I read Chang's piece and loved it so much that I shared it with all of my friends and family. As an Asian-American woman myself, I related to every word in the article and share the same disgust for men who find themselves attracted to Asian women for reasons other than their intelligence and strength.

The readers who found her piece to be an article of prejudice and dared to compare it to Mein Kampf failed to read the article in its entirety and must not have taken a European history class in a good 10 years.

Are men reallly attracted any woman primarily for her intelligence and strength?

Implying that no men look for "intelligence and strength" in women does nothing to diminish Chang's argument. It only provides cause for alarm about the nonchalantly shallow perspective many men (regardless of race) use to view women with.

That may be true, Brian, but I'm talking about Asiaphilia here, not the extent to which males ditch any sort of moral barometer they may (or may not) have.

As an Asian-American woman myself, I related to every word in the article and share the same disgust for men who find themselves attracted to Asian women for reasons other than their intelligence and strength.

The trouble is, some Asian women (and men) assume that ANY interest by a white man is for "reasons other than."

Vickie:

I don't know you particularly well, but we have (had) at least a couple classes together, and I remember some of the group discussions in which you described the premise of your story. Stalkerbook what it is, I've been duly alerted to your story and its infamy.

Looking over some of the admittedly less than eloquent criticisms of your story, I'm not sure I'm in any position to defend them against your rebuttal. Still, I think there exist some legitimate points to be made in response to your article.

You present "Dan" as an instance of a (presumably) white "Asiaphile" who is representative of "Asiaphiles" generally. Part of the criticism you are seeing, I believe, stems from the fact that rather than explicitly and overtly explaining that "Dan" exemplifies white "Asiaphiles," you did so subtly, which leaves room for the typically sixth-grade educated reader to misunderstand your criticisms to be of white males generally, rather than of a specific subset of white males (white "Asiaphiles").

Something not covered by the criticisms which I have read is the fact that while you quite forcefully attack white "Asiaphiles," you give males of other ethnicities a complete pass. For instance, you attack white "Asiaphilies" for holding the belief that Asian girls are "delicate […] demure and submissive," but you ignore the reality that white American girls are particularly coveted in certain Asian countries where they find themselves the objects of desire. Indeed, white American girls, oftentimes runaways, are tragically trafficked as prostitutes abroad where they are coveted for their light skin, light hair, and other less flattering, and perhaps stereotypically American, traits.

So, while the backlash against your article has not been erudite, it stems from what I believe to be a natural discomfort with your rather one-sided appraisal of fetishism. No doubt Asian girls are subjected to the "creepy" desires of many men, but the implicit presumption that the fault lies exclusively with white men is ignorant at best and dishonest worst. Fetishism is something inherent to the character of many people, men and women, regardless of their race. Some white men certainly do express their "unique" preferences in ways which cause discomfort to Asian women, but other men with other cultural backgrounds no doubt do the same. I think that were your article anecdotal evidence of one aspect of the problem -- creepy fetishists -- you would have found it to be better received. Because, however, it was presented as anecdotal evidence of "Asiaphilism," without acknowledging the larger reality that fetishism is colorblind, you experienced an enraged backlash.

And, as a final comment, regarding the "white boy [you] met in college": the issue there might be less one of racism and more one of ignorance. It's entirely possible that given the popularity certain elements of "Asian culture" (I'll leave it to you to determine whether those things are legitimately "Asian culture" or just stereotypically "Asian culture") the boy was simply going out of his way to find activities which he thought you would enjoy. He could've just been trying to be nice.

Nevertheless, a thought-provoking piece.

- Ryan

> The trouble is, some Asian women
> (and men) assume that ANY interest
> by a white man is for "reasons other than."

That's simply not true. Any woman will tell you that we are approached every day by men that hit on us. And after a few years, trust me when I say that we are very adept at telling whether a man is normal, creepy, or has some Asian fetish.

Yes, perhaps we're overly cautious, but can you blame us when there's news about a serial rapist targeting Asian women? http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061116/ap_on_re_us/serial_rapist

Ryan;

Your argument ignores the main points of my post, and thus I take issue with it. You seem to have hijacked this thread in order to score intellectual points based on what you perceive to be problems with Ms. Chang's article, problems you had to conjure out of thin air as they don't actually exist.

You presume that Chang's critique is of white men; why? In over 2,800 words of provocative text, she only uses the term 'white' nine times - and three of those references are to women.

The fact is, Chang writes not about white Asiaphiles but American Asiaphiles. You presume "American" to be synonymous with "white". How sad.

Chang was writing about a specific aspect of fetishism, American Asiaphilia. This is because she is an Asian female in America. Like the man says, write what you know. There has been an "enraged backlash" to her piece because American Asiaphiles don't like to have their ignorant, insulting biases thrown in their faces, not because her discussion was in any way narrow or overly specific.

I leave you with the immortal words of Winston Churchill:
"You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life."

Jill wrote:

Any woman will tell you that we are approached every day by men that hit on us. And after a few years, trust me when I say that we are very adept at telling whether a man is normal, creepy, or has some Asian fetish.

You know what I hear in Vickie's article? "Boo Hoo I am an attractive girl."

I am NOT justifying the actions of creepy guys, I hate them as much as all y'all, and I realize that ANY woman needs to be careful when meeting new men.

But I put it to you that even Asiaphiles are not going to be attracted to what they consider UGLY Asians (however you define that).

I think the real problem here is not that Vickie is Asian, but that she is attractive, at least on the outside. Regardless of WHY a guy is creepy (Asiaphile or otherwise), he is still a creepy guy.

An attractive Asian woman has to put up with as many creepy guys as ANY attractive woman. To single out Asiaphiles I think needlessly exacerbates the problem by adding race to the issue.

The only example she cites in her article that I think truly exemplifies racism (as opposed to plain ol' creepiness) is Gwen Stefani's troupe. And there is nothing sexual in her use of them. In other words, it may be racist, but it is not fetishism.

As an aside, if you are a student at UCI and you DON'T find Asians attractive, then your available dating pool is severely reduced on a per-capita basis. That is not a racist comment, that is pure fact. Asiaphilia at UCI may be purely the result of necessity! ;-)

I think Vickie Chang needs to do a little more research on this topic. Attitudes from guys the habitually hang out at bars and young men making the transfer from high school to college do not make a good focus group pool, to base your social arguements.

In the real world, racial and sexual relationships are just a wee bit more complicated, Vickie. Get out of the clubs more. Have your friends get out too.

What's the beef. Asian women are smoking hot! So are white women and black women. Let's face it, hot women are worthy of our lust and love no matter what their race.

Casanova

Thank you for backing up 'Yellow Fever'.
I couldn't believe Fighting44s' members would focus on the "CCB" aspect so fiercely. I was quite bothered by it, so it's nice to see a response to weak yet vexing comments like theirs. Thank you again.

Check out Hung Lo the first Chinese male porn star in America fucking white women at shelovesasiancock.com. I hope this website will bring awareness to white, black, hispanic, jewish, arab and native indian people in America that many asian men do have large penis size like Hung Lo and are not always shorter than white men. Look at Yao Ming he is the tallest basketball player in the NBA. Yao has better skills than any basketball player in the history of the NBA that was taller than 7′ 5″ that includes the likes of Mark Eaton, Shawn Bradley and Manute Bol.

There was this fear in the early 20th century in america by white men that asian men were animals, beasts and barbaric because they have large families, very horny and must fuck a lot. The white man then made a concerted effort to dehumanize the asian man to be sexless, unappealing, skinny with buck teeth, short in height with a small penis size so as to protect the white women from cross breeding and having mixed race kids. This disinformation has been constantly circulated in the media (movies, tv, radio, books, newspapers, and magazines) for the last 80 years.

How can so many white people believe these stereotypes for so many years. The late Bruce Lee the martial arts expert and actor is so macho, robust, masculine and is a stud with no buck teeth. Are we to believe that he is uglier than Kelsey Grammer, unappealing, feminine like all asian men, too soft, can’t fuck white women because he is asian, by the way his wife is white. Are we to believe that Yao Ming who is asian has a penis size smaller than Mini Me who is white from the Austin Powers movies. For all those asian men haters out there, wake up and smell the coffee, Porn star Hung Lo is not the only asian man in America fucking white women. Face the facts asian men haters, times have changed and an asian man/white woman couple will no longer be perceived as taboo, odd, a rarity or an aberration but will be seen as mainstream and ubiquitous. A black man is now the president of the U.S. and an asian president will happen in the future.

Keep it up Hung Lo at shelovesasiancock.com

Being an Asian-American woman, I'd like to provide some insight on this particular topic. Yes it's true that there are men (and women for that matter) who, when it comes to affairs of the heart, choose their partners by racial profiling.

First and foremost, it is no one's business but their own what qualities they find attractive in a person. There are a multitude of reasons why we find a particular person appealing to us. On the surface it is easy to say that people have a type: they're attracted to certain physical characteristics, but we should remember that beauty is always a subjective thing.

Secondly, looking beyond the physical and delving into the laws of attraction, we must admit that we have very little choice as far as what it is that we're attracted to. We are all programmed on a genetic level to search for qualities in a partner that would create the best possible progeny. The fact that some of us are not looking to procreate doesn't change what the sexual experience was created for.

And last, we are all the sum of our own unique and personal experiences and that's why we have varying points of view on issues regarding race. The best thing to do to stop racism is to simply be the best representation of your race and break those negative stereotypes one at a time.