Text/Xun Zhou
Photo: Review-Crab Yellow Rice, Production-Mu Fu
Cover image: Shutterstock
Asian fetishes refer to a group of people who have a strong sexual or emotional preference for Asians or people of Asian descent. In the West, there is even a derogatory term yellow fever used to describe those who are obsessed with yellow women.
The "I Love Asian Woman" T-shirt sold by e-commerce
Pictured: Amazon
This sexual fetish originated during the colonial period and still haunts Asian women or Asian communities living abroad today.
Therefore, this article will start from the cultural phenomenon of "paraphilia" and analyze the reasons for its formation and the values behind it.
01
The daily life of "subphilia"
"I love Asian girls, most of them are fun-loving, I love this", "I like Chinese women, I like Asian women, I want to have a few mixed-race babies". These are the statements that often appear on social networks against Asian women.
On ABC Chinese there is a report written by wing Kuang, "In the world of "Asian fetish", it is not a compliment to praise Asian girls", which mentioned Vanessa Lee's personal experience.
Vanessa Lee, 28, is from Malaysia and immigrated to Melbourne with her parents as a child. Vanessa has been using dating apps for several years, and she says she's no longer familiar with the paraphilia on dating apps. She recalls never saying she would Chinese online, but she still received Chinese messages from white men "I miss you."
A common pick-up technique for paraphilia in chat conversations
A common self-introduction for subphilia
In 2015, a post titled "Why European and American Men Like Asian Women" was widely spread on the Internet, and the article mentioned at the beginning, "Come to study in the UK, maybe a few months after the start of school, many Asian girls stand next to a handsome white guy." Even girls who do not have a market in China will receive a lot of ambiguous information."
The author of the article talks about his experience of studying in the UK, and there is an unpleasant memory in it. The author and his friends went to a small bar for drinks, and the British uncle in the store came to talk to them and said, "I like to walk around your school the most, and every time I can see many Asian girls wearing shorts and showing their white thighs, so sexy!" ”
Recently, there is a talk show video of a Chinese girl on YouTube that is very popular,
Huang He was bluntly sarcastic in her performance
"Asian discrimination" and "female stereotypes."
Image: YouTube
Paraphilia often shows excessive courtesy towards Asian women in daily interactions, and there is always a vague arrogance in the dialogue, two or three sentences are inseparable from appearance examination and sexual innuendo, and behind the attentive words is the objectification and debasement of Asian women.
There is no doubt that paraphilia is a phenomenon that objectifies and sexualizes Asian women. This includes not only Western men's stereotypes of Asian women, such as docile, sexually open, virtuous, etc., but also the predatory and possessive intentions of the "superior" over the "weak".
The vast majority of women who encounter paraphilia will have such an experience:
When she first receives a compliment, she is still in a relatively happy mood, even if the compliment is mainly for her Asian appearance or Asian background. Later, I received more and more compliments, which made people feel unconsciously uncomfortable and began to wonder whether the other party liked him as a person or just liked the appearance of Asians.
But after discussing with friends, I finally concluded that these so-called praises and praise did not have any sincere and positive meaning, but contained an evil intention of racial discrimination, objectification of women, and sexualization of Asians.
02
The source of "paraphilia"
The formation of Asian female stereotypes is inseparable from the colonization of Asia by the West.
The picture shows an illustration of a 19th-century children's book.
Among them, the Dutch are described as "a very hardworking people",
Chinese children, on the other hand, are described as "very obedient to their parents."
Image: wikiwand
Before the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which banned Chinese immigrants from becoming U.S. citizens, the Page Act of 1875 had been passed, which barred Asian women from entering the United States for fear that they would engage in prostitution in the United States and transmit sexually transmitted diseases to American men.
With the deepening of Western colonization, China, Japan, and Korea in East Asia have opened trade ports, and Westerners have direct channels to contact Chinese small-footed women and Japanese geisha.
Japanese geisha
Image: Shutterstock
During the interwar period, East Asian women were often treated as purely "sexual objects" by white Americans. This has a lot to do with the impression of American military personnel or occupation in places such as the Philippines (after the Philippines-American War), Thailand and Vietnam (Vietnam War), and Japan (Japanese occupation) in the 19th and 20th centuries.
We will find that the evaluation of Asian women is up and down, with different propaganda tendencies as political demands arise. Overall, Asian women during this period are portrayed as aggressive or sexually prone beings, as well as cunning and evil gold-worshipping women. Therefore, a series of servile synonyms, such as "lotus baby", "Chinese doll", "geisha" and so on, came into being.
Mineko Iwasaki, the original form of "Memoirs of a Geisha", said,
There are a lot of plots that do not correspond to reality,
It has seriously stigmatized the geisha group that "sells their arts but does not sell themselves".
Picture: Movie "Memoirs of a Geisha"
Later Iwasaki Mineko herself wrote a book,
Refute the Gowther version and justify the geisha.
Photo: Memoirs of a Real Geisha
After the end of the war, a series of activities to promote immigration, such as post-war recovery, economic globalization, and political movements, led to a large number of Asian immigrants entering Europe and the United States.
In the mid-to-late 20th century and early 21st century, Asian families in Western countries gradually gained a foothold through their own hard work. The perception of Asians has shifted from extreme to soft stereotypes, such as Asians are good at math, Asian women are virtuous, and Asian children are good at exams.
During this period, there were two different images of Asian women in the West. They are either sexy and shy, quiet and submissive, subservient to men, or strong and domineering, such as tiger mothers. Hard work and economic affluence have led contemporary Asian women to be portrayed as a model minority.
It seems that sometimes we label ourselves like this
Picture: "Tiger Mother Battle Song"
03
Pop culture and paraphilia
Let's start with literary works, "The Good Woman of Sichuan", "Madame Butterfly" and "Miss Saigon", which were created during the period of Western invasion of Asia, are all works about Asian women and are highly known in the West.
Bertolte's "The Good Woman of Sichuan" adopts the Chinese mythological story mode of "immortals under the fan", and sets the story in China's "Sichuan Provincial City". It mainly describes the immortals who came to the mortal world to find good people in order to refute the fallacy that "good people cannot live today". I finally met a good woman - the prostitute Shen Dai, but she could not be rewarded for her good deeds, and finally had to "fight evil with evil" story.
In the story, the heroine Shen Dai presents the image of a "slum angel" who is kind by nature, charitable, shy and innocent.
Being an Asian woman is hard, and being a good Asian woman is even harder.
The picture shows the stills of "Sichuan Good Woman"
Image: theguardian
Madama Butterfly is an opera by Italian composer Puccini, based on the short story Madame Butterfly by American writer John Luther Lang and borrowed from the diary novel Madame Kikuko by French writer Pierre Lotti.
The play is set in Japan, telling the story of the heroine Qiao Qiaosang and the US Navy officer Pinkelton married and kept the boudoir empty, but waited for the betrayal, and finally ended with Qiao Qiaosang's suicide. Madame Butterfly shows a naïve and romantic, infatuated, beautiful, gentle and touching image in the play.
Stills from Madame Butterfly
Image: TorontoFilm Society
The story of "Miss Saigon" takes place in the midst of the war in Vietnam at that time, telling the love-hate love story between an American soldier and an infatuated Vietnamese dancer. The story ends with the tragic ending of the heroine Kim not hesitating to sacrifice her life in exchange for a better future for her children.
These three literary works have obvious common characteristics, that is, the heroines are all prostitutes, the male protagonists are all white men, and the heroines are all docile and infatuated, beautiful and kind, and submissive to men.
In the depiction of such works, it is extremely easy for Asian women to succumb to white protagonists who oppose their fellow citizens, while often handing over their bodies to others in the process, and giving the illusion that they are brainless and easily controllable sexual objects.
Although it is also the ending of "prostitutes must not be rewarded",
The image of the blonde heroine is brave, wise and strong.
Picture: The movie "Fatal ID"
This kind of literature was mainly created in the last century, especially during the Korean and Vietnam Wars when the United States participated in the Korean and Vietnam Wars, and American officers and soldiers regarded Asian women as "war brides" and "temporary lovers", trophies of war and objects without autonomy. They portray Asian women as "dumb beauties" who please submissive men, further fuelling a culture of misreading and even hatred of Asian women.
This impersonal thinking and a large number of erotic works also give everyone a hint that Asian women expect to be violated and subjugated, so that when the West sees Asian women, they can't help but imagine an image of promiscuity, meekness and need to be "saved".
Filipino singer Rachelle Ann Go
In 2014, he performed in London.
Image: Vox
In film and television works, you can often hear related words such as "massage", "competition", and "good girl". There is an episode of "Modern Family", the second daughter Alex is very stressed, and her mother tells the rest of the family that Alex is really stressed, unlike when she was a child, they did not have Asian children to compete with them before.
In another episode of "The Big Bang Theory," Hovoll and Rajd see an Asian girl in the school cafeteria and want to go up and talk to them, saying before the conversation that Asian girls are much better than white girls.
These film and television dramas are based on daily life, and the inadvertent views about Asians are still worth digging and thinking about. In the past ten years, the image of Asians has made a small breakthrough compared with the last century, that is, Asian girls have a relationship with studying hard and diligently, and are no longer just brainless "fool beauties" before.
Want to cheat on an exam? Please find an Asian student
Picture: The movie "Genius Gunman"
04
The Western values behind "paraphilia"
A 2013 study by the online dating program Are You Interested found that all American men except Asian-American men preferred Asian-American women. In contemporary society, Asiaticism has become a cultural phenomenon, which brings great psychological burden to the majority of Asian women and Asian women.
Scholar Robin Zheng argues that Asian women generally suspect that men who find them attractive may be primarily valued by their race and identity rather than their personal characteristics.
Racial depersonalization in romantic relationships is a very degrading thing for these women, because if a person feels that they can be replaced by someone with similar qualities, they may feel that it is false love.
A poem written by Rana Chang about a paraphilia
In March 2021, there was a horrific terrorist attack in the United States. The gunmen broke into three Asian-run massage parlors in Atlanta and shot at eight people, six of whom were female masseuses of Asian descent, including two Chinese and four Korean.
Atlanta police said the 21-year-old gunman, Robert Aaron Long, claimed to have a "sex addiction" and launched the attack to "eliminate sexual temptation."
The scum was eventually sentenced to four life sentences.
Figure: www.npr.org
To this day, dignity remains a luxury for female masseuses of Asian descent. In addition to the daily work of their daily work, they have to deal with stigma and sexual harassment. In the United States, massage parlors are mixed, and some massage parlors are in a legal gray area due to the huge profits of sexual services.
Coupled with the excessive sexualization of Asian women, Asian massage parlors have long been stigmatized and almost regarded as sex trading venues, and massage operators have to face frequent sexual harassment and sexual violence.
Asian women working in the massage industry in the United States usually have weak English skills and are not recognized by mainstream American society, and they are arguably the most deeply and directly subjected to sexual stigmatization.
Chinese masseuse in the United States:
"We deserve respect."
Photo: BBC
The BBC had an interview about "Queen Wu" after the Atlanta shooting. "Empress Wu" is an Asian woman who used to be a sex worker. In the interview, "Empress Wu" said: "People will say that because you are an Asian woman, you must be like something."
She believes that the shooting exposed the double shackles of gender and ethnic discrimination that Asian American women carry. She is now an activist for the New York nonprofit Red Warbler Song, dedicated to helping sex workers in Asians and Asian immigrants. "Empress Wu" is her pseudonym.
"Whether they engage in sex work or not, they are demonized," Empress Wu said, stressing that the nature of the work of the shooting victims should not be the focus of the incident or an excuse for the gunman. "No matter what job they do, no one should be killed at work."
After the shooting, many people came spontaneously
Flowers were laid in front of the massage parlor where the crime occurred to commemorate the victims.
Pictured: The New York Times
People also poured into the streets to protest "paraphilia",
Demand an end to "Asian hatred".
Image: Shutterstock
Stereotypes and paraphilia about Asian women will never disappear easily, and the suffering and injustice suffered by Asian women have continued to the present day. A sober awareness of paraphilia at least allows us to avoid indulging in the "tender web" that others weave for us.
The path to promotion is only safe if we walk on our own ground, and behind any seemingly beautiful shortcut are hidden shackles and sharp knives. The praise of the sweet belly sword is poison, but it reminds us to avoid and resist those sanctimonious dark human natures.
The "I'm not your Asian fetish" T-shirt sold by e-commerce
Pictured: Amazon
END
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