March 24, 2007

• Yellow Fever

  Its rantin time!

  I really really REALLY dislike the term yellow fever.

  Where to begin?

  In pop culture terms, yellow fever is understood to be when a male member of one ethnicity (usually caucasian) has a strong predisposition for being attracted to a woman of the asian persuasion. There have been a variety of reasons posited for said attraction, most of them being fairly insulting stereotypes having to do with supposed traits of asian women, including but not limited to exoticness, submissiveness, and a whole host of others i wont dignify by listing.

  Now I am not denying that some males do have this fetish, NOR am I condoning it. My problem comes with the people who expand the idea out to mean that any male attracted to an asian woman automatically suffers from yellow fever.

  Case in point: I have in the past, asked out several girls who are asian (of various backgrounds, if you actually care THAT much) and w/o fail this issue has come up either with them, their friends, or my friends, who i would hope would know me better by this point.

  Yes, I am very involved in and interested in Japanese culture, language and food. This does NOT mean that i must have a japanese g/f to complete the set. This is NOT pokemon people

  Yes, I have found and do find asian women attractive as individuals. This does NOT mean i feel the need to impregnate every asian on the planet.

  Yes, I have dated several asian girls…but you know what? i have dated indians, hispanics, and caucasians too…does this mean i suffer from fetishes for any of those races? No, because they are not asian, and therefore it is apparently a perfectely legitimate attraction with no ulterior motives.

  THAT IS FUCKING LUDICROUS

  Seriously people, grow up. I and many others are attracted to the individual, NOT the ethnicity. And for those of you out there who ARE attracted to someone for the sake of their ethnicity alone, you are in for a long string of disappointing relationships, because eventually the novelty is going to wear off.

  Not to mention the fact that most people are generally weirded out by the fact that you are so fixated on one aspect and one aspect only of a person, so you are unlikely to even succeed in your goal of obtaining your grail.

  So cut it out, you are ruining things for everyone with your own perverted form of racism.

  HOLY CRAP! did i just say RACISM???

  yes, yes I did. because that is what it is on both sides of the spectrum. Observers stop assuming that all attraction comes down to race/ethnicity. Fetishists, stop acting in a way that make people think that. Be attracted to whoever, but dont expound for hours to anyone who will listen on inumerable imaginary virtues held by your chosen race.

  Seriously, people make me so frustrated sometimes.

  Will this post change anything? I doubt it, though I would be pleasantly surprised if it did. Nonetheless, it has been something that has irritated me for a long time, so i figured i would get it off my chest and maybe, just maybe an intelligent discussion about it can start somewhere, sometime.

  -J

  “got this crazy idiosyncrasy
  it’s affinity to serendipity
  and in this eternal epiphany
  no hypocrisy or duplicity”
  
  Dispatch-Bats In the Belfry
  

  • 9:09 pm
  • 2 Comments