Asian fetish is a slang term which refers to an interest or attraction for people, culture, architecture or other things of Asian descent or creation by those of non-Asian descent. The term Asiaphile is sometimes used to describe the same phenomenon, as is 'Yellow Fever'. A Columbia University study found no evidence of a general preference by white American men for Asian women.
Terminology and usage
Two loaded names for this preference are Asiaphilia and Asian fetish. An Asiaphile is somebody who is characterized as having an Asian fetish.
For example, Sheridan Prasso calls a website an "Asiaphile Homepage" that is part of the "proliferation" of sites on the internet that cater to the stereotypes that people have towards Asian females.
Edwin C. Symmes called himself an "Asiaphile", partly because of his great interest in Japanese miniature carvings.
Ronald Lake uses the term as a label for people who invest mainly in Asian financial products.
Other slang names for the preference include "yellow fever" for the preference, and "rice kings", "rice chasers", and "rice lovers" for the men who espouse it. The gay slang term used for a man, usually white, who exclusively dates Asian men is "rice queen."
In the afterword to the 1988 play M. Butterfly , the writer, David Henry Hwang, using the term "yellow fever," a pun on the disease of the same name, discusses white men with a "fetish" for Asian women. Hwang argues that this phenomenon is caused by stereotyping of Asians in Western society.
Phoebe Eng wrote in her book Warrior Lessons ,
Eng writes that some Asian females find the attention that they receive "liberating".
In a collection of writings from Asian American females, YELL-Oh Girls! , Meggy Wang calls a man "Mr. Asiaphile".
Objections to the "Asian Fetish" label
There are those who object to being tagged as one with an "asian fetish." Ming Tan, author of "How to Attract Asian Women", quotes one man as saying that he thinks that "there's a massive, huge difference between such a fetish and my preference for Asians". The correspondent goes on to describe the "grace" and the ability to create "harmony in one's family, workplace, and community" that he finds attractive in Asian women.
Columbia University study
Fisman, Sethi-Iyengar, et al. conducted a two year study of individuals that had self-selected into a speed dating event at Columbia University. The purpose was to investigate the rarity of inter-racial marriages in the United States, and to investigate racial preferences in dating as its possible cause, and the relative importance of that preference with respect to physical racial segregation. Thousands of decisions made by more than 400 daters from Columbia University's various graduate and professional schools were compiled. The study, published in the Review of Economic Studies, was analyzed in Slate Magazine by Ray Fisman, an economist and one of the researchers of the study. He reported that based on the results of the study, there was no evidence amongst the speed daters for what is called "the stereotype of a white male preference for East Asian women."
The study did report that the pairing between a white man and an Asian woman was the most common inter-racial pairing, but it attributed this not to a preference for Asian women on the parts of the white men, but rather to the preferences of the Asian women. The study found that the men, of all races, in fact had no racial preferences amongst women. Whereas it found that the women of all races strongly preferred men of their own race. It reported that Asian women, whilst preferring Asian men, were neutral to white men, but strongly avoided black, Hispanic, and Middle Eastern men. There is a neutrality towards white men on the parts of Asian women that the study and Fisman attributed the prevalence of the white man/Asian woman inter-racial pairing, in comparison with other pairings. The study cited prior work, including that by Ariely et al. and Mills et al. (see further reading), that had also suggested that women are less accepting of inter-racial romantic relationships than men are.
See also
- Interracial relationships
- Interracial marriage
- Racist love
- Stereotypes of Asians
- Sex tourism
- Amejo
- Sarong party girl
- Yellow cab (stereotype)
- Chinese female beauty ideals
Further reading
- Dan Ariely, Gunter J. Hitsch, and Ali Hortacsu (2004). What Makes You Click: An Empirical Analysis of Online Dating . MIT Sloan Research Paper No. 4603-06, SSRN 895442 . http://www.columbia.edu/~ss957/articles/Racial%20Preferences%20in%20Dating.pdf .
- Jon K. Mills, Jennifer Daly, Amy Longmore, and Gina Kilbridge (1995). "A Note on Family Acceptance Involving Interracial Friendships and Romantic Relationships". The Journal of Psychology 129 (3): 349–351.
References
- ^ Korean American women By Ailee Moon pg 134
- ^ Stephen Short (26 September 2001). "'Directors Want Freshness'". Time Magazine . http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,176330,00.html . Retrieved 7 November 2009 .
- ^ Theresa Pinto Sherer (29 November 2001). "Identity crisis". Salon . http://dir.salon.com/story/mwt/feature/2001/11/29/abandoned/print.html . Retrieved 7 November 2009 .
- ^ Cindy Chang (2 April 2006). "Cool Tat, Too Bad It's Gibberish". New York Times . http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/02/fashion/sundaystyles/02tattoos.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print . Retrieved 7 November 2009 .
- ^ a b Nam, Vicky (2001). YELL-oh Girls! . Harper Paperbacks. pp. 131-132. ISBN 0060959444.
- ^ a b c Eng, Phoebe (2000). "She Takes Back Desire". Warrior Lessons : An Asian American Woman's Journey into Power . New York: Atria. pp. 115 – 142. ISBN 0671009575.
- ^ a b Ray Fisman ( 2007-11-07 ). "An Economist Goes to a Bar And solv
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