Geishas and G-Strings

“It doesn’t matter what you do ladies, every guy is gonna leave you for an Asian woman,” said Amy Schumer in her stand up routine for Comedy Central. “They’re smarter, they laugh like this,” Schumer covers her mouth modestly as if to demonstrate, “Because they know men hate when women speak. And to bring it all home for the win-- Oh! The smallest vaginas in the game!” 

Schumer’s comedy special should be taken with a grain of salt, but her specific bit- on the difficulty of competing with Asian women- aptly, albeit crudely, captures the paradox of Asian women in our popular imagination: submissive yet hypersexual with mild manners and a tight pussy- the fantasy of all men, according to Schumer and the audience that laughs along with her. But, implicit in Schumer’s joke, or perhaps what is deliberately omitted, is that this phenomenon disproportionately applies to white men. 

Yellow fever, or the fetishization of Asian women, is essentially the idea that white men prefer to date Asian women, actively and exclusively seeking them out as romantic or sexual partners. With the numerous dating sites designed for white men seeking Asian women, the history of mail order brides from Asia and war brides post-World War II, and the ongoing “sex tourism” in Southeast Asia, it’s clear that yellow fever isn’t just merely a “preference”-- it taps into a larger history of asymmetrical and imperial power dynamics while also relying on an essentialized image of what an Asian women is supposed to look or act like. These ideas reinforce the West’s racialization and sexualization of Asian women as innocent and docile yet also exotic, mysterious, and deviant- all of which fuel male fantasies of  what is essentially an Asian sex doll.         

Nowhere is this trend more pronounced than in porn. According to PornHub’s own statistics,  “Asian” consistently ranks as one of the most searched categories in both the United States and Canada. Asian women in porn wear sexy schoolgirl outfits, thigh-high garters and ever traditional “Asian” costumes. They embody a combination of the submissive and virginal, yet eager and kinky. They’re on their knees, bent over a desk, giving messy blowjobs– all with girly smiles plastered on their faces eagerly awaiting to be dominated by their partner. The popularity of “Asian” in porn categories and the overrepresentation of Asian women in porn reveals its particular widespread demand and exemplifies a gross Western fascination and fetishization of Asian bodies. Considering that porn is a multi-billion dollar industry, Asian fetishes are elevated into popular culture and codified within the sexual imagination: the Asian woman’s body becomes commodified within an orientalist economy of sexual power. 

It doesn’t help that this trend extends into popular media more generally, with film and television propagating various caricatures of Asian women that mirror their porn counterparts. Stereotypes such as the Dragon Lady (the mysterious overtly sexual lady warrior), the China Doll (the poised, obedient, and fragile doll), and the Geisha (traditional Japanese entertainers, or more commonly misunderstood in the West- due to their history of serving American G.I.’s in World War II- as prostitutes in traditional kimonos and makeup) are all hypersexualized to uphold Western male fantasies about Asian women. These representations reduce their bodies to an object of spectacle designed to represent a Western idealization of the East and reinforce the dominance of white masculinity. The geisha example in particular illuminates the violent neo-colonial past these images emerge from, namely the U.S. military presence in Asia during and after World War II. “Geisha girls,” as they were termed by American G.I.’s, were a product of wartime economic hardship coupled with the American presence in Japan, where women would have to sell their bodies to the most lucrative source- the U.S. military. 

This pattern extends across the post-WWII era and into Vietnam during the 1960s where Vietnamese women responded to an American demand for sex because of economic hardship but also because of the American position in the war: Southern Vietnamese came to think of the Americans as their liberators from communism. With this, modern day sex tourism is rooted in these violent power dynamics and histories of U.S. interventionism, both of which further notions about Asian women as inherently submissive due to restrictive cultural standardsand needing to be sexually liberated by white men from their “backwards” countries and “backwards” men. 

Traise Yamato’s article “"In/Visible Difference: Asian American Women and the Politics of Spectacle," argues that confining Asian Americans to stereotypical roles presents Asian American women as sexually exotic objects designed to reassert the centrality of white masculinity. And further, the voyeuristic fetishization of the Asian woman’s body shows Western filmmakers’ fascination with sexualized racial difference, or the way in which a woman’s foreignness and physical exoticism is fetishized by white males. In contrast to the overt sexualization of Asian women, Asian men are depicted as less masculine in strength, size and rationality to white men.

Unsurprisingly, the racialized sexuality of Asian women in both porn and film has real world implications for Asian women. Fetishization is not only uncomfortable and objectifying, but also provides an easy avenue for sexual violence and assault. Populating our collective imaginations with images of Asian women as submissive and hyper-sexual, living breathing sex objects grounds the justification for sexual violence against Asian women. Women of color in the U.S. are likely to be more vulnerable to sexual violence, given their racialized status and narratives surrounding racialized sexuality. KAN-WIN is a Chicago-based community organization that strives to eradicate domestic violence and sexual assault against Asian immigrant women and provides services for survivors in order to empower the Asian and larger immigrant community. According to one of KAN-WIN’s surveys conducted among Asian women in the Chicago area, 53% reported having experienced some form of sexual violence. While sexual violence in Asian immigrant communities emerges a number of different circumstances and sources, it is primarily grounded in misconceptions and stereotypes about Asian women that become normalized to the point where they become embodied in our social practices. 

Challenging the hypersexualization of Asian women in porn and general media is not only a step towards uncovering the deep-seated legacies of Western imperialism and modern day racism, but also towards sexual liberation and empowerment for Asian women. In moving past the stereotypes placed on us by the media, we can assert our sexuality on our own terms and say confidently that we don’t fit cleanly into your porn categories and we don’t exist to be your sex fantasy.