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

The term Asian fetish refers to sexual stereotypes associated with Asians, especially Asian women. It is a neologism that may appear in three contexts:

  1. 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;
  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. As an academic term in postcolonialist literary and philosophical theory, referring to the racial fetishism of Asians in the western world.

Thus the meaning and interpretation of the term vary depending on the context. An Internet search for the term will yield a mix of uses by activists and references to pornography sites, though in all cases it 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 to the point where 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. 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 regular interracial relationships.

Asian American social activists have borrowed from each use (popular fetish, sexual fetish, and commodity fetish) to create their use of the term.

Popular terminology

Apart from academic discourse and Asian American social activism, 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 sexual fetish.

Definition

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.

Use in pornography

In popular usage, an Asian fetish is a form of sexual fetish in which a man is unusually or abnormally attracted to Asian women. 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. While this is a reference to sexual fetishism, this is normally considered an incorrect or unscientific usage, though it may be considered that the fetishist is devoted to stereotypes of Asian women (as innocent, submissive and/or promiscuous) more than Asian women themselves. This is 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. However, some argue that Asian facial features may simply be more desireable to the "fetishist", in the same way others might be attacted to those with freckles or blond hair.

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. 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 this does not appear to be supported by its widespread use in denoting pornography.

Social activism terminology

Asian American social activists have adopted the term "Asian fetish" from both popular usage and academic usage to address what they see as stereotyping and objectification of Asians in Western society. 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. However, 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 and Asian Americans, and the prevalence of non-gender-specific cultural differences between Asians and Americans. Some Asians also argue that the interest in Asian culture is limited to the most accessible aspects of the culture such as cuisine and fashion.

Essay on origins of use in social activism

The term "Asian fetish" began as slang usage in Asian American subculture, before eventually being adopted by literary authors, but activists trace its origins to the concept of "racist love", a term coined in 1972 by Asian American authors Frank Chin and Jeffrey Paul Chan.

White racism enforces white supremacy. White supremacy is a system of order and a way of perceiving reality. Its purpose is to keep whites on top and set them free. Colored minorities in white reality are stereotypes. Each racial stereotype comes in two models, the acceptable and the unacceptable. The hostile black stud has his acceptable counterpart in the form of Stepin Fetchit. For the savage, kill-crazy Geronimo, there is Tonto and the Hollywood version of Cochise. For the mad dog General Santa Ana there's the Cisco Kid and Pancho. For Fu Manchu and the Yellow Peril, there is Charlie Chan and his Number One Son. The unacceptable model is unacceptable because he cannot be controlled by whites. The acceptable model is acceptable because he is tractable. There is racist hate and racist love.

Chin and Chan conclude that the stereotypes of Asian Americans have been the only successful acceptable stereotypes, and hence the only success story of white racism, and that Asian Americans are prevented from claiming to American history or heritage of their own. While their article on racist love did not deal directly with the term Asian fetish, it is still sometimes cited in discussions of Asian fetish. For example, SFSU professor Gin Yong Pang writes:

In my study, many Korean American women encountered White men who, for whatever reasons, pursued and dated exclusively or predominantly Asian/Asian American women. These men were so common and identifiable that the women had special names for them; they were called "Rice Kings" or "Asiaphiles," or men with an "Asian fetish" or "Asian fixation." Their motives were highly suspect; the women perceived these men as demonstrating what Frank Chin and Jeffrey Paul Chan (1972) once regarded as classic examples of "racist love."

The earliest printed use of the term by Asian Americans seems to be in a 1982 play (published in 1984) by Asian Canadian playwright Rick Shiomi, entitled Yellow Fever , a term which is interchangeable with Asian fetish in meaning. Shiomi's comical play is set in Japantown in Vancouver, and features a private eye named Sam Shikaze, an intended play on the name Sam Spade. However, while it is clear that Shiomi knew of the sexualized sense of the term "Yellow Fever," the play does not deal with Asians specifically in sexualized terms.

The earliest discussion of that, and of fetishism specifically, seems to be in the play M. Butterfly by David Henry Hwang. The play, based on a true story, is about a British diplomat who is seduced by a male Chinese spy pretending to be a female "Oriental" opera singer, by playing to the diplomat's stereotypical beliefs of how Chinese women should act. In the afterward Hwang writes:

Heterosexual Asians have long been aware of "Yellow Fever" --Caucasian men with a fetish for exotic Oriental women. I have often heard it said that "Oriental women make the best wives." (Rarely is this heard from the mouths of Asian men, incidentally.) This mythology is exploited by the Oriental mail-order bride trade which has flourished over the decade. American men can now send away forcatalogues of "obedient, domesticated" Asian women looking for husbands. Anyone who believes such stereotypes are a thing of the past need look no further than Manhattan cable television, which advertises call girls from "the exotic east, where men are king; obedient girls, trained in the art of pleasure."

The first academic treatment of the fetishism of Asian Americans was by Columbia professor David L. Eng, in his dissertation work at Berkeley University.


There is controversy within the Asian American community about the use of the term "Asian fetish". Authors such as Frank Chin and Jeffrey Paul Chan regard it as a form of racist love and/or an expression of white supremacy (whether by white men attracted to Asian women or implicitly by Asian women themselves in rejecting their native culture). Other authors, such as Phoebe Eng, argue that not all Asians feel that the current trend of "Asian fetish" is bad, since it has given new sexual visibility and liberation to an otherwise invisible and disempowered minority .

Criticisms of polarizing authors such as Frank Chin within the academic and novelist communities have been numerous. Author Shirley Geok-lin Lim writes that some Asian American writing cited by proponents of "Asian fetish" has "valorized cultural nationalism and argued for separatist politics".. Moreover, Sau-ling C. Wong and Jeffrey J. Santa Ana write:

Frank Chin, perhaps the best known of the androcentric cultural nationalist writers, relies on misogyny and homophobia in his attempt to delineate and construct a (hetero)normative Asian American manhood. In his critique of racist Hollywood caricatures of Asian men, for example, Chin glorifies stereotypes of aggression in black, Latino, and Native American men.

And Daniel Kim writes that Chin's work suggests:

...the moral violence we inflict on our assimilated identities is perhaps intended for the 'white man' we glimpse within the shape of our 'Americanized' selves, the 'white man' we wish to beat out of ourselves but cannot.

Sexuality and stereotypes

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.

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

Stereotypes include those concerning the sexual desirability of Asian women, the sexual undesirability of Asian men, or the relationships of Caucasian men with Asian women (i.e. stereotypes of Asian fetishists).

Stereotypes of Asian womanhood

Western film and literature has promoted stereotypes of Asian women, such as depicting Asian women as cunning "Dragon Ladies", as servile "Lotus Blossom Babies", "China dolls", "Geisha girls", war brides, or prostitutes . UC Berkeley Professor of Asian American Studies Elaine Kim has argued that the stereotype of Asian women as submissive sex objects has impeded women's economic mobility and has fostered increased demand in mail-order brides and ethnic pornography .

Activists argue that some stereotypes send the signal that Asian women are romantically attracted to white men only because they are white. 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, The Bounty and Come See the Paradise also contain scenes where Polynesian or Asian women fall in love with white men at first sight. The website PhilippineNews.com quotes UC Davis Filipino American student Anthony Tadina's criticism of a character in J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter books: “Rowling based Cho Chang on what she views Asian girls are -- light skinned, skinny, smart ... the stereotype.”.

Stereotypes of Asian manhood

Some race and gender theorists, as well as Asian American activists, allege that there is a race-based disparity in how men of different races are portrayed in the mass media: while white men are shown as protectors of women, and both white and black men are depicted as virile, Asian men have been presented as asexual, and both black and Asian men have been portrayed as threats to white women . Racist depictions of Asian men as "lascivious and predatory" were common at the turn of the 20th century . However, an Asian American media watchdog group has detected a shift from a "hypersexual" stereotype of Asian masculinity to "asexual" and even "homosexual," as suggested in a controversial 2004 article Gay or Asian in Details magazine.

Writing about the differences in representation between Asian men and Asian women, UC Berkeley Professor of Asian American Studies Elaine Kim believes that "Asian women are only sexual for the same reason that Asian men are asexual: both exist to define the white man's virility and the white race's superiority."

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 . In the 1916 film Petria, a group of fanatical Japanese who invaded the United States attempted to rape a white woman .

On the physical level, Asian men are stereotyped as being shorter and less well-built than Caucasian men. Traditionally, part of 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", while in impoverished North Korea, it is 5'4.9". This difference between the two Koreas, which are highly homogeneous racially, can largely be attributed to chronic famine in the North. By way of reference, the average male height in the United States is 5'9.6". A common perception is that height differences make Asian men less physically desirable when compared to their white or black counterparts. Other stereotypes regarding physical characteristics of Asian men have even less basis in widely-recognized research.

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", and in a report on hate crimes, "There were no significant differences in rates of hate crime vulnerability for racial or ethnic groups.".

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 . Asian American women complain that Asian fetish is considered an annoying but benign phenomenon that does not need to be taken seriously . 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, Asian and Pacific American activists believe that the perpetrators in these crimes had an Asian fetish.

Slang

The activism community has a number of other terms which are considered equivalent to "Asian fetish" in the activism sense but not in the pornographic sense. 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")

Criticisms

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".

Other critics 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, which in turn may be considered "reverse" racism. 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.

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. ^ Lowenstein, L.F. (2002). "Fetishes and Their Associated Behavior". Sexuality and Disability. 20 (2): 135 – 147. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
  3. 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)
  4. "Deconstructing "Asian fetish" - the appeal of physical appearance and/or cultural traits". ColorQ World: interracial interacions between people of color.
  5. Vanessa Hua (February 6, 2000). "We all scream for chinoiserie". San Francisco Examiner.
  6. Chin, Frank (1972). "Racist Love". In Richard Kostelanetz (ed.). Seeing Through Shuck. New York: Ballantine Books. pp. p. 65. {{cite book}}: |pages= has extra text (help); External link in |chapterurl= (help); Unknown parameter |chapterurl= ignored (|chapter-url= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  7. Pang, Gin Yong (1998). "Intraethnic, Interracial, and Interethnic Marriages among Korean American Women". Korean American Women: From Tradition to Modern Feminism. Boston: Praeger. pp. p. 134. {{cite book}}: |pages= has extra text (help)
  8. Shiomi, Richard (1984). Yellow Fever. Toronto: Playwrights Canada.
  9. Hwang, David Henry (1988). "Afterward". M. Butterfly. New York: Plume Books. pp. p. 98. {{cite book}}: |pages= has extra text (help)
  10. Eng, David L. (2001). Racial Castration: Managing Masculinity in Asian America. Durham: Duke University Press.
  11. 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)
  12. 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)
  13. Eng, Phoebe (2000). "She Takes Back Desire". Warrior Lessons : An Asian American Woman's Journey into Power. New York: Atria. pp. 115–142.
  14. Aiiieeee! An Anthology of Asian American Writers. ed. Frank Chin et alia. Howard University Press, 1974
  15. Transnational Asian American Literature, Temple Press
  16. Wong, Sau-ling C. (1999). "Gender and Sexuality in Asian American literature". Signs. 25 (1): 171–226. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
  17. Kim, Daniel (1998). "The Strange Love of Frank Chin". In David L. Eng and Alice Y. Hom (ed.). Q&A: Queer in Asian America. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. pp. 270–303. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |1= (help)
  18. The Thief of Bagdad (1924)
  19. Daughter of Fu Manchu (1931)
  20. Tong, B. (1994). Unsubmissive women: Chinese prostitutes in nineteeth-century San Francisco, University of Oklahoma Press.
  21. 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.
  22. Kim, Elaine (1984). "Asian American writers: A bibliographical review". American Studies International. 22 (2): 41-78.
  23. Pangilinan, Erin (July 27, 2005). "Harry Potter and the Asian American image in media". Philippine News Online.
  24. Espiritu, Y. E. (1997). Ideological Racism and Cultural Resistance: Constructing Our Own Images, Asian American Women and Men, Rowman & Littlefield Publishing.
  25. Frankenberg, R. (1993). White women, race matters: The social construction of whiteness., University of Minnesota Press.
  27. Kim, Elaine (1990). "'Such Opposite Creatures': Men and Women in Asian American Literature". Michigan Quarterly. 29 (1): 68–93.
  28. Wu, W.F. (1982). The Yellow Peril: Chinese Americans in American fiction 1850-1940, Archon Press.
  29. 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.
  30. Rennison, Callie (March 2001). "Violent Victimization and Race, 1993-98. Bureau of Justice Statistics Special Report". U.S. Department of Justice.
  31. Harlow, Caroline Wolf (November 2005). "Hate Crimes Reported by Victims and Police. Bureau of Justice Statistics Special Report". U.S. Department of Justice.
  32. Nash, Phil Tajitsu (Apr 29, 2005). "Depravity Against Women On- and Off-campus". National Asian Pacific American Women's Forum.
  33. 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)
  34. Long, Daniel (1996). "Formation Processes of Some Japanese Gay Argot Terms". American Speech. 71 (2): 215–224. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
  35. Tizon, Joyce (February 3, 2000). "A Threatened Manhood? Exploring the myth of the angry Asian male". Asian Week.

See also

External links

On Asian fetish

Opinion/Editorial

On interracial romance

Categories: