oh.

Q: Your best friend is gay and asks you out. What will you do?
A: I’ll refuse. I’ll vomit on his face and then I’ll introduce him to a good-looking guy.

(from this interview)
ETA: halcyon_morn's updated translation from original text here

I guess I blame not paying attention to kpop for the fact that I only I heard about Sungmin's violently appalling homophobic comment in the past few days. I have to say that not only am I really disappointed but also surprised. Maybe I shouldn't be, but considering how well he handled the Only 13 and boycotting SNSD incidents - I guess I believed better of/hoped better from him.

And let's not try to over-generalize here with a sweeping statement about how we have to take into account how homogenous and conservative and homophobic South Korean culture is, because while there may be grains of truth in there, I don't want to try to excuse what he said on the basis of gross stereotypes about his country. In fact, I don't really want to excuse what he said at all. I can understand, maybe, where the homophobic sentiment comes from but--

I’ll vomit on his face

Really.

I'm not going to assume one way or the other about Heechul's gender identity or sexual orientation, but when asked "What do you think about homosexuals?" he replied: What do I need to think about it for;;

Heechul might (in my mind, very likely) be bisexual (or even homosexual). He could definitely be genderqueer. But since he's not exactly going to come out and make an announcement, I'm not going to pin him down with any label: he might just be completely straight and homophobic too. Who knows? Yet to me there is still a world of difference between his answer, whatever the "intent" behind it is, and Sungmin's.

Granted, I am a mostly straight and cisgendered female who is still figuring this stuff out, so those of you who actually have the right to talk about these things, please tell me if you think I am dead wrong.