Asian Fetish Syndrome: The Psychological Findings Revealed
This extremely petite (about 4’8 feet) Asian woman once shared with me a hilarious story in which she formerly was hanging out with a sky towering Caucasian male (6’4 feet to be exact). “I’m not just short. I’m really, really, really short. Does he not know how weird that looks?!? He told me he only wants to date super short Asian girls who wear fake eyelashes.” (The whole fake eyelashes thing made me crack up). She stopped hanging out with him after a couple of instances, due to reasons she didn’t disclose. Ever since then, he’s been contacting her every 6 months in hopes of acquiring knowledge of whether or not she’s taken yet.
Lucas*, a half Caucasian and Spanish 24 year old fella, has various Chinese tattoos: “Yeah I ONLY date Asian girls. My last two serious relationships were with a Thai girl and a Korean one. I felt more dominant around them because they were more feminine and gentle.”
Lamar*, a half Hispanic and Italian 22 year old, answered with the following when I questioned why his preference was Asian girls: “Haha it’s not like I intend to only go for Asian girls…it’s that I usually find them the most aesthetically pleasing.”
Asian fetish syndrome is classified as depicting initial interest in an individual simply for the fact that they’re Asian. It’s commonly ascribed to Caucasian males who serial date Asian women. Symptoms include:
- The man who proudly announces: “I’ve dated Asian women before” or sets out to say “I only date Asian girls.”
- The man who refers to Asian people as appealing because they’re oriental, exotic or submissive.
Bitna Kim, a Korean American, conducted a qualitative analysis after she witnessed common pairing of White men and Asian females amongst her friends and family. Many of the non-Asian males she interviewed applied positive stereotypes to describe Asian women. Adjectives such as: intelligent, educated, successful, family-oriented and beautiful were a part of the description. Some of these males had a previous sustaining relationship with an Asian female and they hoped to relive it by finding another Asian partner.
Despite these positive descriptions, Kim reports that, “Almost all of those interviewees started with a sentence that negates Asian women as submissive, but, nevertheless, they all mentioned, in one way or another, that Asian women are submissive: ‘Women serve the men; they do things for him that the western culture has long forgotten. It’s hard to pinpoint, and I’m not saying that western women don’t take care of their men, it’s just the way Asian women go about it. The presence, the mannerism, the movement of their bodies that are attractive to some of us. And again these things I am speaking of don’t pertain to all Asian females, but this is the general belief or idea, I think that … we men want a princess in public and a whore in the bedroom. Simple as that….’”.
She also notes that these interviewers were making huge accusations of Asian women being submissive in bed and enjoying kinky sex. One male she interviewed also shared that the only White men who date Asian girls are the ones who cannot obtain a White girl. Therefore, Asian girls are only substitutes and “If you don’t have enough money to buy a BMW or Mercedes, you buy Lexus or Toyota”. If you ask me, that comparison is a little harsh…maybe because I’ve never put any racial group on a higher pedestal than others; culture fascinates me and I truly believe every group has their differentiating positives and flaws. But hey, everyone’s entitled to their opinion!
A writer on psychologytoday.com brings up an intriguing question: if a man has an Asian fetish, does this make him appreciative of diversity, or quite possibly racist? Harvard researcher Mahzarin Banaji’s did research that concluded that many who claim they aren’t racist showed signs of implicit racism when tested (biases and prejudicial attitudes). Therefore, is claiming that Asian women are “submissive and more easy to control” a racist opinion?
Regardless of your ethnicity, do you feel as if Asian women are submissive or any of the above qualities the men utilized? If you’ve previously dated an Asian person, how was that like in comparison to dating other ethnicities?
Xoxo,
Chrissy
http://www.asiancemagazine.com/sep_2006/asian_female_fetish_syndrome
*Name changed due to privacy reasons.
Responses