Dictionary

sticky rice en · NOUN

Meanings

1. (uncountable, usually) A variety of short-grain rice popular in South and East Asia, known for its stickiness when cooked.
2. (derogatory, slang, uncountable, usually) An (East) Asian man who is mostly attracted to other Asian men.
   • I think they are changing now, too, though, because you see groups and groups of them in bars, all Asian, together. It’s amazing. So my market is much more expanded. I’m “sticky rice” [Asians who like Asians]. 1990 January 27, Jack Lo, Karin Aguilar-San Juan, Jacquelyn Ching Black, “Asian cultures, sexuality and class: sorting it all out”, in Gay Community News, volume 17, number 27, page 11:
   • For instance, a rice queen is a white man who likes Asians. Asian men hooking up with Asian men are described as rice that sticks to other rice. Depending on the context, sticky rice can easily be resignified from a term of empowerment into a term of insult. 2014, Nguyen Tan Hoang, chapter 4, in A View from the Bottom: Asian American Masculinity and Sexual Representation, Duke University Press, page 155:
   • During my "sticky rice" phase, I explored what it meant to be queer and Asian in contemporary America. We had terms for everyone: if you were rice (gay and Asian) and you liked white men, then you were a snow queen or a potato queen. White men who liked you were called rice queens. Every ethnicity had a term, usually related to food. 1996, Elaine H. Kim, Eui-Young Yu]], chapter 8, in East to America: Korean American life stories, The New York Press, page 87:

Forms

Synonyms

glutinous rice