's not like so forward in my brain that it's like keeping me from getting hard and diving in.
But it is just like it's always that little question of... Especially when I'm the only Asian person at the orgy, it just sucks to be like, "I hope that they've all seen many different sizes of dicks." I do this stage show called the Joy Fuck Club and it's just a silly excuse to get a bunch of Asian comedians together. And one of the games I play is I just pull up all these pictures of huge dicks and I make an audience member guess if it's an Asian dick or it's not. And the joke of it is that like all eight of these like gigantic dicks that are being projected onto the screen are all Asian dicks. I don't think that people think that is even a possibility wildly when we're like half the world of course. It's just such a wild, weird thing to constantly be thinking about.
And then I've cursed myself because in my very first kind of appearance I have a joke about bucking the stereotype. So now everyone thinks like there's this assumption that I do and it's like, it's nice but it's not like, I think the word I use to describe it in CONAN is like I have a huge dick. I would not describe it as huge either, but I don't know. It's nice enough that I send out pictures and apparently with abandon, reckless abandon because they've all ended up on the Internet.
Liz Goldwyn:
So does that bother you?
Joel Kim Booster:
It does and it doesn't. I mean it does on some level because it's like, yeah it sucks that it's interesting to read the message board and see that like there are just people out there who are like, "Oh Joel Kim booster is in Seattle right now. Someone get on Grindr and catfish him." It was weird to watch that conversation, like people were posting about it in real time. They're like get him to send this, get him to send that. So like that feels weirdly violating and there are people who did on the message board sort of say like there are people who are... It's like a famous, not a famous but like a lot of people in the gay community know about it because it's not just for like people who are famous. It's like random guys. Like every city has a thread where they'll post like an Instagram profile and be like, "Hey, can somebody catfish this guy and post his nudes here." Sometimes people will be like, "This is gross." And then the automatic response is like, "Well, if they didn't want the picture shown, they shouldn't have taken them."
And it's like, well this is like how far down the rabbit hole of that thinking can you go before you can justify anything. Then on the other hand, I don't really care because again, like I said, the reviews are good. I'm not ashamed of my body. It's what it is. And again, I'm at an interesting spot where sort of my brand has made it so that it's not going to hurt me professionally and that's all I really care about is my job and my work. That being said and I would love for them to be taken down like just because I would like to have some semblance of control over who sees my body. But at the end of the day I think my generation especially, it's like we all have them and they're all going to get out there eventually and to waste expend too much emotional energy about it is probably just going to cause me to spiral. And why bother at this point when I'm not really that ashamed?
Liz Goldwyn:
Yeah. What's your brand?
Joel Kim Booster:
I think my brand is just like fairly transparent, like a level of transparency about personal stuff. Which is interesting because it's a performance. I talk about sex and my sex life and my curiosity about sex is like the cornerstone of my set. I think that also that makes people believe, because like I come out on stage and I say, "Here I am 100%, this is me babe." But like that's a performance, you're not really... I want you to believe that you're seeing like 100% of me. I think that a lot of people buy that but of course it's not real. Then I do the meet and greet and people like grab my ass and it's like, "Okay." I think again, it feels like people feel less guilty about it because they're like, "Well, wait, isn't this who you are?"
I get a lot of people who are disappointed when they meet me like fresh off stage at the meet and greet because I'm very much in like I just performed for an hour and 10 minutes and I'm shaking hands and of course I want to meet everybody and I want to take pictures with everybody. But everybody wants to be like, they want me to be the same exact person that I am on stage when it is a carefully constructed like version of myself that they're seeing on stage. I think that's frustrating to some people.
Liz Goldwyn:
Yeah. You must have spent a lot of time creating that.
Joel Kim Booster:
Yeah, I mean I've been doing this for almost 10 years. I think a lot of it, I mean when I was young, especially starting out like a big part of it was just like the shock and awe of it. I did this X, insert X gross thing. Then like sometimes it would work, it would have like a 50% success rate because shock humor does work. But I think especially once I was in New York and once I started to really learn how to write a joke around that stuff, it's gotten less about... you'll never going to hear just like... I don't even know. It's just never going to be about like I did X gross thing. It's going to be, I did X gross thing and then here's a punchline about the X gross thing or at least that's the hope.
Liz Goldwyn:
One of your jokes that really stayed with me is you, is you grew up in a strict evangelical household, homeschooled. You did Bible quizzing.
Joel Kim Booster:
Nationally ranked Bible quizzer. Thank you very much.
Liz Goldwyn:
Really?
Joel Kim Booster:
Yeah
Liz Goldwyn:
Until what age?
Joel Kim Booster:
Till I was like 15 or 16.
Liz Goldwyn:
So you've come a long way baby. Like you tell this joke, you're South Korean and you were adopted and you tell a joke about how in the 1980s South Korea was the only country that they would put a baby on the plane. Like you could grub hub or Postmates the baby.
Joel Kim Booster:
Postmates. That's probably the updated reference would be Postmates the baby.
Liz Goldwyn:
Postmates the baby. But I think, I mean in my industry and sex tech, there are billions and billions and billions of dollars being spent in the fertility industry right now, which I'm sure you're aware. There's a lot of money being spent promoting egg freezing and there's not a lot of attention paid to adoption or foster care.
Joel Kim Booster:
Yeah. It's weird. I would say like about half of the money going into your industry is probably from gay couples who want [inaudible 00:17:12]. I'm kidding, but I'm not at the same time. I know actually like a handful of couples and it's more and more interested in this who literally same egg, different sperm twins is like this sort of like the new thing that everybody wants to have is like same egg and then one daddy's sperm and the other daddy's sperm but same belly. Then they come out at the same time and it's like pseudo twins, which is like God bless, do whatever you want. I'm not here to like judge anybody's like decision of how they want to bring life into this world. And it certainly that doesn't affect like whether or not you're going to be a good parent or not.
But I do question sometimes like for men, I never have this conversation about women because I'm like, I know there's like, you have a different biological experience surrounding childbirth. But for two gay men I am always like, "So do you want to be a father or do you just want to have a mini me?" And listen like sometimes again I keep saying like I'm not here to judge and there's probably a little bit of judgment in there because of my background. But it is like if you don't, I talk to people who are literally like, "I just can't imagine raising someone else's child." And I'm like, "Well, then there's the answer." Then maybe that's valid if like you need to have that genetic connection as a man to your child, that's valid for you but it just seems weird to me.
Liz Goldwyn:
Yeah. And I mean I second what you're saying, not here to judge anyone, but it does seem strange to me that we spend so much money and time promoting like science when there are a lot of kids in the world that need homes.
Joel Kim Booster:
And let's be clear too, like adoption is expensive-
Liz Goldwyn:
It is expensive.
Joel Kim Booster:
... and sometimes more expensive than fertility treatments and stuff like that.
Liz Goldwyn:
And a lot of red tape.
Joel Kim Booster:
Yeah, a lot of red tape.
Liz Goldwyn:
It's not like the Postmates baby.
Joel Kim Booster:
Exactly. It's changed a lot and it can be difficult and especially if you want a baby, not an older child and like adopting an older child is difficult in its own way. There's a whole lot of other reasons other than like wanting a little mini me that people do go that route and I understand that. It's unfair of me to just like lump everybody in together. But I do see like there is like an accessory component sometimes to certain couples and I won't name them on the podcast, Michael and James, those are just two names.
Liz Goldwyn:
There are probably definitely a Micheal and James who've...
Joel Kim Booster:
But yeah, I don't know.
Liz Goldwyn:
I mean, being adopted and being in a situation like in a time period where it was I guess a little more easy to adopt. I feel like you do have something to say on that.
Joel Kim Booster:
Yeah. It's weird too because I was also adopted very young.
Liz Goldwyn:
How old were you?
Joel Kim Booster:
I was like three months, three or four months when I was brought over. Because I think it was supposed to be even earlier but because of the bombing at the Olympics that year there was like hold up on, went on my actual like delivery day, like parents refreshing the tracking information on the baby. Just like when you see that package like stuck in Dallas, what, why? But yeah, I was really, really young so I attached. I think there is a lot of science about how old where that cutoff is and I think I was before that cut off. So I don't have a lot of angst about being adopted. When I think about my parents and I think about the drama of my relationship and the arc of our relationship specifically.
There's a lot of tumult to our relationship because of the gay stuff and like their religion. I think a lot of people assume that adoption is a part of it or a component of it. It's so funny to me because it's not a part of it for me at all and I don't think it is for them either. I've always just internally, instinctually thought of them as my parents and every way I think. I mean I guess I don't know anything different, but to me it feels the same.
Liz Goldwyn:
Were you their first child?
Joel Kim Booster:
No, I’m their third.
Liz Goldwyn:
Oh, you are.
Joel Kim Booster:
Yeah. I actually think I was like a rescue baby. I think I was there to save a marriage.
Liz Goldwyn:
Save a marriage.
Joel Kim Booster:
Yeah. I think they wanted-
Liz Goldwyn:
Did it work?
Joel Kim Booster:
No. I mean it did and it didn't. My parents never in any conscious memory I have of growing up, slept in the same bedroom. My mom slept on one side of the house. My dad slept on the other. They never shown any affection to each other. They fought constantly. We went on separate vacations with my dad.
Liz Goldwyn:
You did?
Joel Kim Booster:
We would visit my dad's parents. We were pretty fucking poor and so like vacations is like in quotes. We would go and visit my grandparents and that was like vacation. So we would visit my dad's parents with my dad and my mom's parents with my mom. I remember when I was like nine calling my mom out on it and being like, "Why don't you ever hug her kiss dad?" I think that freaked her out a little bit because I mean I don't know how she expected us, not to notice. But I remember we were leaving to go and visit my dad's parents with my dad and in the driveway she was saying goodbye and she looked at me and she was like, "Watch this."
And she kissed my dad in the most chaste peck on the lips kiss I've ever fucking seen in my entire life. I was like, "Do you think this makes it better? It's actually weirder that you're calling attention to..."
Liz Goldwyn:
Watch this.
Joel Kim Booster:
"Like you feel like you need to call attention to this." That's the only memory I can ever remember of them kissing. Then weirdly after college when I would go home, now they're back in the same room.
Liz Goldwyn:
Oh really?
Joel Kim Booster:
Yeah. It's very bizarre. And it's something that I believe I will never, it's a mystery I will never solve.
Liz Goldwyn:
So you think it just has to do with their relationship dynamics?
Joel Kim Booster:
Whatever...
Liz Goldwyn:
Not religion.
Joel Kim Booster:
I think it definitely, they stayed together because divorce is a sin. I think that there is a part of them that was waiting for all of us to leave before they did it. Then my older brother and my older sister never moved out. So they were sort of fucked. Then I think like they were like, well I think they just worked it out. I mean that happens. I don't know how or if they... We're not a family that talks about shit. So it would be really interesting to see for me to know about how they worked it out. But they are, they seem really in it again. They recently bought a house which was crazy to me because they're in their 70s and it was weird.
Like they showed me the new house and they were very, very proud of it. And it's been a dream of theirs, especially for my dad to have a lot of space because he grew up on a farm and I was like, "Oh, you forget your parents have dreams." You're like, "Oh, I thought I just thought you were done." It's like I felt guilty about that. But then my older sister just moved into our childhood home, so that's nice. I get to have everything. I get to be happy for my parents and hopefully pay off that house for them someday. Then my sister, I don't have to say goodbye to the old house either, which is nice.
Liz Goldwyn:
Pay it off with that comedy money?
Joel Kim Booster:
Yeah. That's the hope.
Liz Goldwyn:
So they were super religious growing up, like masturbation was not allowed?
Joel Kim Booster:
No, nothing. Nothing was allowed. Basically there was like a book called, How to Talk to Your Kids about Sex from a Christian Perspective or How to Talk to your Son about Sex from a Christian Perspective or something like that. And I read that book. That was my sex ed.
Liz Goldwyn:
Do you take a lot of material from that for comedy now?
Joel Kim Booster:
No, I don't remember really much of anything. I mean really the only thing I remember about it is the very last chapter was like eight pages on homosexuality and like why it was wrong and that was it and that's all I remember really.
Liz Goldwyn:
Did you know you were gay at that time?
Joel Kim Booster:
Yeah. I've known I was gay since I was like four. I knew I was gay before I knew I was Asian. I think my conception of sexuality developed way before my conception of race or that I was a different race than my family did for sure. I was hypersexual from a really young age too. I think I started drinking off when I was like eight.
Liz Goldwyn:
I don't think that's super young.
Joel Kim Booster:
Well, when I'm on the road I take a poll of every audience of what the age is and that's definitely on the lower end.
Liz Goldwyn:
Do you think they're telling the truth though when they have to raise their hands in front of other people?
Joel Kim Booster:
I mean that's definitely, it's a round of applause for everything. I actually find that with that kind of stuff, I think there's more bias in the other direction. I think people like to be involved and so they woo and they clap when it's probably not even true. But yeah, I think I was at seven or eight when I started. Hasselhoff was like an early one. Who else? The Quantum Leap guy, what's his name? Scott Bakula. That was really like the two early fixtures in that. I mean I barely understood what was going on. I just knew it felt good.
Liz Goldwyn:
Hasselhoff is like Knight Rider.
Joel Kim Booster:
It was Baywatch.
Liz Goldwyn:
Baywatch but he was Knight Rider too, right?
Joel Kim Booster:
Yeah, he was. Yeah, I think so.
Liz Goldwyn:
So it was Baywatch. He's kind of an older guy.
Joel Kim Booster:
Yeah. Both of them were, I mean both. I was eight so everyone was an older guy.
Liz Goldwyn:
There wasn't like River Phoenix or like Johnny Depp or something.
Joel Kim Booster:
Yeah. I mean they all got in there like Noah Wyle. Like it ran the gamut. I appreciate an older guy to this day, probably right around that Hasselhoff age, but-
Liz Goldwyn:
Little bit of like curly chest hair.
Joel Kim Booster:
I don't discriminate. Yeah. I truly have no preference on any of those things really. It's so funny. I guess I do have like a type, if I were like really backed into a corner, but I've just like fucked every kind of person I think that and I've enjoyed it. It's never like the first thing, it really is about like chemistry more so than like I see someone that I'm like, that's it but yeah.
Liz Goldwyn:
In your stand up you talk about your parents reading your journal when you're 17 and that was like you coming out basically.
Joel Kim Booster:
That was the coming out. Yeah. Because I was like out in high school for like a year before they read the journals. So I was getting into all kinds of stuff. It was normal stuff. I mean it was a normal teen stuff. I was like sucking dicks in the target parking lot and like everybody else does in high school. I just smoked weed for the first time and it was like drinking and partying and also getting good grades and taking AP classes and being the captain of this speech team. But I think they were pretty alarmed because it was a really big zero to 60 thing to go from being youth leader in the youth group at church to reading about me sucking dick and having keeping a running tally of like whose... so yeah, they were pretty concerned about that.
Liz Goldwyn:
Did you get punished or?
Joel Kim Booster:
Yeah, I mean the other thing was is this was like a real paradigm shift for me mentally. I was pretty at this point like prepared and never to tell them and for them to sort of spring it on me like they knew. There was a lot of really dark moments and a lot of like my mental health issues coming to a head with like their refusal to sort of want to deal with my mental health issues or believe that like mental health was even a thing and it was bad. It was really bad for like a month or so and then I moved out.
Liz Goldwyn:
How old were you?
Joel Kim Booster:
17.
Liz Goldwyn:
Where did you go?
Joel Kim Booster:
All over, I couch hopped and car slept and I ended up... I had one class with this girl and I feel bad because I tell this story on every single podcast when people ask me about my coming out. But it is such an important part of my life. I had one class with this one girl, choir class and we had a big high school and it was not like a mean girl situation. There were no cliques, there were no like popular kids and losers. Like it wasn't really like that or at least like people weren't really aware of that kind of stuff. But she was popular. She was a jock and she was homecoming queen. We had this one class together. Everyone knew what I was going through and she was like, "If you ever need a place to stay you can stay with me." And I was like, "Okay, she's just saying this to be nice." And then like it was November and I was cold so I went and showed up at her house and she was like, "Oh fuck."
Then her parents are like, "You can't just have strange boys come and sleep here." She had two younger brothers. Her dad's a paraplegic. There's a lot going on in that house, but they're like, you can stay for the night. I stayed up all night talking to her mom, which is like a special gay superpower I think most gay teens have. Then the next morning they were like, "Come back for dinner before you leave." Then I ended up living there for the rest of my senior year and then they bought me a car for graduation. They co-signed on my first student loans. They like helped me reconcile with my parents at a really big way. Her dad is the Methodist pastor in our town. She's still my best friend to this day too. I was like the best man in her wedding. I flew home when she got a divorce like the whole nine yards. Yeah, and her family has been like a huge, huge, like supplementary sort of part of my life since then.
Liz Goldwyn:
And they helped you reconcile?
Joel Kim Booster:
Yeah, I think it was tough. I think because my mom, I didn't really reconcile fully with my parents until probably when I was graduating college. Like we started talking again when I was in college. It was rough. I didn't really go home for holiday. I haven't been home for a holiday in like over a decade and that's fine. It just sort of like where we're at. But like for her I think it really hurt my mom that I would go and spend Christmas with them and or not come home at all. So there was like resentment there I think but they all met at my college graduation and they [inaudible 00:31:53] and like I think like it really helped them that they were like a pastor and like Sarah, my friend is a pastor now too and that like it was really helpful for them. They're very progressive though. I mean they're like insanely progressive people.
Her dad was sort of famous in the conference, the Methodist conference of our area because he was like very, very heavily we should be ordaining gay people and like affirming gay people in the church. The other thing too, that is like that whole year I was out at school, I was like, well I'm going to hell but I can't fight this anymore. So I might as well just enjoy my life while I'm here, before I go to hell. Then when I moved in with Sarah and her family, they were like, I think Sarah must have keyed them into this. And her dad and her mom were like, "That's not how this works. Hell doesn't exist. God doesn't work this way. The apocalypse isn't coming." Like it was really, really like mentally for me, healthy year of like deprogramming the evangelical side of Christianity and sort of like letting me be a real kid and a normal kid and feeling normal and feeling like the stuff that I was doing was normal and not sending me to hell like a big weight lifted off me. Yeah. I think in a lot of ways they really saved my life.
Liz Goldwyn:
Where does faith fit into your life now?
Joel Kim Booster:
I would say I'm like firmly agnostic. I don't really think about it. I don't know. It's like I'm not one of those people who like is like a deeply traumatized evangelical who's replaced everything with astrology now. I think there's a lot of those people around LA and God bless them on their journey. Again, I like astrology fine, I do think that some people take it a little bit too far. But yeah, I don't know. Sarah is a pastor now and we talked about this sometimes but I don't know that it's hard for me to completely divorce myself from like feeling like there's something else working through the world and the universe. It is strange.
I think like part of it is because I grew up evangelical and part of it is because I'm a Pisces and I'm a dreamer and I have an imagination and that's just like the kind of person I am. I would like to believe in ghosts and shit like that. So there is unexplained stuff and I don't know. But then sometimes I like look up at like the fucking stars that I'm like, "No, this is all fucking random and nothing matters." But we'll see.
Liz Goldwyn:
But you can still quote the Bible.
Joel Kim Booster:
Yeah, there's a lot of it still left up in the old noggin. I haven't smoked enough of it away yet, I guess.
Liz Goldwyn:
And Jane Austen.
Joel Kim Booster:
And Jane Austen. Yeah.
Liz Goldwyn:
Why the connection with Jane Austen?
Joel Kim Booster:
It was supposed to be major but ended up being a minor because I got lazy in college and the Regency period was like a really big interesting time of literature for me for some reason. I mean when I talk about the Regency period of literature, it's mostly Jane Austen. I wasn't reading a whole lot else from that time. Another, I think mostly it comes from growing up watching the BBC mini series with my mom, Pride and Prejudice. We watched that Colin Firth, Jennifer L mini series like five VHS set a lot. Me and my mom and my sister would watch that a lot and that really like colonized my imagination. So when I had the opportunity to take a survey of a Jane Austen survey in college, I did that and she has remained like one of my favorite authors and I read Pride and Prejudice like once or twice a year.
Liz Goldwyn:
And you're developing a show, right?
Joel Kim Booster:
I'm shooting it right now actually. I'm currently like we're talking to directors, we're like figuring out the scheduling of it. This is so like it's actually happening, which is kind of crazy to realize because it's all I found out when I was like in the middle of an orgy on the gay cruise, which is the most appropriate way to find out.
Liz Goldwyn:
Your agent calls out, where did you keep your cell phone.
Joel Kim Booster:
They're like do you have time to talk?
Liz Goldwyn:
Where is your cell phone?
Joel Kim Booster:
I was wearing a wrestling singlet, it was in my sock and to paint the picture. And then I ran out to call my agents.
Liz Goldwyn:
Priorities.
Joel Kim Booster:
But yeah, and it was sort of like...
Liz Goldwyn:
What's the concept of the show?
Joel Kim Booster:
It's about just a group of friends going to Fire Island and the different sort of class structures that gay men impose upon themselves that make falling in love difficult. I think like I remember reading Pride and Prejudice the first time I ever went to Fire Island and like sort of looking around and being like, "Oh my God," like the observation she makes about like social class especially are still so precious and so relatable to like what I was experiencing on Fire Island. That was like six or seven years ago and I still go every year. It's just so interesting to see the ways in which when society is just us, what are the different like class structures beyond just the regular class structures that make it impossible for poor people to go to Fire Island a lot of times.
Then once you're there it's like race and body and masculinity and things like that and the different ways in small ways we separate each other. I think also like the other big thing about Jane Austen is all of the characters are speaking, but they're not saying what they mean, which is I think is again like very like it's shade. It's like that's what it is. So yeah, I just felt like a really rife sort of way to do it. It's not a beat for beat remake by any means. It's very much like, I think the comparison I've been making is like, it's Clueless what Clueless did with Emma. What Amy Heckerling did with Emma and Clueless is sort of what I've been going for with Pride and Prejudice in this story.
Liz Goldwyn:
And you have a Jane Austen quote tattooed?
Joel Kim Booster:
Yeah, I do. It's on my shoulder: “of rears and vices I saw enough.” It's from Mansfield Park. It's an anal sex joke. So many scholars believe anyways, it's one character talking about another character's brother who is in the Navy and speaking of shade, his character says like, "Oh, I once visited a ship and of rears and vices. I saw enough." And she's alluding to anal sex in the Navy. I always thought that was like the perfect synthesis of like...
Liz Goldwyn:
Do we think that Jane Austen really was aware of anal sex in Navy. We are?
Joel Kim Booster:
Oh yeah, Jane knew. Jane is not stupid. She absolutely knew. There's some body stuff like it had to be pretty like coded. But I would say most contemporary Austin scholars agree that this is a reference to anal sex.
Liz Goldwyn:
I don't know very much about Austen's personal life.
Joel Kim Booster:
I mean she was like, she was a little conservative, she wasn't like... it's interesting because like she's one of like, it's hard when you compare her to female authors like the Bronte sisters or something like that. Like she's not as much of a bad ass. She bought into the structures that she was writing about in a lot of ways I think. And she wasn't like and or even like I guess like little women's on the brain right now too, because the movie just came out. But she wasn't like a Joe figure. I don't think she was extending up to the patriarchy in the way that some other female authors on either side of her time-wise were. But I don't know. I still think that she is so smart and so I don't know, funny like I just laugh and that's important.
Liz Goldwyn:
I think I could see like a whole dating app subplot in the Austen verse. Like what do you feel about dating apps versus like sliding into Instagram DMs?
Joel Kim Booster:
Well, now I can't really use Grindr anymore because apparently I'm-
Liz Goldwyn:
You'll get catfished.
Joel Kim Booster:
I'll get catfished. So it's sort of been ruined for me. I was sort of like weaning myself off the apps anyways. I use them mostly in a very pretty utilitarian fashion. Like when I am in cities like Madison, I'll log on because like, especially cities, if I'm in a city where I don't know any gay people, which thanks to these cruises is becoming less and less of an issue. It's nice to like have sex in a city and it's easier than going out to a gay bar by yourself, which has now become a weird thing to do I think because of the apps. But mostly I prefer to have sex with people that I've met on at a party in person first.
I prefer to have like fully non-verbal, like danced and fingered someone before I have sex with them, like in a warehouse space or something like that. That is story of my 30s I guess. So like I prefer having sex before I have the conversation. And Grindr, unfortunately you have to have a conversation. I'm trying to cut out even more of the middle man. I think for awhile Grindr felt amazing because it felt quicker, but now I'd just rather go on an orgy boat.
Liz Goldwyn:
Get straight to the sex. So you're not really into relationships?
Joel Kim Booster:
No, I've never had a boyfriend as an adult. I had more boyfriends in high school than I have had since turning 20. I had the last boyfriend like Facebook official boyfriend I had was when I was 19 probably.
Liz Goldwyn:
Is that by design, like you haven't...
Joel Kim Booster:
It's been by design maybe for like the last three years or so. I think there was a time probably from 22 to 28, 27 where I was like, all I wanted was a relationship and I really felt like that would solve all my problems because I'm a romantic. I think I love like I'm writing a fucking romcom about Jane Austen and I love Jane Austen and Jane Austen is like such a... every fucking book ends in a wedding. I love weddings. I don't think I ever want to get married, but I fucking love weddings. So I think there was a lot of it where I was like sort of, I don't know, figuring out what I wanted. And especially like when you're young and you are in an industry where you have so little control and I don't know like especially in New York it just felt like nothing was happening for me. I think I wanted to supplant that there was a real danger. I think if I had met someone who could have put up with me long enough in my like mid 20s in New York, I'd probably still be working at a startup right now.
Liz Goldwyn:
Did you work in a start-up?
Joel Kim Booster:
Yeah. All my day jobs were startups. I worked at Groupon in Chicago for many years. I worked at a startup. My first job in New York I worked at two different startups in New York before I quit to write for TV and do stand up all the time.
Liz Goldwyn:
Because you feel like if you had a relationship you would have become complacent?
Joel Kim Booster:
I think I would have just seen I there's something... I don't think I have room for this job and a relationship. I think like the reason I have been fine the last couple of years have been like because the job has been going so well. I've always been super career oriented though and I think that there were times where I was like, if I could have a real life, like a regular normal person life and be happy, it would be like working at the startup and having a boyfriend. Which is now feels like a shadow version of myself because I don't think there's room for one right now. I don't know. I just don't really, I don't have like a super hard interest in it.
I have so many really nice emotional, intense like sexual relationships with men all over the country that I see when I see them and it's great. That's all I really and like I don't feel pulled to like make space for anybody else right now and maybe that'll change. I'm sure it will. I'm sure I won't go through many periods of wanting that again and then this period of not wanting it, but right now I feel pretty satiated.
Liz Goldwyn:
Where does intimacy fit in?
Joel Kim Booster:
What do you mean?
Liz Goldwyn:
I mean what do you consider intimacy?
Joel Kim Booster:
I think like intimacy for me right now, it means like letting someone stay over.
Liz Goldwyn:
Not kicking them out.
Joel Kim Booster:
Yeah, not kicking them out right away. Like having it feel less transactional. There's a lot of because like sex, it doesn't always equal intimacy to me. And like sometimes it's just work and you got to get it done. But I think there's intimacy for me is like the post-coital conversation that I have and just sort of being in a space and feeling comfortable being in a space. Because I get very antsy one-on-one with people. There are only a couple of, like a handful of friends that I like to be around one-on-one with. Like I'm much more comfortable in a group of three or more.
Liz Goldwyn:
Hence why the orgies work out so well for you.
Joel Kim Booster:
The orgies workout so well and I'm like I have casually like dated couples and stuff like that and that I find very fulfilling. Like that I think would be the ideal for me right now it's like to be someone's third, to be the best supporting actor in a couple. There is like one couple that I sleep with and stay with often I'm in a city and we are like we're going on vacation together and stuff like that. It's really nice I think because oftentimes I see in threesomes like you see either one of two scenarios like one of them is more into you than the other and the other is just sort of going along with it because they want to make the other person happy or you weren't literally there.
You get the sense to save someone's marriage. This couple is so nice because like the first time we all had sex I was like and every time subsequent that we've all had sex, you can really tell that they're still so into each other after like seven years together. And it's like really interesting to view that and have like a front row seat to that level of intimacy with someone else. And like see love in action and it's also just like convenient because like I can get up and go pee and the sex doesn't have to stop. I can go and like pee, check my phone, come back, dive in, tag someone else out.
Liz Goldwyn:
So you are, I mean having someone sleep over is where intimacy is for you but you're going to go on vacation.
Joel Kim Booster:
Yeah, I mean that's definitely-
Liz Goldwyn:
That's like a very…
Joel Kim Booster:
Yeah that's definitely like a level of intimacy with them. But there was also that wall because I also know that like I am an ancillary part of that, I'm a guest star. I'm not going to be... part of it's, we live in a different city, but I also don't think that like... I don't know how it would be if we lived in the same city. If we would be like let's do this, let's be like a throuple, which is something that's not out of the question for me. But I don't know. They're also like the first people that I like said, "I love you too" that I've had sex with. Which is interesting because it's been going on for like a little over a year and so that's nice. And like I think that I texted them first when my show got canceled.
Yeah, they FaceTime me. They can read the code of what is a cry for help on Instagram story and FaceTime and stuff like that. So that's definitely intimacy I think. But for me it works right now because like I don't have to sort of shoulder the brunt of the emotional work. Like I'm a project I think for them and I get to sort of absorb that and they have each other, they don't... Sometimes when we're together for a weekend or something like that I do sense like it's nice for one of them to have a break in terms of providing the emotional needs for the other. But they're together 24/7, seven days a week. I'm just there like popping in and out. So they get to deal with my emotional texts together and then I don't really have to do much less but be interesting in bed every time I see them.
In my 20s I think I would just like have sex with someone because they were hot. I think that there is also a baseline level of chemistry that needs to exist. Now, for me that didn't use to need to be there and I don't know. It's not necessarily an emotional chemistry at all, but it is just like, I don't know, I need to see the way you move in the space. I can't accept a self-tape I need you to be in the room.
Liz Goldwyn:
You need to be in a warehouse.
Joel Kim Booster:
Yeah.
Liz Goldwyn:
You need to be able to finger.
Joel Kim Booster:
Yeah. I want to see like how my body fits first onto yours, like a dance situation before we have sex. And I kind of wanted to know like I don't know, I've accidentally had sex with like way too many problematic, like people who have like terrible politics and I just like-
Liz Goldwyn:
Oh really? Did you find out after the fact?
Joel Kim Booster:
Yeah, I just like keep fucking cops. Like I can't do this anymore. So I would rather not. There's like that kind of stuff. I'm like, "I need to figure, I need to at least know who you voted for before."
Liz Goldwyn:
Is that a prerequisite?
Joel Kim Booster:
Yeah, I mean I don't often come out and ask or say it, but you can tell and like you can just get it from context clues now. Like we were talking about the election, the 2016 election, just before we started this and I literally, the night after the election, went home with a Trump supporter and didn't find out until I was like halfway home and it was like-
Liz Goldwyn:
What happened? He texted to you and was like...
Joel Kim Booster:
No, we were in the cab and I was like this... I was like, 4:00 AM I was fucking wasted. This was like when I was still drinking and I was like really, really drunk and I was like, it was last call. We barely had a conversation before we left together. Then in the Uber I was like this is terrible. This is like the collapse of democracy, what's going to happen to our country, blah blah blah. You know going off. Then he was like, I don't know, Hillary's a criminal and I was like, oh no.
Liz Goldwyn:
But you were still like, [crosstalk 00:52:23].
Joel Kim Booster:
It was Manhattan to Brooklyn. It was a very long, expensive Uber ride. I was like, "Well, I guess isn't going to happen anyways." And it was bad. It was really, really bad. It was bad sex. It was absolutely terrible.
Liz Goldwyn:
Is that what made you stop drinking?
Joel Kim Booster:
No, I stopped drinking because I moved to LA and I realized I didn't really like drinking and I don't like hangovers.
Liz Goldwyn:
And you got like heavy into showbiz and TV.
Joel Kim Booster:
Yeah. That and I do way more drugs now than drinking. Drugs are so much more manageable than alcohol.
Liz Goldwyn:
What kind of drugs?
Joel Kim Booster:
Mostly like and again, this is like sex, like I'll go weeks without doing any substances at all. But usually like G or ketamine or Molly. Molly, I can only do like once every quarter because I have a bad brain.
Liz Goldwyn:
When you pay taxes.
Joel Kim Booster:
Yeah, exactly. Actually yeah, my estimated taxes and then I get to take a Molly and weed but that like barely counts.
Liz Goldwyn:
Yeah. That's not a real drug.
Joel Kim Booster:
No.
Liz Goldwyn:
We're in California where it's legal. So yeah. What are you still learning about sex?
Joel Kim Booster:
I guess like I'm really eternally, my problem with sex is that like I don't really enjoy having sex with the same person more than like three times. I can think of like seven people maybe that that's happened with. I guess like if we count this couple as one person, it's like seven or eight people. So I guess I'm trying to learn how to do that more. Because I think that's like where the intimacy comes in is like doing it and like sex is about the novelty. Like sex is interesting to me only in the newness of it. Then once it's happened I'm like, "Ah, like it's happened." I never crave having sex with a person, even if it's good sex a second time rarely.
Liz Goldwyn:
Even when you have these boyfriends back in your late teen years?
Joel Kim Booster:
Yeah, that was actually like a really big problem. It's like once I'd get it, I'd be like, "Oh," and then I would do psycho things to like get them to break up with me because I would feel too guilty about and would want to be the martyr. Like you can't break up with someone, you have to convince them to break up with you so that you get to be the victim. That's the secret.
Liz Goldwyn:
So you're trying to learn how to be comfortable.
Joel Kim Booster:
Yeah. I'm trying to learn how to be more comfortable and at home with someone. And I think like part of it is that what has made it easier is just like most of the friends that I've made in my 30s, I've had sex with. So it's been nice and like easy to sort of like blur those lines a little bit and not thinking about it in such like black and white terms of like, okay, if I'm having sex with a person than they are like possibly a person that I could date. Sometimes it's easier when it's just like, "Oh, this is a friend that I have sex with," and sometimes, and that it's like easier to blur those lines than it was. So I'm just like trying to like be chill about having sex with someone more than twice.
Liz Goldwyn:
Is there anything that you want to try that you haven't tried?
Joel Kim Booster:
No. I've pretty much done everything that I am willing to do. There's only a handful of things I won't do.
Liz Goldwyn:
Like what?
Joel Kim Booster:
I won't be the fisting bottom. I have fisted someone but it's not for me. It's for them. If you want that I'm happy to do that for you, but it is not something that brings me joy. I won't at no shit except the ancillary like comes with the territory. You go down the rabbit hole, you might find a rabbit sort of variety that is just a professional hazard when you have anal sex and no blood and that's it. That's all.
Liz Goldwyn:
Water sports are fine.
Joel Kim Booster:
Yeah. I mean again it's like not for me. It's like it brings me no joy, but I think I'm vers sexually, but spiritually I am a bottom in that I'm pretty down to make someone else happy and if that means like me putting a fist in you, then yes, that turns me on because I know that that's what you want from me. If that means getting peed on or peeing on someone, I would prefer to pee on someone than get peed on.
Liz Goldwyn:
I feel like you do have a bit when you talk about [crosstalk 00:57:19].
Joel Kim Booster:
No, I have been peed on and I've been peed on without my knowledge.
Liz Goldwyn:
In the sex club in Amsterdam, right? When you were like 18.
Joel Kim Booster:
I was 19.
Liz Goldwyn:
19. Makes a big difference.
Joel Kim Booster:
Big difference. Big difference. It sounds way better because trust me doing colleges, I won't have sex with anybody under the age of 24 anymore. It's done.
Liz Goldwyn:
Do you ask to see an ID?
Joel Kim Booster:
I will. I'm not going down that way. Are you kidding me? Like I have had sex with college students on tour, not recently. And you forget, it seems so appealing to have sex with a 21 year old and then you forget how bad everyone was at sex at 21. [inaudible 00:58:00] like what am I doing in this twin sized dorm room bed? Like it's no good. It's no good. Everyone's bad. It's not worth it. It's not worth the trouble. Now, when I get messages from Grindr especially now that I'm like past 30 and I got like a 24 year old messaged me into Younger recently and I was like okay, definitely retiring from this devil app. But like I will get messages from like 19 year olds who go to like UCLA sometimes when I'm in LA and I'll be like trust me, you don't think that this is weird now, but you'll turn 31 some day and you'll look back at all the men you had sex with at 19 who were in their 30s and you will look at them with a slightly different color I think because I do.
I had sex with plenty of guys who were in their 40s, 50s even when I was 19 and now I'm like, "What the fuck was wrong with those guys?" It's just so weird. Like I again, I'm trying not to be judgmental, but for me I'm just like I have nothing to say to someone who's 19 at this point. Like that is so weird. I guess I just contradicted myself because I spoke at length about how much I don't need to talk to someone who I'm having sex with. But it is just feels like there is a power dynamic there that makes me uncomfortable.
Liz Goldwyn:
I'm assuming your parents are not going to listen to this podcast. They probably-
Joel Kim Booster:
I don't think my parents even know that I was on like an NBC show.
Liz Goldwyn:
Oh really?
Joel Kim Booster:
So I think it's safe to say that they will not be listening to the podcast.
Liz Goldwyn:
Really. They're just totally tuned out to your career?
Joel Kim Booster:
I think so. I think it's a mutual sort of like they know they're not going to be happy with it and I like let go of needing them to... They're very proud of me. They're very proud that I'm not in debt and that I am self sufficient and I pay for my own shit and they know I haven't taken a dime from them since I was 17 years old. Even though that came from a dark like situation, I think they're pretty proud that they raised someone who was self-sufficient. I give them a lot of credit for that because listen, they made me get a job when I was 14 and that was because we were poor. But like they taught me what it is to work and I think I'm a talented person, but like everyone's talented in this fucking town. I mean that hyperbolically there are untalented people in this town, but everyone is talented in this town.
The thing that's like, no one is owed anything. You just have to keep working. And if you don't know how to do that, then it doesn't matter how fucking talented you are. So that's the only reason I'm successful is not because I'm more talented than somebody who's still doing open mics right now or still trying to sell a script or XYZ. It's just because I have the stamina to keep working.
Liz Goldwyn:
Yeah, the stamina because you're not fucking around with too much intimacy or relationships.
Joel Kim Booster:
Exactly. I have the brain space to sit down and write for four hours and then not sleep for two days.
Liz Goldwyn:
Well, if they only knew famous you are particularly on Grindr. If they only knew you have nudes leaked on the Internet.
Joel Kim Booster:
Maybe that's another reason why I'm not concerned is I know it's not going to be something my parents ever find out about.
Liz Goldwyn:
They follow you on Instagram?
Joel Kim Booster:
No, I think I blocked them. We've mutually blocked from all social media. If they follow me then I don't know about it. It would be wild if they did. We don't really talk like the only thing I do when I go home as we watch Shark Tank together and that's about the X and we talk about my niece and my nephew and that's about it. I'm growing tomatoes and I talk to my dad about that, and that's about it.
Liz Goldwyn:
Compartmentalize.
Joel Kim Booster:
Yeah.
Liz Goldwyn:
Well, thank you so much.
Joel Kim Booster:
Thanks for having me.
Liz Outro:
That was my conversation with Joel Kim Booster. You can follow Joel on instagram and twitter @IHateJoelKim, and listen to his podcast, Urgent Care, wherever you stream podcasts. For tour dates and more, you can visit his website, IHateJoelKim.com.
Once again, a huge thank you to GUCCI for sponsoring this episode. You can find all things GUCCI via their website, GUCCI.com, and on instagram, @GUCCI.
Until next time, you can read exclusive content on TheSexEd.com, follow us on instagram @TheSexEd, and listen to past episodes anywhere podcasts are streamed. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate and review us wherever you listen to podcasts.
The Sex Ed is hosted by me, Liz Goldwyn. This episode was recorded and edited by Jeremy Emery and produced by Chloe Cassens. Lewis Lazar made all of our music, including the track you’re listening to right now.
As always, The Sex Ed remains dedicated to expanding your orgasmic health and sexual consciousness.