What gives? It seems as though all I have to do nowadays to get a man’s attention regarding a female is to tack on a foreign nationality. “That brunette” is ignored, but when she becomes “that Swedish brunette”, heads turn. The girls from other countries garner the most attention with all men I know, and I’m tired of it. Most notably, though, are the French and Asian (Korean, Japanese, Chinese, Taiwanese) women. Certainly many of these women are beautiful and charming, but more and more it’s as if they need only be those nationalities to be exotic and interesting. Men, are foreign women really that great, or is it just a matter of something new and exciting?
I think it’s just a matter of something new, yes. Anything rare (this has been discussed in relation to blondes) is exotic and thus attractive.
I’ve seen just as many women with this “obsession” as men.
This is true, but among young males 15-24 (at least the ones that I know) it is much more pronounced than a woman’s desire to be with someone foreign.
Instinct to prevent inbreeding?
I think Bosda nailed it. Accents are damn cool and show that someone is not from around your area (read: not in your gene poo).
French? Nah, too angular. Give me a good redheaded English girl.
My Anthro Proffesser claimed it was an evolutionary gene spreading thing. It was programmed in that anyone sufficiently different was a new market to dump your genes into. Plus, he said,it had the benefit that if someone was different they were from far away, and would probably go back there and raise the kid with no danger to the father of being required to support it. Therefore it was the perfect mating situation.
Ew. I don’t want a woman who’s in my gene poo.
(But I certainly second the redheaded English girl sentiment!)
Because, Asian women have it slanted sideways, and the pubs are like silk. My cousin says so.
Just kidding.
Russian tennis players.
Need I say more?
Well, when I was a teenager, my friends and I all wanted to be with someone foreign. Specifically some of the guy exchange students–there was this one really cute Basque guy…
That’s not a very reliable sampling method, though, is it? There have been plenty of threads here discussing women’s attraction to foreign men. It’s certainly not a predominantly male tendency.
Ew, indeed. 
Off-the-cuff guess, YMMV, I say it’s to do with the mystery. Someone from a different part of the world (or different part of the country, if the country is sufficiently large) has mystery, and this makes every part of the conversation seem fresh and exciting, even if you’re talking about the stupidest things (“oh, really, you have McDonald’s in London, too? Wow! Fascinating, tell me more”). You’d never show the same excitement talking about McDonald’s with the person next door.
I also think it might have something to do with our romanticized ideal of the people from that country. I’m not sure what a romanticized ideal of an American is (to someone overseas) or even if such an ideal exists, but it’s sure harder to see that idealized version when you’re dealing with the dregs all day.
Maybe it’s like this: there are people in Seattle who never take pictures of the Columbia Tower (the Bank of America building), the Space Needle, the EMP, the Smith Tower, and so on. But a Seattleite on vacation would happily take pictures of interesting local rocks, and my friends who visit Seattle are fascinated with the stuff I completely ignore.
FISH
Well, can view from the other side. I am a male foreigner(Aussie) living in a VERY different land(Sweden). I get many girls wanting to talk to me and such when they here MY accent. Combine that with the fact i am a DJ in a niteclub and i get into some VERY interesting conversations and situations.
So, i garuntee it is not just a one-way street when it comes to fascination of foreign people.
Guilty as charged. However, I feel that I have a good excuse: For a long time, I always felt especially attracted to Oriental women. This was because of the cosmetic characteristics they shared: the shapes of their faces were perfectly matched with the color of thier sking and hair. Really, I always felt especially attracted to Oriental women. But it wasn’t because I thought them exotic, it’s just that enough of them had good characteristics that the moment I knew it was an Oriental, my interest was piqued, and then I would determine for myself if she was actually attracted.
Psychopachik Vampire
Same reason women are attracted to foreign men. Quick entertaining hijack.
These are all very interesting responses. I know well that women are atrracted to foreign, exotic men but among most people I encounter, the men seemed to have more of an interest and be more vocal. I hear a lot more “foreign girls are all soooo hot” than similar praises of foreign guys, so I suppose I was a bit confused since I understand how females think far better than I do men .
Silicon Valley has one of the absolute worst ratios of single women to available men in the entire United States. I believe that only Alaska is worse. Combine this with the fact that many women in California are completely burnt out by the super abundant jerk-off macho meatheads that seem to infest this area and getting a date around these parts can be nearly impossible.
It would be too easy and also quite wrong to extoll foreign women as being old fashioned and more family oriented. It might be more accurate to say that they are frequently less jaded and not as hung up about the type of car you drive or the neighborhood you live in.
To Hades with all of this exotic crap. I’m just sick and tired of gals with a couple of marriages under their belt and another man’s kids in tow who want to whinge about their scumbag ex-husband(s) all night.
I’d agree with Merlyn that it’s not an exclusively male thing. A mate of mine is an impoverished, chronic alcoholic with average looks and a wino’s nose, but he pulls Sydney women left, right and centre because of his Scottish accent. Another friend went to an outback town with a friend of his for a weekend. They are Aussies, but they put on Irish accents for the weekend. They were bought heaps of beers, and yes, they got lucky.
As for me, I like Asian women, but I don’t know if it’s the “exotica” I find attractive.
Well before puberty (aged eight or so), when girls were still “icky”, I remember thinking a girl in my class was pretty (in an abstract, platonic way). She was a white girl with nearly black hair. When I became a teenager, and started noticing girls, I was attracted to the girls with dark hair. Then it became the girls with dark hair, and heck, even some of the Asian girls. Then it became Asian girls almost exclusively. That was when I was twenty. Now I’m thirty-three, and I have been living with a Vietnamese girl for three years. Before that, I was with a Chinese girl for ten (I ended up marrying her). I have also spent those thirteen years working with a large number of Asian women. I still find myself more attracted to them. This certainly ain’t a “phase I’m going through”. I’m confident that if I were Chinese, for example, born and raised in Hong Kong, I’d still prefer Asian girls to Western ones. Less to do with exotica, and more to do simply with what I like.
I just like the look of fair skin and shiny black hair, I guess. Sure it’s shallow, but physical attraction is important because it’s simply not possible to engage every person you meet in conversation. I know many beautiful Asian girls who are not particularly nice people, and there are plain Western girls I fancy. But generally, taste in physical attraction is just “one of those things”, and doesn’t need to be looked into too deeply.
I’ve seen far too many women go nuts for guys with an accent to believe this is strictly a male thing, or even a male predominant thing. I even know a few women who are much more promiscuous if the man has an accent as well.
I think men and women both end up going nuts over foreign people for much the same reasons though, and they’ve been covered by just about everyone who’s posted so far. It’s an adventure, you know? Everything seems new, as you ask them about how things are done or percieved in their part of the world. It’s like having the opportunity to be a kid again with regards to how you see the world when you can see it through someone else’s very different perspective.