Discourse Club
Host: O.Xu
(draft)

Yap is in Session

Join a group chat of femmes and queers in discourse about an inflammatory piece of popular culture.


A penny for your thoughts <3
White Lotus, Season 3, Episode 5 Monologue

  • Transcription

  • Frank: Well, you know, I - I moved here because, uh…I moved here because, you know, well, I had to leave the States, but I picked Thailand because, uh, because I always had a thing for Asian girls, you know. And when I got here, you know, I was like a kid in a candy store: got money, no attachments, nothing to do, and I started partying. It got wild. I was picking up girls every night. Always different ones. Petite ones, chubby ones, older ones, and sometimes multiple ladies a night. I – I was out of control. I became insatiable. And uh... you know, after about a thousand nights like that, you start to lose it. I started wondering “where am I going with this? Wh- why do I feel this need to fuck all these women? What is desire? The form of this cute Asian girl, why does it have such a grip on me? Because she’s the opposite of me? Is she gonna complete me in some way?” I realized, I could fuck a million women, I’d still never be satisfied. Maybe – maybe what I really want is to BE one of these Asian girls.

  • Rick: (long pause) Really?

  • Frank: You know?

  • Rick: Not – not really.

  • Frank: No, really. Really. So one night I took home some girl, turned out to be a ladyboy, which I’d done before, but this time, instead of fucking the ladyboy, the ladyboy fucked ME. And it was kinda magical. And it got in my head, what I really wanted was to BE one of these Asian girls, getting fucked, by me, and to feel that.

  • Rick: (long pause) Uh huh.

  • Frank: So I put out an ad, looking for a white guy, my age, to come over and fuck me. And that guy looked a lot like me. Then I put on some lingerie and perfume, made myself look like one of these girls... I thought I looked pretty hot. And then this guy came over and railed the shit outta me. And then I got addicted to that. Some nights three, four guys would come over and rail the shit outta me. Some I even had to pay. And at the same time, I’d hire an Asian girl, that’d just sit there and watch the whole thing. I’d look in her eyes while some guy was fucking me and I’d think, “I am her. And I’m fucking me.”

  • Rick: (very long pause) Mm hmm.

  • Frank: Hey, we all have our Achilles heel, man, ya know? Where does it come from? Why are some of us attracted to the opposite form, ya know, and some of us the same? Sex is a poetic act, it’s a metaphor. Metaphor for what? Are we our forms? Am I a middle-aged white guy on the inside, too? Or inside, could I be an Asian girl?

  • Rick: …Right. I don’t know.

  • Frank: I guess I was trying to fuck my way to the answer. And then I realized, I gotta – I gotta stop, the drugs, the girls, the, you know, trying to be a girl. I got into Buddhism, which is all about, you know, spirit versus form, detaching from self, getting off the never-ending carousel of lust and suffering. Being sober isn’t so hard. Being celibate, though, it’s…I still miss that bussy, man.

  • Rick: …Yeah.



Optional Discussion Starters


monologue
  • What emotions on the feelings wheel did it elicit for you?
  • How did it intrigue or bore you?
  • How did it surprise or disgust you?
  • How much of it do you think was satire vs. sincere?
  • Do you think the phenomenon described by that man is shared by other men? If so, how pervasive do you think it is?

season 3
  • Can we talk about that white girl friend group dynamic?
  • What did you think about how the Thai characters and how they were written?
  • What do you think about the new theme song?
  • What do you think about Mike White?

re-watch season 3
  • What did you notice more in the re-watch than the first watch?
  • Can we talk about the heavy foreshadowing?

chronically online
  • Has anyone watched the movie Party Girl (starring Parker Posey)?
  • Has anyone watched the Parker Posey and Blake Lively “mean girl” interview?







Discourse Club
Host: O.Xu
(draft)

About Yap is in Session


Definition

Notes and Ideation


Yap
  1. The high-pitched bark of a small dog, or similar.
  2. (slang) Casual talk; chatter. 
  3. (slang, derogatory) The mouth, which produces speech.Shut your yap!
  4. (Geordie) A badly behaved person, especially a child.
  5. (dated, slang) A fool.

(Wiki)
Session
(Noun)
  1. a meeting or series of meetings of a body (such as a court or legislature) for the transaction of business
  2. (a)(1): a sitting of English justices of peace in execution of the powers conferred by their commissions (a)(2): an English court holding such sessions (b): any of various courts similar to the English sessions
  3. the period between the first meeting of a legislative or judicial body and the prorogation or final adjournment
  4. the ruling body of a Presbyterian congregation consisting of the elders in active service
  5. the period during the year or day in which a school conducts classes
  6. a meeting or period devoted to a particular activity
  7. a recording session
(Merriam Webster)
Monoculture
(popular culture)
The monoculture (also called global monoculture) is a concept in popular culture studies in which facets of popular culture are experienced by everyone at once, either globally or nationally. Critics such as Robert Christgau and Chuck Klosterman have posited that the monoculture existed from the 1950s to the 1990s and early 2000s but had ended by the 21st century, mainly toward the end of the 2010s, due to the rise of streaming media and the fracturing of popular culture. Other critics, like Linda Holmes and Steven Hyden, have suggested that the concept of the monoculture is a myth.

(Wiki) I want the group chat to be on Whatsapp but it might be easier to start with IG since most people in the states have it. Idk maybe this is a terrible idea. I’ll shelve this before attacking people with another flyer. regardless, making this web page amused me.

Idea sparked from this Oblique Strategies card on 2025.10.16 7:54PM PST:


Also inspired by the time a metrosexual white Jewish male co-worker took me to a recital of various musical theatre performances near Central Park because he snagged free, work-sponsored tickets. Another metrosexual white Jewish man sang his original composition called “Naked Korean Girl” and framed it as comedy. The lyrics were about him sexualizing a girl he saw in a window, stalking her, and showing up at her apartment door. I hate it here.