An Asian fetish is a strong sexual or romantic preference for people of Asian people descent or heritage. The term usually refers to women specifically of East or Southeast Asian descent, though may also include those of South Asian descent.
The origins of Sexual fetishism the people of Asia are unclear. Male Dutch people colonists fetishized women in the Dutch East Indies, on the basis of the darker skin and hair color of the local women. Similar accounts were reported in other colonised territories such as British India where it was common for English men to have Indian mistresses against a backdrop where Indian women were sexualised through, what scholars describe as, a typical colonial gaze and viewed as seductive, sensual and exotic. After World War II, Japanese people gained prominence in American beauty pageants, at a time when large numbers of Japanese were entering the United States.
Targets of Asian fetish report a number of harms and psychological burdens as a result of being fetishized, such as anxiety and doubt about the motivations of those who display interest and difficulty asserting their individuality while being reduced to their race and gender.
The derogatory term yellow fever (not be confused with Yellow fever) is sometimes used to describe the fetishization of East Asians and Southeast Asian men/women by non-Asians, as well as having a preference for dating or marrying men/women of East Asian and Southeast Asian origin. The usage of "yellow" stems from the color terminology for race that is sometimes applied to people of East Asian descent.
While this article and the underlying research largely focuses on heterosexual males with Asian fetish (and mostly White American heterosexual males), Asian fetish can also be homosexual, directed at Asian men, and be held by people of all races who are not Asian.
History
In the 1800s, after the opening of Japan by Matthew Perry, word began to spread in the United States about the seductive femininity of Asian women. Nationalistic fears that Asian women would seduce White men and destroy White families led to the passage of the Page Act of 1875, which prevented Chinese women from entering the United States. However, another purpose of the ban was to limit the reproduction of the Chinese working class in America. "Having learned from their experiences with African Americans who reproduced and demanded citizenship, education and land, the U.S. government sought to fully control the Asian-American worker by controlling their reproduction and their citizenship rights through laws that prohibited Asian-American female migration."
As early as the 1920s, it was noticed that Dutch people men preferred South East Asian women over Dutch women. When Indonesia and Malaysia were colonies of the Netherlands, a new beauty ideal was established, which ranked local women with light brown skin and lustrous black hair at the top. The American consul general to the Dutch East Indies remarked that, to the average man, a mixed-race Indonesian or Malaysian woman was considered more attractive than a "pure" Dutch woman, because Dutch women's complexions were too pale.
After World War II, the U.S. military occupied Japan, and U.S. soldiers began to interact with Japanese women. Although the American military initially forbid relations with Japanese women; the U.S. servicemen were "enamored" by the femininity of Japanese women, and formed relationships with them anyway. There was a perception that Japanese women were superior to American women, and there was a widespread sentiment "that a Japanese woman's heart was twice as big as those of her American sisters".
In 1959, Akiko Kojima, a Japanese woman, became the first non-white woman to win the Miss Universe beauty pageant. That same year, Miyoshi Umeki, also a Japanese woman, won an Academy Award. This period marked the beginning of the phenomenon known as the "Oriental wave" – during which Asian women first gained prominence in Western media. The wave mainstreamed a stereotype of Asian femininity: slender, shy, and intelligent; yet also sexual.
Terminology and usage of yellow fever
Alexandra Mathieu notes of two different types of fetishism that deal with race: in racial fetishism, stereotypes associated with race become coveted reality with value placed on it instead of mere construction, which differs from sexual fetishism, where body part or object is fetishized or imbued with sexual associations and value. Association of behavior would be racial fetishism, whereas sexual association of characteristic look would be sexual fetishism.
Research on racial preferences
A 2008 American study on female facial attractiveness with majority White participants (27 men and 45 women; with a significant proportion of East Asian, and few Black, Mestizo Hispanic, or Middle-Eastern and North African participants) found that White women's faces were rated most attractive. The study showed gradations of computer-generated racial mixes to the participants in increments of one-quarter. The top three rated faces were 100% White, 75% White 25% Black, and 75% White 25% Asian. To the researchers' surprise, Asian women's faces were rated significantly less attractive than White or Black faces in this study.
In 2012, a UK study found that Asian women were rated as more attractive than White and Black women. It was proposed that this was because Asian women's features were perceived as more feminine, which could explain the high rate of interracial marriages between Asian women and White men in the UK and US. A 2018 facial manipulation experiment conducted in Australia was consistent with these hypotheses, finding both Asian and White participants chose to reduce Asian women's "masculine" facial traits less than White women's, which the authors conclude suggests that Asian faces may be more feminine to begin with.
In contrast, a 2013 Australian study on facial attractiveness with Asian and White participants found that Asian and White women's faces were not different in attractiveness overall, although a slight own-race bias was observed. However, when rating composite faces (the average of many faces, grouped by race, as opposed to real faces), all participants rated the composite faces more highly and rated White women's composite faces the highest. In a follow-up experiment, the researchers found that there was no difference in Asian and White women's perceived facial femininity. Another study that same year which used a sample of 126,000 OkCupid users in the US, found that all races initiated chats with their own race the most. Another study that same year using a sample of 934,000 online daters in 20 US cities found that Asian women received the most messages on average, however, the authors also noted that own-race preference was the predominant trend. The authors noted that their results "contradict the popular belief that ... white men prefer Asian women over white women".
A 2015 study using a sample of 58,880 online daters in nine Western European countries found that non-Hispanic White women were the most preferred group of women by far, followed by Hispanic and then Asian women. This tendency surpassed own-race preference as the predominant trend.
A 2018 study using a sample of 187,000 online daters in 4 US cities found that Asian women were the most desired group of women. "Race plays heavily into the results, with Asian women and white men being the most sought after overall."
While the perceived femininity and sexual capital of Asian women may depend on the population studied, Zheng (2016) argues that attraction is influenced significantly by culture, stating "sexualized stereotypes of Asian women contributes to an individual’s sexually preferring them, even if that contribution is not obvious or accessible to introspection.": "It is this double feminization that increases the sexual capital of Asian women but not that of Asian men, a fact perfectly borne out in the oft-noted greater number of relationships between Asian women and White men compared to the number of Asian men in relationships with White women (e.g., Feliciano, Robnett, and Komaie 2009), in attractiveness ratings that rank Asians highest among women but lowest among men (Lewis 2012), and in the greater representation of Asian women compared to Asian men in popular media (Schug et al. 2015). This cross-disciplinary body of work supports the claim that it would be utterly unrealistic to deny that lengthy exposure to a culture historically saturated with sexualized stereotypes of Asian women contributes to an individual’s sexually preferring them, even if that contribution is not obvious or accessible to introspection."
Effects of fetishization
Targets of Asian fetish report feeling depersonalized or homogenized, making them interchangeable with any other Asian woman. Depersonalization is particularly negative in a romantic context, where people want to be recognized as individuals. Depersonalization is a closely related concept to objectification. Some authors have written that the objectification of Asian women can lead to violence if the women are seen as objects rather than people.: "Even worse, stereotypes about Asian women render them particularly vulnerable to sexual harassment and violence by men who target them on that basis (Cho 1997; Lee 1996; Patel 2009; Park 2012; Woan 2007). There is thus ample reason to be morally concerned about sexualized racial stereotypes of Asian women.": "The history of Western imperialism in Asia and its lingering effects present the greatest source of inequality for diasporic Asian women today. White sexual imperialism, through rape and war, created the hyper-sexualized stereotype of the Asian woman. This stereotype in turn fostered the over-prevalence of Asian women in pornography, the mail-order bride phenomenon, the Asian fetish syndrome, and worst of all, sexual violence against Asian women.": "The racialized sexual objectification of Asian women is reinforced by the alarming rates of sex trafficking of Asian women to the U.S. and contributes to the other types of racialized and gendered violence experienced by Asian American women, such as intimate partner violence and sexual assault. The murder of six Asian female massage parlor workers in Atlanta in 2021 was a devastating reminder that these intersectional stereotypes exist to empower white men to “eliminate the temptation” of Asian women’s bodies.": "It was such a struggle even to get the shooting recognized as race related. Six of the people he killed were women of Asian descent, yet a sheriff’s deputy with a history of anti-Asian Facebook posts told us that there was no evidence the murders were racially motivated—that the shooter, who described himself as a sex addict, had been having a “bad day.” Lots of other white men, including some of my husband’s journalism colleagues, were quick to comment that we shouldn’t jump to conclusions. Well, that’s bullshit. Even for people who did recognize the shootings as an act of racism, I had to explain to them that it’s not just racism. It’s a racialized misogyny that’s very, very specific to Asian women."
Another reported harm of Asian fetishization is the feeling of being "othered", or conceived of outside mainstream norms. Possessing "exotic beauty", as opposed to just "beauty", carries the meaning that the type of beauty is necessarily linked to being Asian. If this is the case, one can only attain beauty by fulfilling stereotypes about Asians. The struggle to have sexuality, but not be defined by racial sexuality, becomes very complicated.
These feelings and the psychological burden they entail can persist even when romantic suitors hold no fetishistic intent. The possibility of an Asian fetish or an awareness of the concept can create anxiety and potentially discourage romantic pursuit.
Nonetheless, some Asian women may embrace certain stereotypes about Asians, such as intelligence and rising Asian economic power. Others may find advantage in wielding the sexual power it grants, creating strategies to turn the tables and exploit the men who are drawn by racialized femininity.
Some research has sought to determine how American culture might affect Asian-American body satisfaction. No clear consensus exists. In a meta-analysis of research, Asian-American women showed near-zero difference in average body satisfaction compared to White American women. "For example, several researchers have reported that White women are significantly more dissatisfied with their bodies than are their Asian American counterparts (e.g., Akan & Grilo, 1995; Franzoi &Chang, 2002; Mintz & Kashubeck, 1999; Tylka, 2004), whereas others have reported comparable levels of dissatisfaction between the two groups (e.g., Arriaza & Mann, 2001; Cash, Melnyk, &Hrabosky, 2004; Robinson et al., 1996; Siegel, 2002)."
Fetish and interracial marriage
In preparation for a documentary on Asian fetish called Seeking Asian Female, Chinese-American filmmaker Debbie Lum interviewed non-Asian men who posted online exclusively seeking Asian women. Things that the men found appealing in Asian women included long black hair, a "mysterious" appearance with Eye color, possibly increased consideration for their partner, subtlety and quietness, as well as Epicanthic folds. Lum characterized the preconceived stereotype associated with an Asian fetish as an obsession with seeking "somebody Deference, traditional, docile... the perfect wife who is not going to talk back", but found she had to overcome stereotypes and expectations just like the participants did.
In interviews done by Bitna Kim, "Caucasian" men explain their fetish for Asian women. The Caucasian men interviewed fantasize that an Asian woman possesses both beauty and brains, that she is "sexy, intelligent, successful, professional, caring, and family oriented"; that she does not wear "White girl clothes" and heavy makeup, and that they are not high maintenance. Hence, the men believe that Asian women have respectable mannerisms. These men see Asian women to be exotic, thus desirable, because of their supposed mysterious beauty and possession of a physical appearance perceived to be petite. Sexually, the men in these interviews had a commonality. While almost all disagreed with describing Asian women as submissive, they all believed that Asian women have submissive sex ("liking to explore new positions, being willing to experiment, or enjoying kinky sex, such as spanking"). They believed that an Asian woman was agreeable and did not mind pleasing men. These interviews show that some "Caucasian" men with Asian fetish believe that an Asian woman embodies a perfect wife as a "princess in public and a whore in the bedroom".
Historically, the number of Thai women marrying Western men began to rise in the 1950s and 1960s as a result of Prime Minister Sarit Thanarat's economic policies which attracted foreign investment and Western men to Thailand. There is a social stigma in the country against Thai women marrying White men, who are also referred to as farang (a term used for people of European origin), but research published in 2015 indicated that an increasing number of young middle-class Thai women were marrying foreign men. A generation earlier, Thai women marrying foreign men had mostly been working class.
Sources indicate that Sri Lanka is popular among Western "marriage bureaus" which specialize in the pairing of men who were "Europeans, North Americans and other westerners" with foreign women. The first and largest wave of Sri Lankan immigrants to Denmark were Sinhalese people who came to the country in the 1970s to marry Danes they had met back in Sri Lanka.
Filipina, Thai, and Sri Lankan women have traveled as mail-order brides to Europe, Australia, and New Zealand. Venny Villapando writes that many of the countries affected by the modern mail-order bride business, typically those in East and South-East Asia, have a history of US military involvement. Soldiers stationed in these countries developed ideas of Asian women as sex workers, and geishas, and applied the resultant stereotype of sexualized obedience to Asian-American women. The marketing techniques used by mail-order bride companies generally reinforce this stereotype. Statistics detailing the sponsorship of spouses and fiancées to Australia from 1988 to 1991 show that more women from the Philippines, Singapore, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Indonesia, South Korea, and India were sponsored for citizenship than men from the same countries.
Tourism
Data published in 1999 indicated that an estimated 200,000 to 400,000 German men annually traveled abroad for sex tourism, with the Philippines, Thailand, South Korea, Sri Lanka, and Hong Kong as their main destinations. For some White men, sex tourism to countries such as Thailand is built around a fantasy that includes the possibility of finding love and romance. According to Dr. David Jedlicka's 1983 study, this idea is based on the stereotype of "the Oriental woman" who is considered to be beautiful and sexually exciting as well as caring, compliant, and submissive. Kimberly Hoang writes that there may be mistaken conflation of "submission" with "care".
Although not as widely recognized as male sex tourism, there have also been cases of western female sex tourism in Indonesia, including Bali.
A 2023 CNN article highlighted a growing trend of Western female tourists traveling to South Korea with the primary goal of pursuing a romantic fantasy with a Korean man. A researcher interviewed 123 women fitting this profile between 2017 and 2018. They came from various countries, primarily North America, Russia, and Europe, and were typically heterosexual and in their early to mid-20s. Unlike typical tourists focused on sightseeing, these women prioritized nightlife – dressing up and frequenting clubs in hopes of meeting their ideal Korean partner. Some had even learned Korean beforehand to overcome language barriers, while others relied on a mix of Korean and English. The researcher described these women as part of a larger trend called "Korean Wave tourists" that were inspired by Korean dramas. Some authors are concerned that korean wave fans simplifies Korean men into stereotypes, ignoring their complexity as individuals and the realities of relationships.
In popular media
According to Marenda Tran, Asian women in the media tend to be portrayed in two ways: as an exotic foreigner, docile and nonthreatening and sexual but also innocent; or as the nerd who is still aesthetically pleasing, but also emotionless and career-oriented. This leads many Asian women to believe that they have to be in one of these boxes. It tends to convey the message that if they are smart, they cannot be sexual; or, if they are sexual, they tend to not be aware of it. By the late 2010s, movies such as Crazy Rich Asians and The Farewell began to break these boundaries, but they are movies that center around the Asian experience, allowing for more diversity across Asian characters.
In her essay "Hateful Contraries: Media Images of Asian Women", British filmmaker Pratibha Parmar comments that the media's imagery of Asian women is "contradictory" in that it represents them as "completely dominated by their men, mute and oppressed" while also showing them as "sexually erotic creatures".
In her essay Lotus Blossoms Don't Bleed: Images of Asian Women, American filmmaker Renee Tajima-Peña identifies two basic stereotypes of Asian women in the United States. The "Lotus Blossom Baby" is a feminine and delicate sexual-romantic object. In contrast, the "Dragon Lady" is treacherous and devious, and in some cases, a madam. Tajima suggests that this view of Asian women contributes to the existence of the Asian mail-order bride industry in the US.
Some authors have raised concerns that the rise of K-pop and the Hallyu wave has led to racially charged attitudes that surpass healthy appreciation, veering into an obsessive fetishization of Korean men. Anecdotal examples of this phenomenon include fan comments such as, "I want to date a Korean guy so badly!" and "I wish I were a Korean girl so my bias would like me". One author emphasized that while it is entirely acceptable to find someone attractive, it is essential to distinguish between genuine appreciation for an individual and fetishization based on superficial stereotypes or generalizations over their race. Another author who interviewed female tourists in hostels, across South Korea used the term "Netflix effect" to describe how romantic Korean dramas have influenced global romance tourism, arguing that as global access to these dramas increases, media-inspired tourism is likely to grow alongside it.
Pornography
Asa Akira was uncomfortable with fetishization early in her career, but has since grown to embrace it, saying, "I mean, it's not like guys are watching my movies and laughing. They're watching my movies and masturbating." Mika Tan sees Asian fetishization in porn as a relatively harmless replacement for "trolling the bars with the intent of getting rid of ... sexual frustrations on any woman who happens along". Her opinion is that "Porn does not create fetishes, it caters to them." Also archived here.
Philosophy and sociology scholars have also examined Asian fetishization in porn. In Robin Zheng's view, the ubiquity and custom-tailored nature of internet pornography "plays a central role in licensing the self-identification with and public recognition of racialized sexual preferences like yellow fever". She further states that the pornography industry stands to benefit from encouraging Asian fetish as a distinct category to suit their marketing needs.
Some scholars have theorized the ways in which fetishization in pornography may exacerbate racial stereotypes, with others highlighting the ways Asian porn performers are able to challenge racial stereotypes within their films, while also refuting the idea that they themselves have no control or agency. Zheng says that there is "no way to win" in this scenario: that Asian presence and absence in pornography both have significant downsides.
Gossett and Byrne conducted a content analysis study of 31 "internet rape sites" in 2002 and found that thirty-four of the 56 clear images analyzed depicted Asian women as victims, and that nearly half of the sites contained either text references or images of Asian women. "In contrast to the invisible perpetrator, race/ethnicity is of paramount importance in constructing the image of the victim. In our sample, 34 of the images (pictures that are clear and in which the race can be identified) depicted Asian women. Eleven of the sites advertise Asian women in their text through words such as Asian, Japanese, and Chinese. Nearly half (15) of the sites either a text reference to Asian women or an image of an Asian woman. In contrast, no images of Black women being raped were found, although one link to a site that advertises "Black Gang Rape," which is ambiguous as to the victims or the perpetrators are Black. Twenty-four images of white women were found among those where race could be identified. This probably understates the number of images of white women in our sample because no sites specifically advertised white women. One possible exception is a site that offered images of blondes, which is likely to be an advertisement for whites. Only one site has a specific reference to Hispanic women in its text, and no sites identify women as Native American or Indian.": Disparaging Asian women to images of subservience and hypersexuality is not only represented in mainstream media but it permeates the pornography world. A content analysis found that Asian women are the most represented female victims within violent pornography and rape websites (30).: "Many scholars warn that race-specific pornography contributes to race-specific sexual violence. Since the overwhelming majority of violent pornography features Asian women in particular, it follows that Asian women are at even greater risk of sexual violence due to their role in violent pornography. Helen Zia, a noted social activist, suggests a direct connection between racial-sexual stereotyped pornography and actual violence against Asian women. Additionally, Kandice Chuh argues that 'because Asian/American women are depicted as always consenting, they cannot be raped in the eyes of the law.'" In 2016, Zhou and Paul looked at a sample of 3053 videos from XVideos, and found that the 170 videos in the Asian women category had much less aggression, and less objectification than other categories, but that the performers also had less agency in their scenes. In 2019, Shor and Golriz looked at a sample of 172 videos from Pornhub, and they found that the 25+ videos in the Asian/Japanese category had considerably more aggression than those of other categories. Miller & McBain and Rothman deem that findings of the depictions of Asian women and race in pornography are not consistent or comprehensive.
See also
- Amejo
- Asian Babes – UK pornographic magazine
- Asian Fever – U.S. pornographic magazine
- Ethnic pornography
- Japanophilia
- Miscegenation
- Orientalism
- Potato queen
- Race and sexuality
- Rice queen
- Sarong party girl
- Sexualization and sexual exploitation in K-pop
- Yellow cab
Citations
Further reading
External links
- Seeking Asian Female − a documentary by Debbie Lum (official website)
- Seeking Asian Female page at Independent Lens
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