"the men had felt guilty-or had made to feel guilty-about deviant desires" s/b "the men felt guilty--or were made to feel guilty--about deviant desires"
I agree with Teo's basic point, but I'm a bit bothered by the use of passive voice in Why are men with S&M fantasies considered potential rapists while women with similar fantasies are encouraged to pursue them (or at least not discouraged)? I think the question is, "by whom"? I defended the guy with the dominance (neither sadistic nor rape, if I remember correctly) fantasy, and other people did as well.
That said. I think that if one believes (as I do) that sexual fantasies are shaped by the world one lives in, then it's fairly obvious why male fantasies of dominance would be more troubling than female fantasies of submission (although keep in mind that the original BJ debate that started this whole thing was highly critical not only of submissive fantasies, but even of symbolic submission in the form of blow jobs). Rape is a real problem, male violence against women is a real problem, treating women primarily as sex objects is a real problem. The very things that (presumably) make these fairly common fantasies are the reasons they bother people.
That said, I personally don't see much good in blaming or shaming people for their sex lives (as the original response to the dominantion fantasy in my post was doing). But I also think it's worthwhile to ask folks to think about the way sex is socially constructed. And I think that a certain amount (not all) of the problem straight men have talking about sex as social construct is kind of akin to the problem a lot of white folks have talking about racism: a tendency to take criticism personally and get defensive. Which is sympathetic, but also (if you think about it) a mark of thinking of oneself (still) as being at the center of the discussion.
I'm feeling cynical and cranky today, but I'm wondering if one of the reasons there's more...applause when a woman admits to a deviant desire is simply due to the larger idea that women aren't supposed to chase after sex at all, let alone have spent the time constructing complicated fantasies.
Why are men with S&M fantasies considered potential rapists while women with similar fantasies are encouraged to pursue them (or at least not discouraged)?
That might have been the tenor of the threads at B's blog, but I've read other blogs where women were harshly criticized for submissive/rape fantasies.
I think B's got it roughly right, except that I'm not sure thinking about it or criticizing the underlying themes in male fantasies that implicate violence gets men very far toward excising those themes. Gawd help me for using the word "reinscribe," but I think such discussions also reinscribe those themes.
6: Necessarily, or does it depend on how the discussion goes? I'm not likely to agree that it's best to just repress ideas we don't like, but I think that this is an interesting possibility. I do think (im limited e) that some ways in which sexual fantasies are explained and articulated can amount mostly to rationalizing and excusing them. But then even saying that gets into really shaky territory where one starts asking questions about whether people's sexual desires are malleable, whether people "should" try to change them, and which people we're talking about. Men with rape fantasies? Teh gays? Pedophiles? Women with submission fantasies? Women who fantasize over men they're not married to? Women who fantasize about other women? Etc.
Here's a data point that I'm not sure how it all fits in: When I lived in New Orleans, I met and had a good chat with a proprietor of a BDSM club. (One of those dinner party guests that don't seem at all out of the ordinary when you're in New Orleans.) He said that that women who are new to BDSM come to the club split about 50/50 - half want to dom and half want to sub. Almost all of the men who came to the club wanted to be dominant. He has a rule where a person has to do three submissive scenes over multiple visits before they're allowed to dom anyone and the men are always utterly predictable. 90% of the guys who come in wanting to dom do their three submissive scenes, set something up with him or his wife to learn how to be a good dom (he required training/mentoring), and quit after one lesson, deciding they liked being on the bottom better.
The fact that so many men (from this anecdote, at least) seem confused about what they really like and what really turns them on makes me think there is at least some kind of a cultural component to fantasies people have.
9: I myself have wondered about the malleability of desire and whether people might be morally obliged to try to modify their desires. For example, I know a fair number of guys with Asian fetishes -- are they morally obliged to do something about this?
Another reason men with dom fantasies might squick us out:
they could come to fruition -- even if they're unlikely to -- without someone else's consent. The sub's got to have someone playing along. (Note, I am not equating BDSM with rape, just that the fantasy doesn't require someone else's agency.)
15 me. Also, I think most desires are malleable but most of them aren't worth the effort to bother to change. Guys with Asian chick fetishes piss me off.
When I was stationed in Korea, there was a reasonably large number of American women who would not date men who also dated Korean women. While this could have been a principled stand against whatever bad motivations are the focus of B.'s comment, it always seemed to me to be simply a clever way of dealing with competition.
I do think (im limited e) that some ways in which sexual fantasies are explained and articulated can amount mostly to rationalizing and excusing them.
There are very few topics of conversation that I think should be off-limits; I just think there may be more rationalizing going on than you do. Or that honestly felt and apparently good arguments will be used down the road by some men toward bad ends. Which is to say, I don't really have a solution to offer to any perceived problem.
I guess, as I just commented at teo's, I don't really understand the motives behind cheering on the very existence of any group's sexual desires. Yay, for women who can get horny? Because they're always better than women who can't?
I mean, in the cases of my friends and people I know, I can say, "Yay for you for having hot sex that makes you feel happy and validated because that's what you wanted before!" And lord knows I'm doing my part to represent women who are comfortable with talking openly about sexual experience.
But there's a reason I didn't get into the sex wars on my blog or at the Bitch's. I hate the way people who don't know or care about each other get competitive when they talk about sex. Everyone assumes some different value on pleasure, lack of pleasure, kinds of fantasies, kinds of sex acts, and we're not speaking the same language. I like to see a person's face when they tell me they like it when their new boyfriend fucks them in the ass. If they look happy, I say, "Hooray for anal fun!" and if they don't look happy, I say, "Are you sure this is what you want?"
Actually the Asian chick fetish thing made me realize something. I do expect people to use their conscious awareness of, say, racist feelings to try to change those feelings. And I think that the way to do that isn't just by thinking it through (though that's necessary) but by taking action once one realizes the problem. So why should sexuality be this protected space where people aren't expected to do that work? I realize, of course, that the problem is that sexuality has traditionally been the primary arena in which people are supposed to modify their feelings, and that to some extent the "you can't help what turns you on" argument is a reasonable balancing reaction. But in a perfect world I don't see why we (broadly speaking, as opposed to the shaming-individuals thing) shouldn't expect ourselves to work on reprogramming ingrained stuff that we think isn't good.
I just think there may be more rationalizing going on than you do.
Yeah, but in general I think this speaks to a difference you and I often have about the value of analyzing stuff (as opposed to, say, deciding X is a desireable state of being and therefore we should act like/model X rather than navel-gazing about the ways we fail to accomplish X). If that makes sense. Anyway, it's a side issue, but it definitely made me think about the differences between things where I'm impatient with too much analysis (e.g., "why don't women ask men out?") vs. things where I'm not.
Now I'm Farberizing this thread. Sorry 'bout that.
25: I have the same intuition about this: a racist fantasy seems to me a lot more problematic than a rape fantasy or a sub/dom fantasy, but I can't coherently say why.
A race-based fetish seems morally objectionable because it's racist, but why doesn't a male-dom female-sub scenario strike me as (necessarily) objectionably sexist?
Oh, there are tons of fantasies that seem morally objectionable to me. (Apparently I'm a prude.)
Consent seems to be my line in the sand for these. As long as everyone involved in the act or the fantasy gives explicit, informed consent, I can't bring myself to get too het up.
So, pedophilia is a no-go, fantasy or otherwise, under this umbrella: a child cannot ever give informed consent. Nor can an animal, so leave teh donkies out of it. Etc etc.
BUT, the hard part is of course the "informed" bit (assuming anyone can be explicit if they want the sex bad enough). As a 30-something college-educated woman, it would seem I could consent to just about any sub fantasy if I were inclined. But I'm not informed until I've actually tried it and found out how it made me feel.
And if my information comes in the form of societally-produced roles that have been cultivated for 2000+ years, am I really that well informed? Or just brainwashed?
In my experience, sub/dom experiences are a way of playing out fear, power, and intimacy narratives that are somewhat naturalized in the experience of being a powerful woman. To "do" sub and know in your heart that you're not submissive in non-sexual life and that your dom partner is really doing what you want adds all these delicious layers of sexual irony. What kind of sexual irony, complexity, or relationship to life is there to be had in having racist sexual fantasies? Isn't it just a simplistic conflation of orientalizing women and Orientalizing women?
One difference I can see is that really, IM limited E, the mutuality of the experience is really central to male doms' fantasies (assuming they're not the crypto-misogynist type). So what's going on is not objectification, since the dom is really interested and excited by the sub's subjective experience. The Asian fetish thing isn't about the woman in a meaningful way; he just wants her to look the way he wants her and overlay a bunch of ideas about her race onto her.
27: It might be because the race-based fetish would seem to presume a certain degree of interchangability? As in: I want to sex an Asian chick, and this one here will do. Whereas the dominant/submissive dynamic should ideally be the result of some negotiation between individuals?
Because most men with Asian chick fetishes are annoying tools who are probably going to say something about how the Eastern mind is so superior to the Western mind and the katana superior to the calabat (whack whack WHACK.)
There's a great line in the Whit Stillman movie Barcelona about how guys think the great thing about dating girls who don't speak their native language is that all the little subtle things women of your own culture despise you for become adorable quirks to the foreign woman.
I had a brief misguided fling with a white guy who informed me I was his first non-Asian girlfriend. Apparently in rural China, they thought he looked like Leonardo DiCaprio. I can verify that this would not be apparent to an American girl.
Whereas the dominant/submissive dynamic should ideally be the result of some negotiation between individuals?
But we're talking about FANTASY here, aren't we? I may be way wrong, but I can't see how the "negotiation" phase really plays into the fantasy. The reality, yes, but the fantasy, no.
So the race thing and the sub/dom thing come out sounding the same to me. I don't think anyone is really getting off on irony or the specifics of an individual's personality while fantasizing (unless they're fantasizing about someone they know already). I think they're getting off on the power dynamic. In fact, the Asian fantasy seems almost the same as the sub/dom fantasy to me, as the stereotypical Asian woman in the fantasy is always submissive. At least, that's the image it conjures for me.
Am I waaay off here? Or do sub/dom fantasies involve much more complexity than I'm giving credit? (Obviously the reality is very complex, but that's not what we're talking about.)
There are a lot of guys who DO talk about their domination / sadism fantasies. To other guys. They're not talking about staged events at an SM club, either.
These guys don't show up at places like this much.
What about guys who have these fantasies but who are basically decent people and whose friends are mostly feminists? By and large they keep their mouths shut and suppress their desires.
This goes against the rule that everyone should always be open and the rule that Sex is Always Good, so it seems puritanical and repressive, but maybe puritanism and repression can be good things too.
As for the Asian fetish -- I get tired of people talking about this. The biggest mistake I ever made in my life was not marrying my (educated and respectable 24-year-old) Taiwanese girlfriend in 1984. The message I got from her is that she wanted to be with me and always liked having me around. The messages I'd get from my USA relationships, plural, was that they weren't sure how serious they wanted to get with anyone, that they needed to work through some psychological things first, that they weren't sure that I was good enough, and that there were certain changes I was going to have to make.
This wasn't a slave girl fantasy, I just wanted someone who liked me and wanted to be with me. I lived in Taiwan for a year and from what I saw, Chinese wives were not submissive.
Ever since then I've felt that hip American relationships are booby-trapped and unlikely to succeed. It's quite possible that I'm letting a few anecdotal events poison my perception, but these were major events in my life.
Trivia: like many Chinese women, my girlfiend was afraid of tall, charming, dramatic, macho guys, even if they were Chinese.
It might be because the race-based fetish would seem to presume a certain degree of interchangability? As in: I want to sex an Asian chick, and this one here will do.
This would imply that other fetishes for "interchangeable" types would also be morally objectionable. A fetish for overweight women, a fetish for tall blonde women, et cetera.
"Fetish", of course, being a synonym for "preference".
I like petite woman with dark hair and eyes. If the eyes and hair are right, height and body can be negotiable. Salma Hayek, Penelope Cruz. I like asians, hispanic-descended, native americans, italians, semitics, africans and afro-americans.
Not attracted to voluptuous blue-eyed blondes. Am I racist?
I actually don't have a problem with a preference for Asian features any more than I have a preference for any other kind of features. I get somewhat suspicious when someone has a succession of girlfriends who look just alike. I have preferences for men, but they're flexible. However, a lot of people who are into Asian women don't *just* like sleek black hair or a certain skin tone; they have china doll or dragon lady notions about personality and behavior that go with it.
Aren't we dealing with two fairly incompatible ways of looking at things? On the one hand, we're supposed to follow our desires, let ourselves go, turn off the inner censor, and be wild and free. On the other hand, if the way that we let ourselves go is too stereotyped in certain ways, or crosses certain lines, people will start talking.
This would imply that other fetishes for "interchangeable" types would also be morally objectionable. A fetish for overweight women, a fetish for tall blonde women, et cetera.
"Morally objectionable" is too strong, but definitely a turn-off. When I first moved to NYC, I got hounded by a few guys who were after some grade-A size-12 blonde Midwestern grad-student booty, and although there's probably nothing inherently wrong with that, it feels pretty gross to be wanted for your ability to fit into someone's carefully planned fetish. Maybe I'm saying this as someone who first realized there was a sexual niche for her at age 24, long after I came to think from the outside that sexual niches were humiliating. So, take that as one person's experience, not, like, "all identity fetishes should be banned by law."
I found my own views on sub/dom changing as the thread progressed; as time went on the reticence issue I had had evaporated as people spelled out how much they had signaled a desire to submit a bit. I realized I never had and would never have had a problem with that level of communication.
But [i]n my experience, sub/dom experiences are a way of playing out fear, power, and intimacy narratives that are somewhat naturalized in the experience of being a powerful woman. To "do" sub and know in your heart that you're not submissive in non-sexual life and that your dom partner is really doing what you want adds all these delicious layers of sexual irony is just beautiful, and the neatest expression of what I'd like to believe I've seen yet.
47: Well, yes, which is why this is an interesting topic of discussion (at least for me). Why do people start talking? Which lines do you have to cross before they do? Is there anything we should do about this, or should we just let it be?
This thread has been great. Thanks everyone for the interesting discussion.
47: That's why I think it's just as silly for any of us to talk about sex in generalities, ever, at all. Sex is not universally worth celebrating for its boundlessness, nor is it something to be universally policed. All any of us have are our individual experiences of feeling one thing or another. None of us is in a position to ban anything anyway, just like none of us is in a position to advise the Democratic Party. So why any huff? We can just talk about us if we want.
All those question marks were supposed to convey some hesitancy about whether I wasn't just talking out of my ass. As I might have been.
Wrenae's point about fantasy--which I think is somewhat similar to points A White Bear was making at Teo's place--is probably important. There are some fantasies that I wouldn't feel comfortable about sharing, even with a loving partner, because I don't want them to be acted out so don't really see the point of talking about them.
About preferences and interchangibility, I endorse Tia's 45.
49: Yes. Several. Apparently something on my Nerve profile was pitched a certain way, and I was suddenly a niche-target. These are things we don't see on the television.
One of the good things about sex used to be that it was supposed to be an escape into a less rule-bound, less goal-oriented world. At a certain point it loses that and just becomes another area where you have to perform, and the rules keep shifting too.
54: Right, and I guess that bothers me a little, that there's this big emphasis in the sex-pos culture on fulfilling your fantasies, as if they're incomplete as mere fantasies. Sex fantasies are often ridiculous, extreme, disturbing, and unfulfillable (at least in that no one's life could handle the constant variety and intensity that one's fantasy life would dictate). The point of a fantasy is to get you off when you're alone. Some I might act out. Most, however, are insane.
Off topic a bit, but I had to share this excerpt from today's Mimi Smartypants entry, as it cracked me the fuck up:
Sometimes I think of very specific things during sex---these are not fantasies but just strong images, almost like hallucinations, that pop into my head, usually at crucial moments. They neither distract nor inspire, but I always feel compelled to share them afterwards with LT ("I saw a picture of the Canadian flag when I came!"). You may now pity my husband.
Actually I think 29-34 go a long way towards clarifying the distinction for me. But I wonder if that might not just be because I "get" the sub/dom thing more than I "get" the Asian fetish thing. ("Fetish" is not a synonym for "preference," btw.)
Musing further: there's presumably a pretty major distinction between "the idea of X sex act interests me, because ..." and "I think Y girls (or boys) are hott." The latter is, literally, superficial. The former (even just as fantasy) gets into more complicated issues about relationships, human interactions, etc etc. Although obviously the symbolism of "I like Y girls" says something about the subject's attitude towards human interaction, maybe, but it still seems to be primarily about what Y girls mean to me rather than what X act means to me, and what it could mean to someone else.
this big emphasis in the sex-pos culture on fulfilling your fantasies, as if they're incomplete as mere fantasies
Amen. And it might be hot to share the fantasies with someone and yet not actually want that person to think, "gosh, I guess so and so really wants me to wrap her in the Canadian flag!" (Which is why Dan Savage's recent column letter about the mff threesome thing irritated me. No, by sharing that fantasy, the person is not necessarily saying they want it to happen.)
As far as I can tell, the thing about sexual preferences is that they're mostly completely superficial. They probably all have some underlying meaning, too, but sexual preferences mostly seem to have to do with aspects of appearance and physical type.
I'd like to correct my 53, in that I have had comment-conversations that briefly poisoned my sex life. I remember a guy over at Dr. B's insisting to me that all sexual "pleasure" had by a woman is merely pain that women interpret as pleasurable because they're natural masochists--something silly like that--and it totally spoiled sex for like two weeks, even though I knew he was wrong! So perhaps what we say in this forum about sex stuff can create problems, for real, for people.
No, he's someone you like, and someone I basically banned while subbing for you. Some people bring out the worst in others, and I'm one of those people. He seems reasonably nice when I'm not posting/commenting.
But I should concede, though I'm slightly more uncomfortable speaking about specifics about sex here than I was at B's, that I really don't identify with the concept of sexual irony. (Not saying it doesn't have validity, but I don't feel like it applies to me.) Everything I do sexually is a real expression of an aspect of myself. I'm not pretending. That's who I am. I frequently ordering food in restaurants, fergawdsake. That's how little I like decision making.
Oh, 67 to 64, obv. And 66: Unfogged needs a new motto, something like, "Mineshaft users report a 2% increase in orgasm intensity for every comment posted!"
65: There's a swingers' club near my house that advertised drink specials to celebrate Canada Day.
(Is there a way to denote "swinging" that smells less of plush velvet? Even the bar lists itself that way, though the clientele to whom they cater don't resemble the stereotypical 70s image of "swinging couples.")
I don't really get the anti-Asian fetish (or preference or whatever) thing, either. Perhaps it depends on whether we're talking about Asian-Americans or Asians. Anecdotally, Asian-American women aren't that different from most other American women, and I'm sure most guys get that after dating in the Asian-American pool.
67: Oh, I think I know who you mean. Actually he's kind of stopped commenting now. Which makes me feel kind of bad, on a personal level, but which I also have to admit has made the site way, way better and less stressful for me.
Asian fetish is one of very few I was exposed to in adolescent sex-talk among male peers. It seemed very widespread during the sixties. I remember thinking "Not me, I want Suzanne Pleshette.
I think the idea is that the Asian-fetish guys are really looking for women who are meek and submissive, and they think Asian women are like that, so that's what they go after. Obviously, if they're dating Asian-American women they're going to be disabused of that notion pretty rapidly.
I don't know, 72. My brother has an Asian-chick fetish that I think is gross; the women he's dated have mostly been Asian Americans, but overwhelmingly those who characterologically identify with their original cultures and had certain language barriers (cf. the Walt Stillman line in 34). Katanas and Buddhism and anime and all that play a role too, but I cynically think the draw is the Amerian stereotype of Asians as quiet, sympathetic, and submissive.
72: The Asian fetish is so fucking offensive because it's all, "ooh, Asian girls are so petite! and pretty! and delicate!" and blah blah all the other offensive crap about what's desireable in women, even before you get to the question of whether there's some underlying Orientalist fantasy of submissive geisha girls or whateverthefuck. It's like the most objectifying ethnic fetish there is, I think.
Also because when you get annoyed about it, men tend to accuse you of feeling threatened. Because of course no woman would possibly object to objectification if she weren't just jealous.
And finally, it's revoltingly common in men who otherwise seem reasonably intelligent.
I think it's revoltingly common in men who are socially incompetent. It's also something that's reinforced early, because it's such a common and pervasive fetish and is to varying degrees connected to other obsessions over Japanese pop culture, it's an easy preference for young men to take on when they don't know what they think but they're trying to establish a sexual identity.
57:No, no looling like Jaclyn Smith rather than Cheryl Ladd makes you really hot! In your fantasies. I would wonder about anyone fantasizing they were Kate Jackson, tho. That's kinda sick.
I am terrible at fantasizing. Having gone to bed with actual people, I have found that sex is only interesting or fun to the degree the partner is an individual and surprises you. I have no idea what Salma Hayek would be like in bed;I have even less of an idea what Salma Hayek would be like in bed with me. So I just can't seem to fantasize about Salma Hayek.
I only fantasize about women I have already bedded, doing the things we have already done. I consider this really weird, a terrible flaw.
77: Bitch, the reason I'm not so harsh on those guys is because I think their weird misogynistic posturing is just to cover the fact that they want a chicks who don't know what nerds they are. When I slept with the "Asian-fetish" guy, it became apparent that he isn't into submissiveness at all--in fact, in bed he was Mr. Vanilla. I asked him why he hadn't dated white girls, and his thing was that white girls weren't as into him.
This reminds me of an infuriating interaction I had this weekend with a friend of a friend who is a petit vegan fellow who works in the arts, but insists on dressing like Johnny Cash and making fun of "sissy girl shit" because he's terrified people will think he's gay. He acts like a misogynistic asshole, but it's a posture to cover his fear that he's not cool.
Neither of these are examples of why we shouldn't loathe these guys for their misogyny and racism, but I think that misogyny and racism are often ways dorky guys try to mainstream their personalities.
The Asian fetish is so fucking offensive because it's all, "ooh, Asian girls are so petite! and pretty! and delicate!" and blah blah all the other offensive crap
As opposed to what? A fetish for blondes, or big breasts? And who doesn't have a preference for pretty sexual mates? Or rather, who says, "I prefer my mates ugly"? It's fetishes all the way down.
I guess I don't get the asian fetish thing. Just watched a movie last night, "H", with a 6-foot female homicide detective as the lead. And she was the lead detective, made the decisions, gave orders, solved the crime, used her gun.
I watch a lot of Asian movies, and asian women don't all look like Winona Ryder or Jena Malone.
Asian women from Asia do remain part of the human race, I hope.
I do have an alibi, in that I had studied Chinese for ten years before going to Taiwan, and I actually had had no intention of getting married when I went over there, but then things happened.
However, the truth is that I am and was socially incompetent, nerdy, and vanilla when I went over there (and also short), and was glad to be in a place where that was OK. Socially incompetent, nerdy guys with no other major problems are well advised to go someplace where they're socially acceptable, for example Taiwan, rather than continue to try to compete in an arena where they're sure to lose.
As I said, Asian women from Taiwan are not submissive. They tend to stay in the background, but they're usually full partners in their husband's businesses, and when doing business over there you always have to understand that.
No one's accusing you of having the Asian fetish, John. There's no problem with white guys dating Asian women per se, it's just that there's a certain kind of white guy who only wants to date Asian women because of some stereotypical (and mistaken) ideas about what they're like.
Wrenae:
"But we're talking about FANTASY here, aren't we? I may be way wrong, but I can't see how the "negotiation" phase really plays into the fantasy. The reality, yes, but the fantasy, no."
No, I think that most doms, even in their fantasies, imagine mutual consent. And in cases where their fantasies don't include such consent, they will often still include a genuine concern for the well-being of the submissive. I think that submissives' fanstasies are more likely to involve involuntary captivity and cruel masters. But I'm speaking with very little experience, here.
"'Fetish', of course, being a synonym for 'preference'."
While "fetish" is sometimes used that way, I think it's more useful to define a "fetish" as a condition for arousal. If the fetishistic object isn't present, either in reality or in fantasy, then there's no arousal, or greatly diminished pleasure. Maybe that's the same as a strong or very strong preference, but not a simple preference. "Fetish" sometimes also connotates that the desire is pretty unusual or disgusting, but sometimes it doesn't. Depends on who's using it.
As for the "asian fetish". Well, a real fetish for Asians would probably be pretty creepy. But I've always found that Japanese, Korean, South Asian, and to a lesser extent Chinese women are somewhat more attractive to me on average. I would probably only be interested in one who grew up in America, though, because a shared language and culture is important to me in a relationship. That doesn't make me a bad person, does it? In fact, I think it might be partly because Asians tend to be smaller, and I'm attracted to small. Not because of the facial features. But they do have a nicer skin tone. And if anything, I think of Asian women to be more assertive, not less, and that's part of the appeal. And if those correlated traits weren't present in some particular Asian woman, then I doubt I would still be more attracted to them than if they were more European.
And in any case, it's not something I actively look for. There are many other, much more important qualities to look for, so I can't afford to be picky about something like ethnic background.
"As far as I can tell, the thing about sexual preferences is that they're mostly completely superficial."
Well, stated sexual preferences are indeed almost entirely based on body type. But there are many, many non-physical things that can make or break sexual compatibility, and I'm aware of many cases where someone who's kind of plain but very attractive in non-physical ways becomes sexually attractive to someone else as they become infatuated with the person. So, no.
A friend of mine who taught in Taiwan said that it was common for her male colleagues to date Taiwanese women, but almost no American women dated Taiwanese men. She said it was because of the Orientalist conflation of "Asian" with "feminine" -- Asian guys were seen as asexual.
89: Yeah, I know, SCMT: I was just being a smartass.
85: JE, I hope you know any scorn in my 80 is directed at those who use misogyny to cover up their interest in cultural difference, not those who escape into other cultures.
My current bf was a male model in Taiwan when he graduated college. I think, for him, it was a similar disaffection with American culture--not women specifically, but with the bourgeois Manhattanites he grew up around--and it helped him sort out what he was really angry about, ethically, and what he was merely reacting against because it hadn't been good to him. And, needless to say, he probably got some satisfaction out of being looked at as a super-gorgeous guy while here he's merely handsome.
Oh, I also forgot to add my diatribe against the chocolate-box theory of women. "I prefer the raspberry-filled dark chocolates." "Really? I like coconut myself." "Oh, no, nuts and chews for me."
96: I just like biting into all of them, sucking the filling out, enjoying the surprise, and then leaving the empty chocolate shell in the box for someone else to find.
I doubt that the "Asian fetish" has the importance people give it here. It's just that socially inept, nerdy guys who want to have a relationship find that they're not completely unattractive to Asian women. Perhaps the word gets around.
The problem with your counter-example, pdf, is that I've never heard guys having that particulary conversation. Or if so, "outdoorsy" was synonym for "athletic w/good legs & willing to have sex in the woods." Yeah, I think she's objecting to the objectification of women based on their hair color, height, butt-size, boob-size, etc., not their personalities.
I can't agree with this. It seems to me that a fetish is a preference so strong it crowds, or nearly crowds, non-conforming ideas out. The stereotypical guy with the Asian fetish doesn't just think Asian women are pretty (etc), or even, on average prettier than most, but that they are so uniquely pretty that other women are ugly in comparison.
From the discussion above, it seems that in some cases a substitution for the word 'delusion' for fetish might be appropriate.
Is this asian fetish about a particular body type and look, or what?
No, it's about categorizing people as if they were things, to start with, and specifically preferring X category because it supposedly represents the ne plus ultra of the thing being categorized. E.g., to pick on Tim:
And who doesn't have a preference for pretty sexual mates? Or rather, who says, "I prefer my mates ugly"?
That right there. A lot of people don't particularly prefer "prettiness." Some people like strength, some people like assertiveness, some can't resist a pair of arresting eyes, some get goosebumps from a particular timbre of voice, some find straight long hair irresistibly silky, some find shyness endearing, and so on and so on. The whole "I like women with these physical categories" thing does offend me, yes, and the "I just happen to be attracted to women whose physical categories just happen to stereotypically signify delicacy, fragility, exoticness, and charm" without any acknowledgment that those qualities tend largely to reconfirm the ideal of feminine weakness, also offends me. Greatly.
Or rather, "these physical attributes" (not "categories") that are specifically racialized and/or exclusively about appearance. As if race and appearance were the primary criteria for physical attraction.
Maybe for some people, race and appearance are the primary criteria for physical attraction? But if so? I feel justified in finding those people creepy and offensive.
Some people like strength, Fetish, and pretty standard one. a pair of arresting eyes Fetish, and a pretty standard one. a particular timbre of voice Deep voice fetish? Standard. some find straight long hair irresistibly silky A fetish that, IME, drives many African-American women nuts.
"Yeah, I think she's objecting to the objectification of women based on their hair color"
Objectification based on hair color? Sorry, but dark hair does not carry any implied or assumed characteristics. I do not assume that, oh, 90% of the women of the world are a "type".
"Fetish", of course, being a synonym for "preference"
No, not really. It's the difference between finding Asian features hot and thinking they're all interchangeable anime girls/geisha or finding Swedish leggy blondes hot and thinking all Swedes are suicidal sex kittens. There's a particular exoticism with fetishes that isn't the same in preferences.
106: Okay, Bitch, but I was being entirely serious in my 100. I really do find myself wanting to try all the flavors, and then categorizing them as such in hindsight. It's not good and not right and I have seriously tried to wean myself off of thinking of sexual partners this way. The opposite side of the same chocolate-box coin is what Kundera romanticizes as the "epic lover" in Unbearable Lightness, the lover who thinks of women in dehumanizing categories, and wants to fuck them all. The problem is not the limiting of the attractive categories. The problem is that we categorize our lovers to begin with.
108: You're using fetish in the "preference" sense. It would be better for this discussion to use "preference" for that and "fetish" only for very strong preferences.
BPhd, as far as I know, everyone's desires are given and are mostly pretty superficial ("fetishes all the way down"). Perhaps if you look at them introspectively you'll see a subtext or whatever, but arousal is at a pretty thoughtless level. And maybe someone realizes at some point that there's a pattern to his arousal.
It may be possible to "work on" these patterns, but that doesn't sound like any fun at all, and sex is supposed to be fun.
There's a lot to be said for getting away from the "10" frame of mind, where you're only willing to be involved with women who fit into your stereotypical obsession. But I don't think that your fetishes change.
"The whole "I like women with these physical categories" thing does offend me, yes"
So you're offended when someone says "All things being equal, I like people with X physical characteristic", even if that same person gives much more weight to many other non-physical characteristics? Or is it the exclusion of personality from the consideration of attractiveness what offends you?
Yes, as in "gentlemen prefer blondes" or "red hot redheads." Us brunettes hardly ever get objectified in this manner because we are so terribly common.
What is interesting about this thread is how it segues from one to another example of the same phenomenon.
1. Guys who are shut down for talking about their fantasies are shut down (perhaps) because we are afraid their fantasies aren't individual -- that is to say, we don't trust them to enact those fantasies (if ever) with a fully aware, consenting partner in a personal relationship. The fantasies aren't fully "safe" because it seems so close to a line, so easy to slip into just wanting any female body as a prop to fulfill the fantasy.
2. Guys who are criticized for having an "Asian fetish" are being criticized (perhaps) because we are afraid their interest isn't individual-- that is, they are not attracted to a particular woman who has X physical trait, but they are proclaiming a one-size-fits-all definition of what "Asian women" are like and pursuing partners as if they are interchangeable.
Tim, none of that is the point. The point is that when we are talking specifically about men's "preferences" w/r/t women, it is not neutral to point out that an astonishingly large number of men "just happen" to prefer women who they categorize by (1) race and (2) the physical appearance of delicacy.
I mean, fine: dismiss it by saying "everyone likes different things." But then you have to accept that I'm going to view that dismissal with much the same suspicion as I view statements that it's only coincidence that women "just happen" to spend more time and money on their appearance than men do.
114: Yes, people have physical preferences. I think it's likely those preferences are pretty static and inflexible. (And I think I see the point of your comment, and I agree that BPhD seems to be giving too much moral weight to what people find physically appealing.) But people can be turned on, or off, by so much more than looks. Don't you agree?
In retrospect, I have found, to my slight alarm, that over half of my lovers have been gentlemen whose fathers, but not mothers, were/are non-practicing Jews. Is that weird? I used to want to add to my Friendster profile something like, "Bad News for Half-Jews," but I realized that was gross, and not actually reflective of how I choose partners. Weird, though, I think, and somewhat disturbing.
Maybe it's just that many guys with Asian fetishes are socially clueless, but I've had a few Asian-American friends mention how annoying it is when someone attempts to compliment them by saying "I like Asian girls", and that's it's more annoying than a regular generalizing compliment ("I like blondes.")
Some guys trying to sponsor fiancées can be like this. Went to a site to meet foreign woman, met an Asian/South American/Eastern European girl, bonus that she doesn't speak English so well, bring her here because she'll be submissive & not like those American feminists. (N.B. immigration forums may make you lose your mind.) Methinks it's not just a simple preference for dark hair and interesting eyes at work here.
I really think that the word "fetish" is always abused. It's a way of devaluing someone else's desires. It may be that there's something wrong with the guys accused of having an "Asian woman fetish", but I don't think that they're worse than the average guy their age, and they're probably better than guys with blonde fetishes.
I am very protective of socially inept nerds if they have no other major problems.
124: Gratitude, the only aphrodisiac some guys need. It's probably similar to the compulsion of wealthy NYC guys to pick up young financially-struggling women and buy them tickets to shows, new underwear, etc. It's a way to force sex through obligation.
Even better -- you can hold a green card and a langugage barrier over her head! The anger at American feminists is crazy, especially Hillary Clinton, who apparently made it impossible for them to date an American.
(I'm bad; I root for the interchangeable wife seekers to be saddled with someone using him for a green card. Karmic balance!)
Few things interest me less than discussing the morality of the sexual fetishes of others (well, that's not strictly true, I suppose), but reading this thread I couldn't help but think of this comment, and wonder whether it was perhaps meant to be posted here, instead of there. I mean, it actually makes sense here (other than the cab ride bit).
Maybe this comment was written not by a troll, but by an anonymous poster from the future?
106 I agree with--we all do that, I suspect, to some extent. But usually we do it as a joke, and there's a bit of sort of self-deprecating irony in it, no?
115: I'm not crazy about the "looks v. personality" distinction, as if those were the only two possible categories. And I'm not saying (I think pretty clearly not saying) that I care at all if someone says, "I have a weakness for dark skin and soft voices" or "I admit that blondes turn my head" or "I do tend to find Pakistani men astonishingly pretty." But those things are really different, I think, in tenor and tone than "I'm into Asian chicks" or "I like women with large breasts, dark skin, curly hair, a slight accent, and whose shoe sizes are no larger than 8 1/2."
130: There's certainly something to be said for not dating super-hot guys. I had exactly one super-hot boyfriend, and it was a misery unto me. Everywhere we went, friends were pulling me aside to whisper, "How'd you bag that babe?" and strange women would physically remove him from my side. The universe conspires to ensure that no super-hot guy can date a woman for her brains.
But while I'm here, I may as well contribute this ancedote: an acquaintance of mine with a huge asian fetish (though he was fairly indiscriminately horny so didn't stick only to asian women) explained his fetish to me by noting that it was "a much more silky experience." (Fucking an asian girl, that is). I was not in a great position to argue (never personally having, um, had an asian fetish), though I found his statement somewhat absurd.
Of course, he was fairly misogynistic, so take that for what it's worth.
What's specifically creepy about the "Asian fetish"? Maybe people know things I don't.
Most guys 16-22 have weird ideas about women. The ones who get their ideas from anime probably are more inept and lame that the ones who get their ideas from MAXIM, but I find MAXIM guys extremely creepy.
I really doubt the use of the word "fetish" for anything other than people who have sex with shoes and underwear. Alternatively, "fetish" could just mean any stereotyped desire, however harmless, which doesn't make much sense from a high-minded, philosophical point of view.
I don't think this is true. You can fetishize physical characteristics. Fat fetish, etc.
I think a distinction is being lost between having a simple preference, or finding a body part sexually exciting, and letting that preference or excitation rise above your actual experience of the other person. I use "fetish" to mean the latter. A lot of women (I was one of them) complained in B's thread about the experience of feeling that one or the other of our body parts were fetishized during sex. It's the difference between whether you feel like Guy X is thinking "I like Tia's breasts" or "Mmm...breasts. Oh, look, there's a woman attached." Sometimes you can get both vibes from the same guy at different times.
"Never shall a young man,
Thrown into despair
By those great honey-colored
Ramparts at your ear,
Love you for yourself alone
And not your yellow hair."
"But I can get a hair-dye
And set such colour there,
Brown, or black, or carrot,
That young men in despair
May love me for myself alone
And not my yellow hair."
"I heard an old religious man
But yesternight declare
That he had found a text to prove
That only God, my dear,
Could love you for yourself alone
And not your yellow hair."
Traditionally, "fetish" refers to a sexual response to a body part or inanimate object (hence talking about an "Asian fetish" is kind of objectifying in and of itself), but it's often extended to mean any sort of unusual sexual preference, especially deeply held.
118 struck me too. Guilty as charged. I get frustrated when men deny that their sexual preferences have any kind of meaning, but I admit that I'm way too impatient about letting people work stuff out for themselves.
The word "fetish" has such a wide range of definitions, most of which have been used in this thread, that it really is not very useful without being defined clearly and used consistently. And then every time someone else uses the word, you have to figure out which definition they're using.
dark hair does not carry any implied or assumed characteristics
Surely untrue. Blondes are stereotypically wholesome and/or slightly airheaded; redheads, hot/feisty/funny; brunettes, exotic/mysterious/sexually experienced/womanly. Think film noir. Think about Lilith in Cheers. Think about which of Charlie's Angels was "the smart one."
Anyway, people should hop on over to the craigslist M4W personals. Probably two thirds of the ads say something like, "seeking busty brunette"...and that's it. I see more than one ad complaining about the lack of busty Asians. I think someone who is looking for someone to fulfill a set of fantasy physical characteristics, and doesn't have an articulable ideas about what they want besides that, can be reasonably said to have something screwy in the way their sexual preferences are set, whether you want to call that a fetish or not. On the other hand, "I tend to like..." is not theoretically objectionable to me, although I'd never put something like that in a personal ad.
I guess I have a hard time understanding the vehemence of the anti-Asian-fetish sentiment, but maybe I just haven't seen much of the sort of thing some of you (B, especially) are talking about. But FWIW, if you're talking about youngish and/or socially inept guys who think they're interested in Asian-American women based on a stereotype that they're delicate and submissive, the stereotype isn't going to survive contact with most actual Asian-American women for very long unless the guy is really, really clueless. In the meantime, it's possible that the guy's screwy stereotypes will help him get past inhibitions and actually get to know actual women, which seems like a good thing to me even if he comes out of the experience with a continued preference for Asian-American women (at this point, I'd consider it no less reasonable nor more harmful than most other dating/relationship preferences). Or the guy may be clueless, learn nothing, and continue to seek his stereotyped Asian flower, in which case (a) he's likely destined for a lot of bad experiences, both for himself and for the women he dates, but (b) I kinda think he fits better in the general category "asshole" than anything specific to his dating preferences.
But then you have to accept that I'm going to view that dismissal with much the same suspicion as I view statements that it's only coincidence that women "just happen" to spend more time and money on their appearance than men do.
I can live with that. After all, you have to live with my suspicion that that you can't really see into the souls or personalities of the hot World Cup players (esp. one nationality, IIRC).
Mostly, people seem to be saying that creepy guys are creepy. And some of them are in to Asians. I buy that.
Tall guys. Being a short guy is like being flat-chested woman, except that there's no operation to fix it.
I really believe that the dating / romance game is a crapshoot, not particularly fair in any way, and that most people assume that everyone else has better luck than they do. So count your blessings if you're happy.
On the flip side I doubt it would be that hard to find Asian-American men who only want to date women of Asian descent, or who think of women from Asia as delicate, submissive, etc. (all the stereotypes except, possibly, exotic). And I'm pretty sure you could find analogous attitudes among pre-1924 - and for that matter, some current - European immigrants who only wanted to marry within their group. Some of this is group/cultural loyalty, but it gets mixed in with the idea of America = modern, old countries (wherever they may be) = traditional, and traditional = traditional relationships. I'd be interested to know if something like a Euro-fetish exists in any non-European countries.
142: "I tend to like" is probably something that'd put me off a little if seen in a personal ad, but something I'd be very surprised not to find in a person.
By the time I came back, others had made this point: I have a preference for dark-haired, in the sense that it's the first thing I notice, and will be drawn to. And when a particular woman has been both blonde and brunette, I almost always prefer the dark.
But this preference doesn't survive contact; I've had great experiences with blondes, and that seems as it should be. It would be sad to be hung-up on it.
149: Right. I tend to like tall, broad chested men with full dark hair and prominent blue or brown eyes and long eyelashes who manage to appear intellectual/brooding/sensitive in their posture or vibe. I would not say that in a personal ad. (I've dated men who were no taller than me, who were blonde, who were slighter than I'd like.)
After all, you have to live with my suspicion that that you can't really see into the souls or personalities of the hot World Cup players
Fair enough. I'm sure they're all heinous jocks and I'd hate them. But I still reserve the right to enjoy the eye candy. And I don't care if that makes me a hypocrite.
Bitch, if pornography is evidence, every form of attraction is a fetish, because it's all out there. Busty, long-legged blondes are probably at the top of the list.
On the flip side I doubt it would be that hard to find Asian-American men who only want to date women of Asian descent, or who think of women from Asia as delicate, submissive, etc. (all the stereotypes except, possibly, exotic).
This may be a good time to remind ourselves that there are several countries in Asia and that their cultures differ. I have a fairly hard time understanding the apparent prevalence of stereotypes of "Asian" as opposed to stereotypes of Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Filipino, etc., which may at least have some sort of cultural roots.
146: No, being a short guy is like being a tall woman. I imagine there are more guys that would date flat-chested woman (I'm one) than guys that would date tall woman (I'm not one). If you're a man, you'd rather be 6' 3" than 5' 5", and if you're a woman you'd rather be 5' 1" than 5' 8". (Those are respectively the 95th and 5th percentile heights for 20 year old white men and women.)
152: That's actually not a good place to start, B. The distinction presumably being made is between being attracted to certain physical characteristics (skin tone, hair color, facial features, etc.) commonly associated with Asian women and being attracted to certain cultural stereotypes commonly associated with Asian women. The prevalence of Asian porn sites does nothing to establish a fantastic abundance of the latter; it only establishes that there's a lot of the former around.
About 1/3 of singles ads for men specify height, and it's always taller than me.
Actually, singles ads don't specify boobage, so I suppose my specific example is no good, but as far as superficial characteristics go, I think height is fairly analogous to "good figure".
Tia and Bitch make a very good point with the Craigslist and Googlings. I may say that I am sexually attracted to brainy men who are at least 5'8" but shorter than 6'2", middlingly built, and who look me in the eye when they smile, or to brainy women whose bodies move carelessly through space and who flirt shamelessly, and I am probably not alone in wanting these things. If you Googled, you'd find personals ads that say the same. But those personals ads would be less likely to make you throw up than results for "Asian chicks." It is different, because what I want is not a commodity.
This may be a good time to remind ourselves that there are several countries in Asia and that their cultures differ.
Obviously. I don't know why my comment was any different than any other of the previous 150 using the word Asian, but apparently it needed this extra clarification.
That is to say, even if you want the same thing the "Asian chicks" guys want for completely different reasons, I'd be a little freaked out to realize there's already a price tag on what your heart's set on.
That's because none of the creeps are actually culturally literate; Asian's Asian. (The creeps hitting on my friend didn't ask if she was Chinese or Korean first.)
148: I can think of three friends who I've alluded to here, off the top of my head. Not going to give you their names, but... this isn't a strawman here.
A lot of the reason I like the Asian look is the very straight, smooth, very black hair. I find it equally hot, and lamentably rare, on white women.
156: Americans and Europeans can't tell East Asians apart from one another, and vice versa. If the different cultures were easily physically identifiable by different physical characteristics, I imagine the stereotypes would be a little finer-grained as well.
What's wrong with being attracted to the "cultural stereotypes" of Asian women? The cultural stereotype of Asian women that attracted me to them, and as far as I know it's an accurate stereotype, is that they seem much more likely to be happy with a guy like me.
You know, vain self-centered guys are deplorable creatures, but a guy who has the habit of being attracted only to women who like him is actually a pretty lucky guy.
I've had a couple of female friends who told me that they developed a Jewish (guy) fetish, and my general sense is that it's a pretty common fetish in some areas/fields. It doesn't strike me as overly problematic. It's not useful--I'm not Jewish--but not problematic. Wierdly (to me), I had a Jewish colleague who was really bothered by it.
And if you've ever been taken for an ethnicity you're not, under the assumption that all Asians - where Asian has already been narrowed by assumption to mean East Asian - you wouldn't find it hard to believe that there are stereotypes that don't go too far in precision beyond "Asian people have the qualities x, y z."
154, and 152: But that's exactly the point. I can't believe that y'all aren't just as familiar as I am with the "jade princess"/"geisha girl"/"me love you long time" stereotype.
Anyway. Fuck that shit, it's gross. I, personally, have a thing about bone structure: cheekbones, jaws and noses. I prefer men who are more slightly built as a general rule, but I've certainly dated fat men too. Hands that look like they do something (long fingers, bony rather than padded, gestures that use fingers distinctly rather than waving the whole mitt like a paw) are a big deal.
I admit that I cannot abide puppy-dog eyes and that, in general, while I don't care about dark vs. fair, pale to the point of fair lashes and eyebrows doesn't tend to appeal. Although bone structure trumps all.
Unless the guy's an idiot, in which case, forget it.
KC Chang, a physical anthropologist and anthropologist, said that Northern Chinese, Koreans, and Japanese were genetically almost indistinguishable, and that Southern Chinese, Cambodians, and Vietnamese are also very similiar.
Culturally there are differences, but also similiarities.
161: Good grief, eb. The reason your comment stood out is that it seemed to assume that Asian-American men have the same bizarre stereotypes of Asian-American women that some non-Asian Americans apparently have, which seems unlikely unless they lack mothers, sisters, aunts, etc. But that's just the reason why I threw the comment in where I did. I didn't make the comment earlier in the thread for a whole bunch of reasons, including the fact that it was already 100+ comments long by the time I got around to reading it.
91: Someone I met once who had spent the previous year+ teaching in Indonesia said that being a single (western) woman in Indonesia was incredibly lonely, because the asian men didn't approach her, and the western (single) men were mostly asian-fetishists. (Or at least had a strong asian preference).
Myself, I was all prepared to get all defensive about having a mediterranean fetish, but it seems (judging from intervening remarks) that it's only a preference, and that's okay.
163, 168: I'm plenty familiar with the "geisha" stereotype we're talking about here, but I've never met anyone who's actually been attracted to Asian women because of that stereotype. I'm sure they exist, but that set seems to be significantly smaller than the set of men who are just attracted to the physical traits commonly associated with Asian women.
The stereotypes I've heard:
delicate
submissive
exotically beautiful
compliant
uncomplaining
sexually adventurous and schoolgirl virginal
Forbidden City geisha (don't ask)
giggly
For the wife-seeking marriage broker types:
never questions her husband
grateful to be married to an American
is from a savage garden uncorrupted by feminism.
What bothers me about the stereotype isn't just that it's all attached to the girl with sleek black hair and almond eyes, but that's it's almost like a nice way to express a preference for dating a doormat you can wipe your feet on.
This is really apropos of little, but my friend who's spent the last few years in Kabul told me, "You have got to come to Afghanistan for the cock."* There were very few available, desirable women, and tons and tons of elite special forces types, who were hott + educated. She could get men she thought would be totally out of her league in the states.
*she did not actually put it this way. I just think that's funnier. But washerdreyer doesn't want me to lie to him.
170: If you want a meta-stereotype: Chinese, Japanese, and Koreans are not PC about stereotyping one another. Chinese also have a full set of stereotypes about various sorts of other Chinese. And Chinese also have well-developed stereotypes about what Chinese are like, even though the stereotype is an idealized one which is not completely accurate.
These things may be changing but I can assure you that people over there are much, much less careful about these questions than we are.
Most Chinese also have very definite ideas about what marriages should be like, and so I think that eb was basically right that a lot of Chinese guys would prefer a Chinese wife for stereotypical reasons. And certainly most Chinese mothers want their sons to marry Chinese women, and in traditional families that's very important.
Many Chinese women and some Chinese men prefer to marry non-Chinese, for mirror-image stereotypical reasons.
167! That! Right there! "Asian" = "homogeneous category." Gross. And it's totally distinct from saying, "I find long straight heavy black hair really erotic."
170: No, I think EB's 147 is quite specific: that first of all, there are a lot of people who prefer to date within their own ethnic group, and second of all, there are a lot of people who are not white who have stereotypes about ethnic traits. (Examples: Filipino guys who will tell you that Filipino women are too bossy, Indian men who will say that they want an Indian wife because Indian women know how to run a household, whatever.) It's true, and these guys do have mothers and sisters (which is often where they base those stereotypes). I dated more than one guy in high school who told me that he tended to date white chicks because they (I) were less likely to embody X stereotype about his own ethnic group.
Just think of Ogged's statements about the prospect of marrying an Iranian woman.
170: But I was making a different point, about people's stereotypes about their own cultures and "old countries". I mentioned Europeans too with analogous attitudes in the past. I did not say "Asian-American men" have these views, but that you could find it among some of them. And having come across this view in person - mainly centering around the desirability of marrying someone from the old country who hasn't been to the US - I'd say that having female relatives is not necessarily going to overturn one's stereotypes.
182: He lived in Spain, right? I'd bet foreigners travelling in any country for pleasure/study/immersion/etc. purposes are going to be more open sexually than a person that never leaves their home country. So he was probably right.
DrB, A White Bear, etc. I never realized having an Asian fetish was so much more disturbing that other fetishes, but then again, not having an Asian fetish myself, I don't understand it either. However, playing the devil's advocate, what makes somebody who prefers Asian women (both in looks and perceived personality) any better or worse than the preferences you stated regarding look and personalities?
185: I believe the consensus is that the creepy part of it is the content of the fetishist's particular conception of Asians--as submissive, delicate, etc.--not the fact that they have such a conception.
I can't keep up. The point I'm trying to make isthat a stereotype of Asian-American women as delicate, submissive flowers (a) doesn't fit most Asian-American women very well, and (b) doesn't fit most Asian cultures very well. I don't think we're disagreeing on those points. As I said earlier in the thread, I think that means that reasonably well-meaning guys who start out operating with such stereotypes aren't going to keep them for very long, and anyone who does is more of a garden-variety asshole than anything else. And at that point I'm not sure why getting off on Asian porn is particularly more offensive than getting off on big-titted blonde porn.
184: That's a bit silly, I think. Just because someone has the money and time to leave their home country doesn't mean they aren't subjected to patriarchal demands. I hate all these stereotypes that people who have the money to travel are somehow smarter, better-looking, nicer, and having better sex than people who don't have the money to travel. As if I'm sitting here on my ass this summer instead of hanging out in Paris because I'm close-minded, not because I'm poor.
Oh, and the fact that they *prefer* people with such qualities. Someone who's attracted to people they think they can control more easily: very creepy.
And for the record, I prefer American-born women with a pretty smile, somewhat curvy/voluptuous, maybe 5'6" to 5'8" who are very smart, confident, assertive, and opinionated. Does this make me a freak too?
That's a bit silly, I think. Just because someone has the money and time to leave their home country doesn't mean they aren't subjected to patriarchal demands.
I thought the idea was that people will do wilder things with people they won't ever see continually in the future. Which has been my experience.
190: Certainly, they're going to be richer, or have rich parents, more often than not. And yes, they get just a much patriarchy as anyone else. But the fact that they spent their money on travel instead of lake houses and Jet Skis means that they tend to have a more adventurous personality, and people who tend more adventurous in general are going tend more adventurous sexually.
And just so I can talk in the other direction, there's a fairly important distinction between something as strong as an "ethnic fetish" and having found oneself both attracted and attractive to people of a particular ethnicity more often that not. If you set the standard for what constitutes a creepy fetish too low you run the risk of finding a lot of what could be ordinary interracial dating suspect, or rather, ordinary dating.
Nah, I think that having a stereotype about "Asian women," regardless of what the stereotype is, is pretty offensive, actually. And yeah, I do find the categorization of porn by ethnicity/physical characteristics (Asian! Black! Huge tits!) to add an extra layer of ickiness to most porn, to be honest. Again, it's the chocolate-box theory: it's the idea that women are commodities, to be sorted according to whether or not they fit your particular decorating style.
I think that the so-called Asian fetish, in any form, is threatening because it basically amounts to voluntarily opting out from the normal American dating scene, often by guys who couldn't handle the normal American dating scene. It's sort of like taking your marbles and going home.
Someone on a hip scene who preferred to date hip Asian-American women would be a completely different story. For him it really would just be liking that kind of hair and skin, etc. Though again, it seems odd that craving a particular kind of meaningless physical attraction is OK, whereas liking a different kind of relationship is not.
My sister hated it when while in Ireland, men assumed she was a sexually adventurous co-ed just because she was in college, pretty, had an American accent and enjoyed drinking whiskey at pubs.
189: It's not getting off on porn that I've, at least, been discussing. And I don't think the Asian fetish is any worse than any other fetish premised on the idea that a) this ethnic group is all alike and b) they'll all be submissive, delicate flowers (and they acknowledge me as rightfully God.) (Eastern Europe and South America sometimes get this, too)
It may be a garden-variety asshole one, but it's sure a bunch of focused assholes.
190: In other words, it's not about having the *money* to travel, it's about having the *inclination*. And for the people that have such huge amounts of money that travelling isn't adventurous, the correlation probably dissipates.
"ordinary dating" should have appeared earlier in the last sentence of 197. I'm trying to avoid the "happens to be" construction - you know, something like "ordinary dating between people who happen to be of different ethnic backgrounds."
So are mannerisms (not related to someone's identity/interests), things like how eye contact is made and vocal tonality less chocolate-boxy than skin color ethnic features? because that seems to just be a male/female gender thing.
I have it on good authority that the most beautiful women on the planet live in Penticton, BC.
Seriously, I can't imagine having preferences as pronounced as some people express. I've seen/known beautiful women of every race, hair color, ethnicity, body type (within two standard deviations of the mean). WRT personality, the personal so overwhelms the general, that one really has to say that anyone looking for answers (other than shared cultural background) in ethnicity is going to be disappointed.
I think the reason he was right about the Spanish women vs. foreigners has more to do with the cultural dynamics about sex in Spain. Of course, he was not immune to that bullshit himself. Once he told me while we were doing something or other that I wasn't a lady (I can't remember the words he used in Spanish; I guess it must have been something like "No eres una dama.") And I gave him a look like, "I hope you're teasing, because what exactly is the problem with me doing sex stuff you want to do to?" He saw the storm brewing and said something to mollify me.
I suddenly feel like, somehow, by posting these comments, we have found out a great deal about our co-commenters that we never would have known. I re-assert my #24.
Again, it's the chocolate-box theory: it's the idea that women are commodities, to be sorted according to whether or not they fit your particular decorating style
This implies it's only women that are subject to being commoditized; every demographic is. What about the "tall, dark and handsome" myth, the "Jovial Fat Guy", the short, wimpy doormat guy, etc. You've seen the movie cars - count the number of different "male" characters there are.
194, etc.: Isn't "Fernando" (ABBA) about that kind of thing? I used to imagine Fernando complaining that he really wasn't that sexy, he had many interests besides women, and that he resented being objectified by Swedish corporation executives (ABBA is incorporated) on their two-week vacations.
200: John, come on. The problem that the women here have with the Asian "preference" is not because we're threatened by men who won't date us, or by all those women in Taiwan who are stealing our men.
179: In case it wasn't clear from my last comment, I agree, and if you'd referred to Chinese-American men having stereotypes of Chinese-American women, etc., I'd have agreed with the original comment. But I took the original comment to be suggesting that this bizarro-world white guy idea that all Asian women are half geisha and half Subic Bay prostitute might be shared by men who were closely acquainted with actual Asian or Asian-American women, which is why I responded as I did.
201: I've never heard that stereotype about South Americans. Mexicans, maybe. But isn't there a stereotype of "Latin women = very femme but still assertive/bitchy"?
214: Porn for straight women, I mean. I'm well aware of the gay "twink" and "bear" porn obsessions, but I disclaim all personal responsibility for those.
213: Marriage broker stuff: meet beautiful Latina girl from Colombia, submissive, raised to love husband and children unlike American feminists, knows her place and how to keep her figure, and when you get her here, here's things you can do to ensure she won't change.
216- but 80% or something of porn is consumed by men. If more (straight) women were to start buying porn, perhaps there'd have to start being more extreme and singular categories too (i.e. specializiation) rather than the most broadest, generic possible to target a general audience. That is, law of supply and demand almost requires differentiation and promotes objectifying singular traits, right?
200: Well, it seems more as if you are offended that a bunch of men whom you wouldn't touch with a ten-foot pole in a million years had the nerve to look elsewhere, instead of perishing from humiliation.
The guys who get mail-order brides out of magazines probably are mostly pretty creepy, and guys who organize their lives around enormous collections of Asian porn too. But as far as I can tell, we're talking about nerdy, socially inept college undergrad guys who prefer to date East Asian women because they have some hope there.
219: But does that really have anything to do with ethnicity, or is it just "buy a beautiful poor woman who will put up with your shit as long as she gets to eat regularly"?
Hmm. The marriage broker stuff seems to be more about destitution and economic control than ties to cultural ideas of submission. Russian brides, anyone? Outside of that, I'm pretty sure there aren't stereotypes about meek, submissive Russian women.
220: I'm not sure about the quality of this source, but take it as you will:
QueenDom confirmed what we all suspected- that the greatest consumers of porn are men (notice how I didn't describe a sultry Adonis in the preceding paragraph). In fact, 28% of men claim to be exposed to porn almost every day. 27% are titillated several times a week and 24% only indulge themselves several times a month. In rather sharp contrast, only 6% of women view porn daily. 23% are exposed several times a month and 33% only take a peek several times a year! As many as 21% of women participate less than twice a year. It seems that porn plays a prominent role in the sex lives of many men, and is less a part of the sex regime of most women.
Almost as many women as men view porn at least occasionally, but men consume it more frequently.
219: I suspect 99% of it is economic control, but the men seem to link it to the superior culture of the bride's home culture. She's marrying him for love, you see, not to get a chance at llife in the U.S. If she gets here and learns English, the feminists who have An Agenda will get at her.
226 - yeah, and if you were selling coffee would you target the occasional consumer or the frequent consumer? And if there were 1000s of flavors of coffee, wouldn't that all be "reduced" down to simple themes to compete?
228: Yeah, but that doesn't really have any root in the wider stereotypes about the bride's culture. It's just propaganda from the marriage brokers and wishful thinking on the part of the clients.
229: Yeah, I'd say that supports your point. I recall reading somewhere than the percentage of real time spent viewing porn was actually only like 60% men, not 80%, but I also remember the source being very dubious. It'd be interesting to know.
223: Here you go. The russian woman likes to look pretty. She likes to dress well when she walks in the city street to her destination. She wears a dress and pumps, or a suit with a blouse and jewlery. She is concerned about her weight, her hair, how she presents herself. She thinks gym clothes are for the gym.
In Russia, she doesn't have a choice to stay home to take care of her husband, house, and children - for her, it is a dream. . . . The Russian woman's attitude about herself is feminine. She expects to be treated as a lady, she is the weaker gender and knows it. The Russian woman has not been exposed to the world of rampant feminism that asserts its rights in America.
You know what? It's really sad that one jokey comment about the Asian thing completely derailed what otherwise promised to be an interesting discussion. I feel bad for having helped drive that train.
By the way, my point of the porn categories and "Asian fetish" as a grossly oversimplified reduction of correlation looks, personalities, and behaviors is how it extrapoloates to fantasies. Who are we to judge that this one is any worse than the threesome fantasy or big-boobed blonde one or ___?
Having said that, I'm with Wrenae way upthread - you can draw the line in the sand by considering what could be consentual - minors or animals is obviously wrong morally and otherwise.
Though, here is a gray area - what about an attractive co-worker or friend?
240--But there's also about 20 pages of ads for Asian Flower callgirls in the back of every Village Voice edition. Actually, I think that "Asian Flower" is the name of one callout service.
There's a bit of truth in the Asian girl stereotype. (I'm talking especially about Taiwan Chinese, but it's more widely true).
First, they're much less prejudiced against shy, inept, nerdy guys than American women are. Being a nerd is sexy in Taiwan, and already was 20 years ago.
Second, if you want to get out of the competitive dating scene and have a nice ongoing relationship, probably ending in marriage, that's what many or most East Asian women want too.
One thing that was very clear in Taiwan is that all relationships are taken more seriously there. This is true of guy-guy relationships too -- they didn't hang out and chat with strangers much.
The system was: the first date is like a marriage proposal. The second date is like an engagement. The engagement could go along indefinitely. The parents would have to be consulted. Usually there was no marriage until the guy got a career job.
For people for whom our dating system doesn't work, this system, flawed as it is, has its good points.
If there are any East Asians here I would be interested in hearing what they say. Change pseudonyms if you must.
207 makes me nervous. For the record, I've been involved with a grand total of one part-Asian-American woman (who would object to the term), to whom I've been married for a good many years now, and I live in a place that's ethnically-mixed enough that my good friends include a pretty wide variety of mixed couples of various sorts. I'm not thrilled about the idea that some of you might jump to unflattering and unwarranted conclusions about my family. I don't for a minute doubt that there are lots of nasty, misogynist men with a thing for Asian women, but there are lots of nasty, misogynist men, full stop, and I'm not sure why that particular form of nasty misogyny is getting singled out here. If you want to catalog and categorize nasty misogynists, fire away, but that's a different exercise than assuming that there's a need to sort white-Asian couples into acceptable and unacceptable.
242 - Thesis: If a desire is morally reprehensible one has a duty to change it. Discuss.
After having watched the movie "Kinsey" on HBO before I stopped by here, I'd have to say it would start with some smart people studying and researching the idea that fantasies and fetishes are, at least in part, culturally conditioned and therefore why? Then look at which ones are most likely to lead to bad criminal behavior in real life, if any. And, finally, what steps could be taken to stop or prevent people from developing the really dark, destructive ones. But, it'd be a tough balancing act between indvidual rights (i.e. freedom to think) and social justice/order (i.e. preventing crimes). Sounds pretty eerily like "Minority Report" movie.
251: Actually, I think it would be really easy to prevent those kinds of fantasies without violating civil rights. Get rid of rape and child abuse. It wouldn't solve everything, but you'd see a huge improvement.
250: But there are also stereotypes--perhaps better-rooted in the cultures in question--of Korean, Chinese, and Filipina women, among others, as tending rather more to the opposite extreme.
And I didn't do it because I didn't want to make it look like I was intentionally misquoting Teo, but took much restraint not to add the link:
Posted by Becks | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 11:13 AM
"the men had felt guilty-or had made to feel guilty-about deviant desires" s/b "the men felt guilty--or were made to feel guilty--about deviant desires"
Posted by Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 11:20 AM
I agree with Teo's basic point, but I'm a bit bothered by the use of passive voice in Why are men with S&M fantasies considered potential rapists while women with similar fantasies are encouraged to pursue them (or at least not discouraged)? I think the question is, "by whom"? I defended the guy with the dominance (neither sadistic nor rape, if I remember correctly) fantasy, and other people did as well.
That said. I think that if one believes (as I do) that sexual fantasies are shaped by the world one lives in, then it's fairly obvious why male fantasies of dominance would be more troubling than female fantasies of submission (although keep in mind that the original BJ debate that started this whole thing was highly critical not only of submissive fantasies, but even of symbolic submission in the form of blow jobs). Rape is a real problem, male violence against women is a real problem, treating women primarily as sex objects is a real problem. The very things that (presumably) make these fairly common fantasies are the reasons they bother people.
That said, I personally don't see much good in blaming or shaming people for their sex lives (as the original response to the dominantion fantasy in my post was doing). But I also think it's worthwhile to ask folks to think about the way sex is socially constructed. And I think that a certain amount (not all) of the problem straight men have talking about sex as social construct is kind of akin to the problem a lot of white folks have talking about racism: a tendency to take criticism personally and get defensive. Which is sympathetic, but also (if you think about it) a mark of thinking of oneself (still) as being at the center of the discussion.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 11:24 AM
I'm feeling cynical and cranky today, but I'm wondering if one of the reasons there's more...applause when a woman admits to a deviant desire is simply due to the larger idea that women aren't supposed to chase after sex at all, let alone have spent the time constructing complicated fantasies.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 11:28 AM
Why are men with S&M fantasies considered potential rapists while women with similar fantasies are encouraged to pursue them (or at least not discouraged)?
That might have been the tenor of the threads at B's blog, but I've read other blogs where women were harshly criticized for submissive/rape fantasies.
Posted by dagger aleph | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 11:28 AM
I think B's got it roughly right, except that I'm not sure thinking about it or criticizing the underlying themes in male fantasies that implicate violence gets men very far toward excising those themes. Gawd help me for using the word "reinscribe," but I think such discussions also reinscribe those themes.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 11:31 AM
I edited the post to reflect 2.
Posted by Becks | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 11:35 AM
7--Yay! Now I'll go back and edit my post, and the record will make it look like Teo quoted me wrong!
Posted by Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 11:38 AM
6: Necessarily, or does it depend on how the discussion goes? I'm not likely to agree that it's best to just repress ideas we don't like, but I think that this is an interesting possibility. I do think (im limited e) that some ways in which sexual fantasies are explained and articulated can amount mostly to rationalizing and excusing them. But then even saying that gets into really shaky territory where one starts asking questions about whether people's sexual desires are malleable, whether people "should" try to change them, and which people we're talking about. Men with rape fantasies? Teh gays? Pedophiles? Women with submission fantasies? Women who fantasize over men they're not married to? Women who fantasize about other women? Etc.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 11:38 AM
Here's a data point that I'm not sure how it all fits in: When I lived in New Orleans, I met and had a good chat with a proprietor of a BDSM club. (One of those dinner party guests that don't seem at all out of the ordinary when you're in New Orleans.) He said that that women who are new to BDSM come to the club split about 50/50 - half want to dom and half want to sub. Almost all of the men who came to the club wanted to be dominant. He has a rule where a person has to do three submissive scenes over multiple visits before they're allowed to dom anyone and the men are always utterly predictable. 90% of the guys who come in wanting to dom do their three submissive scenes, set something up with him or his wife to learn how to be a good dom (he required training/mentoring), and quit after one lesson, deciding they liked being on the bottom better.
The fact that so many men (from this anecdote, at least) seem confused about what they really like and what really turns them on makes me think there is at least some kind of a cultural component to fantasies people have.
Posted by Becks | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 11:44 AM
9: I myself have wondered about the malleability of desire and whether people might be morally obliged to try to modify their desires. For example, I know a fair number of guys with Asian fetishes -- are they morally obliged to do something about this?
Posted by dagger aleph | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 11:46 AM
11: Okay, that one? Yes.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 11:50 AM
I think 3 mostly explains it.
Posted by Idealist | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 11:51 AM
Why does B hate Asians?
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 11:51 AM
Another reason men with dom fantasies might squick us out:
they could come to fruition -- even if they're unlikely to -- without someone else's consent. The sub's got to have someone playing along. (Note, I am not equating BDSM with rape, just that the fantasy doesn't require someone else's agency.)
Posted by Anonymous | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 11:52 AM
15 me. Also, I think most desires are malleable but most of them aren't worth the effort to bother to change. Guys with Asian chick fetishes piss me off.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 11:54 AM
just that the fantasy doesn't require someone else's agency
That depends on the particular fantasy. I think a lot of doms have fantasies that are simultaneously about domming and their partner's response.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 11:54 AM
Not sure if a response counts as agency.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 11:56 AM
Their partner's turned-on response.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 11:57 AM
Anyway, some doms are crypto-misogynists/possible rapists, so they're squicky for a reason. No one like that in B's threads though.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 11:59 AM
Why does B hate Asians?
When I was stationed in Korea, there was a reasonably large number of American women who would not date men who also dated Korean women. While this could have been a principled stand against whatever bad motivations are the focus of B.'s comment, it always seemed to me to be simply a clever way of dealing with competition.
Posted by Idealist | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 11:59 AM
I do think (im limited e) that some ways in which sexual fantasies are explained and articulated can amount mostly to rationalizing and excusing them.
There are very few topics of conversation that I think should be off-limits; I just think there may be more rationalizing going on than you do. Or that honestly felt and apparently good arguments will be used down the road by some men toward bad ends. Which is to say, I don't really have a solution to offer to any perceived problem.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 12:03 PM
I guess, as I just commented at teo's, I don't really understand the motives behind cheering on the very existence of any group's sexual desires. Yay, for women who can get horny? Because they're always better than women who can't?
I mean, in the cases of my friends and people I know, I can say, "Yay for you for having hot sex that makes you feel happy and validated because that's what you wanted before!" And lord knows I'm doing my part to represent women who are comfortable with talking openly about sexual experience.
But there's a reason I didn't get into the sex wars on my blog or at the Bitch's. I hate the way people who don't know or care about each other get competitive when they talk about sex. Everyone assumes some different value on pleasure, lack of pleasure, kinds of fantasies, kinds of sex acts, and we're not speaking the same language. I like to see a person's face when they tell me they like it when their new boyfriend fucks them in the ass. If they look happy, I say, "Hooray for anal fun!" and if they don't look happy, I say, "Are you sure this is what you want?"
Posted by A White Bear | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 12:07 PM
I should qualify: that isn't a gender-based statement, either. I never trust words alone when talking to anyone about sex, male or female.
Posted by A White Bear | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 12:10 PM
Actually the Asian chick fetish thing made me realize something. I do expect people to use their conscious awareness of, say, racist feelings to try to change those feelings. And I think that the way to do that isn't just by thinking it through (though that's necessary) but by taking action once one realizes the problem. So why should sexuality be this protected space where people aren't expected to do that work? I realize, of course, that the problem is that sexuality has traditionally been the primary arena in which people are supposed to modify their feelings, and that to some extent the "you can't help what turns you on" argument is a reasonable balancing reaction. But in a perfect world I don't see why we (broadly speaking, as opposed to the shaming-individuals thing) shouldn't expect ourselves to work on reprogramming ingrained stuff that we think isn't good.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 12:12 PM
I just think there may be more rationalizing going on than you do.
Yeah, but in general I think this speaks to a difference you and I often have about the value of analyzing stuff (as opposed to, say, deciding X is a desireable state of being and therefore we should act like/model X rather than navel-gazing about the ways we fail to accomplish X). If that makes sense. Anyway, it's a side issue, but it definitely made me think about the differences between things where I'm impatient with too much analysis (e.g., "why don't women ask men out?") vs. things where I'm not.
Now I'm Farberizing this thread. Sorry 'bout that.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 12:17 PM
25: I have the same intuition about this: a racist fantasy seems to me a lot more problematic than a rape fantasy or a sub/dom fantasy, but I can't coherently say why.
A race-based fetish seems morally objectionable because it's racist, but why doesn't a male-dom female-sub scenario strike me as (necessarily) objectionably sexist?
Posted by dagger aleph | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 12:26 PM
Oh, there are tons of fantasies that seem morally objectionable to me. (Apparently I'm a prude.)
Consent seems to be my line in the sand for these. As long as everyone involved in the act or the fantasy gives explicit, informed consent, I can't bring myself to get too het up.
So, pedophilia is a no-go, fantasy or otherwise, under this umbrella: a child cannot ever give informed consent. Nor can an animal, so leave teh donkies out of it. Etc etc.
BUT, the hard part is of course the "informed" bit (assuming anyone can be explicit if they want the sex bad enough). As a 30-something college-educated woman, it would seem I could consent to just about any sub fantasy if I were inclined. But I'm not informed until I've actually tried it and found out how it made me feel.
And if my information comes in the form of societally-produced roles that have been cultivated for 2000+ years, am I really that well informed? Or just brainwashed?
Posted by Wrenae | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 12:32 PM
In my experience, sub/dom experiences are a way of playing out fear, power, and intimacy narratives that are somewhat naturalized in the experience of being a powerful woman. To "do" sub and know in your heart that you're not submissive in non-sexual life and that your dom partner is really doing what you want adds all these delicious layers of sexual irony. What kind of sexual irony, complexity, or relationship to life is there to be had in having racist sexual fantasies? Isn't it just a simplistic conflation of orientalizing women and Orientalizing women?
Posted by A White Bear | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 12:32 PM
One difference I can see is that really, IM limited E, the mutuality of the experience is really central to male doms' fantasies (assuming they're not the crypto-misogynist type). So what's going on is not objectification, since the dom is really interested and excited by the sub's subjective experience. The Asian fetish thing isn't about the woman in a meaningful way; he just wants her to look the way he wants her and overlay a bunch of ideas about her race onto her.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 12:32 PM
Jinx.
Posted by A White Bear | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 12:34 PM
27: It might be because the race-based fetish would seem to presume a certain degree of interchangability? As in: I want to sex an Asian chick, and this one here will do. Whereas the dominant/submissive dynamic should ideally be the result of some negotiation between individuals?
Posted by Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 12:34 PM
Jesus, I'm slow.
Posted by Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 12:36 PM
Because most men with Asian chick fetishes are annoying tools who are probably going to say something about how the Eastern mind is so superior to the Western mind and the katana superior to the calabat (whack whack WHACK.)
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 12:36 PM
There's a great line in the Whit Stillman movie Barcelona about how guys think the great thing about dating girls who don't speak their native language is that all the little subtle things women of your own culture despise you for become adorable quirks to the foreign woman.
I had a brief misguided fling with a white guy who informed me I was his first non-Asian girlfriend. Apparently in rural China, they thought he looked like Leonardo DiCaprio. I can verify that this would not be apparent to an American girl.
Posted by A White Bear | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 12:40 PM
mmf! mmf!
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 12:41 PM
urble.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 12:43 PM
Tia, Tia, Tia.
Posted by A White Bear | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 12:44 PM
Phew. Thanks.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 12:44 PM
Whereas the dominant/submissive dynamic should ideally be the result of some negotiation between individuals?
But we're talking about FANTASY here, aren't we? I may be way wrong, but I can't see how the "negotiation" phase really plays into the fantasy. The reality, yes, but the fantasy, no.
So the race thing and the sub/dom thing come out sounding the same to me. I don't think anyone is really getting off on irony or the specifics of an individual's personality while fantasizing (unless they're fantasizing about someone they know already). I think they're getting off on the power dynamic. In fact, the Asian fantasy seems almost the same as the sub/dom fantasy to me, as the stereotypical Asian woman in the fantasy is always submissive. At least, that's the image it conjures for me.
Am I waaay off here? Or do sub/dom fantasies involve much more complexity than I'm giving credit? (Obviously the reality is very complex, but that's not what we're talking about.)
Posted by Wrenae | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 12:50 PM
There are a lot of guys who DO talk about their domination / sadism fantasies. To other guys. They're not talking about staged events at an SM club, either.
These guys don't show up at places like this much.
What about guys who have these fantasies but who are basically decent people and whose friends are mostly feminists? By and large they keep their mouths shut and suppress their desires.
This goes against the rule that everyone should always be open and the rule that Sex is Always Good, so it seems puritanical and repressive, but maybe puritanism and repression can be good things too.
As for the Asian fetish -- I get tired of people talking about this. The biggest mistake I ever made in my life was not marrying my (educated and respectable 24-year-old) Taiwanese girlfriend in 1984. The message I got from her is that she wanted to be with me and always liked having me around. The messages I'd get from my USA relationships, plural, was that they weren't sure how serious they wanted to get with anyone, that they needed to work through some psychological things first, that they weren't sure that I was good enough, and that there were certain changes I was going to have to make.
This wasn't a slave girl fantasy, I just wanted someone who liked me and wanted to be with me. I lived in Taiwan for a year and from what I saw, Chinese wives were not submissive.
Ever since then I've felt that hip American relationships are booby-trapped and unlikely to succeed. It's quite possible that I'm letting a few anecdotal events poison my perception, but these were major events in my life.
Trivia: like many Chinese women, my girlfiend was afraid of tall, charming, dramatic, macho guys, even if they were Chinese.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 12:53 PM
It might be because the race-based fetish would seem to presume a certain degree of interchangability? As in: I want to sex an Asian chick, and this one here will do.
This would imply that other fetishes for "interchangeable" types would also be morally objectionable. A fetish for overweight women, a fetish for tall blonde women, et cetera.
"Fetish", of course, being a synonym for "preference".
Posted by Cryptic Ned | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 12:53 PM
I like petite woman with dark hair and eyes. If the eyes and hair are right, height and body can be negotiable. Salma Hayek, Penelope Cruz. I like asians, hispanic-descended, native americans, italians, semitics, africans and afro-americans.
Not attracted to voluptuous blue-eyed blondes. Am I racist?
Posted by bob mcmanus | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 12:55 PM
"Semitics"?
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 12:58 PM
I actually don't have a problem with a preference for Asian features any more than I have a preference for any other kind of features. I get somewhat suspicious when someone has a succession of girlfriends who look just alike. I have preferences for men, but they're flexible. However, a lot of people who are into Asian women don't *just* like sleek black hair or a certain skin tone; they have china doll or dragon lady notions about personality and behavior that go with it.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 12:59 PM
Or do sub/dom fantasies involve much more complexity than I'm giving credit?
My E is L, but I think the answer to this is at least sometimes yes.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 1:03 PM
Aren't we dealing with two fairly incompatible ways of looking at things? On the one hand, we're supposed to follow our desires, let ourselves go, turn off the inner censor, and be wild and free. On the other hand, if the way that we let ourselves go is too stereotyped in certain ways, or crosses certain lines, people will start talking.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 1:04 PM
This would imply that other fetishes for "interchangeable" types would also be morally objectionable. A fetish for overweight women, a fetish for tall blonde women, et cetera.
"Morally objectionable" is too strong, but definitely a turn-off. When I first moved to NYC, I got hounded by a few guys who were after some grade-A size-12 blonde Midwestern grad-student booty, and although there's probably nothing inherently wrong with that, it feels pretty gross to be wanted for your ability to fit into someone's carefully planned fetish. Maybe I'm saying this as someone who first realized there was a sexual niche for her at age 24, long after I came to think from the outside that sexual niches were humiliating. So, take that as one person's experience, not, like, "all identity fetishes should be banned by law."
Posted by A White Bear | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 1:07 PM
grade-A size-12 blonde Midwestern grad-student booty
Wow, that is a niche fetish. These guys were explicitly looking for that particular combination of qualities?
Posted by dagger aleph | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 1:09 PM
On the one hand, we're supposed to follow our desires, let ourselves go, turn off the inner censor, and be wild and free.
I don't know if I'd put it this way, exactly. I think one's fantasies and how one has sex should be rigorously examined.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 1:10 PM
I found my own views on sub/dom changing as the thread progressed; as time went on the reticence issue I had had evaporated as people spelled out how much they had signaled a desire to submit a bit. I realized I never had and would never have had a problem with that level of communication.
But [i]n my experience, sub/dom experiences are a way of playing out fear, power, and intimacy narratives that are somewhat naturalized in the experience of being a powerful woman. To "do" sub and know in your heart that you're not submissive in non-sexual life and that your dom partner is really doing what you want adds all these delicious layers of sexual irony is just beautiful, and the neatest expression of what I'd like to believe I've seen yet.
Posted by I don't pay | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 1:10 PM
47:
Well,yes, which is why this is an interesting topic of discussion (at least for me). Why do people start talking? Which lines do you have to cross before they do? Is there anything we should do about this, or should we just let it be?This thread has been great. Thanks everyone for the interesting discussion.
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 1:10 PM
47: That's why I think it's just as silly for any of us to talk about sex in generalities, ever, at all. Sex is not universally worth celebrating for its boundlessness, nor is it something to be universally policed. All any of us have are our individual experiences of feeling one thing or another. None of us is in a position to ban anything anyway, just like none of us is in a position to advise the Democratic Party. So why any huff? We can just talk about us if we want.
Posted by A White Bear | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 1:10 PM
All those question marks were supposed to convey some hesitancy about whether I wasn't just talking out of my ass. As I might have been.
Wrenae's point about fantasy--which I think is somewhat similar to points A White Bear was making at Teo's place--is probably important. There are some fantasies that I wouldn't feel comfortable about sharing, even with a loving partner, because I don't want them to be acted out so don't really see the point of talking about them.
About preferences and interchangibility, I endorse Tia's 45.
Posted by Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 1:14 PM
49: Yes. Several. Apparently something on my Nerve profile was pitched a certain way, and I was suddenly a niche-target. These are things we don't see on the television.
Posted by A White Bear | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 1:14 PM
One of the good things about sex used to be that it was supposed to be an escape into a less rule-bound, less goal-oriented world. At a certain point it loses that and just becomes another area where you have to perform, and the rules keep shifting too.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 1:15 PM
In my sexual fantasies, I look like Jaclyn Smith from Charlie's Angels.
Does this make me a bad person? And if so, should I try being Cheryl Ladd instead?
Posted by Wrenae | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 1:17 PM
54: Right, and I guess that bothers me a little, that there's this big emphasis in the sex-pos culture on fulfilling your fantasies, as if they're incomplete as mere fantasies. Sex fantasies are often ridiculous, extreme, disturbing, and unfulfillable (at least in that no one's life could handle the constant variety and intensity that one's fantasy life would dictate). The point of a fantasy is to get you off when you're alone. Some I might act out. Most, however, are insane.
Posted by A White Bear | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 1:19 PM
Off topic a bit, but I had to share this excerpt from today's Mimi Smartypants entry, as it cracked me the fuck up:
Sometimes I think of very specific things during sex---these are not fantasies but just strong images, almost like hallucinations, that pop into my head, usually at crucial moments. They neither distract nor inspire, but I always feel compelled to share them afterwards with LT ("I saw a picture of the Canadian flag when I came!"). You may now pity my husband.
Read for yourself at
http://smartypants.diaryland.com/index.html
Posted by Wrenae | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 1:20 PM
Actually I think 29-34 go a long way towards clarifying the distinction for me. But I wonder if that might not just be because I "get" the sub/dom thing more than I "get" the Asian fetish thing. ("Fetish" is not a synonym for "preference," btw.)
Musing further: there's presumably a pretty major distinction between "the idea of X sex act interests me, because ..." and "I think Y girls (or boys) are hott." The latter is, literally, superficial. The former (even just as fantasy) gets into more complicated issues about relationships, human interactions, etc etc. Although obviously the symbolism of "I like Y girls" says something about the subject's attitude towards human interaction, maybe, but it still seems to be primarily about what Y girls mean to me rather than what X act means to me, and what it could mean to someone else.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 1:22 PM
this big emphasis in the sex-pos culture on fulfilling your fantasies, as if they're incomplete as mere fantasies
Amen. And it might be hot to share the fantasies with someone and yet not actually want that person to think, "gosh, I guess so and so really wants me to wrap her in the Canadian flag!" (Which is why Dan Savage's recent column letter about the mff threesome thing irritated me. No, by sharing that fantasy, the person is not necessarily saying they want it to happen.)
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 1:27 PM
As far as I can tell, the thing about sexual preferences is that they're mostly completely superficial. They probably all have some underlying meaning, too, but sexual preferences mostly seem to have to do with aspects of appearance and physical type.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 1:27 PM
I'd like to correct my 53, in that I have had comment-conversations that briefly poisoned my sex life. I remember a guy over at Dr. B's insisting to me that all sexual "pleasure" had by a woman is merely pain that women interpret as pleasurable because they're natural masochists--something silly like that--and it totally spoiled sex for like two weeks, even though I knew he was wrong! So perhaps what we say in this forum about sex stuff can create problems, for real, for people.
Posted by A White Bear | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 1:30 PM
63: Did I delete/ban that guy? Because if not, I shall have to kick myself hard.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 1:33 PM
On the other hand, asking to be wrapped in the Red Ensign, while singing The Maple Leaf Forever is deeply, deeply, reprehensible.
Posted by I don't pay | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 1:33 PM
Well sure, B's commenters can ruin your sex life. But we're different.
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 1:33 PM
No, he's someone you like, and someone I basically banned while subbing for you. Some people bring out the worst in others, and I'm one of those people. He seems reasonably nice when I'm not posting/commenting.
Posted by A White Bear | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 1:34 PM
But I should concede, though I'm slightly more uncomfortable speaking about specifics about sex here than I was at B's, that I really don't identify with the concept of sexual irony. (Not saying it doesn't have validity, but I don't feel like it applies to me.) Everything I do sexually is a real expression of an aspect of myself. I'm not pretending. That's who I am. I frequently ordering food in restaurants, fergawdsake. That's how little I like decision making.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 1:36 PM
Oh, 67 to 64, obv. And 66: Unfogged needs a new motto, something like, "Mineshaft users report a 2% increase in orgasm intensity for every comment posted!"
Posted by A White Bear | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 1:36 PM
I frequently stress out ordering food in restaurants.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 1:37 PM
65: There's a swingers' club near my house that advertised drink specials to celebrate Canada Day.
(Is there a way to denote "swinging" that smells less of plush velvet? Even the bar lists itself that way, though the clientele to whom they cater don't resemble the stereotypical 70s image of "swinging couples.")
Posted by Armsmasher | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 1:37 PM
I don't really get the anti-Asian fetish (or preference or whatever) thing, either. Perhaps it depends on whether we're talking about Asian-Americans or Asians. Anecdotally, Asian-American women aren't that different from most other American women, and I'm sure most guys get that after dating in the Asian-American pool.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 1:39 PM
67: Oh, I think I know who you mean. Actually he's kind of stopped commenting now. Which makes me feel kind of bad, on a personal level, but which I also have to admit has made the site way, way better and less stressful for me.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 1:44 PM
Asian fetish is one of very few I was exposed to in adolescent sex-talk among male peers. It seemed very widespread during the sixties. I remember thinking "Not me, I want Suzanne Pleshette.
Posted by I don't pay | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 1:44 PM
I think the idea is that the Asian-fetish guys are really looking for women who are meek and submissive, and they think Asian women are like that, so that's what they go after. Obviously, if they're dating Asian-American women they're going to be disabused of that notion pretty rapidly.
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 1:47 PM
I don't know, 72. My brother has an Asian-chick fetish that I think is gross; the women he's dated have mostly been Asian Americans, but overwhelmingly those who characterologically identify with their original cultures and had certain language barriers (cf. the Walt Stillman line in 34). Katanas and Buddhism and anime and all that play a role too, but I cynically think the draw is the Amerian stereotype of Asians as quiet, sympathetic, and submissive.
Posted by Armsmasher | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 1:48 PM
72: The Asian fetish is so fucking offensive because it's all, "ooh, Asian girls are so petite! and pretty! and delicate!" and blah blah all the other offensive crap about what's desireable in women, even before you get to the question of whether there's some underlying Orientalist fantasy of submissive geisha girls or whateverthefuck. It's like the most objectifying ethnic fetish there is, I think.
Also because when you get annoyed about it, men tend to accuse you of feeling threatened. Because of course no woman would possibly object to objectification if she weren't just jealous.
And finally, it's revoltingly common in men who otherwise seem reasonably intelligent.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 1:48 PM
I think it's revoltingly common in men who are socially incompetent. It's also something that's reinforced early, because it's such a common and pervasive fetish and is to varying degrees connected to other obsessions over Japanese pop culture, it's an easy preference for young men to take on when they don't know what they think but they're trying to establish a sexual identity.
Posted by Armsmasher | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 1:53 PM
57:No, no looling like Jaclyn Smith rather than Cheryl Ladd makes you really hot! In your fantasies. I would wonder about anyone fantasizing they were Kate Jackson, tho. That's kinda sick.
I am terrible at fantasizing. Having gone to bed with actual people, I have found that sex is only interesting or fun to the degree the partner is an individual and surprises you. I have no idea what Salma Hayek would be like in bed;I have even less of an idea what Salma Hayek would be like in bed with me. So I just can't seem to fantasize about Salma Hayek.
I only fantasize about women I have already bedded, doing the things we have already done. I consider this really weird, a terrible flaw.
Posted by bob mcmanus | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 1:54 PM
77: Bitch, the reason I'm not so harsh on those guys is because I think their weird misogynistic posturing is just to cover the fact that they want a chicks who don't know what nerds they are. When I slept with the "Asian-fetish" guy, it became apparent that he isn't into submissiveness at all--in fact, in bed he was Mr. Vanilla. I asked him why he hadn't dated white girls, and his thing was that white girls weren't as into him.
This reminds me of an infuriating interaction I had this weekend with a friend of a friend who is a petit vegan fellow who works in the arts, but insists on dressing like Johnny Cash and making fun of "sissy girl shit" because he's terrified people will think he's gay. He acts like a misogynistic asshole, but it's a posture to cover his fear that he's not cool.
Neither of these are examples of why we shouldn't loathe these guys for their misogyny and racism, but I think that misogyny and racism are often ways dorky guys try to mainstream their personalities.
Posted by A White Bear | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 1:54 PM
The Asian fetish is so fucking offensive because it's all, "ooh, Asian girls are so petite! and pretty! and delicate!" and blah blah all the other offensive crap
As opposed to what? A fetish for blondes, or big breasts? And who doesn't have a preference for pretty sexual mates? Or rather, who says, "I prefer my mates ugly"? It's fetishes all the way down.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 1:55 PM
Basically, yeah, what Armsmasher said.
Posted by A White Bear | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 1:56 PM
I would wonder about anyone fantasizing they were Kate Jackson, tho.
You fuck. Jackson was the most attractive of the lot. You obv. missed her work in Scarecrow and Mrs. King.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 1:59 PM
I guess I don't get the asian fetish thing. Just watched a movie last night, "H", with a 6-foot female homicide detective as the lead. And she was the lead detective, made the decisions, gave orders, solved the crime, used her gun.
I watch a lot of Asian movies, and asian women don't all look like Winona Ryder or Jena Malone.
Posted by bob mcmanus | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 2:03 PM
Asian women from Asia do remain part of the human race, I hope.
I do have an alibi, in that I had studied Chinese for ten years before going to Taiwan, and I actually had had no intention of getting married when I went over there, but then things happened.
However, the truth is that I am and was socially incompetent, nerdy, and vanilla when I went over there (and also short), and was glad to be in a place where that was OK. Socially incompetent, nerdy guys with no other major problems are well advised to go someplace where they're socially acceptable, for example Taiwan, rather than continue to try to compete in an arena where they're sure to lose.
As I said, Asian women from Taiwan are not submissive. They tend to stay in the background, but they're usually full partners in their husband's businesses, and when doing business over there you always have to understand that.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 2:04 PM
I watch a lot of Asian movies, and asian women don't all look like Winona Ryder
That's unsurprising, since Winona Ryder isn't Asian. I don't know who Jena Malone is.
Posted by dagger aleph | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 2:05 PM
No one's accusing you of having the Asian fetish, John. There's no problem with white guys dating Asian women per se, it's just that there's a certain kind of white guy who only wants to date Asian women because of some stereotypical (and mistaken) ideas about what they're like.
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 2:07 PM
Wrenae:
"But we're talking about FANTASY here, aren't we? I may be way wrong, but I can't see how the "negotiation" phase really plays into the fantasy. The reality, yes, but the fantasy, no."
No, I think that most doms, even in their fantasies, imagine mutual consent. And in cases where their fantasies don't include such consent, they will often still include a genuine concern for the well-being of the submissive. I think that submissives' fanstasies are more likely to involve involuntary captivity and cruel masters. But I'm speaking with very little experience, here.
"'Fetish', of course, being a synonym for 'preference'."
While "fetish" is sometimes used that way, I think it's more useful to define a "fetish" as a condition for arousal. If the fetishistic object isn't present, either in reality or in fantasy, then there's no arousal, or greatly diminished pleasure. Maybe that's the same as a strong or very strong preference, but not a simple preference. "Fetish" sometimes also connotates that the desire is pretty unusual or disgusting, but sometimes it doesn't. Depends on who's using it.
As for the "asian fetish". Well, a real fetish for Asians would probably be pretty creepy. But I've always found that Japanese, Korean, South Asian, and to a lesser extent Chinese women are somewhat more attractive to me on average. I would probably only be interested in one who grew up in America, though, because a shared language and culture is important to me in a relationship. That doesn't make me a bad person, does it? In fact, I think it might be partly because Asians tend to be smaller, and I'm attracted to small. Not because of the facial features. But they do have a nicer skin tone. And if anything, I think of Asian women to be more assertive, not less, and that's part of the appeal. And if those correlated traits weren't present in some particular Asian woman, then I doubt I would still be more attracted to them than if they were more European.
And in any case, it's not something I actively look for. There are many other, much more important qualities to look for, so I can't afford to be picky about something like ethnic background.
"As far as I can tell, the thing about sexual preferences is that they're mostly completely superficial."
Well, stated sexual preferences are indeed almost entirely based on body type. But there are many, many non-physical things that can make or break sexual compatibility, and I'm aware of many cases where someone who's kind of plain but very attractive in non-physical ways becomes sexually attractive to someone else as they become infatuated with the person. So, no.
Posted by pdf23ds | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 2:08 PM
Googling Jena Malone, I assume bob was saying that not all Asian women are waifs, not that Winona and Jena are Asian.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 2:08 PM
80: Yeah, but the solipsism there still irritates me.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 2:09 PM
A friend of mine who taught in Taiwan said that it was common for her male colleagues to date Taiwanese women, but almost no American women dated Taiwanese men. She said it was because of the Orientalist conflation of "Asian" with "feminine" -- Asian guys were seen as asexual.
89: Yeah, I know, SCMT: I was just being a smartass.
Posted by dagger aleph | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 2:09 PM
86:
77:"Asian girls are so petite! and pretty! and delicate!" ...bphd
Winona and Jena fall into this category. Is this asian fetish about a particular body type and look, or what?
Posted by bob mcmanus | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 2:10 PM
Don't listen to teo, John. J'accuse, Emerson. Although I find this hard to believe: I am and was socially incompetent, nerdy, and vanilla.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 2:10 PM
Doesn't sound like pdf has the Asian fetish either.
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 2:10 PM
85: JE, I hope you know any scorn in my 80 is directed at those who use misogyny to cover up their interest in cultural difference, not those who escape into other cultures.
My current bf was a male model in Taiwan when he graduated college. I think, for him, it was a similar disaffection with American culture--not women specifically, but with the bourgeois Manhattanites he grew up around--and it helped him sort out what he was really angry about, ethically, and what he was merely reacting against because it hadn't been good to him. And, needless to say, he probably got some satisfaction out of being looked at as a super-gorgeous guy while here he's merely handsome.
Posted by A White Bear | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 2:11 PM
Oh, I also forgot to add my diatribe against the chocolate-box theory of women. "I prefer the raspberry-filled dark chocolates." "Really? I like coconut myself." "Oh, no, nuts and chews for me."
Gross, gross, gross.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 2:11 PM
96: Now there are social implications for the kind of candy we like? I don't see that at all.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 2:14 PM
96: So, what? Would you be grossed out by some conversation like this:
"I prefer more athletic women."
"Really? I like the more indoorsy types myself."
"Oh, no, only artistic and musical for me."
Or is it just the particular traits being discussed that bug you? E.g. hair color, eye color, height.
Posted by pdf23ds | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 2:15 PM
Everyone should know who Jena Malone is. because of "Bastard Out of Carolina" and "Donnie Darko". "Saved" and "Cheaters" are also decent.
Everyone should be an obsessive film freak with good name retention, but the world isn't perfect.
Posted by bob mcmanus | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 2:15 PM
96: I just like biting into all of them, sucking the filling out, enjoying the surprise, and then leaving the empty chocolate shell in the box for someone else to find.
Posted by A White Bear | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 2:15 PM
I doubt that the "Asian fetish" has the importance people give it here. It's just that socially inept, nerdy guys who want to have a relationship find that they're not completely unattractive to Asian women. Perhaps the word gets around.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 2:17 PM
The problem with your counter-example, pdf, is that I've never heard guys having that particulary conversation. Or if so, "outdoorsy" was synonym for "athletic w/good legs & willing to have sex in the woods." Yeah, I think she's objecting to the objectification of women based on their hair color, height, butt-size, boob-size, etc., not their personalities.
Posted by Wrenae | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 2:18 PM
See 76, John. This may be a generational thing.
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 2:19 PM
It's fetishes all the way down.
I can't agree with this. It seems to me that a fetish is a preference so strong it crowds, or nearly crowds, non-conforming ideas out. The stereotypical guy with the Asian fetish doesn't just think Asian women are pretty (etc), or even, on average prettier than most, but that they are so uniquely pretty that other women are ugly in comparison.
From the discussion above, it seems that in some cases a substitution for the word 'delusion' for fetish might be appropriate.
Posted by CharleyCarp | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 2:19 PM
"that particular conversation"
Posted by wrenae | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 2:20 PM
Is this asian fetish about a particular body type and look, or what?
No, it's about categorizing people as if they were things, to start with, and specifically preferring X category because it supposedly represents the ne plus ultra of the thing being categorized. E.g., to pick on Tim:
And who doesn't have a preference for pretty sexual mates? Or rather, who says, "I prefer my mates ugly"?
That right there. A lot of people don't particularly prefer "prettiness." Some people like strength, some people like assertiveness, some can't resist a pair of arresting eyes, some get goosebumps from a particular timbre of voice, some find straight long hair irresistibly silky, some find shyness endearing, and so on and so on. The whole "I like women with these physical categories" thing does offend me, yes, and the "I just happen to be attracted to women whose physical categories just happen to stereotypically signify delicacy, fragility, exoticness, and charm" without any acknowledgment that those qualities tend largely to reconfirm the ideal of feminine weakness, also offends me. Greatly.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 2:21 PM
Or rather, "these physical attributes" (not "categories") that are specifically racialized and/or exclusively about appearance. As if race and appearance were the primary criteria for physical attraction.
Maybe for some people, race and appearance are the primary criteria for physical attraction? But if so? I feel justified in finding those people creepy and offensive.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 2:25 PM
Some people like strength, Fetish, and pretty standard one.
a pair of arresting eyes Fetish, and a pretty standard one.
a particular timbre of voice Deep voice fetish? Standard.
some find straight long hair irresistibly silky A fetish that, IME, drives many African-American women nuts.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 2:25 PM
102: My counterexample was meant to criticize the aptness of her metaphor, not her underlying point, which is probably a good one.
Posted by pdf23ds | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 2:25 PM
"Yeah, I think she's objecting to the objectification of women based on their hair color"
Objectification based on hair color? Sorry, but dark hair does not carry any implied or assumed characteristics. I do not assume that, oh, 90% of the women of the world are a "type".
Posted by bob mcmanus | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 2:26 PM
"Fetish", of course, being a synonym for "preference"
No, not really. It's the difference between finding Asian features hot and thinking they're all interchangeable anime girls/geisha or finding Swedish leggy blondes hot and thinking all Swedes are suicidal sex kittens. There's a particular exoticism with fetishes that isn't the same in preferences.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 2:26 PM
106: Okay, Bitch, but I was being entirely serious in my 100. I really do find myself wanting to try all the flavors, and then categorizing them as such in hindsight. It's not good and not right and I have seriously tried to wean myself off of thinking of sexual partners this way. The opposite side of the same chocolate-box coin is what Kundera romanticizes as the "epic lover" in Unbearable Lightness, the lover who thinks of women in dehumanizing categories, and wants to fuck them all. The problem is not the limiting of the attractive categories. The problem is that we categorize our lovers to begin with.
Posted by A White Bear | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 2:26 PM
108: You're using fetish in the "preference" sense. It would be better for this discussion to use "preference" for that and "fetish" only for very strong preferences.
Posted by pdf23ds | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 2:27 PM
BPhd, as far as I know, everyone's desires are given and are mostly pretty superficial ("fetishes all the way down"). Perhaps if you look at them introspectively you'll see a subtext or whatever, but arousal is at a pretty thoughtless level. And maybe someone realizes at some point that there's a pattern to his arousal.
It may be possible to "work on" these patterns, but that doesn't sound like any fun at all, and sex is supposed to be fun.
There's a lot to be said for getting away from the "10" frame of mind, where you're only willing to be involved with women who fit into your stereotypical obsession. But I don't think that your fetishes change.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 2:28 PM
"The whole "I like women with these physical categories" thing does offend me, yes"
So you're offended when someone says "All things being equal, I like people with X physical characteristic", even if that same person gives much more weight to many other non-physical characteristics? Or is it the exclusion of personality from the consideration of attractiveness what offends you?
Posted by pdf23ds | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 2:30 PM
"what" s/b "that"
And John Emerson continues to abuse the word "fetish". I don't want to pick on him, but I'm afraid it will cause confusion.
Posted by pdf23ds | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 2:32 PM
Objectification based on hair color?
Yes, as in "gentlemen prefer blondes" or "red hot redheads." Us brunettes hardly ever get objectified in this manner because we are so terribly common.
Posted by Wrenae | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 2:34 PM
What is interesting about this thread is how it segues from one to another example of the same phenomenon.
1. Guys who are shut down for talking about their fantasies are shut down (perhaps) because we are afraid their fantasies aren't individual -- that is to say, we don't trust them to enact those fantasies (if ever) with a fully aware, consenting partner in a personal relationship. The fantasies aren't fully "safe" because it seems so close to a line, so easy to slip into just wanting any female body as a prop to fulfill the fantasy.
2. Guys who are criticized for having an "Asian fetish" are being criticized (perhaps) because we are afraid their interest isn't individual-- that is, they are not attracted to a particular woman who has X physical trait, but they are proclaiming a one-size-fits-all definition of what "Asian women" are like and pursuing partners as if they are interchangeable.
Oversimplifying, I know. But interesting.
Posted by Witt | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 2:34 PM
Tim, none of that is the point. The point is that when we are talking specifically about men's "preferences" w/r/t women, it is not neutral to point out that an astonishingly large number of men "just happen" to prefer women who they categorize by (1) race and (2) the physical appearance of delicacy.
I mean, fine: dismiss it by saying "everyone likes different things." But then you have to accept that I'm going to view that dismissal with much the same suspicion as I view statements that it's only coincidence that women "just happen" to spend more time and money on their appearance than men do.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 2:34 PM
114: Yes, people have physical preferences. I think it's likely those preferences are pretty static and inflexible. (And I think I see the point of your comment, and I agree that BPhD seems to be giving too much moral weight to what people find physically appealing.) But people can be turned on, or off, by so much more than looks. Don't you agree?
Posted by pdf23ds | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 2:35 PM
In retrospect, I have found, to my slight alarm, that over half of my lovers have been gentlemen whose fathers, but not mothers, were/are non-practicing Jews. Is that weird? I used to want to add to my Friendster profile something like, "Bad News for Half-Jews," but I realized that was gross, and not actually reflective of how I choose partners. Weird, though, I think, and somewhat disturbing.
Posted by A White Bear | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 2:39 PM
It's just a sign we're meant for each other, AWB.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 2:39 PM
122: Sweet! The stars do allow it!
Posted by A White Bear | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 2:41 PM
Maybe it's just that many guys with Asian fetishes are socially clueless, but I've had a few Asian-American friends mention how annoying it is when someone attempts to compliment them by saying "I like Asian girls", and that's it's more annoying than a regular generalizing compliment ("I like blondes.")
Some guys trying to sponsor fiancées can be like this. Went to a site to meet foreign woman, met an Asian/South American/Eastern European girl, bonus that she doesn't speak English so well, bring her here because she'll be submissive & not like those American feminists. (N.B. immigration forums may make you lose your mind.) Methinks it's not just a simple preference for dark hair and interesting eyes at work here.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 2:42 PM
I really think that the word "fetish" is always abused. It's a way of devaluing someone else's desires. It may be that there's something wrong with the guys accused of having an "Asian woman fetish", but I don't think that they're worse than the average guy their age, and they're probably better than guys with blonde fetishes.
I am very protective of socially inept nerds if they have no other major problems.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 2:43 PM
124: Gratitude, the only aphrodisiac some guys need. It's probably similar to the compulsion of wealthy NYC guys to pick up young financially-struggling women and buy them tickets to shows, new underwear, etc. It's a way to force sex through obligation.
Posted by A White Bear | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 2:46 PM
I am very protective of socially inept nerds if they have no other major problems.
Don't think we don't appreciate it, but the Asian fetish* is still kinda creepy.
*Actually, even calling it a "fetish" is kind of a problem. Fetishes are about things, not people.
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 2:49 PM
Even better -- you can hold a green card and a langugage barrier over her head! The anger at American feminists is crazy, especially Hillary Clinton, who apparently made it impossible for them to date an American.
(I'm bad; I root for the interchangeable wife seekers to be saddled with someone using him for a green card. Karmic balance!)
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 2:49 PM
Few things interest me less than discussing the morality of the sexual fetishes of others (well, that's not strictly true, I suppose), but reading this thread I couldn't help but think of this comment, and wonder whether it was perhaps meant to be posted here, instead of there. I mean, it actually makes sense here (other than the cab ride bit).
Maybe this comment was written not by a troll, but by an anonymous poster from the future?
Posted by Urple | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 2:49 PM
Gratitude, the only aphrodisiac some guys need
On the other hand.
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 2:50 PM
106 I agree with--we all do that, I suspect, to some extent. But usually we do it as a joke, and there's a bit of sort of self-deprecating irony in it, no?
115: I'm not crazy about the "looks v. personality" distinction, as if those were the only two possible categories. And I'm not saying (I think pretty clearly not saying) that I care at all if someone says, "I have a weakness for dark skin and soft voices" or "I admit that blondes turn my head" or "I do tend to find Pakistani men astonishingly pretty." But those things are really different, I think, in tenor and tone than "I'm into Asian chicks" or "I like women with large breasts, dark skin, curly hair, a slight accent, and whose shoe sizes are no larger than 8 1/2."
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 2:56 PM
130: There's certainly something to be said for not dating super-hot guys. I had exactly one super-hot boyfriend, and it was a misery unto me. Everywhere we went, friends were pulling me aside to whisper, "How'd you bag that babe?" and strange women would physically remove him from my side. The universe conspires to ensure that no super-hot guy can date a woman for her brains.
Posted by A White Bear | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 2:56 PM
But while I'm here, I may as well contribute this ancedote: an acquaintance of mine with a huge asian fetish (though he was fairly indiscriminately horny so didn't stick only to asian women) explained his fetish to me by noting that it was "a much more silky experience." (Fucking an asian girl, that is). I was not in a great position to argue (never personally having, um, had an asian fetish), though I found his statement somewhat absurd.
Of course, he was fairly misogynistic, so take that for what it's worth.
Posted by Urple | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 2:58 PM
What's specifically creepy about the "Asian fetish"? Maybe people know things I don't.
Most guys 16-22 have weird ideas about women. The ones who get their ideas from anime probably are more inept and lame that the ones who get their ideas from MAXIM, but I find MAXIM guys extremely creepy.
I really doubt the use of the word "fetish" for anything other than people who have sex with shoes and underwear. Alternatively, "fetish" could just mean any stereotyped desire, however harmless, which doesn't make much sense from a high-minded, philosophical point of view.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 2:59 PM
Fetishes are about things, not people.
I don't think this is true. You can fetishize physical characteristics. Fat fetish, etc.
I think a distinction is being lost between having a simple preference, or finding a body part sexually exciting, and letting that preference or excitation rise above your actual experience of the other person. I use "fetish" to mean the latter. A lot of women (I was one of them) complained in B's thread about the experience of feeling that one or the other of our body parts were fetishized during sex. It's the difference between whether you feel like Guy X is thinking "I like Tia's breasts" or "Mmm...breasts. Oh, look, there's a woman attached." Sometimes you can get both vibes from the same guy at different times.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 3:00 PM
FOR ANNE GREGORY
"Never shall a young man,
Thrown into despair
By those great honey-colored
Ramparts at your ear,
Love you for yourself alone
And not your yellow hair."
"But I can get a hair-dye
And set such colour there,
Brown, or black, or carrot,
That young men in despair
May love me for myself alone
And not my yellow hair."
"I heard an old religious man
But yesternight declare
That he had found a text to prove
That only God, my dear,
Could love you for yourself alone
And not your yellow hair."
~W.B. Yeats
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 3:02 PM
Traditionally, "fetish" refers to a sexual response to a body part or inanimate object (hence talking about an "Asian fetish" is kind of objectifying in and of itself), but it's often extended to mean any sort of unusual sexual preference, especially deeply held.
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 3:03 PM
118 struck me too. Guilty as charged. I get frustrated when men deny that their sexual preferences have any kind of meaning, but I admit that I'm way too impatient about letting people work stuff out for themselves.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 3:04 PM
The word "fetish" has such a wide range of definitions, most of which have been used in this thread, that it really is not very useful without being defined clearly and used consistently. And then every time someone else uses the word, you have to figure out which definition they're using.
Posted by pdf23ds | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 3:05 PM
See, for example, this not-very-good Wikipedia article for more on the definition of "fetish."
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 3:07 PM
dark hair does not carry any implied or assumed characteristics
Surely untrue. Blondes are stereotypically wholesome and/or slightly airheaded; redheads, hot/feisty/funny; brunettes, exotic/mysterious/sexually experienced/womanly. Think film noir. Think about Lilith in Cheers. Think about which of Charlie's Angels was "the smart one."
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 3:09 PM
Anyway, people should hop on over to the craigslist M4W personals. Probably two thirds of the ads say something like, "seeking busty brunette"...and that's it. I see more than one ad complaining about the lack of busty Asians. I think someone who is looking for someone to fulfill a set of fantasy physical characteristics, and doesn't have an articulable ideas about what they want besides that, can be reasonably said to have something screwy in the way their sexual preferences are set, whether you want to call that a fetish or not. On the other hand, "I tend to like..." is not theoretically objectionable to me, although I'd never put something like that in a personal ad.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 3:11 PM
I guess I have a hard time understanding the vehemence of the anti-Asian-fetish sentiment, but maybe I just haven't seen much of the sort of thing some of you (B, especially) are talking about. But FWIW, if you're talking about youngish and/or socially inept guys who think they're interested in Asian-American women based on a stereotype that they're delicate and submissive, the stereotype isn't going to survive contact with most actual Asian-American women for very long unless the guy is really, really clueless. In the meantime, it's possible that the guy's screwy stereotypes will help him get past inhibitions and actually get to know actual women, which seems like a good thing to me even if he comes out of the experience with a continued preference for Asian-American women (at this point, I'd consider it no less reasonable nor more harmful than most other dating/relationship preferences). Or the guy may be clueless, learn nothing, and continue to seek his stereotyped Asian flower, in which case (a) he's likely destined for a lot of bad experiences, both for himself and for the women he dates, but (b) I kinda think he fits better in the general category "asshole" than anything specific to his dating preferences.
Posted by DaveL | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 3:13 PM
Brunettes are almost always the witty best friend or lady reporter. It seems to be an easier stereotype to deal with than the blonde one, though.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 3:13 PM
But then you have to accept that I'm going to view that dismissal with much the same suspicion as I view statements that it's only coincidence that women "just happen" to spend more time and money on their appearance than men do.
I can live with that. After all, you have to live with my suspicion that that you can't really see into the souls or personalities of the hot World Cup players (esp. one nationality, IIRC).
Mostly, people seem to be saying that creepy guys are creepy. And some of them are in to Asians. I buy that.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 3:14 PM
Tall guys. Being a short guy is like being flat-chested woman, except that there's no operation to fix it.
I really believe that the dating / romance game is a crapshoot, not particularly fair in any way, and that most people assume that everyone else has better luck than they do. So count your blessings if you're happy.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 3:15 PM
On the flip side I doubt it would be that hard to find Asian-American men who only want to date women of Asian descent, or who think of women from Asia as delicate, submissive, etc. (all the stereotypes except, possibly, exotic). And I'm pretty sure you could find analogous attitudes among pre-1924 - and for that matter, some current - European immigrants who only wanted to marry within their group. Some of this is group/cultural loyalty, but it gets mixed in with the idea of America = modern, old countries (wherever they may be) = traditional, and traditional = traditional relationships. I'd be interested to know if something like a Euro-fetish exists in any non-European countries.
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 3:16 PM
Did I miss something here, or did we come up with any actual examples of the Evil-Type Asian fanciers besides Armsmasher's brother?
Posted by strasmangelo jones | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 3:17 PM
142: "I tend to like" is probably something that'd put me off a little if seen in a personal ad, but something I'd be very surprised not to find in a person.
Posted by pdf23ds | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 3:17 PM
By the time I came back, others had made this point: I have a preference for dark-haired, in the sense that it's the first thing I notice, and will be drawn to. And when a particular woman has been both blonde and brunette, I almost always prefer the dark.
But this preference doesn't survive contact; I've had great experiences with blondes, and that seems as it should be. It would be sad to be hung-up on it.
Posted by I don't pay | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 3:18 PM
149: Right. I tend to like tall, broad chested men with full dark hair and prominent blue or brown eyes and long eyelashes who manage to appear intellectual/brooding/sensitive in their posture or vibe. I would not say that in a personal ad. (I've dated men who were no taller than me, who were blonde, who were slighter than I'd like.)
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 3:21 PM
After all, you have to live with my suspicion that that you can't really see into the souls or personalities of the hot World Cup players
Fair enough. I'm sure they're all heinous jocks and I'd hate them. But I still reserve the right to enjoy the eye candy. And I don't care if that makes me a hypocrite.
148: Here's a good place to start.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 3:21 PM
I have a fetish for non-obese women. Hott ones, especially.
Posted by Urple | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 3:22 PM
Bitch, if pornography is evidence, every form of attraction is a fetish, because it's all out there. Busty, long-legged blondes are probably at the top of the list.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 3:25 PM
But I still reserve the right to enjoy the eye candy. And I don't care if that makes me a hypocrite.
Me too. Comity!
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 3:26 PM
On the flip side I doubt it would be that hard to find Asian-American men who only want to date women of Asian descent, or who think of women from Asia as delicate, submissive, etc. (all the stereotypes except, possibly, exotic).
This may be a good time to remind ourselves that there are several countries in Asia and that their cultures differ. I have a fairly hard time understanding the apparent prevalence of stereotypes of "Asian" as opposed to stereotypes of Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Filipino, etc., which may at least have some sort of cultural roots.
Posted by DaveL | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 3:26 PM
146: No, being a short guy is like being a tall woman. I imagine there are more guys that would date flat-chested woman (I'm one) than guys that would date tall woman (I'm not one). If you're a man, you'd rather be 6' 3" than 5' 5", and if you're a woman you'd rather be 5' 1" than 5' 8". (Those are respectively the 95th and 5th percentile heights for 20 year old white men and women.)
Posted by pdf23ds | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 3:27 PM
152: That's actually not a good place to start, B. The distinction presumably being made is between being attracted to certain physical characteristics (skin tone, hair color, facial features, etc.) commonly associated with Asian women and being attracted to certain cultural stereotypes commonly associated with Asian women. The prevalence of Asian porn sites does nothing to establish a fantastic abundance of the latter; it only establishes that there's a lot of the former around.
Posted by strasmangelo jones | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 3:28 PM
About 1/3 of singles ads for men specify height, and it's always taller than me.
Actually, singles ads don't specify boobage, so I suppose my specific example is no good, but as far as superficial characteristics go, I think height is fairly analogous to "good figure".
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 3:30 PM
Tia and Bitch make a very good point with the Craigslist and Googlings. I may say that I am sexually attracted to brainy men who are at least 5'8" but shorter than 6'2", middlingly built, and who look me in the eye when they smile, or to brainy women whose bodies move carelessly through space and who flirt shamelessly, and I am probably not alone in wanting these things. If you Googled, you'd find personals ads that say the same. But those personals ads would be less likely to make you throw up than results for "Asian chicks." It is different, because what I want is not a commodity.
Posted by A White Bear | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 3:30 PM
This may be a good time to remind ourselves that there are several countries in Asia and that their cultures differ.
Obviously. I don't know why my comment was any different than any other of the previous 150 using the word Asian, but apparently it needed this extra clarification.
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 3:33 PM
That is to say, even if you want the same thing the "Asian chicks" guys want for completely different reasons, I'd be a little freaked out to realize there's already a price tag on what your heart's set on.
Posted by A White Bear | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 3:33 PM
That's because none of the creeps are actually culturally literate; Asian's Asian. (The creeps hitting on my friend didn't ask if she was Chinese or Korean first.)
148: I can think of three friends who I've alluded to here, off the top of my head. Not going to give you their names, but... this isn't a strawman here.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 3:33 PM
A lot of the reason I like the Asian look is the very straight, smooth, very black hair. I find it equally hot, and lamentably rare, on white women.
156: Americans and Europeans can't tell East Asians apart from one another, and vice versa. If the different cultures were easily physically identifiable by different physical characteristics, I imagine the stereotypes would be a little finer-grained as well.
Posted by pdf23ds | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 3:34 PM
Going back to what I said much earlier:
What's wrong with being attracted to the "cultural stereotypes" of Asian women? The cultural stereotype of Asian women that attracted me to them, and as far as I know it's an accurate stereotype, is that they seem much more likely to be happy with a guy like me.
You know, vain self-centered guys are deplorable creatures, but a guy who has the habit of being attracted only to women who like him is actually a pretty lucky guy.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 3:34 PM
I've had a couple of female friends who told me that they developed a Jewish (guy) fetish, and my general sense is that it's a pretty common fetish in some areas/fields. It doesn't strike me as overly problematic. It's not useful--I'm not Jewish--but not problematic. Wierdly (to me), I had a Jewish colleague who was really bothered by it.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 3:36 PM
And if you've ever been taken for an ethnicity you're not, under the assumption that all Asians - where Asian has already been narrowed by assumption to mean East Asian - you wouldn't find it hard to believe that there are stereotypes that don't go too far in precision beyond "Asian people have the qualities x, y z."
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 3:36 PM
154, and 152: But that's exactly the point. I can't believe that y'all aren't just as familiar as I am with the "jade princess"/"geisha girl"/"me love you long time" stereotype.
Anyway. Fuck that shit, it's gross. I, personally, have a thing about bone structure: cheekbones, jaws and noses. I prefer men who are more slightly built as a general rule, but I've certainly dated fat men too. Hands that look like they do something (long fingers, bony rather than padded, gestures that use fingers distinctly rather than waving the whole mitt like a paw) are a big deal.
I admit that I cannot abide puppy-dog eyes and that, in general, while I don't care about dark vs. fair, pale to the point of fair lashes and eyebrows doesn't tend to appeal. Although bone structure trumps all.
Unless the guy's an idiot, in which case, forget it.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 3:37 PM
KC Chang, a physical anthropologist and anthropologist, said that Northern Chinese, Koreans, and Japanese were genetically almost indistinguishable, and that Southern Chinese, Cambodians, and Vietnamese are also very similiar.
Culturally there are differences, but also similiarities.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 3:37 PM
161: Good grief, eb. The reason your comment stood out is that it seemed to assume that Asian-American men have the same bizarre stereotypes of Asian-American women that some non-Asian Americans apparently have, which seems unlikely unless they lack mothers, sisters, aunts, etc. But that's just the reason why I threw the comment in where I did. I didn't make the comment earlier in the thread for a whole bunch of reasons, including the fact that it was already 100+ comments long by the time I got around to reading it.
Posted by DaveL | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 3:40 PM
KC Chang
I've eaten there; not terrible, actually.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 3:41 PM
91: Someone I met once who had spent the previous year+ teaching in Indonesia said that being a single (western) woman in Indonesia was incredibly lonely, because the asian men didn't approach her, and the western (single) men were mostly asian-fetishists. (Or at least had a strong asian preference).
Myself, I was all prepared to get all defensive about having a mediterranean fetish, but it seems (judging from intervening remarks) that it's only a preference, and that's okay.
Posted by Tom Scudder | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 3:42 PM
163, 168: I'm plenty familiar with the "geisha" stereotype we're talking about here, but I've never met anyone who's actually been attracted to Asian women because of that stereotype. I'm sure they exist, but that set seems to be significantly smaller than the set of men who are just attracted to the physical traits commonly associated with Asian women.
Posted by strasmangelo jones | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 3:43 PM
170: Having female relatives doesn't seem to prevent American misogynists from having gross misconceptions and stereotypes about American females.
Posted by pdf23ds | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 3:44 PM
The stereotypes I've heard:
delicate
submissive
exotically beautiful
compliant
uncomplaining
sexually adventurous and schoolgirl virginal
Forbidden City geisha (don't ask)
giggly
For the wife-seeking marriage broker types:
never questions her husband
grateful to be married to an American
is from a savage garden uncorrupted by feminism.
What bothers me about the stereotype isn't just that it's all attached to the girl with sleek black hair and almond eyes, but that's it's almost like a nice way to express a preference for dating a doormat you can wipe your feet on.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 3:46 PM
This is really apropos of little, but my friend who's spent the last few years in Kabul told me, "You have got to come to Afghanistan for the cock."* There were very few available, desirable women, and tons and tons of elite special forces types, who were hott + educated. She could get men she thought would be totally out of her league in the states.
*she did not actually put it this way. I just think that's funnier. But washerdreyer doesn't want me to lie to him.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 3:46 PM
170: If you want a meta-stereotype: Chinese, Japanese, and Koreans are not PC about stereotyping one another. Chinese also have a full set of stereotypes about various sorts of other Chinese. And Chinese also have well-developed stereotypes about what Chinese are like, even though the stereotype is an idealized one which is not completely accurate.
These things may be changing but I can assure you that people over there are much, much less careful about these questions than we are.
Most Chinese also have very definite ideas about what marriages should be like, and so I think that eb was basically right that a lot of Chinese guys would prefer a Chinese wife for stereotypical reasons. And certainly most Chinese mothers want their sons to marry Chinese women, and in traditional families that's very important.
Many Chinese women and some Chinese men prefer to marry non-Chinese, for mirror-image stereotypical reasons.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 3:48 PM
167! That! Right there! "Asian" = "homogeneous category." Gross. And it's totally distinct from saying, "I find long straight heavy black hair really erotic."
170: No, I think EB's 147 is quite specific: that first of all, there are a lot of people who prefer to date within their own ethnic group, and second of all, there are a lot of people who are not white who have stereotypes about ethnic traits. (Examples: Filipino guys who will tell you that Filipino women are too bossy, Indian men who will say that they want an Indian wife because Indian women know how to run a household, whatever.) It's true, and these guys do have mothers and sisters (which is often where they base those stereotypes). I dated more than one guy in high school who told me that he tended to date white chicks because they (I) were less likely to embody X stereotype about his own ethnic group.
Just think of Ogged's statements about the prospect of marrying an Iranian woman.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 3:50 PM
170: But I was making a different point, about people's stereotypes about their own cultures and "old countries". I mentioned Europeans too with analogous attitudes in the past. I did not say "Asian-American men" have these views, but that you could find it among some of them. And having come across this view in person - mainly centering around the desirability of marrying someone from the old country who hasn't been to the US - I'd say that having female relatives is not necessarily going to overturn one's stereotypes.
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 3:50 PM
176: That's presumably because the native women aren't very available, for fear of being stoned and whatnot, right?
Posted by pdf23ds | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 3:51 PM
"Filipino guys who will tell you that Filipino women are too bossy".
All men everywhere say that.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 3:52 PM
My Spanish boyfriend preferred to date foreign girls because he thought they had fewer sexual hangups.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 3:53 PM
I'm kind of surprised that the only person who has heretofore even hinted at the southeast Asian sex tourism by creepy white dudes is Dr. B.
Posted by A White Bear | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 3:54 PM
182: He lived in Spain, right? I'd bet foreigners travelling in any country for pleasure/study/immersion/etc. purposes are going to be more open sexually than a person that never leaves their home country. So he was probably right.
Posted by pdf23ds | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 3:56 PM
DrB, A White Bear, etc. I never realized having an Asian fetish was so much more disturbing that other fetishes, but then again, not having an Asian fetish myself, I don't understand it either. However, playing the devil's advocate, what makes somebody who prefers Asian women (both in looks and perceived personality) any better or worse than the preferences you stated regarding look and personalities?
Posted by TD | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 3:58 PM
184: I'm sure he was right.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 3:59 PM
What about the Alaskan sex tourism by those creepy white bear fetishists? Mmmmm, fur....
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 3:59 PM
185: I believe the consensus is that the creepy part of it is the content of the fetishist's particular conception of Asians--as submissive, delicate, etc.--not the fact that they have such a conception.
Posted by pdf23ds | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 4:00 PM
I can't keep up. The point I'm trying to make isthat a stereotype of Asian-American women as delicate, submissive flowers (a) doesn't fit most Asian-American women very well, and (b) doesn't fit most Asian cultures very well. I don't think we're disagreeing on those points. As I said earlier in the thread, I think that means that reasonably well-meaning guys who start out operating with such stereotypes aren't going to keep them for very long, and anyone who does is more of a garden-variety asshole than anything else. And at that point I'm not sure why getting off on Asian porn is particularly more offensive than getting off on big-titted blonde porn.
Posted by DaveL | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 4:00 PM
184: That's a bit silly, I think. Just because someone has the money and time to leave their home country doesn't mean they aren't subjected to patriarchal demands. I hate all these stereotypes that people who have the money to travel are somehow smarter, better-looking, nicer, and having better sex than people who don't have the money to travel. As if I'm sitting here on my ass this summer instead of hanging out in Paris because I'm close-minded, not because I'm poor.
Posted by A White Bear | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 4:00 PM
Oh, and the fact that they *prefer* people with such qualities. Someone who's attracted to people they think they can control more easily: very creepy.
Posted by pdf23ds | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 4:01 PM
And for the record, I prefer American-born women with a pretty smile, somewhat curvy/voluptuous, maybe 5'6" to 5'8" who are very smart, confident, assertive, and opinionated. Does this make me a freak too?
Posted by TD | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 4:01 PM
187: Well, we're not cheap, and we might kill you afterward.
Posted by A White Bear | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 4:02 PM
That's a bit silly, I think. Just because someone has the money and time to leave their home country doesn't mean they aren't subjected to patriarchal demands.
I thought the idea was that people will do wilder things with people they won't ever see continually in the future. Which has been my experience.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 4:03 PM
189 says "And at that point I'm not sure why getting off on Asian porn is particularly more offensive than getting off on big-titted blonde porn."
This is my question too (and sorry if somebody already posted an answer - seems my comments are getting posted behind the conversation some)
Posted by TD | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 4:03 PM
190: Certainly, they're going to be richer, or have rich parents, more often than not. And yes, they get just a much patriarchy as anyone else. But the fact that they spent their money on travel instead of lake houses and Jet Skis means that they tend to have a more adventurous personality, and people who tend more adventurous in general are going tend more adventurous sexually.
Posted by pdf23ds | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 4:04 PM
And just so I can talk in the other direction, there's a fairly important distinction between something as strong as an "ethnic fetish" and having found oneself both attracted and attractive to people of a particular ethnicity more often that not. If you set the standard for what constitutes a creepy fetish too low you run the risk of finding a lot of what could be ordinary interracial dating suspect, or rather, ordinary dating.
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 4:04 PM
195: As implied in #14, it's because B hates Asians.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 4:05 PM
Nah, I think that having a stereotype about "Asian women," regardless of what the stereotype is, is pretty offensive, actually. And yeah, I do find the categorization of porn by ethnicity/physical characteristics (Asian! Black! Huge tits!) to add an extra layer of ickiness to most porn, to be honest. Again, it's the chocolate-box theory: it's the idea that women are commodities, to be sorted according to whether or not they fit your particular decorating style.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 4:05 PM
I think that the so-called Asian fetish, in any form, is threatening because it basically amounts to voluntarily opting out from the normal American dating scene, often by guys who couldn't handle the normal American dating scene. It's sort of like taking your marbles and going home.
Someone on a hip scene who preferred to date hip Asian-American women would be a completely different story. For him it really would just be liking that kind of hair and skin, etc. Though again, it seems odd that craving a particular kind of meaningless physical attraction is OK, whereas liking a different kind of relationship is not.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 4:06 PM
My sister hated it when while in Ireland, men assumed she was a sexually adventurous co-ed just because she was in college, pretty, had an American accent and enjoyed drinking whiskey at pubs.
189: It's not getting off on porn that I've, at least, been discussing. And I don't think the Asian fetish is any worse than any other fetish premised on the idea that a) this ethnic group is all alike and b) they'll all be submissive, delicate flowers (and they acknowledge me as rightfully God.) (Eastern Europe and South America sometimes get this, too)
It may be a garden-variety asshole one, but it's sure a bunch of focused assholes.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 4:07 PM
190: In other words, it's not about having the *money* to travel, it's about having the *inclination*. And for the people that have such huge amounts of money that travelling isn't adventurous, the correlation probably dissipates.
Posted by pdf23ds | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 4:07 PM
"ordinary dating" should have appeared earlier in the last sentence of 197. I'm trying to avoid the "happens to be" construction - you know, something like "ordinary dating between people who happen to be of different ethnic backgrounds."
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 4:09 PM
So are mannerisms (not related to someone's identity/interests), things like how eye contact is made and vocal tonality less chocolate-boxy than skin color ethnic features? because that seems to just be a male/female gender thing.
Posted by Dan | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 4:09 PM
I have it on good authority that the most beautiful women on the planet live in Penticton, BC.
Seriously, I can't imagine having preferences as pronounced as some people express. I've seen/known beautiful women of every race, hair color, ethnicity, body type (within two standard deviations of the mean). WRT personality, the personal so overwhelms the general, that one really has to say that anyone looking for answers (other than shared cultural background) in ethnicity is going to be disappointed.
Posted by CharleyCarp | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 4:09 PM
I think the reason he was right about the Spanish women vs. foreigners has more to do with the cultural dynamics about sex in Spain. Of course, he was not immune to that bullshit himself. Once he told me while we were doing something or other that I wasn't a lady (I can't remember the words he used in Spanish; I guess it must have been something like "No eres una dama.") And I gave him a look like, "I hope you're teasing, because what exactly is the problem with me doing sex stuff you want to do to?" He saw the storm brewing and said something to mollify me.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 4:10 PM
I suddenly feel like, somehow, by posting these comments, we have found out a great deal about our co-commenters that we never would have known. I re-assert my #24.
Posted by A White Bear | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 4:10 PM
Again, it's the chocolate-box theory: it's the idea that women are commodities, to be sorted according to whether or not they fit your particular decorating style
This implies it's only women that are subject to being commoditized; every demographic is. What about the "tall, dark and handsome" myth, the "Jovial Fat Guy", the short, wimpy doormat guy, etc. You've seen the movie cars - count the number of different "male" characters there are.
Posted by TD | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 4:10 PM
194, etc.: Isn't "Fernando" (ABBA) about that kind of thing? I used to imagine Fernando complaining that he really wasn't that sexy, he had many interests besides women, and that he resented being objectified by Swedish corporation executives (ABBA is incorporated) on their two-week vacations.
There was an Onion about this.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 4:11 PM
200: John, come on. The problem that the women here have with the Asian "preference" is not because we're threatened by men who won't date us, or by all those women in Taiwan who are stealing our men.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 4:12 PM
179: In case it wasn't clear from my last comment, I agree, and if you'd referred to Chinese-American men having stereotypes of Chinese-American women, etc., I'd have agreed with the original comment. But I took the original comment to be suggesting that this bizarro-world white guy idea that all Asian women are half geisha and half Subic Bay prostitute might be shared by men who were closely acquainted with actual Asian or Asian-American women, which is why I responded as I did.
Comity?
Posted by DaveL | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 4:12 PM
I wish porn had the category, "ugly male hairdos", so I could could avoid having to see them.
Posted by dagger aleph | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 4:13 PM
201: I've never heard that stereotype about South Americans. Mexicans, maybe. But isn't there a stereotype of "Latin women = very femme but still assertive/bitchy"?
Posted by pdf23ds | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 4:13 PM
208: When there start being a jillion porn hits for the "fat jovial stud!" and "wimpy doormat boy-toy!" categories, let me know.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 4:14 PM
214 - lol. Fair point.
Posted by TD | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 4:15 PM
214: Porn for straight women, I mean. I'm well aware of the gay "twink" and "bear" porn obsessions, but I disclaim all personal responsibility for those.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 4:15 PM
What are the porn hits for straight women? (Serious question.)
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 4:15 PM
217: "Gay porn."
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 4:16 PM
213: Marriage broker stuff: meet beautiful Latina girl from Colombia, submissive, raised to love husband and children unlike American feminists, knows her place and how to keep her figure, and when you get her here, here's things you can do to ensure she won't change.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 4:16 PM
216- but 80% or something of porn is consumed by men. If more (straight) women were to start buying porn, perhaps there'd have to start being more extreme and singular categories too (i.e. specializiation) rather than the most broadest, generic possible to target a general audience. That is, law of supply and demand almost requires differentiation and promotes objectifying singular traits, right?
Posted by TD | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 4:18 PM
200: Well, it seems more as if you are offended that a bunch of men whom you wouldn't touch with a ten-foot pole in a million years had the nerve to look elsewhere, instead of perishing from humiliation.
The guys who get mail-order brides out of magazines probably are mostly pretty creepy, and guys who organize their lives around enormous collections of Asian porn too. But as far as I can tell, we're talking about nerdy, socially inept college undergrad guys who prefer to date East Asian women because they have some hope there.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 4:18 PM
219: But does that really have anything to do with ethnicity, or is it just "buy a beautiful poor woman who will put up with your shit as long as she gets to eat regularly"?
Posted by DaveL | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 4:19 PM
Hmm. The marriage broker stuff seems to be more about destitution and economic control than ties to cultural ideas of submission. Russian brides, anyone? Outside of that, I'm pretty sure there aren't stereotypes about meek, submissive Russian women.
Posted by pdf23ds | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 4:19 PM
220: Ladies, you have to do your part and buy more porn to bring down the patriarchy.
Posted by strasmangelo jones | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 4:20 PM
Comity, certainly. I should have distinguished that comment more clearly from the rest of the discussion.
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 4:21 PM
220: I'm not sure about the quality of this source, but take it as you will:
Almost as many women as men view porn at least occasionally, but men consume it more frequently.
Posted by pdf23ds | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 4:22 PM
225 was to 211. These comments are moving fast.
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 4:22 PM
219: I suspect 99% of it is economic control, but the men seem to link it to the superior culture of the bride's home culture. She's marrying him for love, you see, not to get a chance at llife in the U.S. If she gets here and learns English, the feminists who have An Agenda will get at her.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 4:23 PM
226 - yeah, and if you were selling coffee would you target the occasional consumer or the frequent consumer? And if there were 1000s of flavors of coffee, wouldn't that all be "reduced" down to simple themes to compete?
Posted by TD | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 4:25 PM
198: It's true. From Russia to Indonesia, it's all dead to me.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 4:25 PM
228: Yeah, but that doesn't really have any root in the wider stereotypes about the bride's culture. It's just propaganda from the marriage brokers and wishful thinking on the part of the clients.
Posted by pdf23ds | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 4:26 PM
No, but the Asian girl stereotypes don't have a wider root, either. I don't think it's an argument against their existence that they're inaccurate.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 4:28 PM
226: eroitca/'romance' lit probably gets consumed in equal, and opposite proportions, based on my anecdotal memories of working in a bookstore.
Posted by Dan | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 4:28 PM
229: Yeah, I'd say that supports your point. I recall reading somewhere than the percentage of real time spent viewing porn was actually only like 60% men, not 80%, but I also remember the source being very dubious. It'd be interesting to know.
Posted by pdf23ds | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 4:28 PM
223: Here you go. The russian woman likes to look pretty. She likes to dress well when she walks in the city street to her destination. She wears a dress and pumps, or a suit with a blouse and jewlery. She is concerned about her weight, her hair, how she presents herself. She thinks gym clothes are for the gym.
In Russia, she doesn't have a choice to stay home to take care of her husband, house, and children - for her, it is a dream. . . . The Russian woman's attitude about herself is feminine. She expects to be treated as a lady, she is the weaker gender and knows it. The Russian woman has not been exposed to the world of rampant feminism that asserts its rights in America.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 4:29 PM
And if she refuses to go down on me and I hit her, she'll have nowhere to run!
(Sorry.)
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 4:30 PM
Oops, that second paragraph should be italicized too. That sure as hell isn't me saying that.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 4:30 PM
235: I repeat 231.
Posted by pdf23ds | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 4:32 PM
You know what? It's really sad that one jokey comment about the Asian thing completely derailed what otherwise promised to be an interesting discussion. I feel bad for having helped drive that train.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 4:32 PM
In other words, marriage broker sites are not evidence for real stereotypes.
Posted by pdf23ds | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 4:33 PM
By the way, my point of the porn categories and "Asian fetish" as a grossly oversimplified reduction of correlation looks, personalities, and behaviors is how it extrapoloates to fantasies. Who are we to judge that this one is any worse than the threesome fantasy or big-boobed blonde one or ___?
Having said that, I'm with Wrenae way upthread - you can draw the line in the sand by considering what could be consentual - minors or animals is obviously wrong morally and otherwise.
Though, here is a gray area - what about an attractive co-worker or friend?
Posted by TD | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 4:34 PM
Choo-choo! I think it was a relatively interesting discussion anyway. But y'all aren't as obsessed with IMBRA as I am.
Okay.
Thesis: If a desire is morally reprehensible one has a duty to change it. Discuss.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 4:35 PM
237 - I was gonna say! 2nd paragraph doesn't sound like you!
Posted by TD | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 4:36 PM
240--But there's also about 20 pages of ads for Asian Flower callgirls in the back of every Village Voice edition. Actually, I think that "Asian Flower" is the name of one callout service.
Posted by Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 4:37 PM
There's a bit of truth in the Asian girl stereotype. (I'm talking especially about Taiwan Chinese, but it's more widely true).
First, they're much less prejudiced against shy, inept, nerdy guys than American women are. Being a nerd is sexy in Taiwan, and already was 20 years ago.
Second, if you want to get out of the competitive dating scene and have a nice ongoing relationship, probably ending in marriage, that's what many or most East Asian women want too.
One thing that was very clear in Taiwan is that all relationships are taken more seriously there. This is true of guy-guy relationships too -- they didn't hang out and chat with strangers much.
The system was: the first date is like a marriage proposal. The second date is like an engagement. The engagement could go along indefinitely. The parents would have to be consulted. Usually there was no marriage until the guy got a career job.
For people for whom our dating system doesn't work, this system, flawed as it is, has its good points.
If there are any East Asians here I would be interested in hearing what they say. Change pseudonyms if you must.
Posted by John Emerson | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 4:37 PM
pdf, I don' think it's just created by marriage brokers. They're not operating from everywhere that has poor women, just some places.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 4:37 PM
OK, so, question. Is it wrong to have fantasies involving non-consenting subjects? Are TD and Wrenae saying yes?
Posted by pdf23ds | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 4:39 PM
Hm. Everything that Emerson says in 245 about Taiwanese women would hold true for traditional Mormon women.
Posted by Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 4:40 PM
207 makes me nervous. For the record, I've been involved with a grand total of one part-Asian-American woman (who would object to the term), to whom I've been married for a good many years now, and I live in a place that's ethnically-mixed enough that my good friends include a pretty wide variety of mixed couples of various sorts. I'm not thrilled about the idea that some of you might jump to unflattering and unwarranted conclusions about my family. I don't for a minute doubt that there are lots of nasty, misogynist men with a thing for Asian women, but there are lots of nasty, misogynist men, full stop, and I'm not sure why that particular form of nasty misogyny is getting singled out here. If you want to catalog and categorize nasty misogynists, fire away, but that's a different exercise than assuming that there's a need to sort white-Asian couples into acceptable and unacceptable.
Posted by DaveL | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 4:41 PM
244: I think there is a wider stereotype about Asian submissiveness, just not about Russian or South American.
Posted by pdf23ds | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 4:42 PM
242 - Thesis: If a desire is morally reprehensible one has a duty to change it. Discuss.
After having watched the movie "Kinsey" on HBO before I stopped by here, I'd have to say it would start with some smart people studying and researching the idea that fantasies and fetishes are, at least in part, culturally conditioned and therefore why? Then look at which ones are most likely to lead to bad criminal behavior in real life, if any. And, finally, what steps could be taken to stop or prevent people from developing the really dark, destructive ones. But, it'd be a tough balancing act between indvidual rights (i.e. freedom to think) and social justice/order (i.e. preventing crimes). Sounds pretty eerily like "Minority Report" movie.
Posted by TD | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 4:42 PM
251: Actually, I think it would be really easy to prevent those kinds of fantasies without violating civil rights. Get rid of rape and child abuse. It wouldn't solve everything, but you'd see a huge improvement.
Posted by pdf23ds | Link to this comment | 07- 3-06 4:47 PM
250: But there are also stereotypes--perhaps better-rooted in the cultures in question--of Korean, Chinese, and Filipina women, among others, as tending rather more to the opposite extreme.
Posted by DaveL |