Spooky Season is upon us, and I’m not just talking about Halloweekend. I’m talking about the ghouls I encounter in the single dating pool, the frights of sleeping around, and (in my case) my experiences dating as an East Asian female in predominately white communities.
From the first time I was catcalled by a group of men who repeatedly called me “Chinita” to guys on dating apps willingly sharing that they have “yellow fever,” I’m no stranger to racialized femininity. “Racialized femininities” refers to the idea that in Western cultures, normative ideals of femininity are shaped by whiteness. As a result, when women of color are gendered, their racial identities become hypervisible (I would argue the same logic holds true for masculinity).
For women of color, we are conditioned to understand our gender and race intersectionally (as implied in the name itself). In middle school, I received wisdom from a community elder (my friend's older sister), who proclaimed that I was “lucky” because in high school, “guys like to experiment with Asian girls.” And, the hot guy who I lost my virginity to? He told me I was just his type: “Asian.” With the two international guys I had gotten with, my femininity was racialized, so that I was no longer perceived as “Robin McClit,” an “American,” or even as the neutral term “woman,” but always as an “Asian girl.”
In a dating scene, influenced by this Western perception of gender and race, the “racial fetish” beast lurks behind every corner, ready to pounce when least expected. But, like in all B-rated horror movies, the most predictable jumpscares are the ones the protagonist, as blissfully ignorant and strikingly sexy as ever, never sees coming.
Let me set the scene. You are getting down and dirty for the first time with a guy you have been seeing for a few weeks and feel a good connection with. He is white, but of course, you do not foresee potential, let us call them, “misunderstandings,” because you are blinded by the fact that he is also European. You are looking each other lovingly in the eyes, when you jokingly ask “do you have an Asian fetish?” Without hesitation, an immediate “yes” in response.
“Wait, hold up, what did you just say? Let me give you a second chance to clarify what you mean.” He clarified, and rather explicitly, that he has an Asian fetish.
You might say, like he so innocently pleaded, “Hey, it’s not a fetish, it’s just a preference!” Mhm, right.
While I am not sold on the idea that physical preferences should strictly dictate who you date either, the argument for physical preferences has more weight to it than that of a racial fetish. Sure, physical preferences can be surface-level and sexual chemistry can be fostered with someone you do not find attractive initially, but racial fetishes are explicitly problematic, reducing people to passive objects meant to be desired and conquered.
Racial fetishes are not just about having physical preferences that a certain group of people are more likely to have. Racial fetishes are politically charged inclinations, based on stereotypes that have been influenced by Western hegemonic systems of imperialism, colonialism, and militarism.
For example, a person may be inclined towards engaging in sexual acts with an Asian person because they are of the opinion that Asian people are naturally “subservient” and “obediant” in the bedroom. I am all for a little power-play in bed, but racial fetishes cross the line of genuinely disrespecting the autonomy and personhood of the racialized person by inherently intertwining their sexuality with racial stereotypes.
The sexualization of Asian people, like with all racial fetishes, is deeply rooted in American history. In immigration laws that prohibited “immoral” women from entering the country, effectively banning all Chinese women under the argument that they are prostitutes. In syphoning male immigrants to traditionally-female service work and emasculating them in the social imaginary. In perpetrating violent events, not on American soil, that led to the cultural phenomena of “mail-order brides” and “war brides.” Racial fetishes are not neutral personal preferences, but are a cultural manifestation of centuries of public discourse on marginalized communities’ humanity and personhood.
It is great to celebrate cross-cultural differences, and I think it is very important that we push ourselves to do as such. But what my European man could not conceptualize is that he was not flattering me. Rather than learn about my culture — which I associate with Asian America, not Asia — from me, he projected his own biased understanding of a racialized femininity onto me. I fear that if he were to list out his favorite things about me, one of them would be that I am Asian. In this way, he will never see me as Robin McClit, but always as an Asian girl he fucks, as a racialized sexual object, as an Oriental “other.”
Yes, my race is an important aspect of my identity, but I could never respect a partner who uses me as an agent to gain proximity to a culture they are not part of. Because it is not me that he truly wants, but his conception of what it would be like to fuck someone who looks like me. Add the class and power dynamics of what this misogynistic fantasy depends on, mixed in with historical prejudice and cultural stereotypes, and what we have is a real problem. Racial fetishes, a bedroom horror story.
Robin McClit is a senior at Cornell dedicated to exploring sexuality through a critical feminist lens and supporting women’s wrongs. File a complaint at rmcclit@cornellsun.com.
