Samhita has a really good response up to this post at Jezebel that both mocks the “Asian fetish” and sadly upholds some of the stereotypes that feed it. This is never a fun topic to write about, because people that are protective of both racist and sexist stereotypes designed to feed white male imperialist fantasies will erect every strawman in the world to imply that the feminist speaking out is saying something she’s not. So, up front—I’m not against interracial dating, nor am I against white/Asian couples. I am hostile to treating Asian women like they aren’t human beings, but instead compliant sexbots. Samhita:
Myths such as Asian women are hotter, or they are more docile and therefore better wives, are not only mythical and generalizing, but they hinge on essentialist stereotypes that silence the voices of Asian women and Asian feminists that have been shouting for years about how they are not your fantasy…..
The fetishization of Asian women by the media, by men, by women, by Westerners, it is not just coming from a few people. It is supported by not only myths and stereotypes, but the objectification of Asian women’s bodies through pornography that is focused on Asian women, the global sex trade that is disparaging in Asia and South East Asia and the culture of sexual tourism. It has somehow become OK to have racist sexual preferences, even in progressive circles. The thing is, it is usually one sided and that being white men, into Asian chicks. We are not operating in a vacuum. There is a long history of white men lusting after Asian women because of certain qualities they felt were “natural” to Asian women, qualities that make them more desirable than us loud mouth American gals.
The post at Jezebel made me cringe.
A bunch of economists are once again putting their decades of rigorous study to a societally optimal end and dispelling the “myth” of the Asian fetish. In studies of speed dating communities, it turned out, Caucasian men showed no racial preference at all for Asian women; in fact, male speed daters showed no racial preferences at whatsoever! To which I call, “bullshit.” (Remind me to tell you about my “Asian” phone sex persona one time!) And I know because I practically am Asian that when talking about the AZNs we are allowed to talk about stereotypes without regard for the numerous and glaring exceptions out there, so here goes: there are a few reasons some dudes prefer Asian women, and it starts with the fact that they are very rarely unattractive, and they are even more rarely stupid, and they are even more rarely than that fat. They have really nice skin and they’re not afraid to tell you yours looks bad.
She points out in the next paragraph that male speed daters are not a holistic enough group that you can make generalizations about all straight men from, which is true, but to which I’d point out that it’s doubly true when talking about men who call phone sex lines. Nor can you generalize about dating practices from fantasies; I’ve known at least one guy who had a huge Asian fetish who discovered when he actually dated an Asian-American woman that the submissive doll in his fantasies didn’t match up very well to the actual human being with needs and desires that she felt perfectly entitled to vocalize.
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WOW. what a hypocrite. and el oh fucking el at “i’m practically asian.” whatever. she IS a fetishist. trust i’ve me, i’ve known people who collected asian friends instead of girlfriends the same way. lame.
*giggle* *guffaw*
After living in Japan for over 12 years and having had a lot of Japanese women as co-workers and friends, I tell you–
–any gaijin male who thinks Japanese women are sweet and demure is in for a HELL of a surprise.
The stereotypes about Asian women are used throughout society, not just by white men looking for certain qualities in a mate.
I can’t tell you how often–I don’t mean ‘I won’t bore you’, but ‘I can’t keep count of’–I hear that my kid, sight unseen, is going to be quiet, shy, docile, skinny, book-smart, and able to play the piano.
In all seriousness, the director of the local private school who assured me that my child would fit right into their kindegarten because ‘all the little China dolls come to us’ was offended when I responded by questioning her intelligence (Asia is considerably more than China) and judgment (even if you had 100% of the business locked up, that would be a strange stereotype to share in the first call).
WTF? She may just knock you down and jump her 1400 pound horse over your ass if you say that to her face. I double dog dare any self-styled liberal white male to tell her that she’s just what he always wanted because she’s so quiet. That’s a laugh.
And instead of these facts voiding the stereotypes, in the minds of those who use them to save time observing the world in front of their noses, the facts instead reflect that my kid isn’t ‘really’ Asian because she isn’t being raised by an immigrant Asian family.
The speed dating study results aren’t surprising to me at all… all that tells you is that as a group, men didn’t prefer one race over another (to a statistically significant degree.) Individual men in that group were undoubtedly pursuing their little race fetishes. A couple of guys wetting themselves over the asians, a few guys wanting a nice, white girl to take home to mom and dad, and a couple of guys wanting to explore some dark chocolate. Pornography is probably a better indicator of race-fetishism than speed-dating studies, and I can tell you from my last dildo-shopping-trip that the Asian and Ebony shelves were as prominent as the Anal shelf.
They have really nice skin and they’re not afraid to tell you yours looks bad.
Mere anecdote, but of all the Asian friends I’ve had, I’m very glad never to have had one who told me my skin looked bad.
The docile stereotype is the one that makes me giggle. Take any Asian language and spend a couple of years contrasting the just-for-funisies foreign exchange students with the serious West-for-the-duration ones. The ones that plan to go back generally don’t shed too much of their upbringing which emphasizes politeness and being accommodating to the desires of the group. The ones that plan on working in the West quickly adopt Western-style mannerisms and therefore have two different styles of kicking ass and taking names available to them at any given time.
The collegiate Asian fetishists, however, don’t talk to those ones. They stick to the temporary exchange students because that allows them to pretend politeness is interest for that much longer.
I had to work with a dude who had an Asian fetish, it’s no myth, it’s no joke. They’re creepy, creepy dudes.
I live in Japan now and I have to say that the foreign men I see here pursuing Japanese women - particularly the english teachers - are the absolute stony end of humanity. These are men who are either so obssessed with the asian stereotype or so incapable of getting a root in their home country that they are willing to fly 12 hours - and move countries - to get “it”. They rely on women not being able to understand anything they say to get a root.
They also generally subscribe to the idea that asian women are docile - and if anyone doubts this, they merely need to read forums at places like “lets japan” or “gaijinpot”. The things they say about western women (”fat pushy bitches” would be the general idea) are really filthy.
At the same time these men subscribe to the idea that japanese men are really sexist. My (Australian) partner once had a conversation with such a man, in which after a whole minute of bragging about how his japanese girlfriend did all the housework and gave blowjobs on demand, he started decrying my partner’s appreciation of Japanese men because “they are so sexist”. You couldn’t write this stuff.
But as tzs observed, Japanese women aren’t all the stereotype cracks them up to be. These guys don’t know that Japanese men hand over all their income to their wives and get given allowance. Until they have lived in Japan for a while they don’t realise how thoroughly women in this country are willing to publicly objectify men (talking openly about their good points in front of them as if they weren’t there, for example). They also don’t understand that women and men here have very segregated worlds were all sorts of private stuff is very openly discussed, and they don’t realise that for a lot of Japanese women foreign men are a fetish. (For example, in this month’s Tokyo graffiti there is a special on maids. One maid’s ideal husband: “white man”).
Further to that, I would say that if these guys understood anything about sexual politics and power htey would realise that they are the ones being taken advantage of. They come to a country where they don’t speak the language and a pretty, charming young women shows them around, helps them settle in, introduces them to the culture… of course that woman has all the power in that culture, can walk away any time she wants, and has no responsibility to the guy. If the tables were reversed, it would be considered extremely predatory - but the guys can’t see this because they think Japanese women are “docile”.
Probably it is harsh of me to tar all foreign men in japan with japanese girlfriends this way, because obviously if you are young and single in Japan the chances are you will meet a Japanese partner. ANd the foreign women here are just as stupid generally, avoiding Japanese men because they “look like women”, “have small dicks” and are “really sexist” (these are verbatim reasons!). But the majority of men really do seem to fit this bill, and they are complete scumbags.
As a historian focusing on East Asia (Japan’s Meiji period if you really want to know), I’m always amazed at the sheer ignorance so many of my fellow Americans have about East Asia in general. But the “submissive, docile, Asian girl” has got to be the most persistent, and most wrongheaded bit of nonsense ever constructed.
I suspect that at least part of the myth derives from the fact that the two East Asian countries most Americans are at least vaguely aware of, China and Japan, were both latecomers to women’s rights, and as such the nostalgic sexist has some faint basis for projecting his desire for 1950’s Leave it to Beaver style misogny onto Asian women.
And, of course, pop culture in the US reinforces the mythic “submissive Asian woman” stereotype every chance it can.
I do wonder if the recent surge in popularity of manga and anime will do anything to change the stereotype, though given the depictions of women in the more popular series if it does have an effect it will just be to substitute an equally false, if different, stereotypical image.
But, given that men who have internalized the patricarchy tend to think of women, in general, as interchangable units, its hardly surprising that they’d also go for racist stereotypes. Depressing, but hardly surprising.
Silliness: Now, aside from wanting to react to the substance of this post, I took one look at the ICHC picture and thought “you don’t know my tribe, do you.” I thought it in a charitable way, though.
Substance: jeez-o-pete; speed dating, despite some flaws, seems like something much more relevant to people’s real (”real”) preferences than calls to phone-sex lines.
I should look up whether speed dating or a similar scenario has ever been used as an experiment (likely) instead of for its own sake. It seems like it would be a very interesting experimental vehicle.
I completely agree that the post is cringe-worthy, but when Moe says that she’s “practically Asian” she’s referring to the fact that she grew up (more or less) in China as a diplo-brat.
Two words: Michelle Malkin.
Quiet/docile Asian fetish busted.
Big Bad Chinese Mama is trying to help these people with their misconceptions:
http://www.bigbadchinesemama.com/home.html
Mrs Nice Guy
Sure, but if a diplo-brat who spent much of their childhood in Africa and claimed they were “practically African” I don’t think it would fly very well, do you? Besides, being a diplomat’s kid means she may have had very limited contact with the Chinese, we don’t know.
I have to say that the Asian fetishes aren’t any more ridiculous than the many others. Objectifying any group can lead to trouble when the individuality of anyone is ignored completely while someone has his head up his ass. I try to have fantasies rather than fetishes, but I also have preferences and act on them. And I try to not be an asshole in the process.
I can’t say I never have fantasy-inspired generalizations for how a potential relationship could evolve. That’s the kind of ridiculous mind game everyone plays as they start dating. It’s called being an optimist, and the way the dating world works it takes some serious optimism to get through the trials and errors involved in finding a good match. But I’ve never, even in my darkest moments of dating hell, thought all women of any particular type were going to save me from my dismal surroundings or were responsible for them because of some universal trait of all (fill in the blank) type of women.
But what the hell do I know? I’m single.
Kristina has gone on to bigger and better things….
http://kristinasherylwong.com/events.html
history_mom: Like I said, I’m not defending the post. If you read the blog, you know that she actually wasn’t hugely insulated while there. I brought it up only to note that when she said it, it wasn’t some facile way of saying she thinks that Asians are teh awesome!!!11!!!1!
Yeah. Docile. They need to meet some of my classmates, or actually go to these countries and see for themselves what it’s really like. But of course they’ll just see it through their own prejudices, so it won’t really enlighten them. Sigh.
Lived in Japan for a few years myself, got married while I was over there… to my German/Chinese (mostly German) wife. And the American guys I knew who married Japanese women were very well aware that Japanese women were not docile and easily controlled. In both of the marriages I knew enough about, the Japanese wife controlled the finances and thus wielded a lot of power. Not afraid to use it, either.
Not to generalize on the whole population from those two examples, but… well, the ideas presented to most people about what Asian women act like are certainly dead wrong in those two, and every other Asian woman I know well enough to say.
People are seriously questioning the existence of creepy Asian-fetishist white men? Are they crazy? Send them to the Manga aisle of their local chain bookstore. I promise you’ll find some there.
Or, you know, just ask some East Asian-American women, rather than a white woman who lived in China. All of my Asian-American female friends are always on guard whenever first meeting/dating a white dude, on the look out for signs that all he really cares about is her race. And surprisingly, they usually just come right out and admit to it, making up some essentialist excuse and expecting that their racial preference will be taken as a compliment. Like they–the big, important white man–is condescending to give a compliment to this lesser Other and she should be grateful. Fucking gross.
Okay, this just occurred to me, and I hope it doesn’t come out all wrong:
Until pretty recently, most American men ended up in Asia because of a war (WWII, Korean War, Vietnam). I wonder if part of the reason this stereotype occurred and persists was because, until very recently, the Asian women that American men were most likely to encounter while in Asia were, in fact, prostitutes, whether they were professionals or amateurs. Because if you’re a prostitute (or even a “girlfriend” being financially supported by an American), you have a vested interest in pretending to be sweet and docile and submissive if it keeps the money rolling in.
You know, sort of like the way that American women started shaving their legs and armpits because men came back from WWI raving about how all of the French women they’d met shaved their body hair. The men just left out the little detail that those French women were prostitutes, and only prostitutes shave their body hair in France. As recently as the mid-1980s, I knew someone who almost got sent home from an exchange student program in small-town France because her host family was convinced that she was earning some extra money on the side as a prostitute. Their proof? She shaved her legs and armpits.
In other words, men got a certain impression of Asian (and French) women based on a very specific population, and generalized that impression to all women from that country or continent. And then, of course, other men picked up on that generalization because it was so appealing to them.
Just guessin’.
mnemosyne–
There are plenty of Asian women right here in the States, and have been for, what, a couple centuries now?
And things haven’t changed for those Asian American women a lot in that last century an a half
“There are plenty of Asian women right here in the States, and have been for, what, a couple centuries now?”
Yeah, but they’ve been ruined already. They’re not the nice servile sexbots like the fresh ones from the old country…
[/snark]
I knew a guy who married a Japanese girl (nisei) I worked with. She was the second one he married. Their marriage only lasted a couple of years.
I want to think he was just open-minded, but I suspect he had some fixation/fetish, and when she was less servile than he wanted, he was gone…
And Kristina’s gone on to bigger and better things…
um, maybe i missed an explanation (i haven’t been to the site in a while), but what the FUCK is up with the disgusting ads for johnq tv on pandagon??! seriously disappointing.
Actually Asians were fairly effectively kept out of the U.S. from the 1880s till 1965: look up the various Chinese Exclusion Acts. The Japanese could come in till the quotas set in the mid-20s set the Asian country quotas to zero. We were a bit embarrassed during WW II when we didn’t allow any of our Chinese allies into the country, so Sen. Mansfield sponsored a bill to create a quota greater than zero.
A guy I worked with was the son of a Filipino who moved to the U.S. in the 20s. His dad, a civil servant, was allowed in, as the Philippines was a US colony. But no women were allowed, assuming probably that the men would go home where they could be married. But my co-worker’s dad defied expectation and married a white woman.
Hawaii was a different story because (a) it was a territory, not part of the continental U.S., and (b) the sugar and pineapple plantations needed cheap labor.
But I do laugh at any guy who believes in the myth of the submissive Asian female — the Chinese wives of white engineer friends of mine clearly run their households.
Okay: to clarify here, are we talking here about men who are attracted to a stereotypical conception of Asian women as docile, submissive, and the like, or are we talking about all men who tend to prefer Asian women, including those who prefer their physical characteristics simply for aesthetic reasons in much the same way they might prefer tall women, green-eyed women, women with small, attached earlobes, women with aquiline noses, or any other of countlessly many little aesthetic preference people of both sexes and all races have?
I think that the former is creepy and chauvinistic, but I don’t find the latter to be so bad. I personally am not disproportionately attracted to Asian women for either reason, but I just wanted to know how broad we’re considering creepy Asian fetishism to be.
Until pretty recently, most American men ended up in Asia because of a war (WWII, Korean War, Vietnam). I wonder if part of the reason this stereotype occurred and persists was because, until very recently, the Asian women that American men were most likely to encounter while in Asia were, in fact, prostitutes, whether they were professionals or amateurs. Because if you’re a prostitute (or even a “girlfriend” being financially supported by an American), you have a vested interest in pretending to be sweet and docile and submissive if it keeps the money rolling in.
Mnemosyne: My dear friend who grew up as an army brat told me that is exactly what happened. Most “respectable” young women were not allowed to have anything to do with US soldiers (whether in wartime, or stationed at an Army base). The young women these men encountered were either prostitutes, or outcasts from their families or otherwise on the fringes of society, so it was to their advantage to at least give the appearance of docility, etc. If nothing else, the guy might have been the ticket to a better life in their minds.
Note that the latest mail-order-bride emporia are from former Soviet republics - Russian, Ukranian, Moldavian and so on women are docile and submissive and know how to treat a man, not like those nasty money-hungry Western feminazis! It couldn’t be because their countries are now perfect dystopias and they just want the hell outta Dodge to a better life.
Anyhow the idea that Asian women are docile, submissive lotus blossoms is of course complete BS. Also, I’ve never had an Asian woman tell me my skin looks bad. Could be because I’m all growed up and hang out with other grownups and we’re not in junior high school anymore.
I’ve known Asian women who have complained about the douchebag white boys with Asian fetishes they always seem to attract. It seems like a lot of the very bottom-of-the-barrel Nice Guys ™ with absolutely nothing to offer have this delusion that to Asian women they’re a prize. Blech.
Oh, and SQUEE TIGER KEETINS!!!! CUTE KEETINS!!!
One of my favourite moments in television (and my wife’s) was a portion of an episode of Designing Women. Anthony, the large black man, was in a pickup bar with a couple of the Designing Women. He looked at the bar and professed an attraction to an Asian woman sitting at the bar. He said, “I love Asian women because they are so genteel and ladylike.” Anthony’s pals encourage him to go up to the woman. He does, and the following exchanges ensues:
Anthony: “Hello there, may I buy you a drink?”
Asian Woman: “HEY BARKEEP, SET UP TWO MORE!” (turns to Anthony) “BAARRRAAP!” (she pats her stomach” “AND THERE’S MORE WHERE THAT CAME FROM!”
Anthony: (face falls, his fetish/fantasy crushed)
My wife, who is Chinese, just about fell over, laughing in delight, having been on the receiving end of the “Asian fantasy” many times in her life. And just to show how ridiculous the “docile, submissive” fantasy is, my own mother, who is white, became visibly upset when my wife declared that she would never, under any circumstances, children or no, give up the power and autonomy that having her own career, job, and income would give her.
Yes, one of my other girlfriends was Asian, and she quizzed me fairly in a fairly hostile manner about whether or not I was a “Rice King”. It took a while to persuade her, for she clearly had had some creepy experiences.
Actually Asians were fairly effectively kept out of the U.S. from the 1880s till 1965: look up the various Chinese Exclusion Acts.
Yes, but prior to this a fairly large number of people moved from east Asia to the west coast, which is what prompted the exclusion acts in the first place (as well as a wide variety of other discriminatory laws within California, in particular).
to clarify here, are we talking here about men who are attracted to a stereotypical conception of Asian women as docile, submissive, and the like, or are we talking about all men who tend to prefer Asian women
White men make up all kinds of bizarre, essentialist excuses for their Asian fetishes. That doesn’t make the over-sexualization of east Asian women any more acceptable.
Oh, that reminds me, that this sort of stereotyping isn’t limited to one gender. Look up “rice queens” in the gay community….
I’m married to a Japanese. Please don’t condemn me.
Speaking as an Englishman who has dated very few Englishwomen, can I mention that one turn-on for men is accents, and foreignness in general? Many of my first girlfriends were American, precisely because they were loud and ballsy and had cute accents. I’ve lusted after French women in Paris and ended up with a Japanese girl in part because of an interest in Japan. Does this make me an ‘oriental fetishist’? Maybe. But I’d like to think I’m just one of that class of men–and I’ve met a lot of them because we gravitate together–who simply prefer women from foreign cultures because they are not attracted to the locals.
I wouldn’t call my wife docile, because she’d ninja me. There would be a blur and a Lee-shaped silhouette of throwing stars in the wall. Oddly enough, *she* thinks most Japanese women are more docile than westerners, though this is mainly because of teh patriarchy stamping them down.
I should have added that if I hadn’t ended up with a Japanese, I would have probably married someone other than a Englishwoman. There’s definitely a tendency for some men to marry outside one’s culture and class, and i have a lot of friends who have paired off with Americans, Ukranians, French, Polish, Japanese and so on.
Through my wife’s Japanese mother and baby groups, I have met a lot of white guys married to Japanese. I have to say that if these guys were marrying for some kind of fetish, I find it difficult to detect. And if they were marrying to be able to dominate some winsome yet docile lotus blossom, they have probably, from the wifely behavior I’ve observed, been deeply disappointed.
The men just left out the little detail that those French women were prostitutes, and only prostitutes shave their body hair in France. As recently as the mid-1980s, I knew someone who almost got sent home from an exchange student program in small-town France because her host family was convinced that she was earning some extra money on the side as a prostitute. Their proof? She shaved her legs and armpits.
Errr sorry, I know it’s off topic, but you’d be hard pressed to find a French woman who doesn’t shave her armpits and legs. I’m French and I’ve never heard of shaving being for prostitutes only. It must have been a really, really small town.
I was amazed to find out some of my most socially progressive straight male friends from college had Asian fetishes that were rooted in this ridiculous docile stereotype. Even after dating other Korean or Japanese female friends of mine they continued to be drawn exclusively to Asian women and holding on to this stereotype. It’s super creepy.
And yes this does also happen in the gay community, with Asian men and other races. A Puerto Rican friend of mine was constantly pursued in gay bars for his race in NYC. And in New York, and even more since I moved to San Francisco, I can not even begin to count how many men have hit it on me and brought up how much they like cute Jewish boys. And little old atheist me is not exactly carrying around a torah to the local gay bars.
can I mention that one turn-on for men is accents
Can I mention that one thing men breath is air? Can I mention that one thing men walk on is their legs? Not like women, of course. God knows what those freaks do.
Shorter me: Fuck you and your faux-naive arrogation of normal, universal human traits to your sad, creepy gender, as if you own them.
Accents a turn-on “for men.” You’re unbelievable.
sophonisba, that really wasn’t very nice.
I’m a white American woman who has lived in Japan for 2 years (and am a PhD student in Japanese studies), so this is a subject that is unfortunately near and dear to me.
The Jezebel post made me want to scream but didn’t surprise me. This attitude among foreign men - as well as women - in Japan is extremely widespread. If you want a good scare (and to be overwhelmed by the urge to take a shower with bleach) go read the Tokyo Craigslist personals ads sometime. The m4w ones are almost exclusively racist white dude looking for a Japanese girlfriend, and in my experience they are at least 1/3 “looking for a wife!” or “marry me!” or “I want a Japanese wife!”. CREEPY.
Anyway, I have been thinking about this for a while and I still don’t get the persistent belief that Japanese women are submissive, passive, or docile. I have a really concrete reason for this: in Japan, it is more of a social norm than in the West for women to ask men out, not the other way around. Of course, there are men who take the initiative (I have had Japanese men ask me out here, and I can’t imagine they’re the only ones), but as a high school teacher, I got to observe a few relationships-in-progress among my 15-year-old students. Without exception the guy was waiting around passively for the (very aggressive) girls to chase after him.
I’ve also been observing relationships between white guys that I know and their Japanese girlfriends. Again, they are mutually pursuing each other pretty aggressively, and I’ve heard the disparity in Japanese women/white men vs. Japanese men/white women couples explained as a side effect of these cultural differences: that both Japanese women and white (and other foreign) men tend to be more aggressive, and that foreign women and Japanese men tend to be more passive. Hence they have a lot more trouble getting together.
This irony appears to be completely lost on foreign male acquaintances of mine here, but it’s hugely entertaining to me (when I’m not being totally depressed by the gross and persistent racial stereotyping going on by all involved). They continue to maintain that their girlfriends - who aggressively pursued them and continue to initiate phone calls, dates, etc. - are “quiet” and “submissive” - yeah right!
If that were the case, these “Nice Guys” would probably be single due to their reluctance to pursue for fear of rejection. x_x
for a refresher, go look at the Hawaii craigslist w4m section- there is a steady trickle of poorly-composed ads from japanese women looking for good-looking american men who also happen to speak japanese to spend some time with them while they’re on vacation.
Nipposexuals are creepy. i work in a thai reasturant, that (up until their visas simultaniously expired) was totally staffed by young thai women. My first two months there, i’d always have that guy, who came in after the lunch rush, got a table by himself, and then asked some awkward variant on “New owner? Where the AZN women at?”
One creepy old white guy asked if there were still thai folks cooking, and I assured him there were, and he said he was relieved because I was a “cauc” and he wasn’t sure what he was getting. I nearly told him never to come back.
The Seven Sisters vietnamese reasturant in Eden Center in Seven Points, Northern Virginia, is notorious for this. Because yes, there are seven sisters. who work there.
My .5 viet ex used to snarl and call me “white man” when I did something stupid. It was endearing.
Okay, a Mea Culpa. Accents are a turn on for some human beings. Some of which happen to be men. One of which happens to be me.
Pax?
Seriously- I constantly have to stop reading posts because of gigantic boobs or girls making out on the sidebar. Sorry if this has been address before, has it?
I would like to read Pandagon instead of working thank you.
Accents are a turn-on for many heterosexual women too. The women I know seem to especially swoon for Irish ones. Perhaps it’s the association with Ireland and poetry and music that many people have.
And no, I don’t think it’s wrong for white men to date or marry Asian women, per se. It’s the creepy fetishizing of Asian women as all alike and all docile and submissive; plus the Nice Guy ™ entitlement complex: “I’m white, therefore I’m God’s gift to Oree-ennul wimminz!”
Yeah, I don’t know any woman who would ever get all moist in her vajayjay on hearing Alan Rickman’s voice.
she’d ninja me. There would be a blur and a Lee-shaped silhouette of throwing stars in the wall.
Ah, yes. Referring to your wife through orientalist stereotypes. Classy.
Sometimes I think the world deserves nuclear hellfire for its John Q ads and excessive catchphrases.
you have a percentage of men and women with racial fetishes, and it’s all kinds of gross all around.
I have to admit that I’ve had all races of guys make weird assumptions about me based on the fact that I date men of certain races.
Racial assumptions and fetishes are just vile and disgusting.
Also–can we please get away from the permanent foreigner stereotype?
One of the singular pleasures in life is seeing white people’s heads explode when they hear Asian-American people speaking in really obnoxious US accents. You know, like:
White guy: “Nee Howw?”
API girl: (in brutal tri-state accent) “What? Why are you talkin’ ta me?”
Lee, i adit you creep me out completely.
I think a lot of men that are attracted to “foreign-ness” of other women (esp ones that seek them out in the home front) can often have a lot of issues. They seem to want women that are subconsciously more helpless and in a more disadvantaged position (being a foreigner and all)- even if the woman themselves aren’t helpless. there’s this mental compensation and satisfaction they get from the one-sided satisfaction of feeling like they’re on home base and their women are not.
I think a lot of men that are attracted to “foreign-ness” of other women (esp ones that seek them out in the home front) can often have a lot of issues. They seem to want women that are subconsciously more helpless and in a more disadvantaged position (being a foreigner and all)- even if the woman themselves aren’t helpless. there’s this mental compensation and satisfaction they get from the one-sided satisfaction of feeling like they’re on home base and their women are not.
I don’t doubt that this is sometimes the case, but I know plenty of people for whom the attraction is based on a chance to broaden their own horizons kind of thing. It’s the same basic idea as the “small town kid dreams of the city”.
In my life, I’ve met many people who have never been outside their own state or even their own county. For these people, just meeting someone from another state widens their experiences exponentially. Meeting someone from another country can effectively blow their minds. (Classic example: A friend of mine from Texas met a young woman from Ireland traveling through the state. She talked about her surprise at seeing furniture in museums touted as being (awed gasp) 150 years old: the furniture in her house, that they used every day, was older than that. And my friend tells that story 20 years later, because it changed how he saw the world.)
Personally, I loved teaching I-20 Student Visa classes at my college, because the students always taught me more than I could ever teach them. Sure, the basics of food, clothing, and culture were fascinating, but their native languages revealed completely different ways of seeing the world and showed me how bound we are by our own words. Meeting them let imagine what it might be like to learn a language with no linear tenses, or with no gendered pronouns, or with no real “passive” voice.
Some people are turned on by differences just like some people are turned on by familiarity. Other people seek out foreign companions of both genders to learn, to grow–and OK, to live vicariously through them. If you can’t afford to see the world, hanging out with people from “the world” is the next best thing.
Julian Elson:
Thank you. I’ve been looking at the unbelievably hostile responses to the “Asian fetish” and wondering what the hell is wrong with more than a few respondents here. Just because you think a fetish might exist — and it well might — doesn’t mean you’ve got a right to savage anyone who dares to suggest there might be some normalcy in feeling attracted to a specific ethnic class of other human beings.
If I am drawn to vanilla rather than chocolate ice cream, it’s not a fetish. It’s a preference of taste.
If I’d rather have a cat than a dog in my home, it’s not because I have a perverse attraction to felines; it’s because I’m more of a cat person than a dog person.
If I prefer Bach to Mendelssohn, it’s not because I’ve got a thing for baroque stylizations; it’s because I really enjoy some of the Brandenburgs.
And it is none of your damn business and your condemnation of vanilla-eaters or Bach aficionados would be out of line.
The hostility I’ve seen here directed at a few respondents seems vastly disproportionate, way over the top. If I happen to feel a specific attraction to a specific gender or ethnicity it is not because I’m some kind of obsessed freak with a fetish; it’s because I happen to like the form and flow of (say) Japanese women’s features — or Indian women or men, for that matter.
This isn’t the only attraction I have, either; am I also a fetishist because I’ve slept with far more Caucasians than anyone else, or does that simply make me a bigot; or is it possible I’m limited by geographical and social makeup? If I’ve been with more men than women, does that make me bi with a male preference, or a misogynist who’s acting out on his own repressed hatred?
To condemn me by driving any one element of a broad range of attractions into the label “fetish” or “creepy” is simply being intolerant.
Thank you for sharing. I’d like to think I’m not a creep.
You might think that, Catty. But it’s not a given that it’s true for all men, or all people, or me.
The attraction of other cultures, the attraction of the exotic, might have other motives. A disenchantment with one’s own culture, for example. My wife tells me she was glad to have escaped from the stifling sexism of Japan. She’s pleased she now lives in a country where she no longer gets groped on trains. But most of all she was profoundly uninterested in Japanese men, many of whom she found boorish and sexist. I’m sure it’s not the only reason why she married me, but certainly she found me an exotic and attractive choice.
I found (and still find) American women to be exotic. I like the forwardness, the directness, the attitude. I dated a number of American ladies, and they were hardly helpless. (One of them was a Desert Storm veteran, as I recall.) The woman I married was a manager at the the Japanese company she worked for and could drink me under the table. Hardly a wallflower. So what I’m attracted to might have less to do with my desire to dominate or compensate for my inadequacies and more with my attraction to other things.
Just saying.
Ascribe creepiness to me if you wish, but I think you are in error.
Warren–
You do realize that you just compared human beings to different flavors of ice cream, right? Way to prove the case against you.
So why make kneejerk assumptions about other people’s motives? I note you have been quick to mark my card as ‘creepy’.
And as someone else has mentioned, why is a fetish vile? Indeed, is it a fetish at all, as opposed to a simple preference? Certainly a fetish might be wrong if it is harmful, if it is driven by the desire to control and dominate. But if that’s not the motive then maybe you should leave the hell alone.
A preference for asians does not automatically equal fetishism, which in turn does not automatically mean it is driven by base motives. Just be careful when slinging mud around. Some of us don’t like it why you try to smear us with it.
Rufustfyrfly, Anti-Pope of Bubble Tea;
No, I most certainly did not. I compared preferences to matters of taste, which they undeniably are. Your oversimplified strawman isn’t going to work.
Lee, just go ahead and acknowledge that you’re a member of a “sad, creepy gender.”
And that you’re the one with issues.
I mean, sheesh.
Just like a lot of things we talk about here, if your primary source of information about something comes from pr0n, you’re gonna have some fuked up perceptions of reality.
And as much as I love Pandagon, I can’t read it when I’m supposed to be working as long as those JohnQ ads are being displayed.
My solution is Firefox, right click on JohnQ ad, select ‘Block Images from b1.adbrite.com’, problem solved. The ad still loads (as far as I can tell) but the image is missing. NSFW becomes SFW. Or at least safer….
I’ll go ahead and say it: Human beings are like flavors of ice cream. Oh, no wait! They’re God’s special little lambs. I keep forgettin’ and shit.
Lamb-flavored icecream was always my favorite.
Muttony!
It gets a laugh out of her every time. Oh, I forgot, she was only laughing out of ph34r of me. Evil dominating creep that I am.
Sheesh… Reading back over this conversation, I get the sense that I can’t get a break whatever I say. Just the fact that I married a Japanese woman brings my motives into question. Apparently things such as love, respect, an interest in other cultures doesn’t come into it.
Part of the problem is that the normal human system of preferences for people who look a certain way is utterly distorted by this creepy, patriarchal entitlement complex.
I joke that I have a fetish for albinos. My albino husband loves the fact that I look at his unusual appearance and see pants-soaking hottnesss, rather than “ew, you’re weird and freaky.” But if he had spent his life fending off women with albino fetishes, he’d probably feel really differently about it. Also, albinos are a lot rarer than Asians, and I’ve only ever actually *met* two, and one is my three-year-old. Most of the guys I’ve dated or been attracted to in my life have not been albinos, and most of the “albinos” I’ve found hot have been fictional characters. So it’s not like I went on a sex tour to the Land of Albinos expecting to buy me a sexy husband.
I see some men who’ve fallen in love with an Asian woman, or who find Asian women to be attractive, as having an interest, similar to my interest in albinos. They think Asian women are attractive, but they are attracted to other women as well, and it doesn’t *have* to be an Asian woman, and they don’t *expect* an Asian woman to love them, and they don’t have creepy ideas about the personality of Asian women. But since there are *so many* men who are creepy Asian fetishists, it creates a huge cloud of darkness around the whole thing that negatively shadows the decent guys too. I am not surprised to hear that Asian women have to apply litmus tests to guys to make sure they are attracted for the right reasons, not just because of the race thing.
To a much lesser extent I get this too. I’m a redhead, or was (it’s mostly gone brown now). I idolized Mr. Spock as a child, and still perceive myself as a rational, intelligent, emotionally controlled person. A person who “likes redheads” because they see redheads as direct, strong-willed and willing to stand up for themselves wouldn’t bother me because those are traits I have. But a person who likes redheads because they are “fiery, passionate and emotional” and persistently sees me as someone who is wildly emotional and easily angered just because I have red hair… when that has happened , it has royally pissed me off. I’m not saying that the redhead fetish is anywhere *near* what the Asian fetish is, but it’s a much milder and less prevalent version of the same thing, so I get where you’re coming from. At the same time, I am willing to cut people some slack because they like what they like; it’s not really the fault of decent men that they belong to the gender that invented creepy fetishizations of human beings. And if I were an Asian woman, I suppose my willingness to tolerate white men liking my Asianness would have to do with a. how creepy I found it in the particular case and b. how interested I was in general in white men and in particular in that man. A man being attracted to you is a lot more tolerable if you find him attractive, but if you get the sense it’s for the wrong reasons it would still creep you out. And if you’re not interested in the guy at all yourself, then it really doesn’t matter if he’s a creep who thinks you’re docile and submissive or if he just likes the look of your eyes because they’re cool; you still don’t want him either way.
Lee, the fact that you’re a member of a “sad, creepy gender” brings your motives into question. Slow on the uptake, much?
I’m feeling bold and I’m going to tell it like it is: Asian women are more like ice cream than other human beings are. Pistachio, if you must know.
Women fetishize, too. There’s a definite “men-in-uniform” fetish and also a “jock” fetish. I doubt many posters here share those tastes, but they demonstrably exist. And I’m going to go way, way out on a limb here and say that guys in a band very occasionally receive their share of female attentions.
No, I most certainly did not.
Um. Yes you did. Up in comment #50. It was perfectly clear that the example was intended to make an analogy between different flavors of ice cream and different ascribed racial categories. You even made up some essential traits for different groups of people to explain the ‘flavor’ differences between them.
It gets a laugh out of her every time.
Haw Haw! Aren’t racist stereotypes funny! I heard a black guy laughed at one once, so it’s totally okay, right?
Godmonkey — do you see the difference there? Someone CHOOSES to put on a uniform. Someone CHOOSES to be a job. Someone CHOOSES to be in a band.
job = jock
Rufustfyrfly, Anti-Pope of Bubble Tea:
Wrong. In order to simplify things I used analogy. Apparently I didn’t simplify it enough.
My intent was unambiguous. Your inability to comprehend a rhetorical device is your failure, not mine, and does not reflect on the validity of the point I raised, which is simply that in matters of taste, there’s no arguing; and it’s not really anyone else’s business to begin with.
No, you don’t get a break BECAUSE of what you say. There’s a bit of a difference, you know.
Not that what you’re saying is outrageously objectionable, but these qualities aren’t binary. It’s that mindset that sets people off into the “other”, on oddball criteria, that’s a little offputting…
The self-righteousness of Pandagonians is truly an inexhaustible reservoir. We can all agree that some men prefer Asian women in a way that recapitulates some kind of triumphal imperalist fantasy, but these men are likely to be very marginal human beings — the types who fly out to Bangkok for a sex vacation each year, and at home are merely thin-moustached and pear-shaped, wearing a tie with short sleeves. (That, I guess, would be the creepy, sad part of the male gender.)
Because a man prefers to date Asian-derived women — Asian-Americans, fer cryinoutloud — indicates absolutely nothing about his psyche or engagement with the weight of history or gender relations. The answer is D) Not enough information provided.
FTR, I’ve never dated an Asian woman — nor worn a tie with short sleeves.
Mighty Ponygirl,
I’ll concede your point; true enough.
This statement struck me: “Myths such as Asian women are hotter,….”
Since hotness IS in the eye of the beholder, for SOME people, Asian woman ARE hotter. So it’s a fetish, big fucking deal. Dan Savage would say go for your kink: if your kink is Asian women, so be it.
Rufustfyrfly and Saphonsiba , you guys seriously need to pull that stick out of your respective asses.
Lefty self-righteousness: SOOOoooo attractive.
I don’t know. I’m not married to a black guy. However, I will take note that I’m no longer allowed to make ninja jokes about my wife. Because they are offensive to people who are not my wife. Or something.
You lost me at the binary part. I mean, if I was outrageously objectionable, then fair enough. Someone has taken me to task for ninja stereotypes–I think they are being overzealous, but I can at least see the complaint. But the rest of the opprobrium I don’t understand.
I am feeling somewhat put-upon because people here have implied that I don’t love my wife, or that if I do it’s motivated by some perverse and creepy fetish for orientalism. I’m not detecing a lot of sympathy for the genuine hurt that causes me. It’s an allegation that digs deep. So yes, I’m kinda interested in understanding why people have reacted to what I said.
Can you explain it again, more clearly?
What’s AZN stand for?
Rufustfyrfly, Anti-Pope of Bubble Tea hit the nail on the head. No matter how long Asian Americans have lived in the US, we’re still told to “Go home!” You mean to Houston? Or California, where I was born??? People rarely ask Italian Americans to go home no matter how recent their family’s emigration was.
The Jezabel post is problematic because it almosts suggests that ALL women of Asian descent act one way. Stereotypes, even “positive” ones, are destructive. My school teachers were always so disappointed when they found out that 1) I was half Asian and 2) that I sucked hardcore at math. Does not compute…
The fetish vs. preference argument is difficult. The problem isn’t that men or women have a certain preference for a certain race, it’s that generalizations and stereotypes shade the treatment of people in the relationship. People in interracial relationships should recognize that there is some amount of fetishism that shapes the relationship and preference, but that’s not always the only thing. Racialicious.com linked to a good post on Nerve.com about interracial relationships and, in their words, “fucking the ‘Other’” yesterday: http://www.nerve.com/regulars/singlelife/022/
Don’t get me wrong, there are a lot of slap-happy Asian fetishists out there and I have a five-prong test to weed them out of my life, but I think that writing off anyone who dates outside of their race as a fetishist is too simplistic for something as complex as attraction, IMHO.
BTW, it’s a little disconcerting to see so many comments that start with “my wife/sister-in-law/ college roommate/neighbor-two-blocks-down/studied in the Far East/X is Asian, so I know exactly what Asian fetishes are all about.” I don’t want to invalidate anyone’s experience, but I don’t think that knowing someone and being the subject of a fetish are exactly the same. I’m going to get flamed, aren’t I? Where my API peeps at?
Your inability to comprehend a rhetorical device is your failure…
I tried a rhetorical device here once… once.
It gets a laugh out of her every time.
Irreverence doesn’t go over particularly well with the self-righteous either I’m afraid.
leftofemma:
I don’t read Lee’s comments (as an example) as a signifier that he “know[s] exactly what Asian fetishes are all about”; instead, I read them as a response to a condescending and thoughtless minimization of issues of personal taste, and a clear attack on the validity of his relationship to his wife.
There are a lot of people who comment here who damned well know what it’s like to be in the minority in terms of sexual orientation, and who know what it’s like to be told by tendentious fools that they are members of a perverse underclass, a cadre of less-thans.
And those individuals, of all people, should damned well know better than to accuse others of being “creeps”; they already know what it feels like too be accused of everything from fetishism to outright perversion, but apparently are unable to externalize their feelings into empathy for others.
That’s unfair, it’s completely out of line, and Lee has a right to feel dehumanized by the very individuals who claim they’re protecting the humanity of Asian women — as though Asian women need their protection to begin with. It reeks of noblesse oblige, and frankly, I think it’s a little disgusting.
Okay, chiming in to agree with those who hate the John Q. adds. I would really like to read my favorite blog without having to look at pornified images of women. I’m sure this has already been addressed somewhere; if this has been brought up, could someone point me to it?
Well, I’m Asian American (of Chinese/Japanese descent) and my wife is white. I never had a relationship with another API, maybe one or two dates, but that’s it. You could probably find the symptoms of some neurosis there if you wanted, yeah.
But that never stopped me from dating who I wanted. And when attraction kicks in, it’s hard to resist, even if you want to. Not that I was really resisting–in my case, some of it was probably reaction to pressure from my Chinese dad to find a nice Chinese girl.
In college I was a member of the University of Washington’s Asian Pacific Islander Student Union when it first became an official student org, and this discussion was a very prominent one, and had different frames when talking about Asian men vs. Asian women.
Lee, just go ahead and acknowledge that you’re a member of a “sad, creepy gender.”
And that you’re the one with issues.
Come on now, Godmonkey, you’re forgetting in your haste to jerk your knee that Lee couldn’t have been insulted by that. Remember, he loves us brash American women with our unconventional, aggressive conversational styles! I expect he took my comment as a refreshing, direct, American-style flirt. So foreign, so alluring. Nothing like those drab Englishwomen who remind him so uncomfortably of himself.
You get off imagining American women as “loud and ballsy,” you put up with them loudly and ballsily calling you a sad creep. Those are, as we brash and be-testicled American women say, the breaks.
I hope not. Your point about the difference between being the subject of interest and knowing that subject is well made.
I can’t give you my wife’s views on this, or if I did they’d be second hand, but I entered into this conversation from a belief that I don’t view my relationship as particularly fetishistic. Now, I could be wrong. I could be deceiving myself. However, I still believe my motives are honourable. I wanted to challenge the assumption that ‘interest in asian women’ = ‘creepy fetish’. And guess what? I got labelled a creepy fetishist. I think you pretty much hit the nail on the head with this:
So Amanda says “I don’t want to condemn interracial dating,” and then the legion of respondants basically condemns interracial dating.
News flash: People have “tastes” and you don’t get to condemn them for that. Some people think pale skin is sexy, some people think dark skin is sexy. Some people like their mates tall, some like them short.
Some people like green-eyed pigeon-toed redheaded powerlifters with a lisp. Guess what you get to say about that? Fuck-all.
I mean, Heaven forfend someone is able to articulate their preferences! Heaven forfend men, of all people, should have and then relate a subjective experience dating women from other cultures!
Yes, I loved nothing more than humiliating abuse from my American girlfriends. How English of me!
I deserve to be crushed beneath the bootheel of my Yankee amorata.
Now I am aroused.
This was pretty fun thread to read.
My own data point. I tend to like asian women (and jewish women as well). Not so much as date relationships so much as buddy buddy. Asian women are usually too small to interest me romantically. If anything, I tend to have a hispanic fetish as far as looks are concerned.
I think this is because asshole asian/jewish women tends to stay away from me (a small plus for being big and black!). Thus, I tend to be dealing with cosmopolitian women, many of which tend to have the same outlook as me. I tend to have jewish friends rather than black friends because of two things, jewish/asian friends don’t make such a big deal of my deafness(and noncomformity) like many black people will, and I don’t have to deal with white privilege nearly as much.
Sometimes it’s just easier to find what you want in a differently shaped package. Not that I wouldn’t find an attractive asian woman above 5′10 with meat on the bones supremely hot. Tho’ in this case, I don’t want docility (and I have too much respect for the power of kimchee to expect asian women to be docile!). I just want an intelligent women who’s interested in some of the things I like and some of the things I do. Sometimes, there just isn’t a huge pool of people like that where you are, geographically and socially.
Watching the movie “Audition” should cure any American guy who has a fetish for Japanese women!
My husband just got back from a week in Japan, not his first trip by far. He noted that on the train, large numbers of women checked him out, focusing at about his belt buckle. He found it disconcerting. That, I find funny.
A couple of points:
American white women are attracted to foreigners and the exotic, too. When I was in grad school in the Midwest, an Algerian office mate plaintively asked me why, whenever he went to a bar, local women always wanted to go to bed with him. I told him that as a Berber, he looked exotic, and having a French accent, probably the women thought they were in for a gourmet sexual experience, the French being stereotyped for their sexual skills.
Asian nerd stereotyping: The first time I met South Asians in any quantity was in engineering school. They were top students in their Indian undergrads, and were getting paid to get PhDs. Guess what? They were pretty uniformly nerdy. The same was true of the South Asians and East Asians I met on the job. Irrespective of race, color, national origin, or creed, we were all pretty nerdy. It was only later, outside of work, when I met non-nerdy South Asians.
No, I most certainly did not. I compared preferences to matters of taste, which they undeniably are. Your oversimplified strawman isn’t going to work.
Considering the racially dehumanizing terms “chocolate” and “vanilla” that are used to indicate that women are flavors to be consumed, no I think your idea that races are “tastes” is a little weird.
Amanda:
Wow, you’re really reaching on that one.
For one thing, I never imputed gender. For another, I am not the one defining flavors of ice cream as “racially dehumanizing”. I don’t look at a chocolate ice cream cone and think “black person”. That’s a heck of a stretch by virtually any standard; had I used lime versus orange sherbet the suggestion wouldn’t even be valid.
I mean, come on. I’ll cop to racial and gender insensitivity, but I will not passively be crowbarred into the pigeonhole of a bigot. I thought you knew me a little better than that, at least.
Um, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, Amanda. In the context of a passage that also compares cat and dog lovers, or Bach and Mendelssohn, ice cream might just possibly be ice cream.
Is there really no room in the world for people who might, just might, be interested in the foreign, the exotic, the different? That it might have nothing to do with domination, possession, commodification or consumption? That it might just reflect a preference, an inclination, a penchant?
I don’t think anyone is denying that creepy orientalist fetishists don’t exist. However, I’d like to gently suggest that some of us might not be. And don’t take kindly to being labelled as such. You would not tolerate a conservative coming here and trying to claim that all homosexual relationships are based on perverted lust, rather than love. So why daub folks like me with the same brush? Or is this some new form of anti-miscgenation I’ve run into here?
I can handle being called a creep. Names don’t bother me. But the suggestion that I don’t love my wife, or that somehow it is compromised by some immoral fetishism, cuts deep.
I think I need a shower.
Considering the racially dehumanizing terms “chocolate” and “vanilla” that are used to indicate that women are flavors to be consumed, no I think your idea that races are “tastes” is a little weird.
Aww…come on. He was talking about “taste” as in preferences. Are you really going to say that he wants to ingest women and races?
I was going to go on but Godmonkey put it better than I could have.
Although I have to admit, both Lee & catty creeped me out.
There are plenty of Asian women right here in the States, and have been for, what, a couple centuries now?
Actually, Asian women were specifically excluded while Asian men were allowed in to work. Not only that, but a white woman who married an Asian man would lose her American citizenship and have to move with him to his home country.
So, no, not a whole lot of Asian women in the continental United States until the last 100 years or so. Not to mention the huge displacement of Japanese-Americans during WWII that broke up many mixed communities — see David Neiwart’s Strawberry Days — that forced segregation on Asians. Couple that with the “yellow menace” hysteria of the 1920s and 1930s, and you don’t have too many Asian women interacting with Caucasian men on an equal basis.
I can handle being called a creep.
I suppose that broad-minded tolerance for insulting epithets explains why you don’t see any problem with implying that dating women of certain ethnicities denotes a taste for “the exotic, the foreign, the different.”
Try, if you will, imagining what it might be like for an Asian-appearing woman to be approached by someone like you, enticed by her “difference,” who then recoiled in disappointment upon finding that she was English- or American-born, not “exotic” at all. If you can imagine that with ease, try imagining what it’s like for a woman who actually is foreign, but doesn’t happen to be different enough for you.
Being attracted to and interested by other countries and cultures is just terrific. Expecting women from other nations to represent that culture to you in a sufficiently exotic way for your erotic enjoyment is - all together now - just a bit creepy.
Is there really no room in the world for people who might, just might, be interested in the foreign, the exotic, the different? That it might have nothing to do with domination, possession, commodification or consumption? That it might just reflect a preference, an inclination, a penchant?
Is there no room in your worldview for people who date outside their culture or race on occasion, not because they have an irrepressible taste for the exotic, but because they really like these particular people? We don’t like being grouped in with you any more than you like being classed with the orientalist fetishists.
Lee, Warren, it’s not about you. Lay off defending creepy guys. So somebody insulted you, after you said something slightly stupid (ninja stars), given the context where we’re having this conversation (a feminist website).
It’s not important that your wife thinks your ribbing her is cute, because she knows you IRL and you’re probably a decent human being most of the time. We here do not know that.
But instead of tossing off being insulted or (DO THIS) trying to understand where catty was coming from, you engaged in bombast. I imagine if we were facing each other you’d be making wide gestures too about how unfair catty was to you, and why can’t we guys get a break?
Talking about some creepy guys, and given that we all live within a system of misogyny, I’d wager “some” is really “a lot”, is not an indictment of you because you like Japanese women. Look, even if you’re not aware of it, like using ice creams to compare people, try to understand that a) you’re probably evidencing misogynist patriarchal brainwashing, and b) it’s going to trigger a lot of anger in people. Try understanding why they’re angry, instead of knee-jerk defending your ego.
Charles Bukowski married a midget with no neck. How do you think she felt?
rich:
That’s correct; however, the overwhelming Greek chorus that pursued the topic and rammed it into the dirt actually did start conflating fetish with taste, and reacted with resentment when that mistake was pointed out. (To clarify, I believe the former runs to the obsessive, while the latter runs more to preference.)
I can’t speak for Lee here, but I can say that you absolutely do not know me well enough to guess whether I’ve undergone “misogynist patriarchal brainwashing”, particularly as I’ve made it clear that (for me at least) my attraction runs through both genders.
How is it possible that I’ve fallen into lusting for the stereotypical “submissive Asian woman” when I’m also perfectly happy banging Asian men? Is it not even remotely conceivable that your beliefs about me are what’s actually the stereotype in play here, especially since I have also made it clear that I’m drawn to a wide range of ethnicities?
And, once more, let me make this completely clear: I did not compare people to dessert. I drew an analogy between personal preferences for food, music and pets; and personal preferences for dating and romantic involvement. Anyone who does not understand that is encouraged to actually read the damned comment I wrote, not the twistings and misinterpretations of those who failed to grasp the intention from the outset.
rich:given that we all live within a system of misogyny,
is a fact,period. But
“like using ice creams to compare people, try to understand that a) you’re probably evidencing misogynist patriarchal brainwashing”
is way off.
He wasn’t comparing people to ice cream. He was talking about personal taste, or inclination. It may have been a poor choice because it was to easy to inject with arm chair psych, but it wasn’t the intent. That response reminds me of a post I saw over at Shakesville,” I Hate Rainy days, I blame the patriarchy”.
Godmonkey:
Short, I would imagine.
I’m not implying anything. I’m saying that my preference for foreign women meant I ended up marrying a foreigner. It’s not a certainty that I would have done so, but the odds pointed that way.
Sorry, I don’t recognize myself anywhere in your straw scenario. As I mentioned earlier in this thread, I have a particular penchant for accents. That usually sorts out the English from the foreign.
And it’s not as if I haven’t dated English women. I just found myself gravitating to Americans, and French and Israelis, and Spaniards and, eventually, Japanese. The voice gets me every time.
Or it means that I just like foreigners. And that is a hook to developing full and well-rounded relationships with them to the point that I ended up marrying a Japanese woman and later had a child with her.
You seem hung up on this whole business of me stalking some foreign stereotype, when the reality is that I was just turned on by people from other countries who had a wealth of experience and perspectives that were alien to me. Women who were interesting and fascinating, not because they matched some preconceived image, but because they were different in ways I couldn’t imagine.
Of course there’s room in my worldview for such people. Just as there’s room in my worldview for people of all sorts of preferences.
Is there room in your worldview for people who do not hunt for stereotypes to prey on, but who are just energised and enchanted by something unfamiliar and strange and foreign?
Warren, as Dan pointed out, ice cream is, on the face of it, racially dehumanizing. Referring to females as New York Super Fudge Chunk is not only patriarchal, it is absurd, sir. Your point seems to be that if you refer to Asian men as Chunky Monkey, you are somehow absolved. You are not. Enjoy your career as a serial rapist and all-around creepy man. I bid you good day.
Godmonkey:
Quibble: That wasn’t Dan; it was Dan quoting Amanda.
And hey, at least I didn’t mention pie.
I think that anyone who’s only attracted to a certain type and refuses to consider any other — whether that “type” be race, hair color, eye color, height, or whatever — is creepy and immature. Double plus creepy if the “type” is a race. It’s all fine and well to know what attracts you, but to make a small set of attractions hard-and-fast requirements bespeaks a collosally self-centered attitude towards life. I mean, you meet the people you meet — it’s not like life presents you with a menu and you get to decide how to assemble the perfect lover.
I think maybe the prevelance of so-called “fetishes” may stem from online dating and internet porn, where it seems like you can in fact check a menu of options to assemble your perfect woman or man…
No, it was Amanda that made that point.
Taken on it’s face, Warren’s remark could be racist or misogynist. In context, he was trying to describe personal taste. I’m not willing to ascribe that analogy to misogyny because, if you read the rest of what he was saying, he was trying to ask a question. Maybe poorly.
The devolution of the discussion came when all attraction to Asians, was all put into “creepy” and a need to dominate.
Sorry, it seems I did give Dan credit for perspicacity beyond his ken. It was indeed Amanda making with the insights. But the point stands: dessert is just as inherently racist as appetizers are inherently sexist. Just try and deny that.
You know, it just occurred to me that the title of this post is “Nor can you generalize all hamburgers from McDonald’s”, in light of which the objections to my food analogy seem particularly disingenuous.
So some male apologists have made this thread all about them. Nothing to see here, move along.
Rich, it IS about me. Why should I stand quiet and be tarred with the same brush as some other bunch of creeps? What’s so wrong with saying ‘well, the world is a little more complex than that’?
I’m not defending creepy guys. I’m just pointing out that not all men who end up with Japanese SOs are creepy. It’s a subject close to my heart.
Has the internet really come to this? We are all eggshells armed with hammers, ready to crush the slightest indiscretion?
I understood perfectly where catty was coming from. I agree it may even be applicable to some men. I just didn’t accept the implication that I, and men that I know are like me, fit her description.
Actually I wouldn’t. I don’t think catty was unfair. Just lazy. And I have no problem with men coming under fire. Lord knows we deserve it sometimes and I’m aware of my insensitivity and imperfection. However, when people rubbish my marriage it’s going to get personal. Just saying.
I have no idea whether “some” means “a lot”. I believe there are creeps out there, but I also believe they are not universal and no one has presented more than anecdotal evidence to suggest there are lots or few of them. What we have is plenty of man-in-the-pub arm waving over the extent of the creep problem. I’ve simply suggested, using my own experience as an example, that there are alternatives to the guy-marries-asian-bride-is-a-creep scenario.
I understand the anger. I’m just asking you to focus it like a laser beam on those who deserve it, and not to be too eager to waggle your searchlight at those who have less suspect motives.
Yeah, ok godmonkey, call me a dope. No problem.
As I said, it may have been a poor analogy, but I understood what he was trying to say in a larger sense without having to nail him.
“Male apologists”? I will admit, that’s a new one.
as appetizers are inherently sexist
Hahaha…missed that the first time. Sorry.
Being an incredibly small-framed asian woman, I’m on the receiving end of these fuckers often. I cannot go get a fucking drink without some a-hole wanting to pick me up because of my race. Working in bars and clubs were the worst- fellow bartenders, bouncers, and other co-workers were constantly amazed by the amount of racial-come-on-lines I would be subjected to every night at work.
Yeah, I’ll repeat it. Racial fetishism is fucking disgusting. Period. It’s so easy for you bastards to lollygag and debate this bullshit like fun and games. It may be chest puffery and fun for those on the giving end of this bullshit, but it’s neither funny or otherwise when you’re on the receiving end of it pretty constantly like I have been for the last 18 years.
Some people think I’m creepy? I can live with that. I’d rather be creepy than tolerate another “I’ll fuck your sideway pussy straight” and “me love you long time” comment. and sorry folks, just because you don’t put your fetishism in vulgar term but prefer to use ninja jokes instead does not earn any points. And no, I don’t assme all non-asian men with asian women are fetishists- unless they yammer about wanting foreign pussy because the local ones are so fucking boring/ugly/fat/stupid/just not worth their time bullshit, or they yammer about how they ONLY find asian women attractive. The pussy must be asian for my dick! Accept no substitutions! *barf* There’s nothing wrong with finding people from different cultures to be interesting- but the way some people write about generalizing women and their wife is embarassing. I’m sad that they can’t tell how they’re digging their own hole. also, the crap about Lee being the white knight and saving his wife from the mean, terrible sexist yellow peril was just so telling.
also, interracial relationships does not equal racial fetishism. There’s a huge difference between a healthy interracial relationship and one that’s borne out of fucking creepy bullshit. If I have to explain te difference, then you’re a dumbass not worth talking to.
I’ll say one more thing- a woman with a self-esteem is not going to be pleased when a jerk-off appraoches her and tells her “I love big-titted brunette amazons! You’re my pick!!!”
My point exactly.
Dan, I think Godmonkey was just twisting your tail a bit.
“Nail” me? Don’t you realize how sexist that term is? I think it’s unbelievably phallocentric of you to look at the rest of the world only as objects waiting to be nailed by you.
I probably did muddle things a bit with the ice cream/music/pet comments earlier; all I was trying to do was use common, everyday preferences to illustrate how tastes vary, and how little that matters. De gustibus non disputandem est, and unfortunately the confusion of preference with fetish more or less forced a sidetracking of the topic.
Absolutely there are creepy obsessives out there, and I don’t see anything necessarily wrong with recognizing that a person who likes his imagination of a mate might be very dangerous, at least because, when thwarted, he might take his frustrations out on his mate for being less than his ideal person.
But that’s not me, and it doesn’t seem to be Lee either, and there is a difference (if at least in degree) between preference and fetish.
Of course, if the only tool you have is a hammer, all things begin to look like … nails … after a while.
Lee, Warren, it’s not about you.
In fairness, Lee did also point out he was English. This thread is, if not wholly specific to the American male, then proceeding from assumptions based on US culture.
I find myself wondering what the incidence of this sort of fetish might be tracked against WWII and Vietnam…
Dan,
In addition to being a ballooning enthusiast, an international baker, a master of baccarat and a transvestite, I have undertaken a burgeoning interest in satire. Such was the spirit in which my comments were offered, though clearly I’ve plenty of work left to do. Rest assured it is not your position that I find inane.
Yes, you read that right the first time, people: international baker. It rankles, but one has to start somewhere.
also, interracial relationships does not equal racial fetishism. There’s a huge difference between a healthy interracial relationship and one that’s borne out of fucking creepy bullshit. If I have to explain te difference, then you’re a dumbass not worth talking to.
Oh, then I misunderstood what you were saying to Lee before. I apologize. You make the point perfectly.
BTW…
I’ve traveled overseas and I daresay tat at least the exotic asian mentality is pretty common in europe as well.
Also, the fetish doesn’t have to be “dangerous” for it to be worthy of condemnation. If we go by that route, as long as people don’t want to physically harm gay people, they’re not homophobes, right?
catty:
Interesting point. I’d suggest that, by definition, an obsession is dangerous, at least potentially so.
I’m going to draw some more comparisons here, just to let everyone know in advance. I’m not suggesting that thing A is thing B; merely that there might be useful parallels to be seen when we consider thing A as juxtaposed with thing B. All right? Here we go.
If a person regularly watches, attends and purchases souvenirs from “extreme fighting” events, that person is (t me, anyway) tacitly guilty of condoning violence. Furthermore it could be suggested that he might be more prone to violence simply because he’s seen and enjoyed so much of it already.
Well, if someone is obsessed with an idea, and he tries to shove that idea onto someone else and the idea doesn’t fit, he’s going to become irrationally angry at the other person for failing to fit his standards. He won’t see that it’s his own obsession which is the source of the problem.
The point I’m driving at here is that you may be right about condemnation of unhealthy obsessions, because they might predispose toward violence, whether direct and physical or subtle and passive-aggressive. However, I still contend that we need to be very clear about what we’re discussing here: Obsession is not the same as preference.
For instance, calling a heterosexual man a homophobe because he’s not sexually attracted to men would be foolish, wouldn’t it?
In addition to being a ballooning enthusiast, an international baker, a master of baccarat and a transvestite, I have undertaken a burgeoning interest in satire.
Fabulous!
“For instance, calling a heterosexual man a homophobe because he’s not sexually attracted to men would be foolish, wouldn’t it?”
Wait, are we discussing men who refuse to date non-Asians, or men who simply find Asian women attractive? You know, because orientation isn’t really comparable to either obsession or preference as your post seems to define them.
From my former job at a sex shop, I can tell you–racist porn is HUGE. Asian fetishists are just like all racists–making asinine judgment calls on people based on physical characteristics. Only difference is, they’ve found stereotypes they LIKE…
Oh, and the most f***ed up porn ever? “Slant Eye for the White Guy”. God, I hated that job.
I hate when I post a comment with links and it vanishes into the ether, never to be seen again. Well, I have a couple of different links this time, at least:
There are plenty of Asian women right here in the States, and have been for, what, a couple centuries now?
Asian women were specifically excluded from legally immigrating to the United States when Asian men were being imported as laborers. The few women who were brought here were mostly forced to work as prostitutes:
Not to mention that Asians were excluded from becoming American citizens and were barred from marrying Caucasian women. There’s a good timeline here of all of the various laws and court cases, of which the Chinese Exclusion Act was the most notorious.
So, no, most Caucasian men wouldn’t have had much contact with Asian immigrant women or Asian-American women as their equals until very recently, which is the kind of thing that allows stereotypes to grow out of control.
I hate when I post a comment with links and it vanishes into the ether, never to be seen again. Well, I have a couple of different links this time, at least:
There are plenty of Asian women right here in the States, and have been for, what, a couple centuries now?
Asian women were specifically excluded from legally immigrating to the United States when Asian men were being imported as laborers. The few women who were brought here were mostly forced to work as prostitutes:
Not to mention that Asians were excluded from becoming American citizens and were barred from marrying Caucasian women. There’s a good timeline here of all of the various laws and court cases, of which the Chinese Exclusion Act was the most notorious.
So, no, most Caucasian men wouldn’t have had much contact with Asian immigrant women or Asian-American women as their equals until very recently, which is the kind of thing that allows stereotypes to grow out of control.
Warren? If a post isn’t about you, then it isn’t fucking about you. Nobody in this discussion has said that all white men dating Asian women are fetishists. All that’s been said is that many white men do have Asian fetishes, and it’s creepy and gross. If you don’t number among those men, then why are you getting so defensive?
catty — oh my god. These assholes don’t even realize you’re a real human being. Maybe you could give them brochures advertising the Asian Barbie doll — that’s really what they’re looking for.
roses, the reason I’m being defensive — in case you overlooked the fact — was that immediately after my first comment I was attacked.
I wasn’t attempting to “make the f–ing post” about me; I was responding to the g.d. dogpile. Got it?
I had to work with a dude who had an Asian fetish, it’s no myth, it’s no joke. They’re creepy, creepy dudes.
Without (hopefully) getting into the discussion over whether “being attracted to Asians” is the same thing as “having an Asian fetish” and whether or not that’s a bad thing, let’s just go ahead and run with the idea that there are dudes who have a seriously creepy Asian fetish, just for a moment.
Now. In my college days, I dated a number of women who were not white. I come from rural Mississippi where white folks being romantically inclined towards not-white folks was (and still is) much disapproved. I never could understand that. I still don’t get it. It’s like with rednecks being assholes about the gay thing, I don’t understand why “my people” think that way when I don’t. It just makes no sense to get bent out of shape over what someone who isn’t you is doing with their naughty bits and with the consenting whom.
Anyhow. Off-track, sorry. I dated a couple of suburban Orlando natives who are Asian-Americans. The only common strain I found was that they all liked For Squirrels, and that’s it. I don’t know if I have an Asian fetish (or a Black fetish or a Latina fetish or a Jewish fetish or a goth fetish). I hope not, and if I do, I think I chose to not indulge.
But never, ever, ever let a Creepy Asian Fetish Dude know you’ve actually touched an Asian girl. Most folks will give you some level of shit and will never stop asking you stupid questions, but the Creepy Asian Fetish Dude wants to share. You really don’t want that.
Which is why I don’t want to have an Asian fetish, even if I have one. I know the exact guy I do not want to be if I can at all help it.
Nobody in this discussion has said that all white men dating Asian women are fetishists. All that’s been said is that many white men do have Asian fetishes, and it’s creepy and gross. If you don’t number among those men, then why are you getting so defensive?
And yet when Lee said that he has a Japanese wife, he was immediately accused of having an Asian fetish, even though he specified that (a) he had dated many non-British women, not just Asians, and (b) he had absolutely no illusions that his wife was stereotypically Japanese or Asian in any way. And then no one understood why he would get pissed off that people were basically saying that his wife and the mother of his child must be really stupid because clearly the only reason a white British man would marry a Japanese woman is because he has a fetish.
Yes, there are many guys with Asian fetishes, and they are very creepy. But please try not to look at a mixed couple walking down the street and decide that if he’s white and she’s Asian, the only possible relationship between them is that he has a creepy Asian fetish.
Warren, that’s not the reason, because first comment was very defensive - why?
Mnemosyne, Lee was accused of being creepy because he said he was attracted to “foreigness”, and because he used a racial stereotype (ninja) in his description of his wife, not because his wife happens to be Japenese. I’m not saying I agree with people’s reaction to him, but you are oversimplifying.
roses, I’m not going to rehash the drama of the last several hours. Reread the comments and figure it out for yourself.
the john q tv porn ads are especially jarring and awful next to this post.
Like someone above said, the issue is that it’s shallow, immature and creepy to think of people as “types” especially when it comes to people you would like a romantic and sexual relationship with. So this idea of “taste” for a particular kind of person is indeed creepy.
Comparison to ice cream is stupid because the shared characteristics of the “type” you like are exactly not the kind of things you build a genuine relationship on. I mean.. hair color? eye shape? some fantasy personality you have ascribed to their race (regardless of how they actually turn out to be)? that’s what a partner (sexual or otherwise) is to you? nasty.
It’s embarrassing that it needs to be said, but the main trait of ice cream is its flavor. So having a taste for a flavor makes sense. But ethnicity is not the main trait of a human being, it doesn’t even determine very much else about it. So it is creepy to unquestioningly base attraction on their race.
As people here mostly seem to agree, when you get to know a person as an individual s/he usually is quite different from whatever “type” s/he might look like. That person is in fact, an individual human with all their specific and delightful foibles. Why aren’t those the things worthy of interest and attention, rather than the shallow (or simply inaccurate) things?
and if the first defense is “well what catches my eye first is the fact that they are asian” or whatever, that just reveals that you have a nasty racist tendency, because whatever things you ascribe to being ‘asian’ are either extremely shallow parts of a person, or are simply your own fantasy stereotypes about personality which are not actually determined by race.
Men win Asian fetishes have fear of rejection. They aren’t all dominant erring creeps. Some are lonely isolated socially inept people with fear of rejection.
Also when was having a fetish a creepy bad thing? If you have a fetish you should act on it, or you might find yourself a GOP congressperson.
The problem is people who are confused and try to work through the intimacy, sexual, and race issues by being asses to other people, instead of figuring it out first and being open and honest about what they want.
Mnemosyne, Lee was accused of being creepy because he said he was attracted to “foreigness”, and because he used a racial stereotype (ninja) in his description of his wife, not because his wife happens to be Japenese.
He said he thought he was attracted to non-British women, not just Asian women, because he liked the “foreignness.” That’s not the same thing as being attracted specifically to Asian women because of stereotypes you hold about how all Asian women are.
If I were attracted to, say, Australian, Japanese, and French men because they’re different than the American men I’m used to, am I automatically creepy because there’s an Asian guy on that list? Is being attracted to people from any other culture automatically creepy? If so, I guess we all have to stop drooling over that Australian doctor on “House.” (Personally, I prefer Hugh Laurie, but I guess I can’t admit that because he’s British and foreign, so it’s creepy for me to find him attractive, yes?)
And, yes, Lee made a stupid joke about having a ninja wife. Let’s get the rope and hang him!
No it was created here in the US of A. 19th century Asian migrants were almost all male. It’s vaporware that arose in the absence of real females.
1.) I like black dudes a lot. Does that make me racist?
2.) My family is mostly racist fucks from Utah and Idaho. Very agitated about interracial relationships and teh ghey. I suspect part of my attraction to black dudes is a reaction to that. Am I still a racist?
3.) I meet and have sex with a black guy at a concert. I don’t mention 1 and 2.
4.) 3, but I mention 2, to avoid involving him nonconsensually in my family and phychological shit.
5.) I post a personal ad saying “Deep throat BJs for downlow hung black dudes.”
6.) 5, but after talking to a sex therapist about guilt involved with only getting hard wanting to sleep with black guys.
7.) I post an ad looking for a black bdsm sub for whipping and verbal humiliation.
8.) I post an ad for a black bdsm top to whip and humiliate me.
9.) I respond to an ad from a black man with a thing for blond cubs with deep throats.
10.) I put “No blacks” in my bdsm ads for fear 7 and 8 are racist.
I forgot…
Of 1-10 which is racist, disgusting, and creepy?
No it was created here in the US of A. 19th century Asian migrants were almost all male. It’s vaporware that arose in the absence of real females.
My comments (with links!) about that finally posted: 92 and 121.
Basically, yes, Asian women were not allowed to immigrate to the U.S., and the few who were smuggled in illegally were usually forced into prostitution.
Let me add a couple more:
11.) I have a thing for black men, my family isn’t racist, and I grew up in a part of new York where most my friends and my first 2 boyfriends were black. I date all races but strongly prefer black men.
12.) I was repeatedly victimized by white men and to be with one sexually triggers anxiety attacks, while black men don’t.
13.) I am absolutely turned off by black men and wouldnt consider dating or sleeping with one.
14.) I mostly dated white men until I started seeing this black friend of a friend and we hit it off.
15.) I mostly dated black men and hit it off with a black friend of a friend.
16.) I mostly dated white men and hit it off with a white friend of a friend.
I’m a white gay man.
I made it gay to remove gender issues, and chose a racial stereotype opposite the demure Asian sub. Trying to isolate the racial issue and see where the line is.
This subject has always, always fascinated me because it’s at the fault lines of so many issues. I really wish there was a lot more research done on it.
Okay, last links:
Before there was “Islamofascism,” there was “the yellow peril.” So of course the US couldn’t let Asian women immigrate here, because they would TAKE OVER by OUTBREEDING US, just like Sax Rohmer warned us!
Actually, at one bar, couple of people did refer to me as the Asian barbie. I couldn’t understand why, as I have very small breasts.
UGH.
I really wanted to die when a guy said I reminded him of a fucking Real Doll, and meant it as a compliment (Those dolls are good looking. Why you lookin’ at me like that, sweetheart? It’s a damn fine compliment!)
ARGH. Actually, what I find kind of vile is Lee’s long-winded, slightly gleeful talk about how his wife found asian men to be sexist pigs and wow- she found her white knight on a fucking pogo stick, because white men are not sexist… Uh- fucking-huh.
(long post, sorry)
A few thoughts:
1. The ninja comment. Even if everyone trying to lynch Lee for making this comment were right, it would mean at best that Lee and his wife have a light racial play vibe going. Is that bad? Last I checked, people with light violence play in their relationships were kinky: why are people with light racial play creepy? Sex is all about the socially unspeakable and undoable. Even if Lee has a full-on foreigner fetish, that’s his thing. It’s very troubling that an ostensibly liberal feminist crowd like this one is willing to jump on the puritanism band wagon so quickly.
2. Asian fetishes are creepy. No doubt. There are a lot of fetishes that I think are creepy, though. Rape fetishes are creepy. Scat fetishes are creepy. Snuff fetishes are really creepy. But that isn’t a reason to condemn the people who live them out in private with consensual partners. Was the guy in the bar saying “Me ruv you rong time” a creep? Sure. Is he eventually going to find a sub asian woman who totally gets off on getting oppressed like that? Maybe. He’ll probably get a bunch of drinks dumped on him in the mean time, but that’s the price he pays for being too dumb to use craigslist.
3. The preference issue is really important. There are commonalities between the people we fuck. Always. They can be race, hair color, personality, gender, sexual expression, anything. Picking one that happens to coincide with stereotypes is about as much a crime as being straight is.
4. There is a theme running just under the surface of this thread that if something turns you on about a person, it has to be wrong and avoided, and that the only reason to legitimately be attracted to someone is because—and only because—they have a great personality. That makes me feel like I wandered out of feministland and into religiousrightopia.
5. The calls for Lee to consider how his words affect other people. Given that Lee is the one whose personal life is now being examined in an electron creepyscope, I have to wonder if the ball is in the other court. Maybe before labeling someone’s committed relationship a creepy lie built on racist fantasies, it is worth thinking about how his words were intended to affect you, and also about how your words affect him. This becomes especially clear in the ice cream discussion, where it is abundantly obvious that Warren didn’t mean to compare individuals to desserts any more than he meant to compare them to pets, but got called out on it nevertheless because he happened to pick racially-charged flavors. It’s probably worth it to assume good faith, or else you are basically trolling with a chip on your shoulder.
Nausicaa in comment #102 is spot-on. I never really had a “type.” Unless “smart and kinda good-looking” is a type, but it’s not really a specific physical type. I got married young, but I had a couple single friends (white women) who’d place personal ads in the Chicago Reader and they never, ever specified a race that for the man they were looking to meet. It’s off-putting how the old default, “SWF seeks SWM,” specifies a race. Oh, and my friends tended to avoid answering ads that specified SWF. If a guy wanted a white woman in particular, they didn’t want to meet him. Why so many people continue to specify the race they’re looking for—whether it’s their own or other races—mystifies me.
My husband’s Asian-American. I’d kissed a couple other Asian guys before I met him, but most of my boyfriends had been white. (The college I went to was mostly white.) No fetish here. Just a fondness for cute smart guys, that’s all.
Hey, is John Derbyshire the King of the Creepy Asian Fetishists, or is he merely a Patriarchal Asshole Who Likes Really Young Women?
The preference issue is really important. There are commonalities between the people we fuck. Always. They can be race, hair color, personality, gender, sexual expression, anything. Picking one that happens to coincide with stereotypes is about as much a crime as being straight is.
It’s not a crime, but why is it so hard to understand that it might get old to have to wonder if someone’s interested in you because of who you are, or because they think you’re a hot-blooded Latina or a submissive Asian chick or a sultry black seductress? I’ve run into guys with that attitude, and it’s just as annoying as the people who say “I don’t find black people attractive.” It implies that all members of a particular group are alike–and that they’re not real, individual people.
I once took out a personal ad. I described myself as an “SBF” because I didn’t want anyone to be shocked. At least half the guys who made it past my first filter to phone call stage got crossed off because they clearly had mental images of black women that had no relation to the person that I am. After a while, dealing with that gets really, really tiresome.
I live in Japan, I have a very low opinion of all the men with asian fetishes who come here. There are a lot of men who don’t have an asian fetish per se but are racist enough to believe the stereotype of submissiveness, and came here for that (i.e. they would happily have sex with submissive white women too, but are so stupid that they think race is an easier way to judge submissiveness). I hate these men too.
But because I live in Japan I meet a lot of foreign men with Japanese partners, and I am not inclined to make my first judgement of them “you are a creepy asian fetishist or a sleazy arsehole”. I consider it polite to give them the benefit of the doubt, and I do the same on the internet.
Therefore I think it is quite rude to subject Lee’s relationship to the microsope of weirdness. And given that lots of Japanese people here make jokes about me being a samurai, or an oni (and vice versa), I really don’t think his ninja joke is at all wrong. I suggest people should relax a little in dealing with actual real people, even if only in their virtual form.
Also when was having a fetish a creepy bad thing? If you have a fetish you should act on it, or you might find yourself a GOP congressperson.
Look. Fetishising people is bad. Because you stop seeing them as people. It is perfectly possible to be attracted to a person without imposing dumbass stereotypes on them. If it isn’t, for you, you should be upfront with the person about your issues, give them a choice about whether they want to be involved with that mess. Because they will be picking up on it anyway.
I wish people here would just read the experiences of Asian women with the fetishists, make a note not to be that guy, if they are in any danger of being that guy, and stop trying to defend the creeps. I just feel that women’s experiences in this thread are being shouted down by a bunch of male whining– and yeah, some hurtful things were said, but this thread has really lost its focus. I think everyone agrees that being physically attracted to certain features is not the same as being creepy fetishist guy, but there is a continuum, and people should be careful not to get sucked further along it than they already are by a racist culture. Anyway, if the post wasn’t about you, it wasn’t about you, and stop taking over the thread to say so.
Before I climb out of the hole I dug, and shuffle off to whatever circle of Hell Pandagons reserve for those judged to be Trademarked NiceGuys and their fellow travellers, I just thought I’d pop this over the parapet.
I clearly made an error with the ninja joke. It signalled that I reduce my wife to a cultural stereotype when the true punchline is that my wife is a strong person who takes very little shit from me. I shall have to remember that private jokes rarely work in public and that the internet is an automatic impairment to humour.
But it’s been interesting to see how charged words have led to all sorts of misinterpretations. The whole ice cream thing was absurd. It’s the sort of idiot flamestorm that validates the conservatives’ cartoon portrayals of PC, and I’m not sure we should be handing them ammunition like this. I also noted how catty painted me as a NiceGuy ‘white knight’ rather than accept, at face value, an illustration of how a woman may have her own preferences for mates.
Finally, I’m genuinely sorry that catty has had to deal with a neverending parade of jerks. I don’t want to shout down or belittle her experience, which is undoubtedly harrowing. It’s a welcome warning against behaving like that.
However, I will add that I don’t think the word fetish means what catty thinks it does. That there is a difference between a preference and the excesses of fetishism. Kali calls it a continuum, which seems fair to me. People at one end of that continuum are not necessarily creepy or immature. If folks don’t want to see that, then there’s really not much more to be said.
In one East Asian studies grad level course I took, there were two Asian-American female classmates who recounted their horrific experiences at having to fend off a multitude of White men on and around campus who wanted to “save them” from sexist Chinese men after they did a presentation about patriarchy in East Asia at their California based undergrad institution. From their accounts, they were so creeped out by the experience that they swore off dating all White men.
Lee, if it’s any consolation, my husband calls me a ninja all the time– because I move so silently, he gets startled to find I’m practically at his elbow without him knowing I was their. I’m white, so in our case, it isn’t a race thing, but a behavior thing.
I *did* think you sounded a bit creepy until you admitted you had dated women from your own culture– because if you couldn’t find anything to like about local women, then it would mean you were seeing women not as people, but as experiences for you to try.
As it is, you sound normal.
Godmonkey, otoh, is a bit of an ass,
and only someone age 15 or under has an excuse not to know that racist sexists will refer to women as vanilla or chocolate by race and that therefore, yes, key lime and orange sherbert should have been his first choices, not an addendum later to show how he totally didn’t mean to be racist it was just a coincidence, really.
It wasn’t me, ma’am. It was the reprehensible Warren who reduced human beings to foodstuffs. And then played dumb when it was pointed out to him that foodstuffs are racist! As an Armenian-American, as well as a bon vivant and collector of Faberge eggs, I, for one, am still reeling from the insult.
tomk: The problem with your questions is that you’re framing racism as a binary “yes or no,” and then asking us for permission to be not *too* racist. If you’re recognizing that some of the attraction toward black men comes from racism, the question you should be asking is “how do I deal with this in a way that’s fair to my potential partners?”
Also remember that if you are a gaijin male in Japan, the women you date are more likely to be Japanese simply due to the fact that you are surrounded by Japanese.
After having lived in Japan for 12 years, I think that some of Lee’s comments were probably only understandable by other gaijin who have lived here. The “ninja” comment I certainly didn’t find demeaning or anything–what it makes me think is that Lee has been watching reruns of Mita Komon. (Japanese television went through a period where every single samurai drama had a female ninja character as part of the “good guy” team.)
I really think it’s easy for people to say “give people a break” when they haven’t been on the blunt receiving end of assholes. I probably met more than my share from working in a bar/club environment throughout college.
That said, it also gives insight to what men REALLY think when their guards are down due to drink/drugs, and also when they assume you to be a lesser being for making or serving their drinks.
I don’t automatically raise my hackles when a guy approaches me, regardless of race. If that was the case, I would have died of a heart attack by 22.
On the topic of asian fetishists-, I generally have red flags that I look for.
1. Stereotyping about asian women.
2. Excessive interest in a woman’s foreign-ness.
3. Mention and overt or subtle hints about the inferiority of asian men through negative generalization of asian men.
4. Overt or subtle mention of their superiority compared to theose lowly asian men.
5. dismissal of certain people as exceptions while continuing to maintain broad generalizations about the group.
Example- guy: Asian guys are so sexist.
me: Uh… my father was a feminist and he was born and raised in Japan.
guy: Oh, he’s a rare exception, but asian guys ARE sexist.
me: Well, lots of American guys are sexists, too. Sexism isn’t limited by race or culture.
guy: Oh, sexist American guys are just assholes. You can’t use those assholes to make generalizations about American men.
Wha? Excuse me?
So have tons of MRAs with mail order brides. In fact, they’ll use their experience of dating a local woman to justify their creepy obsession with foreign women.
you know, despite the way I come off on the ‘net, I generally don’t flip the fuck out at men until they say or do something completely asinine. If I make negative assumptions about every guy that approaches me, I would have died of an anger induced heart attack by 25.
The type of asian fetishists I hate the MOST are the ones that yammer on about the inferiority/negative generalizations of asian men while drooling over asian women. It’s a colonialist/racist bullshit tinged with a savior complex. I swear to god, some fetishists gleefully talk about how asian men are terrible and why their wives picked them because their wives were too good for those disgusting asian men. To me, it sounds like the wife may have some serious baggage. god, if some white guy yammered on about how white women suck, I would think the guy had issues and I wouldn’t think “OMG I am special and better than those white womens! what a treat! I found just what I needed. Gosh, I’m so special!!!!!”
The two guys I have known with actual mail-order brides — one a Filipina and the other a Russian woman — had some serious social deficits. You could tell they spent a lot of time eating paste as children.
I had a boss who bought a wife from Japan. He slept downstairs, and she slept upstairs. Every time I saw him he kept getting bigger, too. I think she was trying to feed him to death.
Look. Fetishising people is bad. Because you stop seeing them as people. It is perfectly possible to be attracted to a person without imposing dumbass stereotypes on them.
I’m not a fetishist, so correct me here if I’m wrong, but I’m pretty sure most fetishists fetishize traits and attributes, not people. Let’s take a foot fetishist. She is attracted (on a scale of moderately to compulsively) to feet, not to people with feet. And let’s not forget that what makes a good relationship is a whole lot more than being physically attracted to someone. Even if his beautiful feet are a huge turn on, our foot fetishist is going to have to find a whole lot more about her partner attractive to really fall in love with him (and I mean attractive in a not-excusively-physical sense). Same with an asian fetishist. Even if her asian-ness is a huge turn on, an asian fetishist is going to have to find a whole lot more about his partner attractive to really fall in love with her.
It’s also worth remembering that by the standards people have been laying out for asian fetishists, a good 97% of us are gender fetishists.
On the topic of asian fetishists-, I generally have red flags that I look for.
I think you may be conflating asian fetishists and out-and-out racists. I bet you’re going to argue that they’re the same thing, but I think that’s like saying someone into S&M is the same as a violent person. S&M kinksters have violent fantasies; violent people have violent realities. Similarly, asian fetishists have racist fantasies, racists have racist realities. Red flag number 2 is really the only the only thing you mention that seems to me to be unique to a fetishist and non-inclusive of a racist. And I don’t think interest in a woman’s foreign-ness is any worse than interest in a woman’s woman-ness—and every het man or homo woman is interested in that, where most bi men and women aren’t.
I really think it’s easy for people to say “give people a break” when they haven’t been on the blunt receiving end of assholes.
No one wants you to give assholes who hit on you a break. I want you to give fetishists who don’t hit on you but simply post on online message boards a break (especially if you’re the one identifying them as fetishists). I also hope you’d consider giving non-racist fetishists who do hit on you a break, by politely letting them know you aren’t interested. If they continue, then they’re assholes. If they are racist beyond their sexual desires, then they’re assholes.
I’ve seen a few episodes, yes. My wife Motoko introduced me to them when she was co-writing the Dorama Encyclopedia.
http://www.amazon.com/Dorama-Encyclopedia-Guide-Japanese-Drama/dp/1880656817/
“Even if her asian-ness is a huge turn on, an asian fetishist is going to have to find a whole lot more about his partner attractive to really fall in love with her.”
Um, there’s like a metric ton of people out there who profess to love their partners but essentially feel the same way about the partner that they do about their dog or a particularly treasured belonging, no fetish required. There’s also folks who stick around because they love the idea of having a _____ partner enough to keep plugging away at the relationship and overlook everything that they don’t like about their partner.
catty at 152 has perfectly described the vast majority of sleazy foreign men I have met in Japan. They talk sexist shit out of one side of their mouth while complaining about how sexist Japanese men are out of the other. The only fault I would pick with Catty’s description is that it doesn’t go far enough:
The “if” here is the problem. Probably 90% of the sleazy foreign men I meet in Japan hate white women because they’re “fat”, “pushy”, “aggressive” and “bitches”. In my experience these Asian fetishists (some of whom won’t even speak to my partner) always combine both elements.
But this doesn’t mean that every man with a Japanese wife or girlfriend is a sleazy racist sexist pig (though in Japan, the balance of probabilities points that way…)
Thank you Flashheart.
Again, I would have died of an anger induced heart attack in my 20’s if I didn’t learn to take a lot of things with a grain of salt and let things slide.
BTW, fetishists don’t apply to just white men. I’ve met black, middle eastern and hispanic men that has creepy race-based fetishes.
also, this bullshit about “I hope you give people a chance…” Seriously, every time I speak out on the subject, I get this paternalistic finger-wag of a steaming pile.
Motherfucker, talk about fair shakes once you’re a 4′10″ skinny asian college student working in a bar as a cocktail waitress/bartender and you get to deal with hordes of guys telling you that you look like a real doll, slanted pussies, tight pussies, me luv you a long time, will you be my fucking geisha and a million asinine version of the same fucking bullshit? and let me tell you that i HAD to put up with that bullshit for the sake of my fucking job.
Again, it’s easy when you’re not on the receiving end of things. According to Will, the responsibility on ME to give people a chance, rather than demand better behavior from assholes. That’s grand, you motherfucker.
and for your information, I have many close friends that are straight men, and I have a boyfriend. I didn’t become close to them by treating them like assholes. Again, if you’re respectful, so am I- but some fucker always has to assume that women that speak out are raging bitches and they need to be tsked tsked into being sweet lil thnags for their pleasure or something. fuck that, and fuck you.
Will, one more DUH. LOTS OF RACE FETISHISTS ARE RACISTS. Just because the jerk-offs want to rub genitalia with other races doesn’t mean they’re not racists. Just because they may want to have kids with other races doesn’t mean they’re not racists. A puke-inducing combo of racism and sexism often DRIVEsS RACE FETISHES, and that’s the fucking problem.
Anyhoo, I don’t know Lee in person, or anyone else here. I’m writing based on what people write. If people don’t write creepy things, I don’t call them out for being creepy. they write fucked up things, I’ll state my POV.
In my book, Lee crossed the line of no return with his long-winded yammer about how his wife finds Japanese men deplorable.
I’m asian and I’ve dated in and out of my race- including other minorities and yes- white guys. I base my suspicion on what they say, and IRL, how they act as well.
One more thing- it seems the racist fetishist fucked up couples are also convinced they’re superior and special. The racist asshole thinks he’s sooo not racist for dating out of his race, and a lot of times, the woman thinks she’s sooo rebellious/special for dating outside of her race. Sometimes, minorities think of dating white as some kind of “upgrade.” Hence, the condescending looks you can get from some of those couples. I said SOME people, not all- so if this don’t apply to you, please- shut up.
I had one WM/AF couple remark that MY relationship was weird and wrong- I was dating a desi guy at the time. Fuck them, stupid haters.
Interracial coupling is not inherently any more or less superior than intraracial coupling. The quality of two people involved make for a positive couple, not the race of the couple.
so I have NOTHING at all against interracial dating. I just have issues with people that date for the wrong reasons- whether it’s “aryans” that think non-whites are muds and refuse to date them, or white men that think white women are pigs and refuse to date them, or black men that think black women are too ghetto to date them, or non-black women that want to date black men because they’re supposed to be “huge” down there, or any other stupid reason.
Right on, Catty. I’d be fed up too if it were me.
It’s amazing how women are supposed to just allow our time and attention to be taken up by whatever random guy demands it, instead of acting like full human beings with choices about how (and with whom) we spend our energy.
I don’t know if having a type is the same as having a fetish, but those who are being fetishized KNOW what they’re talking about as far as their own experiences are concerned.
Catty, it sounds to me like a lot of what you experienced working in bars wasn’t really an attempt at inter-racial dating at all, but straight-out racial and sexual harrassment. It takes a pretty stupid man to think he can score a root by telling the girl in question that she has a slanted cunt. It’s not impossible for men to be that stupid, I’ll grant you, but my experience of sleazy and non-sleazy race-fetishists is that even the most piggish ones are more sophisticated than that. I have no experience working as a bar-tender (though I have spent a lot of time in bars!) so maybe I’m wrong, but it sounds like you have in many cases been harrassed by men for no more sinister reason than the joy of harrassing you - i.e. not necessarily for fetishist reasons at all. My experience of fetishists in Japan is that they think the first and best way to an Asian woman’s heart is through kindness and “ladies first” (because, you know, submissive women who are used to sexist men appreciate that sort of thing…), not through invective.
Actually, the guys that are flat-out telling the slanted pussy jokes are more tolerable, in that I can get them kicked out by the bouncer. The Nice Guy complimenting you on your “slim asian physique” and those “gorgeous asian eyes” and “your adorable china doll-like hands” tend to be the bigger assholes in the long run- I can’t get them kicked out, hence they take up more of your time and also feel that being nice = they have the right to your time. the three guys that attempted to follow me back home from work were ones that started out very “nice” - so being gentlemanly doesn’t mean shit to me if it’s not borne of true respect.
Let me tell you that the majority of those fuckers that would make me luv you long time comments would LOOOVE to screw an asian woman in a heartbeat, and would probably have no qualms about dating a little geisha doll they picked up- ain’t she cute. *barf* Some do seek them out knowing that they may be an easy choice (some of these jerks loved foreign exchange students that didn’t speak the language). So they may be more out and out assholes about it, but the fact that many of those fuckers do have some pre-conceived notion from watching Asian hookers #1-36 or hentai porn. They may not necessarily go out and seek an asian woman 24/7, but that doesn’t rule them out as fetishists.
also, a lot of the fetishists- at least stateside- are only nice and “ladies first” until they realize that *gasp* you’re not the little submissive sex-doll incubator their dick deserves. Then you become a bad example of an asian woman and what a shame that Western feminism ruined you. You’re now a bitch and a cunt.
Bars are interesting places- alcohol and drugs can really bring out the worst in people. Some of these guys drunkenly telling me the asinine comments are, i would guarantee you, not that way in their daily lives, and would have no trouble being kind and polite to women while sober in general public. Honestly, many of the “nicest” men that are sweet and gentlemanly are maybe a line of coke and some booze with the guys at a bar/strip club away from being the biggest pricks on the planet. The same guys telling me that my slanted vagina needs to sit on their american meat stick is very likely the same guy that will try to woo an almond-eyed doll with roses and “niceness.”
you wanna screw an asian woman to experience your own geisha porn fantasy? you’re a fetishist, maybe not an extreme one- but you are.
You only want to screw asian women because they’re so foreign and exotic? you’re a fetishist, maybe not an extreme one- but you are.
You only want asian pussy for your dick because that’s all you find attractive for a multitude of reasons? you’re an extreme fetishist, period.
Now, being a fetishist doesn’t mean that you’re the world’s worst person and need to be jailed. That said, I have the right to call them out and object to their bullshit, just as much as i would ridicule a man that will ONLY date redheads with a bubble butt.
Actually, the guys that are flat-out telling the slanted pussy jokes are more tolerable, in that I can get them kicked out by the bouncer. The Nice Guy complimenting you on your “slim asian physique” and those “gorgeous asian eyes” and “your adorable china doll-like hands” tend to be the bigger assholes in the long run- I can’t get them kicked out, hence they take up more of your time and also feel that being nice = they have the right to your time. the three guys that attempted to follow me back home from work were ones that started out very “nice” - so being gentlemanly doesn’t mean shit to me if it’s not borne of true respect.
Let me tell you that the majority of those fuckers that would make me luv you long time comments would LOOOVE to screw an asian woman in a heartbeat, and would probably have no qualms about dating a little geisha doll they picked up- ain’t she cute. *barf* Some do seek them out knowing that they may be an easy choice (some of these jerks loved foreign exchange students that didn’t speak the language). So they may be more out and out assholes about it, but the fact that many of those fuckers do have some pre-conceived notion from watching Asian hookers #1-36 or whatever. They may not necessarily go out and seek an asian woman 24/7, but at this point i don’t care.
also, a lot of the fetishists- at least stateside- are only nice and “ladies first” until they realize that *gasp* you’re not the little submissive sex-doll incubator their dick deserves. Then you become a bad example of an asian woman and what a shame that Western feminism ruined you. You’re now a bitch and a cunt.
Bars are interesting places- alcohol and drugs can really bring out the worst in people. Some of these guys drunkenly telling me the asinine comments are, i would guarantee you, not that way in their daily lives, and would have no trouble being kind and polite to women whil sober in general public. Honestly, many of the “nicest” men that are sweet and gentlemanly are maybe a line of coke and some booze with the guys at a bar/strip club away from being the biggest pricks on the planet.
you wanna screw an asian woman to experience your own geisha porn fantasy? you’re a fetishist, maybe not an extreme one- but you are.
You only want to screw asian women because they’re so foreign and exotic? you’re a fetishist, maybe not an extreme one- but you are.
You only want asian pussy for your dick because that’s all you find attractive for a multitude of reasons? you’re a fucking fetishist, period.
Now, being a fetishist doesn’t mean that you’re the world’s worst person and need to be jailed. That said, I have the right to call them out and object to their bullshit, just as much as i would ridicule a man that will ONLY date redheads with a bubble butt.
Actually, the guys that are flat-out telling the slanted pussy jokes are more tolerable, in that I can get them kicked out by the bouncer. The Nice Guy complimenting you on your “slim asian physique” and those “gorgeous asian eyes” and “your adorable china doll-like hands” tend to be the bigger assholes in the long run- I can’t get them kicked out, hence they take up more of your time and also feel that being nice = they have the right to your time. the three guys that attempted to follow me back home from work were ones that started out very “nice” - so being gentlemanly doesn’t mean shit to me if it’s not borne of true respect.
Let me tell you that the majority of those fuckers that would make me luv you long time comments would LOOOVE to screw an asian woman in a heartbeat, and would probably have no qualms about dating a little geisha doll they picked up- ain’t she cute. *barf* Some do seek them out knowing that they may be an easy choice (some of these jerks loved foreign exchange students that didn’t speak the language). So they may be more out and out assholes about it, but the fact that many of those fuckers do have some pre-conceived notion from watching Asian hookers #1-36 or whatever. They may not necessarily go out and seek an asian woman 24/7, but at this point i don’t care.
also, a lot of the fetishists- at least stateside- are only nice and “ladies first” until they realize that *gasp* you’re not the little submissive sex-doll incubator their dick deserves. Then you become a bad example of an asian woman and what a shame that Western feminism ruined you. You’re now a bitch and a cunt.
Bars are interesting places- alcohol and drugs can really bring out the worst in people. Some of these guys drunkenly telling me the asinine comments are, i would guarantee you, not that way in their daily lives, and would have no trouble being kind and polite to women whil sober in general public. Honestly, many of the “nicest” men that are sweet and gentlemanly are maybe a line of coke and some booze with the guys at a bar/strip club away from being the biggest pricks on the planet.
you wanna screw an asian woman to experience your own geisha porn fantasy? you’re a fetishist, maybe not an extreme one- but you are.
You only want to screw asian women because they’re so foreign and exotic? you’re a fetishist, maybe not an extreme one- but you are.
You only want asian pussy for your dick because that’s all you find attractive for a multitude of reasons? you’re a fucking fetishist, period.
Now, being a fetishist doesn’t mean that you’re the world’s worst person and need to be jailed. That said, I have the right to call them out and object to their bullshit, just as much as i would ridicule a man that will ONLY date redheads with a bubble butt.
You may call this racist harassment- but really, I see this as the ugly side of racial fetishism. Honestly, a lot of these men are just expressing what some racial fetishists feel in their hearts but don’t show. Many people ENJOY and NEED to have partners that they know and feel is their complete inferior. I’ll even go as far as to say I’ve seen some fucked up racial fetishists and awful misogynists have peaceful marriages that most would consider loving/successful unions.
Catty, you may wish to bear in mind that Lee is talking about Japanese men and women, in Japan, steeped in the culture, as opposed to Japanese born in America. He’s talking about a substantially different cultural experience. And speaking as a Chinese woman born and raised in a Asian country, and who has lived in a Western country as well, I can say that they are very different things.
What Lee’s wife is referring to about “sexist” Japanese men, isn’t actually about race, it’s about culture. And the culture of a Japan-born Japanese is different from a second generation Japanese American.
As a Chinese, I feel that Chinese men, steeped in Chinese culture, have the potential to be extremely sexist. I still date there - but I do know that it exists.
I was born in Japan, spend considerable time there as a child and as an adult, and also grew up stateside. Some of my anger towards racial fetishizers come from my time IN JAPAN- listening to stupid jerks talk about japanese women in English thinking most people can’t understand. Dealing with a lot of expat gaijin bars while in Japan when I went out with friends that were working in Japan… The gross attitudes didn’t come from just american men. I’ve seen it from European men, etc while I was there.
Mezzo, that’s a big DUH. Of course i know Lee’s wife is talking about culture- but when american guys talk about american women being fat, pushy, bitchy, uppity and undatable, they’re talking about culture too. Lee’s wife sounds like the Japanese female version of men that rant about American women being undatable snobbish bitches. I wouldn’t hesitate to say that she may be also be a white fetishist and lee and his wife are the greatest match ever in that regard. After all, racial fetishization isn’t purely limited to men.
Of course culture of a Japanese-born Japanese is different from a Japanese-American. Mind you, I’m very aware of BOTH. After all, my family is the only one that left Japan, so the rest of my family = all Japanese-Japanese. My point is that it’s wrong to assume that asian (or any other race/culture) are sexist, and that white men are somehow exempt from sexism. My point is and has been this: Men of any culture can be sexist- and men of any culture can be feminist. Generalizations are fucking terrible is my bottom line, and racial fetishizing often builds on fucked up generalizations about people.
Of course Japanese men, steeped in Japanese culture, have the potential to be extremely sexist, just like american men steeped in American culture, has the potential to be extremely sexist. The West is not some magical mecca of feminism. If it was, Pandagon would not exist, Planned Parenthood would have the funding they need and I’ll be voting Amanda for president in oh-fucking-eight.
Flasheart-
As for what I’ve experienced being simple racism… Racial fetishization IS RACISM and SEXISM rolled into one. A lot of guys telling me slanted pussy jokes are often normal guys that’s had a line of coke, hits of pot, some brews, etc while out with “da boys.” They’re not just the obvious lowlifes- these are the obviously wealthy frat boys, and the brooks brothers and armani-suit wearing, I play polo on the weekend, have a nice career and drive a european car crowd. In fact, the rich ones can be the worst.
Sexism comes out in full force with the business end of a cannon when men think you’re below them. It also takes the form of “humor.” 99% of the more obvious racist BS will come flying at you in the form of a joke. In fact, ppl will say bullshit racist crap as a compliment, and expect you to be flattered. You become an uptight bitch if you object and say it’s not cool.
Some of the men do it for the joy of harassing, I’m sure. Let me tell you, most of them would willingly fuck an asian woman to live out their fantasies after watching Whoriental Academy 1-6.
I’ve also got the roses and champagne and dinner version. What i realized was that once you peel off the faux gentleman, the same bullshit is hiding in the core.
I personally think the guy telling me something vile and another guy telling me “I love asian women because we’re all so smart” is on the same continuum. It starts with racial/sexual objectification and removal of individuality, and these types of pervasive attitudes fuel and create and protect and nurture racial fetishes.
Just because a guy’s willing to date other races, have dated other races, etc etc- does NOT mean that they don’t have fetishistic attitudes towards a particular group of people.
Catty said:
and
Yes, I rather agree. Generalisations are tiring to deal with. Lee and his wife aren’t enjoying being generalised either.
Well, actually I didn’t assume any of that. You do have a way of getting into pandagonians’ heads, though. Disagreeing with you isn’t oppressive. Nor is hoping that you be tolerant of people with sexualities that aren’t yours.
Please read my post more carefully before you call me a motherfucker. I was pretty specific that you don’t need to be a sweet lil thang for anyone, and that the assholes who harassed you can go fuck themselves. I hoped, however, that you could get past being harrassed by a bunch of drunk assholes (which sucks. I’ve been there too. It sounds like it sucked worse for you because it was racist and persistent. I’m sorry.) enough not to stereotype all racial fetishists that way. It’s not the respectful fetishist’s fault that the asshole was an asshole. I’m asking you not to generalize the asshole to people who post on a comment board about their complex, personal relationships.
Sorry? Why are those two things mutually exclusive? You can give people a chance and if they turn out to be assholes, demand better behavior. I don’t think anything I’ve said anywhere on this forum gives assholes a break.I don’t excuse the people who harrassed you; that’s a terrible, unacceptable thing to do. I’m sorry it happened to you. Where I draw the line is extrapolating that harrassing behavior to an entire category of people. That’s hateful and wrong.
If you read my post carefully, you’ll find that I explicitly agree with most of this, and talk specifically about why it doesn’t matter to what I was trying to say. Just like there are a bunch of sadomasochists who aren’t violent outside the bedroom, there are a bunch of racial fetishists who aren’t racist outside of the bedroom. Bedroom racism isn’t your thing. Fine. It’s not my thing either. But like most reasonable people, I don’t really care what people do with consent in the privacy of their bedrooms.
once they call you a bitch and a cunt, they’re harrassing you, and that’s wrong. Before that, they are attracted to you in a way that involves power. If that’s wrong, than so are all S&M relationships. No one wants you to do anything more than be respectful to people who are also respectful to you. That doesn’t mean sleeping with them, that doesn’t mean giving them your phone number. It means not being a jerk to them until they’re a jerk to you. Otherwise, you just sink to their level.
So his wife isn’t attracted to Japanese men. I’m going to assume for a second you’re het. If you aren’t, just imagine a het person instead. You aren’t attracted to women. Are you an asshole because of that? Is that any different from Lee’s wife?I agree with you. I don’t know why any of those is different from heterosexuality:
you wanna screw a man to experience your own heterosexual porn fantasy?
you only wanna screw men because they’re so masculine?
you only want cock for your pussy because that’s all you find attractive?
I think heterosexuality is great. Not for everyone, and a big problem when it turns into sexism, but just fine. Same with fetishism.
Yeah…they’re called doms. Many people enjoy and need to have partners they know and feel are their complete superior. They’re called subs. They like that kind of relationship, and should have it consentingly with each other.No one is making you marry an asian fetishist. Just like nobody is making you marry a lesbian*, or a dom, or a snuff fetishist, or a lesbian-dom-snuff fetishist. But just like it’s important that you aren’t a jerk to someone just because they’re a lesbian-dom-snuff fetishist, it’s important that you aren’t a jerk to someone just because they’re a fetishist.
*Please don’t jump down my throat for conflating lesbianism with fetishism. I’ve been conflating heterosexuality with fetishism all thread. I’ve also been pretty clear that I’m fetish-positive.
lmao You just compared judgment of the motivations behind lesbianism to that of being attracted to .jp men. Moron.
so I have NOTHING at all against interracial dating. I just have issues with people that date for the wrong reasons- whether it’s “aryans” that think non-whites are muds and refuse to date them, or white men that think white women are pigs and refuse to date them, or black men that think black women are too ghetto to date them, or non-black women that want to date black men because they’re supposed to be “huge” down there, or any other stupid reason.
*nodnod* Catty, you encapsulated my own feelings on dating, IR or otherwise, right here. Might I add, I have issues with people who REFUSE to date interracially too. I mean someone who would turn down a wonderful man or woman, whose personality is well-suited to them, just because they are the “wrong” race.
BTW, I find that if a man runs down women of his own race - as in “white/American/Western women are fat bitches!” or “black women are loud and demanding!” it’s time to RUN, RUN far away. Ditto if he finds women of a certain race sexxaaay but men of that same race are evil.
Wandering in way late to a heated discussion, but I am really amazed that people can’t deal with the facts that ‘fetishes’ are a part of normal human psychology, and are not really linked to ‘assholery’ in any way.
Some of us guys have fairly narrow sexual tastes. These tastes may be uncommon in the community they grow up in, so they go looking for whatever version of exotic works for them. Where it gets complicated is that you take that basic fact and mix it with a cultural context that is steeped in racism and stereotyping, and add the unfortunate fact that testosterone can do some pretty weird and disturbing things to young brains.
Having numerous mail friends with what would be considered racist fetishes by this discussion, I would report that for the most part they have outgrown the narrow-mindedness that they once had. This phenomenon of growing up has in large part been a result of what they have learned in the course of adult romantic relationships. The randy and embarrassing kids grew up to be loving husbands and fathers. It happens, sometimes!
BTW, I find that if a man runs down women of his own race - as in “white/American/Western women are fat bitches!” or “black women are loud and demanding!” it’s time to RUN, RUN far away. Ditto if he finds women of a certain race sexxaaay but men of that same race are evil.
Totally agree. Though I’ve encountered a smidgen of this on a date, it does not compare to the crap my female counterparts have to put up with on the account of this.
*nodnod* Catty, you encapsulated my own feelings on dating, IR or otherwise, right here. Might I add, I have issues with people who REFUSE to date interracially too. I mean someone who would turn down a wonderful man or woman, whose personality is well-suited to them, just because they are the “wrong” race.
Though I understand why you would have issues with people who would refuse to date interracially, I am hesitant to condemn all those who refuse to date/marry interracially barring those with racist motivations. There are many people I know who refuse to do so not because of being outright racists, but the fear of possible issues that may arise from dating/marrying someone from a totally different cultural traditions.
I am seeing some of this in my own extended family with non-Chinese/Asians who married my older cousins who are having some issues with my older relatives due to culture clashes. While a lot of this can be overcome, it is a lot more work than my cousins, their spouses, and their respective families bargained for even when those older cousins are almost completely culturally assimilated. This extra effort needed was far more than the marriages in which my older cousins married within our ethnicity (Han Chinese).
And this is without having the added difficulty of marrying someone descended from a nationality considered a heinous wartime enemy by older relatives who experienced hardships as a result of that war. This was exactly what happened when an older female cousin chose to marry a Nisei Japanese-American. Considering our parents generation lived and suffered through the Japanese invasion and the brutalities that come with it, it was understandably why her parents were so reluctant to allow the marriage. Only the timely intervention of more open-minded older relatives…including my parents finally convinced them to allow the marriage to proceed. Fortunately, my female cousin’s marriage to the Nisei is a very loving caring one and both of their respective families have worked through the issues to the point they are close and friendly with each other.
Not everyone I know, however, is prepared or willing to put in the amount of work that’s required to make such relationships/marriages work. If that’s to be condemned, than so be it.
That’s a very good point, and you said it far better than I ever could.
Catty,
Thank you for your response. Just taking what I’ve observed from the relationships/marriages of classmates and older cousins.
That also does not take into account the difficulties Asian-Americans born in the states have with finding fellow Asian-Americans with similar levels of cultural experiences/outlooks. You’re either too “whitewashed” or “too Asian”.
Has this been your experience?
Actually, it has been, and I’ve felt mighty lonely at times because I didn’t quite fit in anywhere.
exholt, nice to meet you BTW.
Catty,
Likewise.