Re: A White Man's Guide to Dating Asian Girls

[Anonymous]

Most white guys who have "yellow fever" have it because either they can't get a white chick or they think Asian women are submissive.

That is a negative stereotype opponents of WM/AF couples use to explain their insecurities.

[Leopardsocks]

Exactly!!!

[Time Flies]

Most white guys who have "yellow fever" have it because either they can't get a white chick or they think Asian women are submissive.

That is a negative stereotype opponents of WM/AF couples use to explain their insecurities.

Is that the best you can do to justify your racism against Asian men?



I'm an Asian girl. I don't date Asian guys. Yep, I'm one of those that date lots and lots of (mostly, but not always) white guys.



Why? It's simple: I'm a racist.



Yep, I said it.

http://www.xojane.com/files/JennyAn1_0.jpg">



And guess what? I'm not alone. I'm actually –- shudder to think -- part of a trend. Asians are marrying non-Asians at a rate much higher than any other racial group. This summer Pew reported that 37 percent of all recent Asian-American brides wedded a non-Asian groom. In an earlier study of the couples who married in 2008, 9 percent of whites, 16 percent of blacks and 26 percent of Hispanics did so with someone of a different race or ethnicity. Thirty-one percent of Asians did.



This trend has nothing to do with skin color. It has everything to do with patriarchy and cultural sexism and a lifestyle I grew up with and want nothing to do with anymore.



It would be easy to say that what I'm looking for culturally doesn't come in an Asian package.



Wesley Yang wrote about it in New York magazine last year and made my heart beat faster with the recognition of his rage against my cultural heritage machine. "Let me summarize my feelings toward Asian values: Fuck filial piety. Fuck grade grubbing. Fuck Ivy League mania. Fuck deference to authority. Fuck humility and hard work. Fuck harmonious relations. Fuck sacrificing for the future. Fuck earnest, striving middle-class servility," he says.



And. Fuck. Yes. To. This.



My mother (born and raised in China) is obsessed with career "steps" and "paths" and working for this magical future that I doubt exists. It's like New Age self-help for middle-class strivers. She can't fathom that I'm a freelancer by choice and constantly laments "that economy."



The physical attributes of my ideal man? If we're being stereotypical about it, well, I like geeky, scrawny and without muscles. I like effeminate. Also, did I mention that Daniel Liu is fucking HOT?



And if we're talking about this, plenty of white guys have tiny penises. And I'm sure not all Asian guys have tiny penises. (Though, I'd have to sleep with some to find out for sure.) So really, not a physical thing.



Clearly, it's not those stereotypes.



Even if a charming, funny, intellectually curious, in so many words perfect man who has untied himself from the chains of Asian virtues came down my way -- even you, Daniel Liu whose hotness is practically a law of physics -- I would probably pass.



Partly, it's because I can date non-Asian dudes. More of me and other "racist"-against-other-Asian-men Asian women live in communities with people of other races. More of us attend those bastions of liberal thought mingling with other young, upwardly mobile types of colleges. More of us are in well-paying jobs, which expose us to people outside our ethnic enclaves.



But it's also because we still see ourselves as minorities, immigrants, outsiders. And we want the same thing new residents of America have wanted for hundreds of years: To be true Americans. Even among American-born people of Asian descent, only 28 percent describe themselves as "Americans."



I was born in Beijing to Chinese parents and emigrated to the U.S. when I was three. I don't have an accent. Aside from my very Midwestern one. My Italian cooking skills are far superior to my Chinese ones. My Spanish is better than my Chinese. My closet is filled with J. Crew and a healthy dash of Tommy Hilfiger and Ralph Lauren.



My pale, white-bread boyfriend jokes that I'm one of the whitest people he's ever met. And that's probably not by accident.



I date white men because the term "model minority" grosses me out. I date white men because it feels like I'm not ostracizing myself into an Asian ghetto and antiquated ideas of Asian unity. I still see myself as a minority. And with that, pretty soon comes connotations of "outsider." And I don't like that.



Dating white men means acceptance into American culture. White culture.



I realize my thinking is fucked up. I get that. But as long as men tell me over dinner, "I've always wanted to be with an Asian girl" and then still think they're getting laid, and as long as during beauty countdowns white girls are called "beauties" and Asian girls are called "exotic beauties" -- well, then white will still be the societal standard.



And yes, I am Asian, but I'm drinking the same Kool-Aid as everyone else. Junot Diaz describes it as white supremacy. The idea that white is still tops, SAT scores, corporate jobs and fancy degrees be damned.



In the Boston Review, Diaz says: "And yet here's the rub: if a critique of white supremacy doesn't first flow through you, doesn't first implicate you, then you have missed the mark; you have, in fact, almost guaranteed its survival and reproduction. There's that old saying: the devil's greatest trick is that he convinced people that he doesn't exist. Well, white supremacy's greatest trick is that it has convinced people that, if it exists at all, it exists always in other people, never in us."



So here it is: I am racist. I'd rather not be. I'd much rather be swept up into that beautiful land of racially ambiguous beauties. But for now, I will not and will never date one of my "people."



Dating white men means acceptance into American culture. White culture.



I realize my thinking is fucked up. I get that. But as long as men tell me over dinner, "I've always wanted to be with an Asian girl" and then still think they're getting laid, and as long as during beauty countdowns white girls are called "beauties" and Asian girls are called "exotic beauties" -- well, then white will still be the societal standard.



And yes, I am Asian, but I'm drinking the same Kool-Aid as everyone else. Junot Diaz describes it as white supremacy. The idea that white is still tops, SAT scores, corporate jobs and fancy degrees be damned.



In the Boston Review, Diaz says: "And yet here's the rub: if a critique of white supremacy doesn't first flow through you, doesn't first implicate you, then you have missed the mark; you have, in fact, almost guaranteed its survival and reproduction. There's that old saying: the devil's greatest trick is that he convinced people that he doesn't exist. Well, white supremacy's greatest trick is that it has convinced people that, if it exists at all, it exists always in other people, never in us."



So here it is: I am racist. I'd rather not be. I'd much rather be swept up into that beautiful land of racially ambiguous beauties. But for now, I will not and will never date one of my "people."http://www.xojane.com/it-happened-to-me/asian-woman-dating-asian-men-jenny-an">http://www.xojane.com/it-happened-to-me ... n-jenny-an">http://www.xojane.com/it-happened-to-me/asian-woman-dating-asian-men-jenny-an

[Anonymous]

Time Flies, you mention stereotypes and then show some article with an unattractive AF which may not even be true to negatively stereotype AF/WM couples.



I have been very happily married for 13 years to a white man and we have two beautiful children..



Do you want me to leave them and find an Asian man because you are uncomfortable with my marriage and mixed race children?

[Time Flies]

A characteristic of Dairy Queens like Fashionista is a shocking lack of empathy. She is so incredibly ignorant of how Western media unsexes Asian men.





How America Unsexes the Asian Male



By David Mura

The New York Times

August 22, 1996



The Japanese-American actor Marc Hayashi once said to me: "Every culture needs its eunuchs. And we're it. Asian-American men are the eunuchs of America." I felt an instant shock of recognition.



To my chagrin, I came close to being one such eunuch on screen in the Coen brothers' movie "Fargo."



The call for the role seemed perfect: a Japanese-American man, in his late 30's, a bit portly, who speaks with a Minnesota accent.



I am a sansei, a third-generation Japanese-American. I've lived in Minnesota for 20 years. Though not portly, I'm not thin. A writer and a performance artist, I had done one small film for PBS.



After I passed the first two readings, my wife and I talked about what other parts might follow and even joked about moving to Hollywood. But in the end, the Coens found another Asian-American actor.



But when I saw the much acclaimed "Fargo", I said to myself, "Thank God I didn't get the part". The character I would have played is Mike Yanagita, a Japanese-American who speaks with a thick Minnesota accent and awkwardly attempts a pass at old high school friend, Marge Gunderson, a rural police chief who is visibly pregnant.



He then tells of marrying a mutual acquaintance from high school and of her recent death from cancer. A few scenes later, Marge learns that this marriage was fiction: the acquaintance is now only alive, but has also complained to the police that Mike has been harassing her.



The Japanese-American character has no relevance to Marge's investigation. He is there mainly for humor. The humor is based on his derangement that Marge or their acquaintance would ever find him attractive.



I recognized this character as only the latest in a long line of Asian and Asian-American male nerds. Often, as in "Fargo" such a character will pant after white women, ridiculous in his desires. In the movies, as in the culture as a whole, Asian-American men seem to have no sexual clout. Or sexual presence.



Americans rarely talk about race and sex together. It's still taboo. Yet, I often wonder what people make of me and my wife, who is three quarters WASP and one-quarter Hungarian Jew. Recently we went shopping with my sister Linda and our children. Several people, all white, mistook Linda for the wife, the mother. Was that because many whites find it difficult to picture an Asian-American man with a white woman?



In fiction, when East meets West, it is almost always a Western man meeting an Asian woman. There is constant reinforcement for the image of the East as feminine and the stereotype of Asian women as exotic, submissive and sensual. From "Madame Butterfly" to the "The Karate Kid", Part II" and "Miss Saigon," the white man who falls in love with an Asian woman has been used to proffer the view that racial barriers cannot block the heart's affections.



But such pairings simply place white men at the screen's center and reinforce a hierarchy of power and sexual attractiveness. They play on the stereotype of the East as feminine. And where does that leave Asian men?

A salient feature of the play "M. Butterfly" is that it affirms this feminine view of Asian men. In it, a French diplomat conducts a lengthy love affair with someone he believes is a woman but is actually a Chinese transvestite. The affair proves that Asian manhood is indeed difficult to find, at least for white Westerners. And when the "mistress" strips to a highly buffed and masculine body, it is not just the diplomat who gasps, but the audience as well.



And the stereotypes continue. In the sitcom "All-American Girl," Margaret Cho played a hip Korean-American who dated white boys in defiance of her mother's wishes. The brother was a studious, obsequious geek who dated no one.



Asian and Asian-American men are simply not seen as attractive or sexual beings by the mainstream culture. What could be attractive about the horny, thick-glassed, nerdy Asian guy, ridiculous in his desires for white women?



How little things change. As a boy I watched Mickey Rooney as the Japanese buffoon neighbour in "Breakfast at Tiffany's" and knew I never wanted to be associated with this snarling, bucktoothed creature who shouted at Audrey Hepburn, "Miss Gorrightry, Miss Gorrightry," and panted when she offered to let him photograph her; I identified with a John Wayne against the Japs; in "Have Gun Will Travel", I was a cowboy like Paladin, not the Chinese messenger who ran into the hotel lobbying shouting, "Terragram for Mr. Paradin."



To me as a child, Asian features, Asian accents---these were all undesirable. They weren't part of my image of a real all-American boy.



For a while this seemed to work. My parents, interned during World War II, wanted to distance themselves from their ethnic roots. We lived in all-white suburb, where I generally felt like one of the crowd. Then came adolescence, and my first boy-girl party. As usual, I was the only Asian-American and person of color in the room. But when we began to play spin the bottle, I felt a new sense of difference from the others. And then the bottle I'd spun pointed to a girl I had a crush on, and she refused to kiss me.



Did that have to do with race? I had no language to express how race factored into the way the others perceived me, nor did they. But if the culture had told me Asian men were nerds or goofy houseboys, the white kids at the party must have received the same message.



In college, in the early 1970's, my reaction to the sexual place assigned to me took the form of compulsive sexuality: rampant promiscuity with white women and an obsession with pornography. There was definitely a racial component to it: my desires focused specifically on white women. I thought if I was with a white women, then I would be as "good" as a white guy.



It took me years to figure out what was going on. It helped to read Frantz Fanon, the great Caribbean author and psychiatrist. In "Black Skin, White Masks," he writes of how the black man who constantly sleeps with white women has the illusion that his feelings of inferiority will somehow be erased by this act.



Gradually, I began to ask questions about how I learned what was sexually attractive and what images the culture gave me of myself.



How, for instance, does race factor in attraction? A popular way around such questions is to say that love sees no color.



I don't believe that. We are taught to see and process race early on. Race may not be the sole determinant in interracial relationships, but it is a factor. When I look at my wife, for example, I'm aware my desires for her cannot be separated from the ways the culture has inculcated me with standards of white beauty.



And when I told Alexs Pate, an African-American novelist, about Marc Hayashi's comments about the eunuchization of Asian-American men, he replied, "And black men are the sexual demons."



One is undersexed, the other, oversexed. Everyone knows who possesses a normal, healthy sense of sexuality.



Recently, after a panel discussion on "identity art," an elderly white man came up and complimented me on a performance I'd appeared in with my friend Alexs. Then he asked, "Weren't you in Fargo, too?"



"No," I replied. "That wasn't me."



David Mura is the author of "Turning Japanese" (Anchor, 1991) and "Where the Body Meets Memory: An Odyssey of Race, Sexuality and identity" (Anchor, 1996)

http://www.modelminority.com/joomla/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=281:how-america-unsexes-the-asian-male-&catid=37:dating&Itemid=56">http://www.modelminority.com/joomla/ind ... &Itemid=56">http://www.modelminority.com/joomla/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=281:how-america-unsexes-the-asian-male-&catid=37:dating&Itemid=56

[Obvious Li]

Lol@Mr. Flies.....Asian men unisex themselves....it's not their fault per see...being raised in an atmosphere of deferential obedience to overbearing authority figures would hardly equip any man to compete in a culture of the in your face, fuck you attitudes that north american males grow up with.....couple that with the fact your half the size of your competitors makes it doubly challenging....

so when you get stuck with lemons, make lemonade....be smarter (you are) be funnier (you can be) be more courteous (you most certainly can be) be more successful (easy to do) and get in the game (that's up to you)........now if you do all that you won't get all the girls but you will get most of them......now harden the fuck up and quit whining

[Gary Oak]

Time Flies, you don't have to live in Canada. You are perfectly capable and allowed to return from whichever shithole nation you came from. Notice how you stay here and are here. If white people are so horrible then explain why you prefer to live in this nation ? Explain why Canada is preferable to you to live in than your home country. The answers are obvious ...of course. If white people were so deserving of your hate [ actually jealousy ] then you wouldn't have wanted to come here in the first place.

[Time Flies]

Lol@Mr. Flies.....Asian men unisex themselves....it's not their fault per see...being raised in an atmosphere of deferential obedience to overbearing authority figures would hardly equip any man to compete in a culture of the in your face, fuck you attitudes that north american males grow up with.....couple that with the fact your half the size of your competitors makes it doubly challenging....

so when you get stuck with lemons, make lemonade....be smarter (you are) be funnier (you can be) be more courteous (you most certainly can be) be more successful (easy to do) and get in the game (that's up to you)........now if you do all that you won't get all the girls but you will get most of them......now harden the fuck up and quit whining

Ignorant racist sterotype.

Typical of the daily racism Asian men in North America face. I notice the moderator of this forum did nothing to discourage such obvious bigotry either.



Every Day Racism and You (AKA: Would you Date an Asian Man?)

April 27, 2012 By pia

By Pia Guerrero, Co-Founder/Editor



Last week we had a rather lively Facebook debate around white privilege. Now while a few FB friends acknowledged their privilege, it seems that a handful of folks still don't quite get it. Which is fine and we're not going to lambaste anyone for their hard earned views. But, given that we are an educational site this unresolved online interaction does seem worthy of re-sharing this post. A post that sheds light on what so many can't seem to see in their everyday lives–racism. Or as in the case of this post (and the topic of Hipster racism that's lighting up the interwebs) what's called Retro Racism.



The other morning after a grueling 45 minutes at boot camp, my fellow campers (all white women ranging in age from 23 to 60) and I grimaced as we stretched our stiff muscles on the grass. We talked about the following week and how we were allowed to bring as many guests to class free of charge for "guest week".



Peggy, a sweet and lovable actress excitedly rambled, "Ooooh, perfect. I'm going to bring my friend Jeff. He'll love it. We're gonna have so much fun. He's staying with me for a week. He's just a friend, not anything else, he's really nice, but just a friend...He's Asian."





What's Happening Hot Stuff? ~Long Duc Dong

Just as quickly as the words escaped her mouth, Peggy turned bright red. "Uh, er, um...not that he can't be more than my friend just because he's Asian, it's just...I don't know. I feel so stupid. I don't know why I said that. That was just dumb..." And she continued on as the whole crowd chuckled as if to say, Don't worry, honey. We're with you and we get it.



What I found interesting about her unintended confession was that what she said rings true for so many progressive women. In general, there is agreement in our media driven culture that Asian men are not romantic or even sexual options for white, Black, Latina and even some Asian women.



I've known Wendy since high-school. She's Korean and very much bi-cultural. When I first met her in 10th grade, I remember her speaking Korean to her parents. I was in awe of her two refrigerators—one for what my white privileged @ss called "normal" food and the other for Korean food which was stocked with jars of home made Kim-Chee.



A few months ago Wendy and I were talking about men. The subject of interracial dating came up. Both of us have consistently dated outside our race. But while I have dated some white men, she has never dated a Korean man.



"Why?" I asked.



"Because I'd feel like I was dating my brother," she matter-of-factly replied.



Her response saddened me, because like me, Wendy was impacted by growing up around very few Asian men, and relied on white TV and movies stars to  inform her views of romance and men.



A few year's ago, I was led to look deeply into my white privilege and challenge my own bias as I realized I didn't find Asian men attractive. Admittedly, this acknowledgment was mortifying, but necessary, for it demolished a big blind spot I hadn't seen before. My idea of Asian men had been completely constructed around what I saw in the media—not by my personal experience.



Ever since, I notice how my views were completely informed by three prominent stereotypes of Asian men.



1) The Evil Master Criminal

Based on the Fu-Man Chu character, this evil conniver is always scheming to rip someone off, sell innocent women/girls into slavery, and profit from the sale of drugs and guns. He'll do anything for money and power, even kill.



2) The Asexual Friend/Sidekick

Like his predecessor, Charlie Chan, Long Duc Dong is the modern version of the perfectly harmless asexual immigrant. He has a thick accent, often mispronounces l's and r's, and is short with round cheeks. His is laughably silly and stupid. Despite being a man, he acts like an immature boy whose super horny and sexist remarks serve to strip him of masculine sexuality.



3) The Wise Old Man

Spouting fortune cookie wisdom, he is an oracle with a deep, and often mysterious message. He too is asexual, with a thick accent probably because he's been sitting, meditating and waiting for the past century to give the white hero sage advice.



It is the 'Asexual Friend' stereotype that negatively impacts our view of Asian men the most. (When I say 'our' I'm referring to Western culture's view in general, and my friend Wendy's, the bootcampers', and my former view specifically.)

http://www.adiosbarbie.com/2012/04/every-day-racism-and-you-aka-would-you-date-an-asian-man/">http://www.adiosbarbie.com/2012/04/ever ... asian-man/">http://www.adiosbarbie.com/2012/04/every-day-racism-and-you-aka-would-you-date-an-asian-man/

[@realAzhyaAryola]

Awright, I'll read it. It's 9:05 p.m. where I am and I'm in "relax" mode after work and I do not look forward to reading anything especially when my attention span is now like that of a gnat's.

[Anonymous]

Awright, I'll read it. It's 9:05 p.m. where I am and I'm in "relax" mode after work and I do not look forward to reading anything especially when my attention span is now like that of a gnat's.

It's only an editorial that makes a lot of assumptions.

[@realAzhyaAryola]

Assumptions? Uh oh, maybe I'll pass then or read later. Heheh.

[Anonymous]

Assumptions? Uh oh, maybe I'll pass then or read later. Heheh.

No science in it.

[@realAzhyaAryola]

Fashionista, I read somewhere that you had/have a blog? What happened? You still have it?

[Anonymous]

Fashionista, I read somewhere that you had/have a blog? What happened? You still have it?

No, it was starting to take too much of my time...much like this little forum.

[Leopardsocks]

Any of you stunning Asian ladies want to date a whitey online.



Shen Li dont want me no more...