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==Use by Social Activists==
==Use by Social Activists==


There is a rich body of commentary and social criticism within the Asian-American civil rights community. Many activists, authors, and commentators in this community view the Asian fetish as a pervasive societal problem, reinforced by stereotypes of Asians, and leading to diminished economic prospects for Asian women, patterns of sexual crime against them, and widespread prejudice against Asian men.
The term ''Asian fetish'' is used in commentary and social criticism within the Asian-American civil rights community as either a shorthand for a set of societal stereotypes and their effect on Asians. It is also used by a few critics and commentators as an explicit or implicit criticism of some or all interracial relationships. Many activists, authors, and commentators in this community view the Asian fetish as a pervasive societal problem, reinforced by stereotypes of Asians, and leading to diminished economic prospects for Asian women, patterns of sexual crime against them, and widespread prejudice against Asian men.


===Stereotypes of Asians===
===Stereotypes of Asians===
Line 144: Line 144:


There has been a sub-population of non-Asian, typically Caucasian, women with a fetish for Asian men. However, this is more pronounced in Central and Eastern Europe, and less so in North America. This is evident in how European films are much more likely to glamourize a relationship between an Asian male and a white female, as mentioned above. In Canada, Australia, and the UK, there has been a shift over the last decade for Caucasian men to fetishize South Asian women, as opposed to East Asian women. This has been common social knowledge in these countries, and so recognition of this phenomena is not original research. Over the last decade in Canada, non-white female television news anchors are virtually all of South Asian descent, replacing the ones of East Asian descent. In the UK, South Asian female new anchors have been the norm for decades.
There has been a sub-population of non-Asian, typically Caucasian, women with a fetish for Asian men. However, this is more pronounced in Central and Eastern Europe, and less so in North America. This is evident in how European films are much more likely to glamourize a relationship between an Asian male and a white female, as mentioned above. In Canada, Australia, and the UK, there has been a shift over the last decade for Caucasian men to fetishize South Asian women, as opposed to East Asian women. This has been common social knowledge in these countries, and so recognition of this phenomena is not original research. Over the last decade in Canada, non-white female television news anchors are virtually all of South Asian descent, replacing the ones of East Asian descent. In the UK, South Asian female new anchors have been the norm for decades.
While this appears to many to be a refutation of the main argument behind the stereotypical Asian fetish, others argue that it may in fact be due to the desirability of stereotypical Asian male traits among this sub-population.
While this appears to many to be a refutation of the main argument behind the stereotypical Asian fetish, others argue that it may in fact be due to the desirability of stereotypical Asian male traits among this sub-population.


==Slang terms==
==Slang terms==

Revision as of 02:16, 10 March 2006

Second attempt -- 01:18, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

This article is not about love and/or normal interracial relationships. For the latter, see interracial marriage.

The term Asian fetish is a neologism that may appear in three distinct contexts:

  1. As an academic term in postcolonialist literary and philosophical theory, referring to the racial fetishism of Asians, especially Asian women in the western world;
  2. By Asian-American civil rights activists and authors to describe a form of racism and sexism against Asians and based on stereotypes about Asians; and
  3. To denote pornography, the subjects of which are Asian women, often in stereotypical costume or situations, and to describe Western men who seek this form of pornography.

Thus the meaning and interpretation of the term vary depending on the context. An Internet search[1] for the term will yield a mix of the term used by activists and references to pornography sites.

In both non-academic senses, Asian fetish denotes an intense or abnormal sexual attraction of a non-Asian, typically a white man, to Asian women, primarily East Asians (such as Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, Taiwanese), or to stereotypical images of these women. It may be difficult or impossible for such a man to form relationships with women of his own race, or even non-Asian women in general[1]. Activists frequently stress the abnormal and unhealthy aspects of sexual attraction to distinguish Asian fetish from the healthy attraction to Asian women of those in normal interracial relationships.

There is a great deal of controversy surrounding both the idea of an "Asian fetish" and the use of the phrase by Asian-American interest groups [2]. Some regard the notion as a form of racist love [3] and/or an expression of white supremacy [4] (whether by white men attracted to Asian women or implicitly by Asian women themselves in rejecting their native culture).

Men labelled with the term "Asian fetishist" often believe it to be a racist stereotype of them, claiming that the activists who use the term treat all cases of sexual attraction as objectification or fetishism, dismissing the possibility of normal interracial relationships. In such cases the activists may be accused of being "angry Asian men"[5].

There are several possible definitions of a fetish: as a popular fetish, as a sexual or Freudian fetish, and as a Marxist or commodity fetish[6].

Popular use

Apart from academic discourse and Asian-American social activism, the the term Asian fetish is primarily found applied to pornography and, to a lesser degree, online dating services. In this sense it is a colloquial reference to a Freudian fetish.

According to Webster's Dictionary, a "fetish" may be:

  • Any object believed by superstitious people to have magical power
  • Any object or activity to which one is irrationally devoted
  • Any non-sexual object, such as a foot or glove, that abnormally excites erotic feelings

In discussions of Asian fetish, the second definition, with some hints of the third definition, is used. The object in question to which the fetishist is devoted is the stereotype of Asian women as innocent, submissive and/or promiscuous. Asian fetish in this sense is an obsession with Asian women or an irrational devotion to stereotypes of them, in contrast to people in normal, healthy interracial relationships. This is also the basis for the term when used in conjunction with pornography, where it holds a comparable place to other forms of paraphilia such as Foot fetishism or Breast fetishism.

Asian fetishists may be sexually attracted to Asians because of stereotypical qualities they believe to be true amongst the Asians, such as innocence, submissiveness, promiscuity, or sexual prowess (although some qualities are contradictory; the fetishist may not believe in all the stereotypes). Many believe that American popular culture has promoted these stereotypes of Asians and consider the alleged fetishization of Asians based on those stereotypes and the generalizations about the physical appearance of Asians to be a form of racism and objectification.

Some argue that there is a distinction between individuals who are attracted to Asians for those stereotypes and individuals who are attracted to Asian culture, though some Asians do not accept the explanation of a generalized and gender-specific attraction toward Asian women, given the diversity of Asian cultures and different degrees of acculturation among Asians, particularly Asian Americans. Some Asians also argue that the interest among white males in Asian culture is confined to the most palatable aspectsof the culture -- cuisine, mysticism, martial arts, and female sexuality -- and is rarely accompanied by an equally enthusiastic interest in the equality or perspectives of Asian Americans in American politics or society.

Academic terminology

In coining and using the term Asian fetish, Asian American activists and authors have drawn heavily from the postcolonialist concept of racial fetishism. While racial fetishism is an academic study in its own right, the popular use of the term Asian fetish is in some way a popularization and simplification of the dense and complex academic topic of racial fetishism.

In postcolonialist and Neomarxist discourse, the racial fetishism of Asians is defined as a form of commodity fetishism, the process in which Asian women are associated with Eurocentric sexual stereotypes of submissiveness, innocence and latent promiscuity, and the subsequent act of identifying such constructs as reality.

This is analogous to a commodity fetish in the sense that commodity fetishism is the process by which things with no inherent use-value (e.g., money) become imbued with inherent exchange-value (e.g., to exchange for food, which has inherent use-value).

As an example, consider the Neomarxist interpretation of the process by which the commodity fetishism of currency is said to arise in a capitalist system.

  1. Money has no inherent use-value.
  2. People create money and assign to it exchange-value (e.g., as a metaphor for exchange).
  3. People confuse exchange-value with use-value (reality).
  4. People forget that they created money as exchange-value, so that it is only left with use-value.

Postcolonialists and Neomarxists have argued that the alleged commodity fetishism of Asians arises in a similar manner.

  1. Asian women in reality have no inherent stereotypes.
  2. Orientalists assign stereotypes to Asian women in order to better understand the realities of Asian women.
  3. Later generations of Europeans confuse the stereotypes as realities.
  4. Finally, the fact that Orientalists created the stereotypes themselves is forgotten, and so the stereotypes become reality.

It is important to note the similarity between the popular usage of the term "Asian fetishism" and the academic usage of racial fetishism of Asians. In the popular sense, Asian fetishism is a strong and irrational devotion to the stereotypes of Asian women. In the academic sense, the racial fetishism of Asians denotes the (capitalist) process by which Asian women are exoticized and objectified by racial stereotypes. Thus, the popular sense is considered a simplification of the academic sense.

Use by Social Activists

The term Asian fetish is used in commentary and social criticism within the Asian-American civil rights community as either a shorthand for a set of societal stereotypes and their effect on Asians. It is also used by a few critics and commentators as an explicit or implicit criticism of some or all interracial relationships. Many activists, authors, and commentators in this community view the Asian fetish as a pervasive societal problem, reinforced by stereotypes of Asians, and leading to diminished economic prospects for Asian women, patterns of sexual crime against them, and widespread prejudice against Asian men.

Stereotypes of Asians

Asian Americans are the subject of numerous stereotypes, many dealing with sexuality. Asian American activists claim these stereotypes are the motive force behind a widespread Asian fetish.

Asians in the U.S. have the highest household income of any other racial group[2], and suffer from lower overall rates of crime (see below). Some Asians self-identify as a "model minority", though Asian-American activists such as Model Minority believe the label and accompanying stereotypes have a negative impact[3], [4], [5].

Sterotypes of Asian sexuality

Asian stereotypes can be divided into three categories:

  1. Those regarding the sexual desirability of Asian women;
  2. Those regarding the the sexual undesirability of Asian men
  3. Those regarding Caucasian men in relationships with Asian women, the so-called counterculture stereotypes that are created as a response to stereotypes of the first two categories, i.e., the stereotypes of Asian fetishists.
Stereotypes of Asian womanhood

Western film and literature has promoted many stereotypes of Asian women, including depictions of Asian women as "Dragon Ladies"[7][8][9] or as servile "Lotus Blossom Babies", "China dolls", "Geisha girls", war brides, or prostitutes. Despite the differences between the submissive stereotype and the sexually-active ones, some commentators believe they are interrelated and apply characteristics of exotic sensuality and promiscuity with mystery and untrustworthiness[10].

Some also feel that Hollywood has perpetuated a concept of the "unmotivated White-Asian romance". In Daughter of the Dragon, the daughter of Fu Manchu lays her eyes on a British detective and instantly falls in love with him. Miss Saigon and Come See the Paradise also contain scenes where Asian women fall in love with white men at first sight, which activists argue sterotypes Asian women as romantically attracted to white men simply because they are white.

One Asian writer has argued that these stereotypes have impeded Asian women's economic mobility and increased demand for mail-order brides and ethnic-fetish pornography [11].

Stereotypes of Asian manhood

Some race and gender theorists and Asian American activists allege a racism-based disparity in how men of different races are portrayed in the mass media: while white men are depicted both as virile and as protectors of women, Asian men have been presented as both asexual and as threats to white women [12]. Racist depictions of Asian men as "lascivious and predatory" were especially pronounced during the nativist movement against Asians at the turn of the 20th century [13].

Historically, between 1850 and 1940, U.S. popular media as well as pre-war and WWII propaganda portrayed Asian men as a military and security threat to the country, and a sexual danger to white women [14]. In the 1916 film Petria, a group of fanatical Japanese who invaded the United States and attempted to rape a white woman [15]. Furthermore, after the attack on Pearl Harbor the "Yellow Peril" gained further momentum when Japanese became a key target of America's war propaganda.

On the physical level, Asian men are stereotyped as being shorter and less well-built than Caucasian men. Traditionally, this disparity in human height had much to do with endemic malnutrition in Asia. For example, the average height of males in South Korea is 5'8.2" and in impoverished North Korea is 5'4.9", which can largely be attributed to chronic famine. The average male height in the United States is 5'9.6". This height disparity has narrowed for several Asian countries since World War II, though there persists a common sterotype that height differences make Asian men less physically desirable when compared to their white counterparts.

An Asian-American media watchdog group[6] has sensed a shift from the early 20th-century "hypersexual" stereotype of Asian masculinity to "asexual" and even "homosexual," as suggested in a controversial 2004 article Gay or Asian in Details magazine.

Influence on sexual crimes

The discussion of sexual crimes in association with an Asian fetish is controversial. There is no statistical evidence linking crimes against Asian women to an "Asian fetish", nor is there any evidence that relationships between non-Asian men and Asian women are measurably different from any others. In general, Asians are less likely to be victims of violent crime than every other major racial group. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, "In 1998, 110 American Indians, 43 blacks, 38 whites and 22 Asians were victims of violence per 1,000 persons age 12 or older in each racial group." [16]

However, recently, both Asian Pacific American and feminist organizations have given increased attention to sexual crimes committed against Asian women, centered on fetishism, sexual harassment and violent crimes [17]. Asian American women complain that Asian fetish is considered an annoying but benign phenomenon that does not need to be taken seriously [18]. List of sex crimes against Asian women provides a short list of sexual crimes against Asian women. Since repeated sexual offenses which center around a specific object or person are sometimes considered as fetishistic behavior by some psychologists[19] , Asian and Pacific American activists believe that the perpetrators in these crimes had an Asian fetish.

Criticisms

Some contend that the stereotype of an Asian fetish is a means of discouraging interracial relationships or race mixing. In the past, racial supremacists opposed such relationships, though today in the United States, critics of interracial dating are sometimes Asian males and African American women, who have themselves felt stereotyped. This in turn may be considered hypocrisy or "reverse" racism. Some point to changing demographics and increasing inter-mixture of all races as producing insecurity[7], thus spawning the controversy. Others claim that these interracial relationships would not be a problem if there were no gender gap[citation needed].

Others contend that the "Asian fetish" sterotype is a form of social control within Asian or Asian-American communities, intended to discourage Asian women from straying from Asian men[citation needed]. Asian women may date non-Asian men because of unhappiness with certain perceived aspects of Asian culture, whether real or imagined, a scenario presented in the novel The Joy Luck Club, which presents Asian men as sexist and domineering.

Yet others contend that the dating disparity that is an element of the controversy is based not on eagerness of Asian women to date other races, but on the lack of Asian male/white female couples. From this point of view, it is racial exclusionism of either Asian men or non-Asian women which leads to the disparity[citation needed].

The gendered application of this term is also criticized as sexist[citation needed]. "Asian fetish" is applied almost exclusively to white male/Asian female couples as opposed to Asian male/white female couples. The latter may be tolerated or promoted within certain segments of the Asian American community. Thus, there are accusations supporting one racial fetish while repudiating the other: Asian men are not accused of a fetish for white women, although notably there does not exist much evidence that such fetishes even exist on a societal level. The stereotype being a double standard targeted primarily towards women.

Another criticism is that the concept of race itself is outdated, and that combining heterogeneous ethnicities under labels such as "Asian" or "white", is increasingly outdated. These critics view the opponents of interracial dating as engaging in "identity politics" and promoting racial separation. The key point of dispute is the legitimacy of categorizing people by so-called "race". Thus, in this view, defining a relationship in terms of race itself is the problem; that is, the participants themselves may see each other as individual people, not categories. This view is sometimes called the "social construct" point of view.

There has been a sub-population of non-Asian, typically Caucasian, women with a fetish for Asian men. However, this is more pronounced in Central and Eastern Europe, and less so in North America. This is evident in how European films are much more likely to glamourize a relationship between an Asian male and a white female, as mentioned above. In Canada, Australia, and the UK, there has been a shift over the last decade for Caucasian men to fetishize South Asian women, as opposed to East Asian women. This has been common social knowledge in these countries, and so recognition of this phenomena is not original research. Over the last decade in Canada, non-white female television news anchors are virtually all of South Asian descent, replacing the ones of East Asian descent. In the UK, South Asian female new anchors have been the norm for decades. While this appears to many to be a refutation of the main argument behind the stereotypical Asian fetish, others argue that it may in fact be due to the desirability of stereotypical Asian male traits among this sub-population.

Slang terms

There are a number of slang terms for the Asian fetish, all considered derogatory and/or racial slurs. Asian fetish has also been called "yellow fever". In Gay Slang, a heterosexual man who has an Asian fetish may be referred to as a "rice king", "rice lover", or "rice chaser" (a homosexual man, a "rice queen"). More recently, the term "Asiaphilia" (although it could have positive connotations as well) has come to be used as a synonym for "Asian fetish"; and "Asiaphile" for an Asian fetishist.

The term "white-worshipping" is a slang term used for the reverse situation, the preference for white males by Asian females, who are called "sellouts", while an Asian American community website coined the slur "CCB" ("Cracker Chasing Bitch") [8] to describe this.

References

  1. ^ Prasso, Sheridan (2005). "'Race-ism,' Fetish, and Fever". The Asian Mystique. Cambridge, MA: Perseus Books. pp. 132–164. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameters: |chapterurl=, |coauthors=, and |month= (help)
  2. ^ "Deconstructing "Asian fetish" - the appeal of physical appearance and/or cultural traits". ColorQ World: interracial interacions between people of color.
  3. ^ Chin, Frank (1972). "Racist Love". In Richard Kostelanetz (ed.). Seeing Through Shuck. New York: Ballantine Books. pp. 65–79. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |month= (help); External link in |chapterurl= (help); Unknown parameter |chapterurl= ignored (|chapter-url= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  4. ^ San Juan, Jr., E. (1983). "The Cult of Ethnicity and the Fetish of Pluralism: A Counterhegemonic Critique". Cultural Critique. 18: 215–229. {{cite journal}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
  5. ^ Tizon, Joyce (February 3, 2000). "A Threatened Manhood? Exploring the myth of the angry Asian male". Asian Week.
  6. ^ Wray, Matt (1998). "Fetishizing the Fetish". Bad Subjects. 41. {{cite journal}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
  7. ^ The Thief of Bagdad (1924)
  8. ^ Daughter of Fu Manchu (1931)
  9. ^ Tong, B. (1994). Unsubmissive women: Chinese prostitutes in nineteeth-century San Francisco, University of Oklahoma Press.
  10. ^ Tajima, R. (1989). Lotus blossoms don't bleed: Images of Asian women., Asian Women United of California's Making waves: An anthology of writings by and about Asian American women, (pp 308-317), Beacon Press.
  11. ^ Kim, E. (1984). Asian American writers: A bibliographical review, American Studies International, 22, 2.
  12. ^ Espiritu, Y. E. (1997). Ideological Racism and Cultural Resistance: Constructing Our Own Images, Asian American Women and Men, Rowman & Littlefield Publishing.
  13. ^ Frankenberg, R. (1993). White women, race matters: The social construction of whiteness., University of Minnesota Press.
  14. ^ Wu, W.F. (1982). The Yellow Peril: Chinese Americans in American fiction 1850-1940, Archon Press.
  15. ^ Quinsaat, J. (1976). Asians in the media, The shadows in the spotlight. Counterpoint: Perspectives on Asian America (pp 264-269). University of California at Los Angeles, Asian American Studies Center.
  16. ^ Rennison, Callie (March 2001). "Violent Victimization and Race, 1993-98. Bureau of Justice Statistics Special Report". U.S. Department of Justice.
  17. ^ Nash, Phil Tajitsu (Apr 29, 2005). "Depravity Against Women On- and Off-campus". National Asian Pacific American Women's Forum.
  18. ^ Kim, Sallie and Stockdale, Shannon (April 14, 2005). "For Asian Women, 'Fetish' is Less Than Benign". The Yale Daily News.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  19. ^ Lowenstein, L.F. (2002). "Fetishes and Their Associated Behavior". Sexuality and Disability. 20 (2): 135–147. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)

See also

External links

On Asian fetish

Opinion/Editorial

On interracial romance

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