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Archive 1Archive 2Archive 3Archive 4Archive 5

It's about fetishes, not interracial dating

Let's stick to the topic please. Some people here fail at reading comprehension, it's about fetishes, not interracial dating. A lot of the arguments here are based on ad hominem. --Disco crusader 00:57, 14 October 2005

Uh, what?

On August 31, 2005, NYPD arrested 43-year old Daniel Hoyt for allegedly exposing himself to 23-year old Thao Nguyen, who states that she quickly snapped a picture of the perpetrator with a camera on her cell phone, which later appeared on the front page of The Daily News. In addition, at least six other women have come forward to claim that the perpetrator flashed them as well. Hoyt is the co-owner of two NYC restaurants named Quintessence, along with his ex-wife Tolentin Chan, who is a native of Hong Kong.

Uh, how could you prove that Hoyt's flashing is connected to his supposed Asian fetish? Could someone point out some sources showing that the 6 other women were Asian as well? Ok his ex-wife is Asian, OK. Nguyen is Asian, so OK. But we don't know if say, Hoyt flashed himself to three whites, two blacks, and an Indian, and Nguyen was the odd woman out who happened to be Asian. --Bash 06:23, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

  • I agree. This article has mainly been under control by an anonymous editor using several IPs who has POV problems and will do anything to throw mud at non-Asians. I'm going to remove this example from the article and hope that the anon does not revert me; I find it pretty far-fetched too. --Idont Havaname 17:23, 18 September 2005 (UTC)
  • The simple fact of the matter is that this is a sexual crime against an Asian female, and so has every right to be placed in a section detailing sexual crimes against Asian women. If you think that it is far-fetched, then please state your justification for that at the end of the paragraph. --70.249.34.67 20:44, 18 September 2005 (UTC)
    • By this reasoning, however, you're saying we'd have to include all (or at least many) sexual crimes against Asian women. If so, the article would get very long very quickly. I'd recommend only using high-profile cases, ones with a Beltway sniper level of attention given to them by the press. The Michael Lohman incident did (and does) deserve its own article, since what he did was an unusual crime on a rather large scale, very disgusting, discussed in the news extensively and so on. Flashing is pretty commonplace and usually wouldn't advance beyond local news. I'd say just include the crimes in which the offenders already have articles in Wikipedia, or who could have articles in Wikipedia without those articles getting contested by being put up for deletion. Otherwise, we'd have a lot more cases than we need (we only need a few; this article is pretty long on the whole). Currently, there is no article on Daniel Hoyt. If there were one, it probably would not survive an AfD. --Idont Havaname 22:28, 18 September 2005 (UTC)
  • I'll be scanning the news to see if there are any more details in the Hoyt case. So far I have not seen any specifics regarding the races of the other flashing victims. The thing about Asian fetish is that in fact there are many diverse viewpoints and issues regarding it. However, in writing about this phenomenon, one must keep in mind that this terminology affects different groups unequally. The mainstream of society, in this case White Anglo America, consciously or unconsciously carries the history of its exploitive behavior towards racial and cultural minorities, and an entirely "race-neutral" perspective is anything but equal. "Asian fetish" is an inherently racialized term, for it is the expression of a racial minority. One cannot limit this expression, as it is essentially a right of the minority group to react against the perceptual imbalances society has foisted upon it. More work, however, will have to be done to the criticisms section, in order to give voice to more viewpoints, in particular with regards to the apparent double standard in which WM/AF is labeled Asian fetish and AM/WF is (usually) not. --3&3 18th Sept 2005
    • The objection that I raised certainly provoked more discussion than I thought. 70.249.34.67, the reason why I do not think this would be good in an article about Asian fetish is that we have absolutely no idea if Daniel Hoyt has one. A crime that is against an Asian women is deplorable, but if the criminal did it to women of all races and ethnicities then the criminal has no right to be labeled as having an Asian feitsh. --Bash 21:23, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

Idont Havaname and other users who don't like this page

Let me guess.... Idont Havaname is a white male, who has dated Asian women in the past or who is attempting to pursue an Asian woman currently. He rarely dates White women, he feels that Asian culture is "special" and that Asian women are "unique". He has attempted to learn an Asian language in the past. Further, he doesn't have many asian Male friends, only asian female friends. The reason why I state this is because Idont Havaname is quite perturbed at this article.

Now, I am not stating that interracial dating is incorrect or that the fascination with other cultures is wrong. The thing is, this article is about Asian Fetish. It is about a phenomenon that is to some extent extremely racist in American society. On that level, it actually is a pretty NPOV article. It addresses the issues, even talks about the penis size myth (which most asian males that I know really are angry about - I would be also) talks about the pros and cons and the causes. It actually doesn't make a judgement statement. Of course, it talks about a subject that is touchy for a lot of white males who for some odd reason exclusively date asian women, but it is a subject that requires discourse. Idont Havaname's anger toward this subject is very similar to a White german male getting upset at the fact that the articles on wikipedia about "nazi germany" and "Auschwitz" or onesided in stating that Nazi Germany was a racist regime and that Germany during that time was a racist soceity. Guess what? this article is about an odd phenomenon that is going on currently that to some extent is fueled by racism in american society and needs to be addressed even if it is uncomfortable.

  • Just a point. Apparently some were offended by the reference to "white supremacist imperialism." Well, hello, just what part of imperialist colonial conquest and the white man's burden weren't white supremacist? That's like saying the American south was never a slaveowning society. --3 18th September 2005
  1. "White male". Yes.
  2. "who has dated Asian women in the past or who is attempting to pursue an Asian woman currently." - Yes.
  3. "He rarely dates white women" - No. I've dated white women and Asian women equally. I fail to see how it is racist for me to like women of another race. Racism involves hate, not love. I don't consider black guys who only date white women to be racist, although I might be rather distraught if I saw some white woman making out with a black guy that only liked white women because they were white. (I'd say that phenomenon deserves an article as much as this one, as long as we can back that article and this article up with research and well-documented facts. Race and intelligence is an example of an article on a controversial topic that has been handled well due to the fact that it cites sources representing a variety of views very well and has been worked on by editors coming from all sides of the issue. I hope that we can achieve something similar here.)
  4. "feels that Asian culture is 'special' and that Asian women are 'unique'." All cultures are special (Asian, Latin American, Native American, European, what have you), and all people are unique.
  5. "Has attempted to learn an Asian language in the past". I like languages for languages' sake. I've taken classes on French, Latin, C, C++, Java, Perl, and Prolog. I've also studied some German and Tagalog for the fun of it.
  6. "Further, he doesn't have many Asian male friends, only Asian female friends". Wrong again. About 2/3 of my many Asian friends are male.
Personal attacks are an abuse of talk pages, and in this case also quite inaccurate. Please refrain from using them, and maintain civility. Thank you. --Idont Havaname 23:43, 18 September 2005 (UTC)
Hmmm... I don't see how what I wrote is a personal attack. I have not said anything bad about you. It's just that what you have written and what you are trying to do with this article is in accordance with my theories that you are a white male with an asian fetish. You just do not understand what it is like to be an asian male and faced with portrayals on TV that are always negative. Of course I wouldn't understand either ( I am not asian). I got 5/6 of my guesses correctly. You state that you've dated 50% asian and 50% white and use that as an example that you do not have a fetish, but the thing is, the asian population only constitutes 4% of the US population. Even in California it only represents 10% of the population. A person has to actively seek out asians to date them. You on your own personal level need to explore why you have been actively seeking out asian females and why you have this fetish. I forgot to add to #6 this addition (further, he doesn't have many asian male friends, or if he does, is subconsciously utilizing them to meet Asian women). I should have also added #7 - Most likely in computer science or engineering.
I go to a very diverse college that does have a relatively strong Asian minority. Regardless of whether or not this is the case, what I am doing is not wrong and is none of your business. "You on your own personal level need to explore why you have been actively seeking out asian females and why you have this fetish." - who are you, a psychiatrist? I come to this site to build an encyclopedia, not to seek relationship advice. "he doesn't have many asian male friends, or if he does, is subconsciously utilizing them to meet Asian women" - wrong again. Please stay on topic and discuss the content of the article rather than trying to pick apart my personal life. I'm not going to give my personal information to anyone on here, much less a user with no account. --Idont Havaname 03:10, 19 September 2005 (UTC)
My comparisons with Nazi Germany were only used to show that you are perturbed by this article on a personal level as a German youth would be perturbed by articles about his homeland during the Nazi era. (I am not calling you a Nazi.) Or perhaps on a different level, a white person would be perturbed about african american accusations during the 1970's and 1980's about police profiling and unequal treatment by police. White america denied it. It wasn't until the Rodney King trials that White america finally to some level agreed that unequal treatment was occuring. The analogies and my example describes you almost perfectly and seems to substantiate my point. You have been trying to change this article to represent your POV and to try to deny the existence of the fetish or at most minimilize the existence, which is wrong. It exists - it is destructive and racist. Look at CNN - why is it that the majority of the female anchors are asian females? There are more asian female anchors than there are white female or black female anchors! There are tons of asian male anchors out there but none of them got the job.
Er, no. I have not been changing it to represent my POV - I have been deleting content that shows obvious POV. I took out the King of Queens bit, for example; somebody can go visit Kevin James and look at the picture and then judge for themselves if he's fat and ugly. We don't need to cram that message down their throat. And let's not get into affirmative action discussions; this is not the place for that. --Idont Havaname 03:10, 19 September 2005 (UTC)
Please refrain from personal attacks against users based on their race. This user brings up an excellent point. To raise the quality of this entry to a higher standard, references to and discussion of Frank Chin and Jeffery Paul Chan's article on "racist love," and any related works which cite it, should be added. --70.249.34.67 04:19, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

The term itself

Can someone please explain to me how the term "asian fetish" isn't pejorative? Please tell me when use of this term isn't disparaging or belittling? --Howrealisreal 20:05, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

  • Labeling a term as "pejorative" before defining this term is POV. If you wish to label the term as pejorative, please do so after the term has been defined.
What if the term by definition is pejorative, which is the case here I believe. I again want someone to tell me how this term can be used without it being disparaging or belitting? --Howrealisreal 21:21, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

This article is nothing but a bunch of User:69.220.248.76's opinionated trash. Numerous times people have tried to label the article with the NPOV template and the user continues to remove it. I have asked the user to explain how the term is not pejorative and have gotten no answers, but yet the user continues to remove my edits. Who made you the foremost thinker on this subject? The greatest thing about wikipedia is that it is a community in which people can learn to compromise and uncover the truth about topics, you only seem to be interested in pushing your subjective POV and blowing this topic way out of proportion. "Asian fetish" is a pejorative term to whites, blacks, hispanics and asians. You make it sound like it is impossible for there to be any type of healthy interracial relationship without one culture exploiting the other. And your research methods are deplorable: This article has no objective sources or references that have been peer-reviewed or published anywhere notable. You added a section about how asian women who seemingly only date white men can be called a "cracker chasing bitch" with a reference to urbandictionary.com, by all means far from a reputable source. I have never even heard that before. Furthermore, the social consequences section illustrates perfectly the problem of creating a hypothesis and then going out and looking for it in society. Just because there are some rare unfortunate cases of sickos who do not know how to act right in this world, doesn't mean you can generalize that about an entire population. What about all the other functional white/asian relationships out the (the article itself points out that they are prevalent) that get no media coverage or national attention because they are just boring regular couples with no sick exploitation. This article is a disaster. --Howrealisreal 16:20, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

Hopelessly POV

Really, this entry, as it stands, is little more than a POV rant, dressed up with a whiff of research... it bears all the hallmarks and all the objectivity of a freshman Sociology 101 essay.

Of the several tyles of essays (argument/persuasion, compare-contrast, we know them all), this entry is clearly of the "argument/persuasion" sort. Exactly the opposite of what we're striving for.

I think it's a topic worth discussing, and an entry worth having. But not in its present form -- the POV is woven throughout, and quite tightly. I'm not up to the task of modifying it though... that'd be rather tedius, and anyway, it'd be impossible to stick with the entry's current structure.

Maybe someone's up to a fresh start. Ex0pos 07:40, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

Agreed. I see a lot of article that reads to me as "Asian fetish is another plot of the White Man Imperialist to keep the rest of the world down", written in such a way that the flow of the article kind of directs you into thinking that this is the prevailing point of view on the subject (which it may be, but it seems pretty alien to me). I'd like to see more solid-science research sorts of things on this page and less stuff that reads like feminist/minority "we're oppressed" propoganda. This is not to imply the falsity of that point of view, but it can't be the last word on the subject. Now, Wikipedia isn't my personal playground for ideas, I know, but my theory of Asian fetish goes roughly along with the following: people may have evolved to be attracted to "exotic"-looking others, as that creates more genetic mixing and expands the gene pool. Combined with the fact that Japan is pretty much the only non-white First-World (in terms of wealth and media penetration) country, there are a lot of Japanese women in media, and hence it's the major "foreign race" that people in the West get exposed to. I'd like to see some research in this direction, especially on this page. But that may just be me; as I said, Wikipedia isn't here to publish my own theories on everything.
Also, as for the "Social Consequences" section, I'm kind of dubious. I'll bet I could dig up a lot more white targets of perversion and so forth pretty easily. What's so special about the random Asian target? And the way it's labelled implies that the aforementioned White Imperialist Masculinist Dogma is to blame. --Orborde 21:13, 26 September 2005 (UTC)
Actually, it is the prevailing view on the subject, simply for the fact that the term was coined by the Asian American minority in reaction to this identifiable phenomenon. You complain about how it reads like minority propaganda. Well, sorry to break it to you, but it is a term that the Asian minority "owns." Do note, however, that there is a section for various criticisms of this label. It will have to expanded greatly, but it's a place to start. P.S. That theory of yours doesn't hold the least bit of water. You make it seem as if it were an entirely modern phenomenon disembodied from historical continuity. In the 1930s, a French education minister working in French Indochina did a survey of all novels published about the colony. Apparently two-thirds of the books contained some reference to a white male/indigenous female liason. This stuff doesn't pop up by coincidence. -3
Agreed. This article is a mess. Scattered among the (few) NPOV observations and statistics is an endless tirade of unsubstantiated assertions about "white" people who happen to be dating a person of Asian descent (and vice versa). Additionally, traits and beliefs are repeatedly attributed to "whites" and "Asians" as if these are homogenous groups. There is a section titled "Social Consequences" which is nothing more than a series of lurid crimes where individuals of Asian descent happened to be the victims. This is, at best, sloppy journalism. All in all, the phrase "POV" doesn't begin to cover the extent of this. This article needs serious work. I would be tempted to say delete it and start over. It may be just that far gone. -- BBlackmoor (talk) 18:48, 11 October 2005 (UTC)


according to the urbandictionary article here: Authors submit definitions using a name or pseudonym, and more recently, their location, which appear underneath the definition. Because these names cannot presently be password protected, trolls have attributed offensive definitions to frequent posters involving desultory statements in support of racism, coprophilia, zoophilia and pedophilia. seems to me like refencing that site, given those circumstances, is a bad idea. some people are using this article for similar means as well.

I've taken out that link, as well as the Xanga link, since anyone can post anything on Xanga (and a common stereotype of Xanga is that it's used mainly by angry 13-year-olds who can't type). A lot of the recently added ext links in general are POV rants anyway, so I'm not sure which are worth including. Also, about half of the links in the article, save for those to news reports, are all to pages on Model Minority. Aren't there any other (credible, i.e. not Urban Dictionary / Xanga / forum) sites that represent their point of view? I just want us to recall that, while Model Minority is a good source for its POV, Wikipedia:External links states, "The mass adding of links to any website is also strongly discouraged", and having many of our links point to one site goes in violation of this policy. --Idont Havaname 17:57, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

This phenomenon.

I have never heard of the whole Asian fetish phenomenon up till the day i read it here. Is it because I live in the Netherlands instead of the United States? Are you sure this is really a common stereotype in America? Or has someone here on wikipedia just made the whole issue up? I have really never heard of this.

I guess I'm writing this because i feel HEAVILY offended by this article... I am a white male married to an asian woman, but I have never really actively looked for asian women in particular. the article states that white men dating asian women are most of the time nerds or geeks. Well, I just happen to have studied computer science. :(

This is just scary... Have I done something wrong by marrying an asian woman?

Really, this article makes me feel like that. I don't know if, in the Netherlands, a white man/asian woman couple is frowned upon in the same way as in the United States, but i sure don't hope so.

OK, I know I am being really subjective, but in my case it is almost impossible to stay objective. My point is that I am doubting (and also not wanting ;)) this "Asian Fetish" thing to be so big. Is it really such an issue in the US that it deserves a wikipedia entry?

1) Learn English and 2) read the article again. What was written was, "Ironically, white men who exclusively date Asian women are often tagged with the same stereotypical qualities. They are often characterized as nerds and geeks, physically weaker and less socially capable than other white men, who “settle” for Asian women because White women reject them." The author is saying that this is a STEREOTYPE used to denigrate white men who date Asian women. In the same section, the author also talks about stereotypes of Asian men as short asexual wonders--it is the section on NEGATIVE STEREOTYPES. For the last time, stereotype does not necessarily equal reality. -3


"Is it really such an issue in the US that it deserves a wikipedia entry?" Does Asian fetishism exist? Certainly. So do fetishes for old people, fat people, pregnant people, and so on. You name, and there is a fetish for it. Is it a pervasive, widespread syndrome that serves as a clear indictment of all "white" American men everywhere (or any of the other numerous unsubstantiated assertions in this article)? No: that's simply ridiculous, and the assertions it makes concerning couples of differing ancestry are just repugnant. What year is this, 1805?
After reviewing the history of this article and its Talk page, I would declare this article a lost cause. Wikipedia has mechanisms in place that make it all but impossible to battle an editor who is motivated to push their POV come hell or high water. I salute anyone who takes on this battle, but I certainly wouldn't wager money on your success. -- BBlackmoor (talk) 04:47, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

Academic references

To everyone who is deploring the lack of refereed articles in this entry, I'll just say that we're working on it. Chill, people, these things take time, especially when your primary field of research has absolutely nothing to do with what this research will involve. If you think that's a problem, then you try digging up references to something like this. It is not easy.

At any rate, as I said earlier, we need a discussion on Frank Chin and Jeffrey Paul Chan's article on "racist love." Web of Knowledge doesn't list as many cited refs to that article as one would like, though, so that is unfortunate. It may also be very worthwhile to include in the Criticisms section a discussion of Johansson and Barmé's exploration of "white fetish" in the Chinese state-owned media, in Postcolonial Studies and The China Journal, respectively. If anyone wants to write about these articles before I get a chance to, by all means feel free to do so.

Finally, it's ironic how some people will request references to refereed articles on this page, but will at the same time deplore the writing techniques and research methods used by those same articles. I got news for you people: this is how the social sciences works. Instead of just making blind accusations against something that you don't agree with, why not spend the effort to learn some of the basic research techniques in these fields instead? It would be a much better use of your time. --70.246.92.190 17:47, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

I admit that I'm not a social scientist, but I am a Biologist, and I know for a fact that you cannot prove something in ANY form of science by creating a hypothesis and then looking for rare occurring examples in reality that fit your POV while ignoring everything else. Take, for example, let's say I want to prove my hypothesis that "smoking cigarettes is not bad for you", well then all I would have to do is find a couple of old senior citizens in the world that are in their 80s and 90s who continue to smoke cigarettes to this day and have adequate health. I have an aunt that has been smoking for most of her adult life and has outlived many of my other non-smoking relatives and lives rather comfortably, but even if I find and document the numerous instances of people like her, it still does not prove my point because it is shortsightedly based in bad methodology. Listen, I am a white man who lives in New York City and I agree that American society does unfortunately negatively typecast Asians, Blacks, Latinos, and Hispanics perpetually, but I don't think this article does a good job in explaining it without coming across as an invalid subjective rant that tries to convict all white men of being exploitative. --Howrealisreal 12:36, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

The NPOV tag...

... keeps getting removed. As long as the neutrality of the article is disputed, it needs to stay. Continued removal of the tag constitutes vandalism. Ex0pos 21:36, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

  • As it stands, the NPOV tag is unjustified. If there is another point of view that you want expressed in this entry, then please provide the necessary reasoning and references to justify that viewpoint. If you do not have the necessary training in the social sciences to dispute the neutrality of the article, then continued insertion of the tag constitutes vandalism. --128.83.144.245 23:09, 27 September 2005 (UTC)
Your logic ("don't insert the tag, change the article itself") suggests that the NPOV tag should never be used.
I think you misunderstand the NPOV tag. It does not mean "this article is wrong." It means that there is significant disagreement over the neutrality of the article. It's perplexing how it can rationally be argued that there is no dispute. A brief skim of this "talk" clearly shows otherwise: people disagree, vehemently.
Unfortunately, I smell an edit war. Ex0pos 00:42, 28 September 2005 (UTC)
Let me try and make this absolutely clear. An NPOV is a point of view that is fair to all reasonable points of view. If you want to add an NPOV tag, then it is your responsibility to explain to the rest of us what reasonable POV's this entry is not currently being fair to. Then we can move forward in discussing whether those POV's are indeed reasonable and, if so, how we can go about incorporating them into this entry.
The intended POV of this entry is that the objectification, exoticization and fetishization of Asian women has negative consequences. No one is disputing the reasonableness of this POV. In contrast, that the entry hurt the feelings of some Dutchman is not a reasonable POV. That this entry argues that all white men are Michael Lohmans is not a reasonable POV. That the analytic style of writing employed in the social sciences is an unacceptable standard for this entry is not a reasonable POV. Moreover, it is unreasonable to expect us to go through this talk section and carefully extract the valid and coherent points made by everyone from the surrounding flame wars. In inserting the NPOV tag, that becomes your responsibility.
If you think that the intended POV is not the actual POV of the entry, then you need to provide a justification for that, so that we can improve the entry accordingly. If you think that there are reasonable POV's that this entry is not fair to, then you need to explain what those POV's are, so that we can proceed from there. Continued insertion of an NPOV tag without providing reasonable alternative POV's accomplishes nothing, and wastes both your time and mine. --128.83.144.245 16:24, 28 September 2005 (UTC)
Your perspective of what is a reasonable POV for this article is not the end-all-be-all of wikipedia. If you cannot understand this then perhaps you need to go look up what subjective means in the dictionary. Just because you have failed to respond to many of the points that were brought up on this talk page, doesn't mean that they are not valid. Additionally, this article is verging on the cusp of original research. Again, I want to re-iterate that I agree that negative stereotypes of Asian men and women have been perpetuated in America and that is wrong, but is the best way to combat it by negatively stereotyping all non-Asian men in relationships with Asian women as exploitative? The article does this under the terminology heading: This term has come to describe the large number of White male and Asian female couples in the United States..; and later under social consquences it states: the majority of cases of Asian fetish occur without any immediate physical or mental harm to the Asian women who are the targets of fetishization.., making it again seem like there is no potential for healthy interracial relationships and physical and mental harm are inevitable. There must be a better way to create a resource on this important topic in a more objective way. --Howrealisreal 19:24, 28 September 2005 (UTC)
Okay, see now we're starting to get somewhere. When you actually provide specific criticims, we can actually have a constructive discussion.
(1) Please explain where the article is verging on the cusp of original research.
(2) Yes, the first sentence of the Terminology section is retarded. I never took note of it before. Please see if the rewrite is satisfactory.
(3) I don't understand your criticism of the "sexual crimes" section. To continue your medical analogy, the aim of the first sentence is intended to be something to the effect of: "While the majority of uses of penicillin occur without any physical harm to patients, the dangers of anaphylactic shock cannot be overlooked." Obviously anaphylactic shock is worth discussing. If this is your field, then please describe how you would write a section on anaphylactic shock in an entry on the negative consequences of penicillin.
(4) Any additional (valid) points missed by myself are welcome. --70.246.92.190 04:12, 29 September 2005 (UTC)
Your rewrite of that section is pretty good, but it's probably also worth working into this article a mention that this is offset somewhat by the fact that white-black couples, which I'm guessing are about as common as white-Asian ones, are 2.5 times more likely to be BM/WF than BF/WM. I don't think that the Asian fetish is the sole reason for the disparity - a reason, yes, but not the only one (maybe there's a Black fetish or White fetish at work too?). It seems the two just counter-balance each other in a way. --Idont Havaname 06:42, 29 September 2005 (UTC)
In regards to 70.246.92.190's comments (one at a time I guess) here's what I mean: I found an article from July 24th, 2005, in the Chicago Sun-Times that states that in 2000, there were 5.4% married interracial couples in the United States, and of that amount the most (14%) were between a White male and an Asian female. Now I know that this is only interracial couples that are married, far different than most of the cases in the "Social Consequences" section, but as a benchmark we can use it to see that White-Asian couples are prevalent in American society. With that being said, using your penicillin metaphor for example, the frequency that beta-lactam antibiotics (like penicillin) are used are probably in the millions daily and yet only anaphylaxis will occur in approximately 0.01% of patients. Of course it is definitely valid, and I agree important as well, to document the side-effects or worst case scenarios (after all, that's hundreds people who will get anaphylactic shock), but is it really legit to judge the entire function of the medication, or all interracial couples by the few instances where it is exploitative? The language in the article does this, especially where it says that White-Asian couples don't immediately cause mental or physical harm to the Asian female, like eventual harm is inevitable. I would prefer if we site a source that shows how many Asian-White couples exist and then say it is also important to document, whereas most of these relationships can be healthy and functional, that actions like these (using the example already in the article) raise red-flags about the continued fetishization of Asian women. I dunno, something like that. --Howrealisreal 14:29, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

The Asian fetish page needs to be forked

The term "Asian Fetish" in and of itself is pejorative. A fetish is an obsessive fixation on something. In this case it is an obsessive fixation on a specific ethnicity. As in the term coined "Jungle Fever" from the movie, the term "Asian Fetish" is often used interchangably with "Yellow Fever" and is used to described sexual attaction to another ethnicity, specificly people of Asian descent.

The term Asian Fetish is for abnormal behaviour, not normal behaviour. This does not mean that all people who like parts of Asian culture or all people who have a significant other who happens to be Asian has an Asian Fetish. As far as I know, there is not a special term for people who just happen to have a casual interest in Asian culture, Asian people in a non-obsessive fashion or happen to have an Asian life parter, because they are normal. Perhaps there should be an entry to this fact in the article. As commented "I might be rather distraught if I saw some white woman making out with a black guy that only liked white women because they were white." that is exactly the type of behaviour that is being described with the term. Unfortunately with the umbrella effect the term is also often applied to people who my not have this unhealthy obsession.

Discrimination can come in many forms. The core of it is that a person is treated differently because of their ethnicity. It can be expressed both positively or negatively. Elevating someone above others due to their ethnic background is racism.

Minbo 15:27, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

Not to be Mr. Insensitive, but I don't find the name offensive. It's an article about a phenomenon that the people who believe it exists refer to as "Asian fetish". If you can think of a better name that someone actually uses, feel free to present it.--Orborde 07:57, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Comment from an anon regarding (N)POV

When coming to a NPOV conclusion, one must realize that the White male who only dates Asian women that has the most problems with this Asian Fetish concept is just one viewpoint. There are many other viewpoints as well.

(I moved this to its own heading because we should be keeping everything under headings except for the note about archived discussions.) --Idont Havaname 20:00, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

As there does appear to be a genuine dispute going on I think we should restore the NPOV flag until they are resolved. Also I don't think it's helpful to get into lengthy descriptions of non-notable court cases. This article may raise questions about what we understand by a sexual fetish, and the extend to which people choose their sexual orientation. PatGallacher 16:07, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

The idea that these court cases are "non-notable" or that the victims "just happen to be Asian" (a phrase that has come up several times) is non-neutral. Rapes and murders may be isolated incidents, "non-notable" to those who are uneffected by the underlying social prejudices, but wanting to base what is including in the article on that single perspective is strongly POV. In fact, there's a strong argument that "race doesn't matter and these people happen to be Asian" in the face of pervasive media stereotyping of Asian Americans is not a viewpoint that warrants "equal validity".

The request for better sources for the article is a great suggestion for improvement. Adding a section that describes the fact that "fetishization" can be unintentional and non-malicious in intent would be a step forward. Omitting discussion of prevailing racial dynamics--"white men", etc.--when dealing with "Asian fetish" would be ridiculous. If you think that's wrong, come up with some solid sources, but remember this passage on the Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Neutral_Point_of_View#Anglo-American_focus

That entry is not great either. It neglects an important fact--it's hard for non-white males to support their perspective without original research because the means of publishing in the society tend to be white male owned and operated. User:Xian 11:28 AM 10/11/2005

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