“Your physical and sexual attraction is socially constructed,” says Elaine Kim, Ph.D., professor of Asian American Studies at the University of California at Berkeley, “and it’s hard to escape from that.” If you’re Asian, the way you see yourself and the way you think about beauty, according to Kim, is very different if you went to high school in Monterey Park (a community in Los Angeles County with a large Asian population), where the kids voted most popular, the most beautiful were Asian, versus going to a high school where everyone is blonde-haired and blue-eyed.
Karen, a 32-year-old Korean American who has dated mostly white men, readily admits she’s been affected by her environment. Growing up in a predominantly white town in Southern California, the only Asian males in her life were either related to her (father, brothers, cousins) or were the men at church. “I didn’t see Asian guys in a sexual way when I was growing up,” she says. It didn’t help that the only images she saw of Asian males in the media were of cringe-inducing geeks like Long Duck Dong in the teen flick, Sixteen Candles, or the strangely asexual and decidedly unattractive David Carradine character in the television series, Kung Fu.

“I just don’t find Asian guys attractive,” Karen says. “They’re usually short and slight and don’t seem confident.”

http://www.audreymagazine.com/Sep2005/Features03.asp
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Mass media affects kids. Teens, especially some girls, judge themselves on others’ opinions, and are easily influenced. Young, insecure Asian girls are conditioned through social norms/media to ‘act White’ and want only White men (self hate), and young Asian American boys growing up in the US are conditioned to think they are unattractive. Some Asian youth resolve identity conflict by developing self-hate and bashing their heritage, family, and people (ex ‘I won’t date Asians’, or criticizing other Asians).

Whether it be fashion magazines, gossip mags, TV, movies, or our friends, all of us are influenced and emulate in some way what we see on screen. Entertainment can be as influential as advertising. So many shows and movies in America demean Asian men, while perpetuating an ‘Asian Girl Fetish’ in this country. It is Hollywood Colonialism.



6 Comments

I feel lucky to grow up in the military. My family was mainly in moved to Asian countries so I was always surrounded by the culture and other Asians.

Girls are usually self conscience though.

I know a few girls who wouldn’t date Asian guys. They reason is that they look like Abercrombie models. -.-;

How can they not find Asian guys attractive? Have they seen Jet li!

The guys have it worse, not only are other women in other ethnic groups object to dating Asians, but also Asian women object to dating within their own ethnic group. Sad, sad, sad…

Hell yeah that suxX0r