Fetishized: The Truth About Asian Stereotypes and Sexualization

[SPEAKER_01]: When I was in my 20s, I kind of leaned into my sexuality for the male gaze and kind of fetishize myself.
[SPEAKER_01]: I grew up in a place called Upling California, which is just supervia, and it's like 3% Asian, and I also felt really invisible.
[SPEAKER_00]: this quiet, dimmer, overly sexual woman who gave a lot to men and bad.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's pretty much exactly it, like a quiet, submissive girl who is a wild cat and bed and will do anything you want.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was 19 years old, I was a virgin.
[SPEAKER_01]: I wanted to model.
[SPEAKER_01]: Once I was in there, I was colors to do more and things that I've never had never done before.
[SPEAKER_00]: What do you hope this book changes about the way people see Asian women?
[SPEAKER_01]: I think the men who better strives Asian women in a demeaning way who are not your vessels for your pleasure.
[SPEAKER_01]: I wish I had been able to talk about my experiences earlier, so I think if you have like secrets, don't hold anything inside it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Welcome back to Misunderstood.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm your host Rachel Eucatone.
[SPEAKER_00]: We all want to be seen, but what happens when the way the world sees you is the one thing that you cannot control.
[SPEAKER_00]: For decades, Asian women have been flattened into stereotypes, the exotic fantasy, the submissive partner that dragged in lady, and for Kyla, you, those weren't just images on a screen, they were labels stamped onto her body and her career.
[SPEAKER_00]: As a model, as a musician, as a journalist, she was praised and punished for fitting into fantasy she never asked to live out.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, Kyla is reclaiming her story, her new memoir out today, fetishized, a reckoning with yellow fever, feminism, and beauty, isn't just about her life, it's about what happens when culture, history, and desire collide to shape how entire groups of women are treated.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's raw, it's unflinching, and it's a story so many people will see themselves in.
[SPEAKER_00]: even if they've never had the words for it before.
[SPEAKER_00]: Today, Kyla joins me to talk about growing up under the weight of stereotypes, surviving the industries that exploited them, and ultimately finding her way back to her own identity.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because behind every label, every headline, and every stereotype, there's a real human being fighting to be understood.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm so glad we have you at the beginning of your press tour and apparently the New York Times came out with Raving reviews today.
[SPEAKER_00]: What made you decide this was the moment to write fetished?
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know how you can pronounce it because nobody says that word out like people say fetish but they don't say fetish eyes.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that's right.
[SPEAKER_00]: And by the way, I've said I've corrected myself when I've been reading it a couple times, but you know, it's written in a way that you kind of don't you read it quickly.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I apologize fetish eyes.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh no worries.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, everyone's been saying the same.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I, you know, the book was signed actually three years ago and I didn't know the landscape was going to change so, you know, negatively for females like autonomy right as they have now.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's a bit of a surprise, but I never like.
[SPEAKER_01]: chose to write a memoir or anything like that.
[SPEAKER_01]: What happened was during the pandemic.
[SPEAKER_01]: There was all this increased Asian hate because the president called it an Asian or China virus.
[SPEAKER_01]: So there are literally like little old ladies.
[SPEAKER_01]: trainees ladies walking in the streets and getting attacked by, you know, beat brutally.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then the Atlanta spa shootings happened a year into the pandemic.
[SPEAKER_01]: I believe where a sex addicted shooter went into three massage parlors and shot eight people, six of them, Asian women all dead.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then I started to reflect back, like, how did I, you know, because when I was in my 20s, I kind of played into, um, leaned into my sexuality for the male gaze and kind of fetishize myself.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, um, the book is kind of a reflection of me looking back on the past and also analyzing questionable media, like memoirs of a gaysha and, um, the heritage of girls and other things like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I mean, it really is such an important topic, and I'm so glad you wrote the book.
[SPEAKER_00]: Can you tell people a little bit though about who you were leading up to this?
[SPEAKER_00]: Like about your childhood where you came from?
[SPEAKER_00]: Because you talk about, like, I started the book last night, you talk a lot about your upbringing, your childhood, and how you saw yourself, and how you kind of fell into it, too.
[SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, growing up, I grew up in a place called Uplink, California, which is just suburbia, and it's like three percent Asian.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, I felt from the outskirts just, you know, like, very different.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I also felt really invisible, just like, I was also really shy so that like added on top of that.
[SPEAKER_01]: But my parents, you know, were super super, they were immigrants and they were all completely gave up their lives to just like bring us a better life.
[SPEAKER_01]: And what I kind of write about in the book is like the first media I was really influenced by was the little mermaid and I absolutely love that movie and you know like King Triton in the movie so in love with his daughter and he thinks she's the most beautiful thing in the world and
[SPEAKER_01]: Asian fathers are a little bit different.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're a little more reserved and they don't like, Asian parents don't really compliment you.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're like, oh, they kind of criticize you.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're like, oh, you know, this and that, like, look at,
[SPEAKER_01]: Gerry over there who got straight A's and like 1600 her SATs, but they never say like, oh, good job.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's always like, oh, look at this person doing better than you.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I think I was always just like born with kind of an extra need for validation.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then
[SPEAKER_01]: My parents loved me.
[SPEAKER_01]: They provided me with everything, but they didn't give me like verbal affirmation, which was like, I say, maybe my love language.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, and then when I became a teenager, I was boy crazy, like many teenagers, and the boys just didn't pay attention to me.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, I kind of write in the book about like,
[SPEAKER_01]: In junior high, I had this big crush on this guy in my class and then somehow he found out during class and then he was like, oh, that dogs and love with me and then you know when something happens when you're young that just kind of sticks with you.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I think like, you know, the little mermaid's all based on if you change yourself.
[SPEAKER_01]: You'll win the prince at the end, basically, and the prince at the end is a prize for women.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, um.
[SPEAKER_00]: I kind of grew up thinking that male validation was like, how I was going to feel loved right that yeah and I feel like a lot of women go through that I mean I get grew up feeling like that too like you know that you're always striving for the prince or the king or
[SPEAKER_00]: all the movies and and you would think that they've changed them by that now but they really haven't it's the the desire to be saved on most right the one minute it's supposed to be saved from whatever it is whether it's the wicked witch or you know the the slaving over the rich people or whatever likes to do it right so yeah
[SPEAKER_00]: It's interesting.
[SPEAKER_00]: So in starting this, you know, I did find it interesting because you talk about the stigma, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: You talk about what, you know, a white woman stigma is versus the Asian woman stigma.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I found that really fascinating.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, it's funny.
[SPEAKER_00]: I worked for many years in Las Vegas at a nightclub called Tau.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, and I don't know if you've been there, but it's a lot of Asian women women and they are seen as the ultimate beauties and they are doing they're they're bathing in a tub as you eat, they are It's like very over-sexualized.
[SPEAKER_01]: Wait, is it all Asian women doing things and not like a mix of women?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah, I don't know if it is now, but when we opened it at 2005 that was that was what it was that was a theme right it was an Asian theme they were
[SPEAKER_00]: Demur, quiet, um, but I will tell you the men that would come in also would say can you introduce me to any Asian women or there are any Asian women here.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it was the first time that I was really involved in something where it was like a separate thing and you saw so many people becoming obsessed with the sexualized, over sexualized, I guess, Asian women.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I found that fascinating kind of because it was like they were looking for something that they
[SPEAKER_00]: existed, this quiet, demuroverly sexual woman who gave a lot to men and bed.
[SPEAKER_00]: I guess, I mean, you tell me what it is.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's just for the outsider.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what I saw.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's pretty much exactly it, like a quiet, submissive girl who is a wild cat in bed and will do anything you want.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's like the stereotype.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
[SPEAKER_00]: And is that something that Asian women are taught from a young age that they're supposed to be?
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, or is that just
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's funny because, yes, like in East Asian culture for men and women, you're like, obey authority, like, just listen and like get good grades and like anything your parents say.
[SPEAKER_01]: So there's like a little bit of submissive aspect, but for some reason when it comes to the West, it suddenly hypersexual, which is not the case at all in Asia.
[SPEAKER_01]: And in fact, I feel like my parents have never addressed.
[SPEAKER_01]: talk about sex in our household.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's not something that's even discussed.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I would say most Asian kids are the opposite of hypersexual.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's why it's so strange that yes, part of the behaviors true, but not the hypersexual.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I explained in the book that's because Western men when they first encountered Asian women was in a colonialist
[SPEAKER_01]: standpoint where we occupied Vietnam War, Korean War, all the World War II, where Japan fell, and then the soldier would go occupy, say, like, Thailand, and then there were prostitutes set up.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so they associated that with real Asian women, but they were never meeting like every day Asian women.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
[SPEAKER_00]: Obviously.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's interesting because you do do a whole history in there and you really give a lot of background to your writing.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not just your experience.
[SPEAKER_00]: You do talk about how when you were younger, you really did lean into it though, because that's what you felt like how you spoke about earlier.
[SPEAKER_00]: You needed to get acceptance and that was the way to get acceptance.
[SPEAKER_00]: Can you talk about you?
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, you've done so many things by the way, like when I was looking you out.
[SPEAKER_00]: all the things you've done.
[SPEAKER_00]: Can you talk about all these different jobs?
[SPEAKER_00]: You've been a rock star, like all these things are so fascinating.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, it's interesting because I was just searching for validation.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I became a pin-up model.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then I was like, oh, I feel like I'm more than I was trying to find it didn't fulfill that validation.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I was like, oh, I have talent with music.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then it wasn't validating.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I just kept pin-balling to all these places,
[SPEAKER_01]: find self-love, essentially, I boil it down to.
[SPEAKER_01]: But yeah, I start off my career as a pen-up model and in the import scene, which is like this niche in the Asian community, which inspired the Fast and Furious series.
[SPEAKER_01]: So if you can imagine Tokyo drift, that's like car shows and races.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it was just a really huge phenomenon within the Asian American community.
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, but I pair it with, yeah, I was leaning into my sexuality heavily during that time, but it also dove-tailed with, I quote this book a lot in my book, uh, feminist shovinist pigs by Ariel Levy.
[SPEAKER_01]: And
[SPEAKER_01]: But what she talks about is that 2000s, because pornography first started getting mainstreamed and fast so you can download it on your computer, and that became represented in pop culture like pornified.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then Max played, boy, everyone wanted to be on the cover, played, boy, Pamela Anderson was a big thing, Paris Hilton.
[SPEAKER_01]: Britney Spears was pornified on the cover of Rolling Stone to all women post feminist we're thinking like, oh, we're going to be empowered by embracing our sexuality.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that was just kind of a thought at the time kind of I think misguided, but we were all kind of doing it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you talked about what happened with
[SPEAKER_00]: the world, or sorry, America's view of Asians for a little bit during the COVID time.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I remember reading, it was like first it was, you know, the whole Black Lives Matter and Black people getting beat up next thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, it's Asian people getting beat up and, you know, I guess my question is what are your thoughts of the difference of how people see Asian women from the to the early 2000s to during COVID to maybe now?
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you think there's been a big change, a rise in a fall?
[SPEAKER_01]: I feel like now there's been a huge change because when I was growing up, I talk about all the representations of Asian women in my book and there's like five to eight or something like that because that's all there was, but now there's like so hundreds and hundreds of different things like I couldn't even watch and count them all and they're not finished eyes.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, we have the K-pop stars like Black Pink and all the other K-pop groups.
[SPEAKER_01]: We have squid games, like the number one show on Netflix, which is not finished yet all.
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, and Crazy Rich Asians trying to name things that are not just from South Korea, but there's just like so much media that, um, we have so much choice to see Asian women as multi-faceted.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I love that you bring that up actually because I felt like there was a turning point within, maybe it's just in the meat in the movie business, but like when crazy rich Asians came out.
[SPEAKER_00]: I definitely think it brought a bigger side.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's also like, bling bling something.
[SPEAKER_00]: But crazy regesions it was almost very white.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I don't know how to say that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like there was it seemed very it was like our movie we always watch, but with Asians and it was so popular and it almost made it seem like, Oh, this is relatable.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not that it was.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, really relatable, but it just made it show that.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then that did so well.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then also do you remember when Paris I think did not win like my god.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, Paris I was so great.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was so good and but people were like, how did Asians break into this market?
[SPEAKER_00]: How are they all of a sudden winning the best picture?
[SPEAKER_00]: And by the way, it was pretty amazing, not picture.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I think it took a while for people to jump on the bandwagon and really get that.
[SPEAKER_00]: But they I feel like since the moments that we were hearing that Asians were really struggling in America, there has been a really big acceptance, at least in the countryside that they are in the forefront of what we're doing.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, absolutely.
[SPEAKER_01]: Crazy Rich Asians was such a huge milestone because it was like 20 years before the last all Asian big budget movie.
[SPEAKER_01]: Do I let club was like there's this huge decades before there was one?
[SPEAKER_01]: And then for the South Korean movies and music, I think that the Western media was forced to accept it because there's so many dollars involved.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like there's just a huge market of
[SPEAKER_01]: viewers who want to consume this content.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it wasn't like they wanted to feature keep up this like they need to feature it to like profit.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_00]: And let's talk about the book.
[SPEAKER_00]: Was there a chapter that was hardest to write or when you almost didn't want to put out there?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so in my book, I talk about this sexual assault that happened like 27 years ago.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it was a very public sexual assault because I basically, to sum it up, I was 19 years old, I was a version.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was going to use C-Sandy a go.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I,
[SPEAKER_01]: wanted to model and I just started looking up ads in like the school newspaper blindly.
[SPEAKER_01]: This was like back before the internet was really established even and I was just like going to these random auditions which were fine and then one was not an audition or I was told with the audition for modeling shoot and then once I was in there I was colors to do
[SPEAKER_01]: more and things that I've never had never done before.
[SPEAKER_01]: Even I had a boyfriend for six months during that time.
[SPEAKER_01]: We had never even done these things.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then the movie was for the clip was distributed on the internet and like impossible to remove for 20 years.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh my god,
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, well, how was that to have to relive and decide to put that out there and like show everyone what you kind of carry a scars they can imagine.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I mean, in a way, it's terrifying to have people read that, but then on the other hand, it's kind of like I've never spoken about this.
[SPEAKER_01]: And millions of people watch the videos, and they just even know in the video, like when I, I watched it when just because I want to see what's out there, and I look very uncomfortable and disturbed and even like,
[SPEAKER_01]: scared and some parts of it, um, so it's like you should know, but um, people actually enjoy that kind of stuff.
[SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, um, did this man ever get in trouble by the way.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, I didn't even realize it was a salt until 10 years ago when I was sharing it with a therapist.
[SPEAKER_01]: And she was like, that's a salt because he didn't hold a knife to me.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, like, he didn't, like, I knew I did not want to do these things but he had me there under false pretenses decades older than me.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I just like didn't understand what was going on.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I just associated because like I can't,
[SPEAKER_01]: remember a lot of what happened in that room.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: So anyways, like, no, I don't even know his name.
[SPEAKER_01]: I do know there's other victims out there because he shot a series of videos, but I at one point tried to find them, but you can't find, it's like,
[SPEAKER_01]: I feel like you know it's in the salt when you see an explicit video of a woman, and then she's never heard from again, because she was not trying to pursue this, there was actually a big case called girl against girls do porn, maybe like 10 years ago.
[SPEAKER_01]: In the same area, I was in there was a company called Girl's DuPorn, which was like one of the number one companies on Porn Hub.
[SPEAKER_01]: And they were doing the same kind of thing, except they were flying girls in from Florida, whatever, really young, 18, 19-year-olds.
[SPEAKER_01]: And they would like once they were in the room with them, they'd take away their passport and license and say, you better do this, sort of like we're not giving this back.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the girls won like $20 million or something
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's definitely like, I don't think all the porn you watch is consensual.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, listen, I remember when, I think it's called Money Shot.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was the porn hub story came out on Netflix.
[SPEAKER_00]: I had one of the girls on and she was talking about that about how a lot of it is not consensual.
[SPEAKER_00]: And both ways that some of the videos are out there are not consensual and that's really scary because essentially it's rape.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and some people were saying that it was consensual, but the fact that it was on porn hub when it wasn't meant to be pornography, it was just to be an intimate moment when out there, and then that becomes their abuse.
[SPEAKER_00]: It wasn't the actual sexualization of what happened in the room, but it was putting it out there for everybody to see and judge you on, and that was what like devastated their lives.
[SPEAKER_01]: And there was so much revenge porn just posted by boyfriends or like even child pornography on porn hub.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was only when my video was removed, I think it was only like seven years ago, something like that.
[SPEAKER_01]: When Nicholas Christophe, this New York Times reporter wrote this wonderful piece called The Children of Porn Hub about how there's all this child pornography on there.
[SPEAKER_01]: In fact, like, there was like parents who discovered their kid who was missing on porn hub and then porn hub refused to remove it, so it's like a poly and finally when that article came out, VC and MasterCard were like, we're not helping supporting you any more porn and porn up finally.
[SPEAKER_01]: removed all these horrible videos.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, they talk about that.
[SPEAKER_00]: They document that in that document.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, yeah, for sure.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it was a huge deal.
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, so was there a moment in your life where you really were able to reclaim your power that you were like, I'm not going to be
[SPEAKER_00]: stereotype anymore where I want to move forward where I'm going to own because you talked about how you've changed your roles, your jobs, your, you know, you so many times to feel a purpose and a fulfillment was there a moment where you're like I'm not going to do this for anybody else anymore, what I'm now happy in my own skin.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's still a work in progress, but yeah, I a lot of it was getting sober because after that assault happened I like spiraled into a lot of drugs and alcohol, but I got sober 11 years ago and then of course, like getting sober, you do all this recovery work of like.
[SPEAKER_01]: examining your past and like going to therapy and speaking about, I think the best part about the recovery is speaking about these horrible things to other people who have gone through horrible things and nobody judges.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then that was really healing for me.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then yeah, sharing this with
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, that's amazing because it's sorry to interrupt you.
[SPEAKER_00]: I just want to say it's one of those things where you feel like you've been you've been grappling with the facts of it or what happened and then when you actually get to say it with people that are like I've been through that maybe not the same exact thing but the feeling and you create like a community of people and feel much stronger for it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's so important to have like safe spaces where you can share I think that's like what I've really learned because before when that when that assault happened, I never spoke about it right like four decades.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I was probably some shame there, and you didn't even realize it was shame.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I mean, unbelievable amounts of, yeah, unbelievable amounts of shame.
[SPEAKER_01]: I still, and you know, let's just a natural thing in society for women to blame them.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was like, even if someone brutally raped without question, they'll still like, oh, should I have been there?
[SPEAKER_01]: Should I have been nice to him or, you know,
[SPEAKER_01]: when it's absolutely not the victims fault like don't rape is the is the moral of the story.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's incredible.
[SPEAKER_00]: All right.
[SPEAKER_00]: So what do you hope this book changes about the way people see Asian women?
[SPEAKER_01]: I just hope to
[SPEAKER_01]: People, I think most people are okay with it, but for those who sexualize Asian women to see them as multi-faceted people, but I think the men who fetter strides Asian women in a demeaning way probably treat all women as still, I would want them to see all women as multi-faceted beings who are not your vessels for your pleasure, you know?
[SPEAKER_00]: If readers walk away with just one thing from fetishize, what would you hope they do?
[SPEAKER_00]: Walk away.
[SPEAKER_01]: Outside of the theme of the book, you know, there's a saying that you're a signature secret.
[SPEAKER_01]: I wish I had been able to talk about my experiences earlier, because I would have healed a lot earlier.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was like,
[SPEAKER_01]: eating me from the inside out.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I think if you have like secrets, just find someone you can trust, you know, they even are priests of your Catholic.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's like a whole part of that religion.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's just, I think healthy too, at least, or you have a therapist, you can tell a therapist, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Just don't hold anything inside.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's kind of, it's like corrosive.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right, right, that's good advice.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now that you've told this story, what's next for you?
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, I don't even, I know you've done everything else.
[SPEAKER_01]: I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I think, I mean, definitely there will be a second book, but I don't even know what it will be about.
[SPEAKER_00]: But do you like the process of writing?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, the, I think the biggest thing that I discovered from this whole process is, it's like such a priceless gift for me to like have discovered writing because it has no dependency on your looks and your youth.
[SPEAKER_01]: You could write
[SPEAKER_00]: And I enjoy it and I would have never found it if I didn't get sober, you know, I would have went and pursued some other entertainment career that would have made me miserable and for people that are listening that are interested in writing their own memoir or a story, how did you could you give a little like lesson and how you found your voice, how you found how you wanted to tell the story, how you broke down the chapters like how did it come together for you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: So my memoir is like a memoir in essays.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's a little bit different than like just a sequential memoir, but it's also a cultural criticism.
[SPEAKER_01]: And if you wanted to write this kind of book, which I recommend, it's really fun to write because it's not only writing your story, it's like I was researching media that was influential at the time and really digging into the memoirs of a nation like what inspired that
[SPEAKER_01]: And then I'd like dig into the history behind American soldiers in Japan and then add that into the book.
[SPEAKER_01]: But yeah, it's like also I worked on the book with my editor, who Amy Lee, who's like a genius.
[SPEAKER_01]: I would write like four essays and then give them to her and then we'd like to discuss.
[SPEAKER_01]: Honestly, I wanted to like put all these cool stories in there, but my editor would be like, what does that have to do with the agent?
[SPEAKER_01]: So you need a good editor to like, you know, shape it and take out all the other stuff.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
[SPEAKER_00]: All right.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, you can say about your stories for your next book.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, my last question is, how has publishing this memoir changed the way you see yourself today?
[SPEAKER_01]: It was not my intention, but it was probably the most healing experience of my life.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was not only that, but just like working on it, my editor happens to be Agent American, and she really championed the book, and she's gone through the same things, you know, these same feelings.
[SPEAKER_01]: So just be able to write that and have like someone,
[SPEAKER_01]: trusted who would not judge me, it's just so healing.
[SPEAKER_01]: I recommend just writing your memoir for yourself just like to heal to process all your, you know, everything that happened.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, that's great advice.
[SPEAKER_00]: All right, fetishized is out now, Kyla, you tell people where they can get the book.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, you can find it at Bookstores everywhere, but I always say support your independent bookstores.
[SPEAKER_01]: So you've got a local favorite.
[SPEAKER_01]: You can go to pick one up there.
[SPEAKER_00]: amazing and good luck to you.
[SPEAKER_00]: I can't wait to see how it does and what you come out with next.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you so much for listening to Ms.
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