“I’m not asking if you would sleep with Song Joong-ki,” I explain for the third time. “I’m asking if you want him to throw you over the kitchen counter and do nasty things to you!”

“Well,” Phoebe, a friend of mine pauses before saying, “It’s more of a … I want him to hold my hand, stroke my hair and take me out for ice cream kinda thing. Oh god I’m such a mindless consumer of K-dramas!”

“Heh, so no rough sex?” I ask again.

“Mm, nah. I would totally have his babies though,” she adds.

“But that’s not exactly the same thing is it?” I think to myself.

We’re talking about Descendants of the Sun and Korean idols because I’m curious about whether Asian masculinity can be defined, and whether Korean pop culture has influenced this discussion in any way. After all, Korean idols are heavily marketed on their chiseled, boyish features, along with their often impeccable fashion sense.

Female fans like that they aren’t atypical stereotypes of masculinity, and present a dreamy alternative to the sloppy, frat-boy types that Hollywood films thrive on.

Yet the toxic masculinity that lives in my culturally conditioned bones can’t help but wonder: It’s one thing to imagine Korean idols as ideal romantic partners, and another to imagine them as hook-up material—the sort that drips Ryan Gosling type sexual energy that makes you imagine yourself in a 50 Shades of Grey scenario with.

Earlier in our conversation, Phoebe had helpfully pointed out that most women tend to categorise men as “will date” and “will fuck.” So then, I thought, are Korean men not fuckable because they look like girls? Does that then mean that no one sees Asian men as inherently fuckable?

Why, as an Asian man, am I bothered by this notion?

Eventually, I quizzed her again, “So if rough sex … who?”

She literally laughs out loud before looking down and almost whispering, “Um, Channing Tatum?”