Asian fetish

Template:Globalize/USA Asian fetish is a slang term which refers to attraction for people of Asian descent by those of non-Asian descent.

The term Asiaphilia is sometimes used to describe the same phenomenon, as is 'Yellow Fever'. Men with a preference for Asian women have been referred to as Asiaphiles.

One study has challenged the notion that the preference is prevalent in American society. This preference has been attributed to American military involvement in Asia.

Terminology

Two loaded names for this preference are Asiaphilia and Asian fetish. Ming Tan, a writer, quotes one man as saying that he thinks that "there's a massive, huge difference between such a fetish and my preference for Asians". The correspondent goes on to describe the "grace" and the ability to create "harmony in one's family, workplace, and community" that he finds attractive in Asian women.

Jenny Parker, co-founder of the AsianParent.com web site, writes:

My spouse happens to be non-Asian, so I find the terms Asian fetish/Yellow Fever disagreeable if not insulting. I'd rather believe that my husband asked me to marry him because I had exhibited some desirable qualities to him during our courtship, and not because he needed an Asian woman to fulfill a fetish of his. If a term must be used to label this type of romance, I would be okay with "preference."

— AsianWeek, in Jenny Parker

People who espouse the preference generally prefer to term themselves Asiaphiles. Conversely, the name Asiaphile — Asiaphilia being the love of Asia and Asian things in general and not a specifically sexual or romantic issue — is problematic for the critics who believe that people with this preference are stereotyping or objectifying Asian women. They accuse people with this preference of having an Asian fetish.

Other slang names for the preference include "yellow fever" for the preference, and "rice kings", "rice chasers", and "rice lovers" for the men who espouse it.

History and usage

During periods of anti-Asian sentiment, in the United States in the late 1800s, known as Yellow Peril, an image of Chinese women emerged as sexually corrupt, immoral, and threatening to the white population. Babysan, a cartoon character sketched as an exotic, curvaceous, slanted eyed woman, was published in the East Asian edition of the Navy Times during wartime.

Darrell Hamamoto, Professor of Asian American Studies at the University of California, Davis , has stated that the stereotypes are a result of Western imperialist influence in Asian countries and increased interaction between different races in the United States after immigration laws were relaxed in the 1960s. Hamamoto said American soldiers' contact with Vietnamese prostitutes during the Vietnam War have further contributed to reinforcing these images of Asian women.

In the afterword to the 1988 play M. Butterfly, the writer, David Henry Hwang, using the term "yellow fever," a pun on the disease of the same name, discusses white men with a "fetish" for Asian women. Hwang argues that this phenomenon is caused by stereotyping of Asians in Western society.

Phoebe Eng wrote in her book Warrior Lessons,

While hypersexualized, commodifying images exist for all women, and especially women of color, the image of the Asian woman combines with this the notion of ultrapassivity. Sexuality for an Asian woman is so tightly wound up in issues of power and global economic order that it is virtually impossible to address the spector of an Asian woman's sexuality without examining the subtle roles of governments and enterprise in perpetuating this situation, especially in developing countries.

In order to provide a counterpoint to the overwhelming negative impact that Asian fetish has on the lives of Asian American females, Phoebe Eng wrote the following,

Not all of us, for instance, agree that the current trend of "Asian fetish" is bad. In fact, for some of us, the new visibility of Asian women, even though stereotyped, can actually be liberating.

The gay slang term used for a man, usually white, who exclusively dates Asian males is "rice queen."

Preferences by American men

Historic causes

The preference for Asian women as sex partners by many American men can be traced back to the history of involvement of American military forces in Asia, from World War II onwards, through the Korean War and the Vietnam War. Prostitution developed around American military bases, and American soldiers became sexually involved with Asian women.

Proximate causes

Maggie Chang, an undergraduate at the University of Pennsylvania who argues in favour of the stereotypification and objectification view, attributes the continuation of the preference for Asian women amongst some American men to stereotypical images of Asian women in American media. Pyke and Johnson simiarly state that the stereotype of the servile "Lotus Blossom" Asian woman reinforces the preference among some American men.

Crystal Tai, a Chinese American journalist, interviewed over 100 men of various ethnicities in Silicon Valley about their preference for East Asian women in 2008 and summarized their answers in her e-book Secrets of Asian Women[1]. In the e-book, Tai describes a stereotypical East Asian woman highly desirable to contemporary American men as follows:

"She is naturally slim with no need of dieting. She looks 25 while approaching 35. She listens more than she talks. She saves more money than she spends. She puts her man before herself."

Reactions of Asian American women

Tan interviewed Asian American women and observed a mixed reaction amongst them to men who have this preference. On the one hand, many of them hated men with an "Asian fetish". They did not want either to be regarded as sex objects or to be required to live up to impossible to realize stereotypes of Asian sexuality and behaviour. On the other hand, several of them enjoyed the attention that they received. They stated that they were benefitting from the preference. Tan observes that it is harder for a woman over 35 to attract a man in the United States, and that thus some American men's preference for Asian women was making it hard for older Asian American women to complain about any objectification that may occur "when so many men are calling".

Academic studies

Fisman, Sethi-Iyengar, et al. conducted a two year study of individuals that had self-selected into a speed dating event at Columbia University. The purpose was to investigate the rarity of inter-racial marriages in the United States, and to investigate racial preferences in dating as its possible cause, and the relative importance of that preference with respect to physical racial segregation. Thousands of decisions made by more than 400 daters from Columbia University's various graduate and professional schools were compiled. The study reported, and Fisman in an article in Slate magazine separately re-iterated, no evidence amongst the speed daters for what it called "the stereotype of a white male preference for East Asian women".

We found no evidence of the stereotype of a white male preference for East Asian women. However, we also found that East Asian women did not discriminate against white men (only against black and Hispanic men). As a result, the white man-Asian woman pairing was the most common form of interracial dating—but because of the women's neutrality, not the men's pronounced preference. Men don't seem to discriminate based on race when it comes to dating. A woman's race had no effect on the men's choices.

The study did report that the pairing between a white man and an Asian woman was the most common inter-racial pairing, but it attributed this not to a preference for Asian women on the parts of the white men, but rather to the preferences of the Asian women. The study found that the men, of all races, in fact had no racial preferences amongst women. Whereas it found that the women of all races strongly preferred men of their own race. It reported that Asian women feel neutrality towards white men to which the study and Fisman attributed the prevalence of the white man/Asian woman inter-racial pairing, in comparison with other pairings. The study cited prior work, including that by Ariely et al. and Mills et al. (see further reading), that had also suggested that women are less accepting of inter-racial romantic relationships than men are.

Chang also observes that statistical evidence of the preference may not be considered substantial, noting a census by American Demographics that reports that one-third of all Asian Americans between the ages of 15 and 24 married non-Asians, and primarily Caucasians, without attributing those inter-racial marriages to a specific preference for Asian women on the parts of the male partners.

See also

• Interracial relationships
• Interracial marriage
• Racist love
• Stereotypes of Asians
• Sex tourism
• Amejo
• Pinkerton Syndrome
• Sarong party girl
• Yellow cab (stereotype)
• Circassian beauties
• Chinese female beauty ideals

Further reading

• Dan Ariely, Gunter J. Hitsch, and Ali Hortacsu (2004). "What Makes You Click: An Empirical Analysis of Online Dating" (PDF). MIT Sloan Research Paper No. 4603-06, SSRN 895442. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
• Jon K. Mills, Jennifer Daly, Amy Longmore, and Gina Kilbridge (1995). "A Note on Family Acceptance Involving Interracial Friendships and Romantic Relationships". The Journal of Psychology. 129 (3): 349–351.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)