The Asian Persuasion

Time to expose myself as a hypocrite, full force.

I'm shamefully one for making generalizations. I realize they aren't completely accurate but they're usually in the "more-often-true-than-not" category. Like how, for some reason, I have the bizarre "skill" of attracting dirty men much older than yours truly, or dirty men of Middle Eastern or African-American descent.

Actually, I take back the dirty African-American bit. A great many of the black guys I've come across have been absolute darlings to me. But the Middle Eastern ones? Tasty Iraqis? A girl should only be so lucky.

Yeah, my love of Lebanese food probably doesn't help me avoid such situations, either.

Anyway, I digress. I want to talk about my perception of asians. Asian women, in particular.

Whenever I meet a new guy and he admits to having "yellow fever" (a preference for Asian girls) I always back off and have to wonder why. Unfortunately, the most prominent reason I can see for them having a weakness for the Asian ladies is the most obvious: sex.

It offends me greatly 'cuz I'm not like that. A lot of girls, Filipina or otherwise, aren't like that either. But somehow there are enough of "those girls" out there that we can't shake this stereotype. It's as if all the men in the world (you see, generalizations by Leah again) think that Asian females are vixens brought into this world for the sole purpose of providing sexual services. Like somehow, each one of "us" has put in our national duty of volunteering to bolster our nation's sex-tourism industry.

I mean, type in Filipina (for example) in Google or any such search engine and more likely than not you're going to get a porn site as your first hit. Followed closely by some kind of website for underground mail-order Asian brides/escorts or even "pen pals."

I remember researching for a presentation on the Philippines back in travel school and coming across one German's personal website singing the praises of the "hospitable Filipinas" he had met during his visits to my parents' mother country. I'd like to know what made him decide to go to the Philippines the first time around, but I'd also end up killing him, I'm sure, after hearing his candid response.

But it's not just the FOBs that perpetuate this stereotype. Unfortunately, even us first generation Canadians/Americans feed that reputation.

I didn't see much of that in my class back in high school...but my best friend's class was hardcore. A lot of the girls in her group were considered "easy," hands down. One jock, a white guy (yes, I called him white) absolutely loved his Filipina girlfriend 'cuz she was the only one who'd let him in her back door, so to speak. She didn't seem at all embarassed that he was broadcasting this to everyone she knew. In fact, maybe she was even proud of it...who knows at that age. Sad to say, but a lot of these girls' popularity was based on the fact that everyone knew these girls got around.

It gets played up a lot. My brother was watching The Benefactor while I was flipping through the newspaper when I heard the guy mentioning that this girl sent in an audition tape of her running around buck naked. I looked up.

"God, why am I not surprised?"

"What, Asian?"

You see???? Even my brother knows what I'm talking about. I didn't even have to explain what I was thinking. That's so, so sad.

And she got kicked out of the competition 'cuz the benefactor guy thought she didn't live up to the expectations she had set through her audition. I'd like to give him the benefit of the doubt about what he meant by that...no, I can't. He just picked the wrong words to explain his decision.

Then later that night, I was watching LAX and there was this sub-story of a Filipina lady stuck at the airport waiting for her American fiance to come and get her. Customs and Immigration tried to track down the fiance, he didn't answer the phone and the address was phoney. All day long they contemplated whether or not they were going to send her back to the Philippines due to her lack of a sponsor while one of the new Customs officers (a rookie) toyed with the idea of sponsoring her himself 'cuz he had developed a crush on her. Later we see the fiance arrive to claim his future bride and sure enough he's this older, balding, overweight dude. But (of course!) before she leaves with mr. balding-guy she squeezes the thigh of the customs officer, winks, and tells him to give her a call sometime since he already knew her fiance's phone number, making her easy to reach.

"Whore!" I said to myself. Why did they have to add that into the script?

Even television perpetuates this whole notion that all Asians women are sexual using sex to get their way (in the case of thes two shows, a chance at a better life monetarily and the other a chance at a better life living in the United States) 'cuz somehow that's all we know how to do well. When it's white women using sex, like on shows such as the Bachelor or Temptation Island, I don't mind so much. But I can't help but take it personally when it's an Asian.

So despite my own personal preferences for "papi chulos" ('cuz you all know that I love everything Spanish...and they can usually dance) and previously the "dark chocolate" ('cuz they're reputably great dancers also) when a guy comes up to me professing his affliction with "yellow fever" I get on edge. I immediately assume that they are only after sex. Yes, I have issues that I must deal with personally but this one is huge. Yellow fever has total negative connotations for me.