Note: Some profanity follows. Read and enjoy!
I recently wrote the article entitled “Consuming Whiteness: Food and (Inter)Racial Politics at Your Local University” about the racial and sexual dynamics involved when speaking about/with metaphors of food. It ended with me imagining myself in the position of an Asian woman rejecting, in somewhat colorful terms, the forced consumption of and the orientation around Asian masculinity.
Fine. I told two guys to go suck each other off. It’s a perfectly fitting solution to their anxieties–they consume more Asianness, I dare say, than they’d like.
[Insert vulgar stick figure diagram here.]
But I fear this has left a bad taste in our mouths.
Their attempts at policing racial boundaries, no matter how misguided, stem from a very real concern–even if they remain oblivious to it themselves. Let me reformulate the Duo’s dis-ease in another way. The threat is not so much the consumption of Whiteness, but the consumption of Asian femininity by White masculinity. In an odd reversal, they fear the destructive capacity of the looming white peril.
Mr. AsianFetish and the (Obnoxious) White Peril
Superficially, I can empathize with the Duo. Waiting in line at the recent Decemberists concert, I was stucked behind the world’s most annoying midget brigade–a diminutive and balding white man, his PDA-happy girlfriend, and their line-cutting companion (a pox on thee, line-cutter!). As if their baying laughter and obnoxious… obnoxiousness (did I mention how obnoxious they were?)… weren’t enough, the man had proceeded to rant about the the virtues of dating Asian “girls.” This took the form of standard stereotypes: Asian girls are more petite, nurturing, domestic, submissive… any of this starting to sound familiar?
Like his two Asian counterparts, Mr. AsianFetish, here, imagines Asian women–or “girls” as he likes to say–as a sexually consumable commodity. There’s no inherent desire for the actual women, themselves, but simply a desire of type, and a rather Oedipal one at that. The concept of “Asian femininity,” whatever it is, stands in for and becomes more important than the actual person.
The situation is perhaps most alarming because Mr. AsianFetish’s girlfriend and her companion both actively participate in his orientalizing. These two Asian women never challenge his assessment of Asian femininity and even encouraged him at times. Herein lies a legitimate concern: racial divestment through masculinity complicity. What’s most detrimental in these situations isn’t solely the consumption of Whiteness, as the Duo believe, nor even the consumption of Asianness by White masculinity, but the uncritical participation in a degrading and stereotypical characterization of imagined Asianness.
The girls’ encouragement (or mere complicity) lead Mr. AsianFetish and his ilk to continually fetishize and treat Asian women as consumable objects. I can’t recall the number of times my Vietnamese ex-girlfriend came home from work complaining about the “compliments” she’d receive from a certain over-zealous co-worker. Imagine the pointless cruelty of me reasserting my own (challenged) masculinity by also relegating an unknown white woman to a consumable sex object. That, however, seems to be the Duo’s response: make categorical assumptions about White femininity. In both cases, women get screwed. Mr. AsianFetish and the CockSuck Duo (a good porn title if I ever heard one) participate in the same discursive field: masculinist bullshit.
Let’s not perpetuate such arguments any longer. Refuse to use or put up with categorical attribution. Stop the Mr. AsianFetish out there and reclaim our subjectivity. Leave archetypes and flat characters for the movies and assume our roles as real, complex people. We’re more than our race, our culture, our gender, and even our upbringing.
Band together and say to all the Mr.AsianFetish and CockSuck Duos out there: “If that’s your fantasy, you’d better get used to your right hand!”
Funny and thoughtful article! Such an important issue to bring to light!
I have a follow-up question for you. I had no such stereotypical delusions about Asian women when I met my wife, and if I did I would have quickly learned that “domestic” and “submissive” were not part of the deal. “Nurturing” perhaps . . . to children . . . when the “Tiger Mom” is turned off. And “petite”, yes, but who am I at 5’7” to call anyone petite. I suppose I can’t really speak for any white guys except myself, but the white guys I know seem to have no such misconceptions either, probably because most of them know my wife, and in some cases, have had the opportunity to slave under her in the work place. The description of Asian women as “domestic” and “submissive” seems to me to be more a description of how I have heard women are expected to be in many Asian cultures. I’m no expert in cultures, of course, so perhaps I’m misinformed in that regard and you can correct me, but my question is, exactly where is this myth coming from? White guys? Or is it a reflection of historical Asian domestic expectations?
@5bd0450922046539e845f310fdbcf992:disqus, I’ve definitely met a lot of white guys who perpetuate the myth about these “historical Asian domestic expectations” and forget that Asian women are living in the 21st century. There are also a lot of people who forget that white women were also historically expected to be domestic, submissive, etc., and that Asian culture is not the only culture that has ever been sexist.
“Asian girls are more petite, nurturing, domestic, submissive…” Let’s not generalize– I’ve met some Asian girls who suck pretty badly playing the “angel in the house” role. In accordance, let’s not generalize the latter, either… not all of the young Asian women generation reject the housewife role completely. I, personally, believe in traditional roles (they’re not just Asian roles, they’re American ones as well), where the woman is in the kitchen and taking care of the children while the man pays the bills, and mows the lawn– or hires people to mow the lawn. Housework is divided amongst spouses… and I’d rather be in the kitchen cooking than fixing random things, dealing with hired help, and moving around heavy objects.
In response to the Asian fetish and men treating women like objects– ALL MEN look at women in some sort of objective and sexual way at first infatuation. It’s what gets the ball rolling. However, if a relationship is to last 50 years after that first infatuation, there’s got to be more, BUT without that first sexualized objection of the person (man or woman), there’d be nothing to get the ball rolling.
My significant other is white, and I’m sure he didn’t have yellow fever, believing in the geisha image coming after me. First of all, I’m the first and only Asian he’s ever dated; secondly, we met in south Newport Beach… so he didn’t come to Little Saigon trolling for an Asian girl; thirdly, I let him do everything for the first year while we were together and he believed me to not know how to cook, clean or anything else an Asian family teaches their young daughter to do… (beacuse I had to be a typical Newport girl *rolls eyes*). It was only after about a year when I was sure I loved him did I decide, “Okay, honey… sit back.. and for the rest of our lives, I’ll do all the cooking and cleaning; I’ll take care of the kids and you just do everything else.” I decided that. And I’m okay with that.
@8133e189c0a4548ef74826a9e7cfd551:disqus , I believe the author was pointing out the stereotypes, as… well, stereotypes, not saying he believed in them. And it’s true that some men (I hesitate to generalize ALL MEN, especially since not all men are attracted to women) look at women in an objectifying way, but often when it involves a white man and an Asian woman there are a certain set of images that come to mind. I especially have been hit on by men who say “Ni hao!” even though I’m Viet, and who think Asian women have sideways pussies. Not saying that all white men are like that. But even if that’s not the way it operates in your relationship, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist for other people.