Hstau: Francesca, why don’t American think Asian man are sexy?
Franchesca: I have no idea. When it comes to online dating, Asian women are the most sought after ethnic group. While Asian men, on the other hand, have an incredibly low favorability rating. While are Asian women desired to the point of being fetishized and Asian men almost completely ignored? Well, let’s start with Asian women. Asian women in this country are more than desired, they’re fetishized and exoticized. Heck, you’ve probably someone say something kind of like this.
Speaker 3: I totally have yellow fever and the only cure is more Asian chicks. Up top!
Franchesca: This fetish for Asian ladies combines a presumed submissiveness with hypersexuality. All the while imagining, that Asian women are exotic, regardless of where they are from or what they’re like as individuals. Don’t believe me? Here are some things that have actually been said to my friend, Lily.
Lily: I’ve never dated one of your kind before. They’re more docile. They’re just tighter…
Franchesca: Thanks, Lily , and I’m really sorry. How do people come to the idea that over half a billion Asian women are all kind of the same? The history of Western Europeans fetishizng Asian women goes back hundreds of years. It exploded in popularity in the late 1800’s. This was due to an increased trade with Japan and China and the popularity of the French Story “Madame Chrysanthème”. In the story, a naval officer travels to Nagasaki and takes a temporary wife, basically a hookup for his deployment. The girl he was looking for had to be a “little creamy skinned woman with black and cat’s eyes.” He also wanted her to be “pretty and not much bigger than a doll.”
Lily: Size note. We’re women, not dolls. Unless you’re talking about your real dolls.
Franchesca: In one scene, the narrator describes how the local women “grovel before me on the floor placing all this plaything of a meal at my feet.”
Lily: Gross.
Franchesca: This story became super popular. It was translated into every major European language and republished over 200 times during the author’s lifetime. It was also was the inspiration for the opera “Madam Butterfly”, which itself is an enormous smash hit and is still performed hundreds of times a year.
This narrative of the exotic submissive Asian woman got further reinforced over the course of the 20th century during America’s wars in Japan, Korea and Vietnam. After World War II, approximately 200,000 Japanese women were enslaved by the Japanese government as prostitutes for American soldiers as part of the Recreation and Amusement Association. This practice of organized prostitution continued through the Korean and Vietnam wars, with 85% of American soldiers reporting have sought a prostitute.
Lily: That’s something to talk about at your next family reunion.
Franchesca: The first interaction that three generations of American men had with Asian women was as submissive sexual objects. Combine this with the reinforcement in popular culture and porn, and it’s no wonder the stereotype of the submissive, sexy Asian woman still persists.
Of course, when it comes to getting dates and being seen as attractive, history has helped Asian men to face the exact opposite issue of Asian women. Since the 1800s, when Asian immigrants began coming to America as cheap labor forces, Asian men have faced harsh discrimination, much of it directly sexual. Some laws prevented Asian men from owning property, which made you legally less of a man. Other laws guard them form heavy industry, which force Asian men to take on traditionally feminine jobs like laundry and cooking, which led to the perceptions of Asian men being effeminate.
Lily: Cooking and laundry aren’t inherently feminine. I barely know how to cook and barely do my laundry.
Franchesca: It gets worse. In 1882, Chinese immigrants were prohibited from entering the US altogether, which left 100’s of 1,000’s of the Chinese men that were already here without the possibility of brides. Why? That’s because due to anti-miscegenation laws, it was illegal for Asian men to marry white women in many states. On top of that, laws passed in the 1920’s made it so that non-white women who married Asian men could lose their citizenship. This conflict system of laws was a direct attack on Asian men’s ability to marry and start families. Thus, emasculating them and making them less desirable to women.
Hstau: Come on!
Franchesca: That history of emasculating Asian men lives on, especially in Hollywood. Think about Long Duk Dong in Sixteen Candles or Han’s broken English in Two Broke Girls. Or the various small penis jokes in the Hangover movies. Asian men are barely on screen and almost never shown as attractive or romantically desired by anyone. I find you very sexy.
Hstau: Thank you.
Franchesca: Don’t believe me? Quick, without Google, how many American romcoms can you name with an Asian male lead? When was the last time you even saw an Asian man kiss someone on camera? “Franchesca, I totally get it. I’m just really into Asian dudes.” On a personal level, claiming you’re not attracted to an entire group of people because of their race, is sexual prejudice. Here’s a thing. A ton of people across many ethnicities are guilty of this. It’s not any better when you base attractiveness solely on race because that’s fetishizing.
Here’s the thing. Institutionalized racism fuels America, often times in ways that you might not even realize. Because we live in a world that continues to reinforce outdated and harmful sexual stereotypes, it’s no wonder that some people start to believe them. So the secret’s out. Despite hundreds of years of being told the opposite, Asian men can indeed be sexy. Asian women are more than just their sexiness. If we don’t learn from history, we’re doomed to repeat it. The truth is, when it comes to dating and race, we still have a long ways to go.
We want to hear about your experiences. Have you ever been discriminated against in the dating world? Or still think dating a certain race is just a preference? Let us know in the comments. Thanks to our special guests, Lily and Hstau. We’ll see you next week right here on Decoded.
