White Men Who Exclusively Date Asian Women

Are you sure that wasn't Tuxedo Mask?

http://dau.physics.sunysb.edu/~ming/sos/pix/sostux2a.jpg

In Bust last year there was a fantastic article about these guys written by a Chinese-American woman. She was pretty vitriolic about these guys but saved her ire proper for the girls from Korea, Japan etc. who dated these men, since she thought they weren't exactly conductive to her mission to be seen by men as having her own personality and equal intelligence as opposed to the wilting lotus blossom of chauvinist wank fantasy. And she was very, very angry about all these cases of yellow fever in her vicinity.

I don't blame her for being angry, but at some stage what men think about/what they look at is going to stop concerning or annoying feminists (and even other women). What was really interesting to me was the girl v. girl vibes in the article, as if the compliant woman had some culpability in the man's ultimate disrespect for the type he chose to fetishise.

In [Spin] last year there was a fantastic article about [groupies] written by a [rock star]. He was pretty vitriolic about these girls but saved his ire proper for the [other rock stars] from Limp Bizkit, Asia etc who dated these [groupies], since he thought they weren't exactly conducive to his mission to be seen by [women] as having his own personality and equal intelligence as opposed to some wilting [air guitar] in a [slags'] wet dream. And he was very, very angry about all these cases of [rock star idolatry] in his vicinity.

I don't blame him for being angry, but at some stage what [women] think about / what they look at is going to stop concerning or annoying [rockists] (and even other men). What was really interesting to me was the boy v. boy vibes in the article, as if the [strutting rock star] had some culpability in the woman's ultimate disrespect for the type she chose to fetishise.

The overall impression I got was that the writer of that Bust article was angry, but she really couldn't decide who she should really be angry with. The 'fantastic' (which is not to say 'good') nature of the piece was that I wasn't aware that there was any animosity felt by Asian-American women towards the Japanese etc. women for the reasons she mentioned. It was just weird. But I laughed myself hoarse when she said the main fetishists were guys of Scots descent!

The fact we can now prefer a racial type the way our parents preferred a certain hair colour has more to do with the exponential increase in jet travel than anything else. We do it because we *can*, and because the diversity of the modern city gives us freedom of sexual choice, allowing us to discover elective affinities previous generations never got a chance to discover.

Which is largely why I take the side of Suzy's article-praising: this is in many cases solely a result of deeply demeaning stereotyping, albeit made non-threatening by the fact that the stereotyper thinks they're positive ones. Whether those who accept (or exploit) the stereotypes are any more to blame than those who apply them -- well, that's another matter.

NB: this is not to argue that certain individuals may have aesthetic or cultural preferences for certain types of people, but I strongly doubt that this is the case in even 25% of racialist fetishizing.

Behavioral expectations wrapped up with gender complexities = awful.

Momus: Honestly, in what proportions do you think fixated solely- other-race attractions are a product of (a) healthy impulses and inclinations versus (b) rigid mental concepts of how individuals of a particular sex and ethnicity behave? Clearly both exist: which do you think prevails?

It is entirely possible that my perception of this is skewed by living in the more broadly homogenous U.S., where there are broad and ugly strains of white women's Mandingo fetishizing of black males and white men's submissive-prostitute fetishizing of Asian women, and a properly-worded google search will reveal truckloads of porn sites that appear to support this assertion.

It's funny what Suzy says about Scots, because it seems to me that in Brooklyn there's a thing with many of the local population of English boys being into South Asian girls.

Asians preferring Asians or whites preferring whites generally involves less criticism because the preferences are working within an ethnic mundanity of sorts. An Asian who blocks out all other types of people can still be criticized perhaps, but this preference is a more understandable and natural one. It's difficult to perceive it as a degrading fetish since it crosses no ethnic lines.

That said, I'm not sure how often white-Asian couples actually involve any degrading element at all. I don't think it's fair to underestimate the perceptiveness of Asian women. At least in America, and especially in Berkeley where I live, Asians would probably never engage with, let alone last in, a relationship with some fetishizing white-boy monstrosity. If the issue is about naive submissive girls being taken advantage of, I don't see this as being the case around me.

Perhaps if you'd introduced me to someone who seemed more like an equal to you than a foil or a yes-woman, or bothered to tell me something interesting about them before I met them, I might not have such a poor impression of what, to me, seem like a series of nice but in-over- their-heads young girls happy to endure Misogyny Lite if it means three months of being some minor pop star's plus one (Yoko, on the other hand, was not arm candy for an insecure guy who wanted to look trendy at art openings). But the only thing you appear to have in common with the girls I have met is this: they're interested in you almost as much as you are. But unlike you, they can get bored of you and go away, which, eventually, they do.

Though I'm into the whiteys so call me a hypocrite. Though it would be pretty ridiculous if I tapped on your shoulder and swooned "omigod, i just love white guys"...

googling for "tony rivers", writer doesn't turn up a whole lot

Also, the creepy dude from the documentary specifically mentioned his wife having "good morals". I notice a lot of the guys seeking asian women also mention this because they think western women are too promiscuous. I think they're so insecure that the idea of a woman they're interested in having been with another person is very threatening to them.

he might have to date someone who wanted to do stuff other than listen to his long-winded stories and bring him sandwiches

suddenly remembering another way my grandpa is a dick

"virtually no mainland chinese media being consumed in the US at the moment"

right i think in part, as i said, we're talking about different segments of ppl being into ppl from different places (altho point about not being able to tell the difference between korea, china, vietnam, etc. among some ppl granted). but i would disagree that k-pop is basically western derivative -- huge portions are, but there's also a kawaii element that's v. much japan derived, and something that i'd imagine (?) plenty of ppl associate with the "east" generally.

something else to bear in mind is that in malaysia, burma etc. under british colonial rule (and i'd guess american in the philippines?) chinese women were considered more 'prized' than women more ethnically local to those regions because precisely of how 'almost white' they were -- all the descriptions of delicate features, porcelain skin, etc.

do you have any examples in mind of the kawaii aesthetic in k-pop? not being combative, genuinely curious! i think that there are a fair share of k-pop videos in the high school setting, but i don't really remember them as being kawaii-themed

speaking from very limited and removed experience, i'd say there is a "thing" of people (men and woman, though it expresses differently) who have not had much success in love in their own culture going outside it where values are different. I knew a set of sisters from a very insular, religious and troubled family who nearly exclusively dated & married men from elsewhere. anecdata i know, but it def looked like trouble getting along in the society around you and still wanting that companionship. the cultural disconnection can kind of mask the personal disconnection, maybe? idk, trying not to sound like a jerk here.

i'm with geebs on being unable to watch even the whole of that preview because of embarrassment reflex. but i don't want to fully remove agency from the young woman -- what set of circumstances and motivations would cause her to sign on that dotted line? security? adventure? lack of 'good men' at home? family pressure? not having a clear idea what she's getting into? it's p baffling to me, honestly! it's crazy to think of these women as being so 'submissive' when the quality that comes through to me is a real fuck-it-all gung ho bravery.

second part of that is very otm

well, they did mention the phrase "green card" a few times there, but that might be a bad lead

xp and the first part made you grit your teeth in disgust, i get it

"examples in mind of the kawaii aesthetic in k-pop"

not hugely hugely knowledgeable here so there are probably better examples, but i went thru a couple girls generation videos and found e.g.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dn26KORcgUU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-yT_c8ZL2Y

yeah, kawaii doesn't necessarily have to be in a high school setting? just anything that's super-cutesy. One of the big K-pop memes this year is Gwiyomi (aka the Cutie Song).

fair enough, I think I've been watching too many miss A videos!

i guess you could argue that there's a difference between aegyo and kawaii - aegyo as a more... demanding... form of cuteness? (i am trying to remember the whereabouts of a conversation i read online about the differences between aegyo and sajiao, which is sort of relevant)

xp and the first part made you grit your teeth in disgust, i get it

― goole, Tuesday, April 23, 2013 11:32 AM (38 minutes ago) Bookmark

haha, not at all! it's just that it feels when these guys do it, it's not so much about cultural values as it is about taking advantage of massive economic disparities between people who live in different countries

i think you still have to analytically move from cuteness -> submissiveness, if you want to claim that these stereotypes are reinforced or even sourced from the cultures of the countries themselves?

aha, that aegyo/sajiao discussion: http://maddieloveskpop.tumblr.com/post/42022496537

aaaaah i didn't realize that was 撒娇

is it a valid/commonly used term in Chinese? i was kind of curious about that.

yeah for sure

in cantonese it'd be 嗲

would you mentally associate it, as a concept, with someone who performed a lot of sajiao? or are they quite distinct to you?

i guess particularly relevant to this discussion are troisroyeaumes' points on aegyo as non-traditional:

My take on the issue is that to actually pull off 애교 requires a level of self-assertiveness that is not in fact a traditional gender norm for Korean women.

In short, 애교 is a gender norm for women, but it’s a relatively modern one. Insofar that it is a norm that sets expectations of “feminine behavior”, it could be called anti-feminist. But I think that’s a facile analysis. I would say it is problematic but I can also see how it can coexist with feminist ideals…it just depends on what those ideals are.

hmm, it can definitely be used to describe a person's character. i generally agree that it can co-exist with femininity? but obviously i'm gonna say that with a huge salt shaker in hand as a dude

i do agree that... it's a pretty active form of participation in a relationship and goal-oriented - not really 'submissive' in the sense of 'i will do whatever my partner tells me to, obediently, quietly.' in fact, it's sort of... the opposite

i definitely find sajiao easier to understand than aegyo, i guess because i have watched a sufficiency of mainland tv dramas (also, known more princessy mainland-Chinese girls than cutesy Koreans).

But yeah it all seems to exist in the range of being hyper-feminine as a kind of weapon? Which goes from supercute hanging-off-the-arm help-me-it's-so-haaaaaaaaaaard to the super aggressive girly style you still sometimes find among gyaru.

yeah... which is the characterization of 'submissiveness' as a trait of being obedient, not talking back, etc. etc. is so... foreign to me, because none of the chinese women i've known (spanning all age groups) is like that at ALL, even when they are performing 撒娇 or 嗲. like, that's why it feels to me that that kind of trope is much more rooted in the history of colonialism/warfare than it is in any innate cultural values, at least ime - obv cant speak for korean/japanese/other asian cultures.

i guess another way of putting it is that these stereotypes are created and sited in the western mind; and after that, there's probably some kind of confirmation bias going on in the viewing of media from asian countries; like practically anything that is done in media from these countries is gonna be interpreted as being 'evidence' of these stereotypes? short of, idk, ball stomping. the production of gender relations from within the country is very different than how the west conceptualizes those relations, i think. orientalism etc. etc.

there is this sort of minor point i was going to bring up, about "preexisting structures of oppression", which is the super obvious point that different cultures have different structures of oppression?

here's my facile example: until quite recently, in Japan, the loan word "feminisuto" regularly meant "a man who is nice to women, like holding doors for them and stuff". In Japan there is no tradition of that kind of chivalry that's composed of holding doors open for women, carrying their bags, etc. Not that people don't do it, but it's not so deeply ingrained into ordinary gendered behaviour in the way it still is in e.g. the UK (in fact the 'traditional' image of a married couple, you'd see the woman walking behind the man, and also carrying all of the bags). This doesn't mean women in Japan have traditionally been more oppressed -- but it means that holding open a door for a woman, which in Europe is kind of a reference to a history of infantilising and disempowering women, became in Japan something that was nice-to-women in a specifically modern way.

But that seems pretty antiquated wrt modern gender relations now. e.g., again very minor/facile: my mental image of a hetero Japanese couple on a date these days - at any point over the last 15/20 years, i think? - very definitely features the guy carrying her bags.

hah, that's super interesting

but but, like you say, i think this thing continues to be sited in the Western mind long after it stops being practicably true: the idea of "Asian" women as a generic class who are more charmed by chivalry, as part of being more authentically feminine.

oh geez, listening to a david choe interview (LA-based korean-american artist) and he's going on about how he does not recommend anyone dating a korean due to his annoyance with his family's cultural norms

If you go to the ICA in London, you notice that Japanese girls sometimes seem to be the only people there. I am, in human form, the ICA. I am sustained, like that venerable London arts institution, by the patronage and kindness of these hyper- cultuivated people. I also enjoy fucking them.

― Momus, Tuesday, 29 January 2002 01:00 (11 years ago)

Oh, that's a coincidence! Because I am, in human form, the British houses of parliament during the Opium Wars.

Meanwhile I'm the human Uffizi gallery, kept alive by people who mainly visit because they feel they ought to, and find the whole thing too hot and uncomfortable and their feet hurt.

More seriously, I find it really difficult to parse debates around 'dating etiquette' and the ethics of dating, because I don't move in circles where dating actually happens. But lots of internet acquaintances in the US talk about it a lot.

good Momus quote to dig up, cheers Nilmar

I am, in human form, Tucson's rush hour - heavy and slow, and not passing enough water.

thinking of dating exclusively asian women after the current er indoors tbh

what arts institution are you

i was looking through a bookmark file of mine from 2005 the other day, was pleased to find that the link to momus' penis still works

http://imomus.com/michaelangelo.jpeg

good Momus quote to dig up, cheers Nilmar

― mh, Tuesday, July 9, 2013 2:53 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark

i find asian girls typically hugely attractive. but i haven't dated any :(

Does this make me a bastard or not?

― darraghmac, Friday, 31 August 2007 13:05 (5 years ago)

think you might be the amsterdam rijksmuseum, closed down for refurbishment for a number of years but now opening up again

http://imomus.com/michaelangelo.jpeg

what a wonderful url

down to the peg

Got my yellow fever vaccine on Monday and today I'm down with one nostril constantly running, a migraine, dizziness and slight tingling/numbness of my left foot. These are known but somewhat rare side effects. Committed to going to the doctor tomorrow if I don't feel better when I wake up. To that end I've just had a hella generous hot toddy.

Also there was no CD thread for The Vaccines to post dud in twice. No-one needs to rectify this.

You can start a crossdressing thread fella no one will judge u

I got a mmr booster, tetanus booster, hep first round and a yellow fever shot all in one day once and stupidly went out drinking that night. Four double whiskeys later my body was making the craziest sounds while I was puking.

U shlda recorded it

Probably. I had a roommate at the time that said he heard whistling and woke up.

Ha

puking after a dozen shots