Asian dopers, is this a for real phenomena or just journalistic sensationalizing? Do asian women view you as “safe” and less erotic than black and white men?
Here’s the problem: the professor was almost certainly addressing a sociology or anthropology class. If he had taken a survey of female Computer Science or Engineering students – Asian or otherwise – he would have found a much higher percentage of Asian and non-Asian Americans who had been exposed to both popular media and underground/overseas media.
Women who attend “Cons” and other geeky gatherings have told me how hot an Asian guy cos-played up in a Tuxedo Mask outfit is (for example). I personally wish I could appear as confident as the Japanese men I see with long bangs or surfer/skater haircuts. Likewise, I am jealous of how professional and sharp Asian men (esp. Koreans, imho) appear with a shaved head in uniform – although this may be a result of my insensitivity to their more subtle facial expressions.
I think the professor was asking the wrong people (or, because he needed to make a point, the "right"people). Also: Jet Li looks way better in a tux than Brad Pitt, and I’m a straight white male who has Brad on my “if-I-were-gay” list.
Ai, Jet Li would look better covered in guano and wearing feathers than Brad Pitt would look in Navy Whites, and I’m a sucker for just about any man in Navy whites.
Sorry. Brad Pitt. :shudder: You’re entitled to your “if-you-were-gay” list, obviously 
If Asian men aren’t hot then why does my brain keep fantasizing about Chow Yun-Fat?
To say that its racism is a little out there I believe. I wouldn’t even call it Ignorance. I think it doesn’t really have to do much with us being asian, rather that the vast majority of us are shorter than average. I tend to believe (based on no scientific data whatsoever) that women tend to be attractive to taller men. Hence, the classic “Tall, Dark, and Handsome”. Recent popular movies have had a string of asian male leads/supporting roles that placed us on a more gentler side rather than the “Jackie chan” model. The biggest thing is to put ourselves as being more erotic rather than relying on popular media.
As a proper Catholic school-girl and genuine late-bloomer, I was smitten by lust for the first time at age 16 for a asian guy two terrifying years older than me. Oh, how I wish I was less carefully watched: he’s the type of guy a girl climbs out her bedroom window for.
Then again, I was raised in a hispanic/filapino neighborhood and the media had little to do with what I found erotic—I didn’t know the meaning of the word until this guy swam to the edge of the pool and hauled his soaking-wet, speedo-ed self out to talk to me through the fence.
Damn I wish I were less carefully brought up…
Do racist attitudes keep Asian American men from being accepted as fully erotic men?
Asian dopers, is this a for real phenomena or just journalistic sensationalizing? Do asian women view you as “safe” and less erotic than black and white men?
I was wondering, are only asian women being asked to answer this question? Or would responses be welcome from women of other races? Conversely, are there any asian males here who would consider relationships with women of different races or are they mostly interested in dealing with partners of their own race?
When this topic came up a few months ago, I pointed out that the responses in threads like these are bound to be self-selecting.
That is, if someone asks why Asian men are generally considered unappealing, you are bound to have some people respond with “Well, I think they’re attractive!” It is extremely unlikely that anyone would openly say, “Yeah, they’re not very appealing.” Almost nobody would publicly admit to feeling this way.
Additionally, it’s entirely possible for someone to find Jet Li or Chow Yun Fat attractive, while simultaneously preferring white or black men. Remember, we are talking about whether women go for Asian men in general, not one or two Asian individuals.
Like it or not, Asian men are in fairly low demand. This is evidenced by the severe lack of Asian romantic leading men in the movies. Everyone knows Brad Pitt, Harrison Ford or Denzel Washington, but I daresay that most people would be hard-pressed to name a single man who is widely known as an Asian heartthrob.
Note that I say “widely known.” While Jet Li and Chow Yun Fat are familiar names, they are nowhere near as well-known as Brad, Harrison or Denzel. Furthermore, they are known primarily as martial artists and character actors, rather than romantic heartthrobs. Some women do consider them attractive, but that’s not how they’re mainly known.
I’ve witnessed a good number of conversations on this topic in recent years. They usually go something like this:
Man: “Why are there hardly any Asian romantic role models in the movies or on TV?”
Woman: “What do you mean? Asian men are just as popular as whites or blacks in the movies.”
Man: “Really? Can you name one prominent Asian male romantic lead?”
Woman: “Well, there’s Jackie Chan…”
Man: “Ah, but Jackie Chan is known mainly as a clown and a martial artist, not a heartthrob. You never see him decorating the cover of Teen Beat, after all.”
Woman: “Well, I’m sure that there are some out there…”
Once, I heard it go like this:
Woman: “Well, there’s that guy in this movie I saw recently. What’s his name…?”
Man: “See? You can’t even remember his name. Doesn’t that tell you something about how invisible these supposed Asian heartthrobs are?”
Woman: “Well, I’m just bad at remembering names, that’s all.”
Man: “But do you know who Brad Pitt is?”
Woman: “Sure.”
Man: “What about Ricky Martin?”
Woman: “Of course.”
Man: “George Hamilton? Matthew Perry? Michael J. Fox? Jean-Claude van Damme?”
Woman: “Yes, I know them. So what?”
Man: “It shows that your memory isn’t the problem. The problem is that these Asian men that you speak of just aren’t that memorable. They’re certainly not mentioned nearly as often as these other leading men that I brought up.”
I think there’s a difference between the question “Are Asian men considered less attractive than black/white/hispanic/etc. men?” and “Does American popular culture spurn Asian men as romantic figures?”
Just because there is a limited selection of Asian men in leading Hollywood roles (true) doesn’t mean that they aren’t considered sexy by any given female (personal taste). It just means that Hollywood, again, doesn’t necessarily reflect real life.
Identifying my demographic quickly - white, female and under 30 - I must say I’ve never ever run into any female who wouldn’t date an Asian guy, or even didn’t find them sexy. Unfortunately, I’ve run into quite a few who wouldn’t even deign to consider a black man as a partner. In my experience the general consensus is Asian guys are intellegent, personable, and when they’re hot, they’re smokin’.
Its only a matter of time before Asian men are rightfully represented in the Hollywood Hottie Bridgade.
/still loves James Iha
Sorry for the double post, but I forgot to mention my vote for Breakout Asian Male Sex Symbol, Chen Chang. Someone give this man a leading role!
Asian men aren’t sexual afterthoughts.
They’re marketing afterthoughts.
Other than Bruce Lee, are posters of Asian men in sexually provocative poses produced and marketed to the audience that puts posters on their walls?
Strictly speaking, they are indeed different questions. However, the point is that the severe lack of Asian male romantic figures in pop culture is evidence that society does not elevate them to that status.
I explicitly addressed this point, and explained why it’s irrelevant. We are not talking about the personal taste of any specific female. Rather, we are talking about tastes in general – and the evidence shows that Asian males are seldom considered to be objects of female attraction. If they were, then you’d be seeing a lot more Asian men on the covers of these teenybopper magazines, or taking the leads in romantic movies.
In other words, you can’t prove that Asian men have low sexual status by saying, “Well, I find some Asian men attractive.” Do you see why yet?
I agree with Otto. Asian men aren’t even sexual afterthoughts. Heck, they scarcely have any status as sexual figures. When was the last time you saw a poster of some Asian beefcake being marketed to single women? (Otto did mention Bruce Lee, but even in his case, he was known primarily as a chop-socky type, and I daresay that his posters capitalized more on his martial arts prowess than his romantic appeal.)
Yes. Racism is the cause of every single problem in the world today. :rolleyes:
Fuckin white people.
Only if you trust that Hollywood always gives the people exactly what they want. I see no reason to believe that this is the case.
There is also a lack of Asian women in American popular culture, but I don’t think this is because American men (of any race) generally find Asian women unattractive. Quite the contrary, it seems that many American men hold a stereotype of Asian women as being sexier than women of other races. Yet I can think of no Asian actress, model, or pop singer who’s got the same pin-up status in the US as women like Pamela Anderson, Naomi Campbell, or Britney Spears. Lucy Liu is probably the only female Asian-American celebrity with very high name recognition, and while I believe she is considered attractive by many men I’ve never seen her tacked up on anyone’s wall.
Alcatraz, your sig is inappropriate. If you want to make your opinions known on abortion, go to Great Debates and open or post to a thread about abortion.
Lynn
For the Straight Dope
I think racism is a factor but certainly not the whole story. Perhaps it’s half-racism: it’s great for a white or black guy to have an Asian chick, bad for an Asian guy to have a white or black gal.
This unbalanced situation in turn may be based on primate psychology: it’s OK for us to take their women, but bad for them to take ours. The feature that distinguishes “us” from “them” may be race or a number of other things.
I would list the strikes against Asian men as follows:
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Out-and-out racism. A minor factor, I think, as Asians are generally viewed positively in American society. However, the factor described above may be at work to some extent.
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Physical characteristics. One poster mentioned size. This is bound to be a big factor, since women are hard-wired to prefer men that are taller than they are (cite would be the book Why Men Rule).
It also seems nearly universal that men of all races perceive East Asian women as extremely feminine while women don’t feel that the men are particularly masculine. It could be that the facial features just tend to work this way, and that reaction to them is hard-wired to a degree.
- Cultural characteristics. I think this is the biggest factor. East Asian cultures are generally more passive than Western ones. Per the same cite above, women generally prefer a man than is more dominant than herself. Hence, Asian men seem weak to American women but Asian women seem submissive and extremely feminine to American men.
As someone having lived in Japan for 8 years, I can attest to the very poor pool of men here (and it’s not race, it’s culture). Japanese men are horrible communicators, incompetent at romance and relationships in general, and just not very good companions. Only the smallest fraction would be able to offer what American women want.
Contrariwise, men being what they are, an American guy will immediately grab a Japanese woman with glee: unlike her American counterparts, she is slim, accomodating, free of sexual hangups yet not slutty (OK, there are many who reverse these qualities!), and full of those charming feminine characteristics that American feminism has largely succeeded in eliminating.
The above may not be PC, but it’s the truth.
Every review I read of The Last Samurai talked about either the great presence that Ken Watanabe has or how sexy he is. So there’s an Asian guy that’s known for something other than martial arts.
I gotta weigh in here simply because it’s a prof from my alma mater.
Here’s another choice quote from the linked OP article:
Ultimately, Hamamoto said he wants to show the world that Asians are sexually complex and that assumptions about nerdiness are unjust. He plans to launch a porn company that he believes would empower Asian Americans.
slight hijack, Chow Yun-fat made softcore porn movies by the dozen in Hong Kong when he was starting out as an actor.
The article does not say what class he was teaching, only mostly Asian American class.
Asian men are under represented by Hollywood for any role, romantic or otherwise. More Asian women go out with Western guys than Asian men go out with Western women (not ignoring blacks and other ethnicities but trying to keep it simple). Is that racisim aka concious effort to keep Asian men down? I’m of the camp that it is sheer *indifference * rather than racism.
Balderdash. Even if Hollywood only approximately gives what the public demands, it’s still evidence that Asian men are unpopular and stereotyped as asexual beings.
Besides, we’re not just talking about Hollywood here. We’re also talking about TV, pin-up posters and print media. In all these cases, Asian men are severely underrepresented, and almost never portrayed as a sexy leading man.
And if you were to ask most people, even avid moviegoers, who Ken Watanabe is, they would probably ask “Ken Who?” So while this may be part of Watanabe-san’s claim to fame, I’d hardly say that he’s widely known for his sexual allure.
I think that Aeschines was right in speaking the truth. Let’s not fool ourselves into thinking that Asian men are just as popular as non-Asians, or that the demand for them is even remotely comparable. As Aeschines said, this may not be politically correct, but it’s the truth.
Among gay men, at least, there is a sizeable contingent that finds only Asian men to be attractive, which can be really annoying if every gay in the bar is ignoring me in favor of the cute Korean guy who just walked in.
But I digress.
In my uninformed opinion, it seems to me that Asian men do have a fanbase and are hearththrobs, but the studios that hire actors feed on their own preconceptions that Asian men just aren’t marketable. I also think that one major drawback to mass acceptance of Asian men as cinematic lust objects is that all the popular Asian stars–Jet Li, Chow Yun-Fat, Jackie Chan–are foreigners who speak English badly with heavy, unintelligible accents.
What we need is to find the male Lucy Liu, a hot, sassy native-born American Asian who doesn’t have a cultural barrier cutting him off from the general public’s acceptance.
Spomebody like David Wu, a Taiwanese-American who was a VJ on the Cantopop channel of Star TV, a cable network that’s based in Hong Kong and watched across most of Asia. He’s a hot, muscular surfer dude who would introduce videos in Chinese and then lapse into California-accented English.