For some strange reason, I’m reminded of a scene from Monty Python’s Life of Brian (this may not be an exact quote):
“You are all individuals!”
“We are all individuals!”
“You are all different!”
“We are all different!”
“I’m not!”
Needs2know wrote:
I think this is a gross generalization. I know plenty of people who are attracted to people who are quite different from themselves, simply because they’re different (I, personally, wouldn’t want to date myself, or someone exactly like me - how dull would that be?). And I definitely know, having dated Asian men (who were raised culturally in their country’s traditions) that they are taught (and Asian women as well) that landing a white partner is quite a coup. I’ve seen more Asian women married to worthless Caucasian men just because they’re white. Again, it’s a cultural thing, but I don’t think it’s generally true that we like what we are.
Lucky, I wanna see if he’s that hot! 
I’ve got a scanner - send me a picture and I’ll scan it for ya!
EJsGirl, how could I have forgotten Dustin Nguyen? Wowzers!
Paladine, my big sister writes fan slash fiction with Harry and Tom Paris. I mean, come on - Tom’s the mostly straight but will bend type bisexual who carouses with the ladies, unless he’s a little hard-up, and then he turns to his “buddy,” Harry, who follows him around like a little puppy (and often hates himself for doing so). Guilty pleasures all 'round. {hee hee hee} Garrett Wang, however, looked cuter earlier in the series, before success allowed him to gain that extra 15 pounds…
iampunha, how could I have forgotten Jason Scott Lee? Double Wowzers!
Slithy Tove, I agree - there are imbalances to be addressed. Thankfully things are changing (slowly), and many Asian women who come to the United States (or really other, more liberated countries) thankfully change for the better, being a little freer from their cultural influences and better able to stand up and demand the respect they deserve. The more the west creeps into the east, the more things change. (And let’s not even talk about those damnable passive/aggressive gay Asian men I keep dating! OY!)
And may I add… Mmmm… KKBattousai… {hee hee hee}
AudreyK, Paul Kariya is kinda cute. Looks too white bread, tho… 
Esprix
What’s the name of the baddie in Lethal Weapon 4? He was very, very cute. Even when he slid the throat of one of the other chinese guys he looked… yum.
That was Jet Li. Very, very yummy.
Esprix
Better drop this in before Eve thinks of it…
Yes, that does sound terribly post-modernist.
Sua
Curse you, Ukulele Ike!
I was just sitting here thinking about how dreamy Sessue Hayakawa was in that movie, when he ripped of Fannie Ward’s nightie and . . . ummm . . . branded her with a red-hot iron . . .
Hmmm. Anybody up for Toshiro Mifune?
I recently dated a Japanese American. Great guy. Very sexy. Not a martial arts expert nor a scientist, although he is a tech-geek (but then so are a lot of us on these boards). Since we broke up, I’m suddenly noticing all kinds of hot Asian men. In fact, I recently embarrassed myself by following one all over the grocery store. (He was that hot! I swear I wasn’t stalking him, or I would have followed him to his car!)
One point I wanted to make about the stereotypes which nobody seems to have brought up yet, i.e. why the media does not hold Asian men up as sexy. Americans seem to be obsessed with penis size (larger = better) and there are some ugly stereotypes which point to the Asian penis as “undersized.” I assume – having seen only one half-asian penis – that Asian penii come in as many flavors, shapes, sizes and colors as any other cultural group. You hear this about Jewish men and of course, the opposite about African American men.
When I dated said Japanese-American (Mom was Asian, Dad was American), the first question my gay male friends asked me was, “Is his penis Japanese or American?”
Like I’m gonna tell you what my answer was!
I have dated quite a few Asian men in my day, both wholly of eastern descent and some of mixed heritage, and I can only think of two that were under an average size - most were average, a few were slightly larger. Then again, isn’t that what “average” means?
Then there’s that whole uncircumcised issue…
Esprix
** I think this is a gross generalization. I know plenty of people who are attracted to people who are quite different from themselves, simply because they’re different (I, personally, wouldn’t want to date myself, or someone exactly like me - how dull would that be?). And I definitely know, having dated Asian men (who were raised culturally in their country’s traditions) that they are taught (and Asian women as well) that landing a white partner is quite a coup. I’ve seen more Asian women married to worthless Caucasian men just because they’re white. Again, it’s a cultural thing, but I don’t think it’s generally true that we like what we are. **
That’s close to what I get pissed off about, ** Esprix **-
I know a lot of white guys who have a fetish for Asian girls, but what bothers me is that they only seem to like them because they are Asian, the same way an Asian women, as you said, might be with some white loser just because he is white. One white person I know in particular seems to like girls as long as they are not white, he must think every other race is “exotic”. I can see the attraction, but I just don’t think it’s right to discount someone just because they are white.
I read an interesting essay on this once, by an Asian-American woman who said she worried about her sons, because for all the obnoxious stereotypes about Asian women in our culture, she was much more troubled by the emasculation of Asian men.
And that may be what we’re talking about here–not that Asian men aren’t sexy, but that so many of the stereoyptes depict Asian men as not particularly masculine. The not-sexy part would then naturally follow from that.
Think about it: even from childhood, Asian males are often thought to be stereotypically bookish, not athletic or large in size or aggressive or assertive any of those things that somehow seem to hallmark manliness. I won’t delineate the whole image–too insulting and annoying.
I’m not saying I agree with it–heck once I hit 25 any man who was stable and good wage earner was damned sexy to me, not to mention the fact that I don’t define masculinity the narrow way pop culture does. I’ve been panting after SDMB’s ricepad for years now. But I think it persists in our culture.
Wish I could dig up that essay. It was thought-provoking.
Are you kidding? Asian men are gorgeous! I mean, just like every other human being, some are attractive, some are plain, some are cute, some are butt ugly, it’s impossible to generalize. But in general, the eyes, the hair, the complexion, the cheekbones…
Chairman Kaga! <swoon!> Yes, I even find the extravagant costumes a turn on!
Asian men are just as sexy or unsexy as every other man on the planet.
Once again we have a case of “read on please”. Yes I generalized then qualified that generalization with the aside that Asian men are not routinely portrayed as sexy by our society. Whether this is a throw back from the WWII and the idea that Asian men are evil, I don’t know. I do know that as an adversary in war Asian men have proven to be a real hassle for Western society. They’ve definately been clever and more than worthy adversaries. I also have to agree with the poster who describes much of our attitude toward Asian men as an “emasculation”. When indeed the history of their culture proves them to be just as macho and patriarical as Western culture. Perhaps our fear of them as an adversary has brought about some kind of subtle attitude along this line. My mother has always considered Asians “just a little creepy, or sneaky” no doubt conditioning from her childhood growing up during the war when they did prove themselves to be tactically hard to calculate and ruthless.
As for Asian women I have always interpreted their appeal for Western men from the notion that they come from a culture that continues to place women in a subservient role. And the fact that American guys are so hung up on a woman’s size. Read any personal ad and you’ll find most fellows looking for a “petite” type. I think it goes back to that “ug, ug cave man want woman” thing. Isn’t so easy to drag off a 5’11" Amazon by the hair.
Needs2know
In terms of historical biases, the emasculation of the Asian male dates back to the days when Chinese were the “imported labor of the month” for railroad building and general manual labor (19teens-1920s?). As the labor of the month, they were subject to the xenophobic propaganda that historically accompanied a new wave of immigration (happened to the blacks, the Irish and other “white” races - mostly Eastern European, and most other waves of “new” immigrants). For the Chinese/Asian men (naturally the gender of choice for labor), the propaganda portrayed them in two ways, as effeminate and, strangely enough, as sexual predators. The former evidently stuck. However, flippantly speaking, I would have preferred the latter, since sexual predators are sexy. (Or the idea of sexual prey is, because I can not, for the life of me, understand frat parties otherwise.)
On the other side of things, I am curious about the fetishization of the asian female. I have always - ever since I was a kid - found them more aesthetically pleasing (to blatantly plagarize my own short story), though this could have been for a number of reasons including a Freudian “love your mother” thing, liking those who are like “I am,” not having a choice (in Hawaii, if you don’t like Asian girls, you’re pretty much SOL), or a combination of these and other factors. Any input on this? (I’ll go check out the thread referred to in the OP later, promise.)
On another note, if I here one more guy say that “sucky, sucky, me love you long time” bullshit when talking about asian girls, I am going to fucking beat him senseless. I mean, Full Metal Jacket was a great movie and all, but not all asian girls are fucking Vietnamese prostitutes, dammit! Do not fucking imagine them as such, do not treat them as such, or you are going to get your ass kicked nine ways from Sunday (more likely than not, by girl in question).
Um, I meant that they’re not <profanity> fucking </profanity> Vietnamese prostitutes, not that they’re fucking Vietnamese prostitutes… :eek:
Esprix– Yeah, he’s very white bread, but… ::thinks up several “sandwich” puns; decides they’re better left unsaid::
And did anyone else think of a certain South Park episode when they read Dogzilla’s post?
KKB, darn you! Not only am I laughing way too much for having been awake for less than half an hour, I’ve got the 2 Live Crew song stuck in my head now…
Esprix, you’re on, just tell me where ot send the photo. But brace yourself…he really is that hot.
As to Asian mother-in-laws, I am fortunate in that mine lives in Asia. No, I’m just kidding. She does live in Asia, but that’s not the point. My MIL is quite nice to me, but being from a completely different culture (and generation) her expectations are vastly different. I honestly don’t think she will ever comprehend that I am an educated, independant woman with a professional job who has lived on her own for many years, taking responsibility for all that entails. I’m supporting her son, for Pete’s sake (thanks to the INS), but in her mind, the most important concern will always be, “are you pregnant?” Anything else I might accomplish is not only insignificant, but I suspect she would have a very difficult time imagining why I would persue anything outside of home and babies.
Actually, maybe it is a good thing she lives in Asia. if we saw each other more frequently these issues might become a real road-block in our relationship.
Kudos to KKBattousai for deftly sidestepping my remarks on his yumminess. (Yeah, yeah, I know you’re straight - just take it as a compliment and move on. :D)
Esprix
Perhaps I should add, for everyone’s amusement, that when I say my mother in law, I am referring to my husband’s biological mother. My father in law actually has four wives, all of whom are my mothers in law.